EU Pact on Migration and Asylum
The Prime Minister has said that he wants access to the Eurodac database. How does the Government propose to negotiate that without breaching their EU red lines?
12,832 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them
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Civil Service Pensions
Stuart is 83. He lives in a care home in my constituency, which his pension pays for, but that pension stopped for four months over the summer, and even after my constituency office intervened he has had less than a quarter of those arrears paid back. Anna, another of my constituents, is in her 80s. She has just come out of hospital, and she is owed a staggering 17 years’ worth of widow’s pension. In July, Capita told me that the payment would be made within two weeks. In August, it said that it had no notes on file from that July meeting. In September, it told me that payment would be made within 10 days. On the 15th of this month, it said that it was still awaiting human authorisation. Last Friday, I was told that four members of Capita’s staff were working directly full time on her case. Would the Minister like to join me this Friday at 11 o’clock for my next weekly Capita casework call to try to ensure that Anna finally gets some of those 17 years’ worth of pension payments?
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Work-based Immigration
I thank the right hon. Lady and her Committee for the report. She will be aware that many agricultural sectors rely heavily on migrant labour, and that the Home Office is telling us that we need to upskill our own workforce to take the place of those workers. I draw to her attention the situation concerning foreign sheepshearers, who come to this country for a short period of time—three to four months every year. They come here, they shear the largest flocks—we reckon they do an excess of a million sheep in that short period of time—and then they move on and shear in other parts of the world. They take a number of our local shearers with them, which is a great opportunity for young people from farming communities. Nobody is going to train to the level that those people need to operate for work that is only going to last three or four months of the year. Can I encourage the right hon. Lady to bring some pressure to bear on the Home Office to take a more realistic view on the position of sheepshearers?
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Antisocial Behaviour
Businesses, constituents and pets in Tunbridge Wells suffer from destructive and often cruel catapult attacks. It is a problem that many of us across this House have seen in our inboxes. Kent police and Tunbridge Wells borough council are working together to manage the problem, including looking at public space protection orders. Can I ask the Secretary of State whether she has considered restrictions or a ban at a national level in order to strengthen the hand of local police forces and local authorities such as mine in Tunbridge Wells?
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Civil Service Pensions
Like many right hon. and hon. Members, I have constituents who have not had their pensions paid. In the worst case, a constituent has waited for 11 months without a pension. My question is twofold. First, what compensation will the Minister force Crapita—sorry, Capita—to pay those constituents who have missed out? Secondly, there are tax implications for the sequencing of payments, so payments can fall in different tax years, among other things. Will that all be squared away with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, so that our constituents do not overpay tax?
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EU Pact on Migration and Asylum
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and we are indeed flattered to see the Prime Minister discussing improved relations with the EU as a way to solve issues in the asylum system, but when the Government say that they will negotiate access to various agreements, including Eurodac, without dropping their red lines, they are engaging in Brexit delusion of the type we saw under the Conservatives. If we want useful co-operation on asylum and a good deal for taxpayers—because it will cost less if we are in the pact—we will have to join the EU migration and asylum pact, and that means dropping the Government’s red lines, doesn’t it?
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EU Pact on Migration and Asylum
We await more on the agreement with France, and perhaps with Belgium and many other countries. It might just be simpler to have an agreement with the entire EU. It grieves me to say this, but internal difficulties have arisen within the Labour party over migration. Cabinet members seem to be struggling to defend the Home Secretary’s position, and Government Back Benchers have a wide range of opinions. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has called for an “honest discussion” about EU freedom of movement. Will the Home Secretary back down and get behind the Prime Minister, who is open to freedom of movement, or will she stay loyal to her Back-Bench allies in the blue Labour faction, who are so hostile to it?
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Road Traffic Collision Reporting: Cats
I beg to move, That this House has considered e-petition 750612 relating to placing a requirement on drivers to report collisions with cats. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers—I suspect they might need to change the nameplate. The petition was started by CatsMatter, a group co-funded by Mandy Hobbis and Tiya Ivy, who are here today. I am standing in today for my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), who had the privilege of meeting Mandy ahead of today’s debate and learned that both of them had lost cats on the roads. Anyone who has waited up for a pet that never came home will understand why the campaign has kept going since 2017. I should declare an interest. I have always lived with cats and have lost several to being run over. Just a few weeks ago, a family member lost their cat, Comet, who was hit by a car in a residential cul-de-sac and just left there. As with every loss of a cat, they were devastated. My daughter Emily has a beautiful white fluffy cat that rules the Wrigley household. He is called Ignatius D Flufflesworth—not that he comes when called by that name, of course. He was, however, very fond of joining in with my Zoom calls during the pandemic and pretending he was in a James Bond movie. I know how much he means to her, and the idea of losing him to a car accident without knowing what happened does not bear thinking about.
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Road Traffic Collision Reporting: Cats
I agree. Cats are not just companions; they are members of the family, so, yes, collisions should be reported. Clearly, we are not alone. By the time the petition closed on 17 June, it had gathered 189,192 signatures, many of which were in my own Newton Abbot constituency.
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Road Traffic Collision Reporting: Cats
Yes, absolutely. It is the not knowing that is really awful. I will come on to that. I am told that this is the largest cat welfare petition that has ever come to Parliament. That is a great many people and they deserve to have their concerns properly heard today. So where does the law stand?
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Road Traffic Collision Reporting: Cats
From my experience, I suspect that the right hon. Member’s third option is probably correct. On people’s confusion about where to report a collision with a cat, section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 says that a driver who hits certain animals must stop and, if necessary, report it to the police. Those animals are horses, cattle, asses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats and dogs. Cats are not on the list.
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Road Traffic Collision Reporting: Cats
I tend to agree, and we will come to working animals shortly. Cats are not on the list. Neither, I might add, are llamas or alpacas, which gives a fair idea of how old the list is. It has come down to us, almost untouched, from the Road Traffic Act 1930. The usual explanation—my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) must have read my speech in advance—is that these are working animals with an economic value to their owners, whereas cats were seen as pets. Rule 286 of the highway code does advise drivers to report any collision with an animal and, where possible, to find the owner of a cat. However, that is only guidance, and a driver who hits a cat can carry on driving without breaking any law.
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Road Traffic Collision Reporting: Cats
Yes, I agree—it should. In their response to the petition, the Government noted they have “no current plans” to change the law due to the fact that cats are small and often out at dawn and dusk, so a driver may genuinely not know that they have hit one. They argued that, alongside research into how councils identify cats found on the road, compulsory microchipping offers a better way forward.
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Road Traffic Collision Reporting: Cats
Yes, that is a very good way forward. The campaigners have answered the Government’s points with some care. On the working animals argument, CatsMatter has done its own sums. Using a University of Bristol study and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs farm figures, it reckons that there could be around 60,000 working farm cats in England, against roughly 65,000 working sheepdogs. It is open that those are estimates, but I represent a great many farms, and I can tell Members that farm cats in Devon work as hard as farm dogs and earn their keep. The campaigners also make a broader point, and I have some sympathy with it: many people now think of their cats as one of the family—Ignatius is certainly part of ours. When they see that dogs are covered and cats are not, they feel that the law simply does not value their animal in the same way. Other countries have updated their laws to include cats, including Italy and Hong Kong. CatsMatter argues that even if a new duty of stopping for cats was rarely enforced, it would tell drivers what decent behaviour on the road looks like. The question is whether the reasons for leaving cats out of section 170 still hold up in 2026. Cats Protection, the UK’s leading cat welfare charity, wants exactly the same outcome as the petitioners. Nobody wants an injured cat to be left to suffer, or an owner to be left forever wondering. However, the charity has real concerns about using this particular piece of law.
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Road Traffic Collision Reporting: Cats
I agree with my hon. Friend that that is the right, moral thing to do and we need to encourage drivers to do it. The animals in section 170 are ones whose owners are expected to keep them under control or fenced in, and the law has long accepted that cats roam. Cats Protection worries that bringing cats into a framework created for dogs and livestock could open up questions about an owner’s liability if a roaming cat causes an accident. It might also nudge people towards keeping their cats indoors—speaking as Ignatius’s feeder and door-opener, I am not sure he would take kindly to that. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals supports the aim of the petition and says it would not stand in the way of a change in the law. Its concern is a practical one. A duty to report to the police would not in itself get an injured cat to a vet, or ensure that that a dead one is scanned for a chip. Police forces are stretched, and ringing 101 will not bring help to the roadside. The sense of unfairness that the petitioners feel is real, and I understand it. It has been fascinating to open the debate on this petition, because the fact of the matter is that everyone involved—on both sides of the petition—is united around one thing: they all care deeply about cats; they just disagree about whether changing section 170 is the right answer. What they also agree on is what should happen if a cat is hit. If the cat is alive, it needs to see a vet as quickly as possible. Alive or dead, it should be scanned for a microchip, so that its owner can be found and told. That brings me on to what drivers actually face. Picture someone on a dark road who has just hit a cat. They are shaken and they do not know whether to ring the police, the council, a vet, a charity or highways, because responsibility is split across all of them. I would like to hear from the Minister what the Government will do to give that driver a clear answer. That may or may not mean amending the Road Traffic Act 1988. Whatever the mechanism, cats should not be left to suffer at the roadside, and their owners should not spend years wondering what happened to them. I thank Mandy and Tiya and everyone at CatsMatter for their work, and I look forward to hearing from colleagues and the Minister’s reply.
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Road Traffic Collision Reporting: Cats
I thank Mandy Hobbis, Tiya Ivy, CatsMatter and the nearly 200,000 people who signed the petition, which has enabled us to have this debate. I also thank Members from across the House for their contributions. Some significant themes have emerged from the debate, including cats being part of the family; people not knowing what has happened to their lost cat adding to the trauma of the situation; people loving their cats; and too many cats being hit by cars. I particularly noted the statistic that every day in every constituency two cats are hit by cars. That is just too many for nothing to happen. Two members of this robust institution have not been mentioned today—I am surprised they were not referred to, although I loved hearing about Clem Cattlee, Mo Meowlam and the other cats around the place—and they are Larry in No. 10 and Mr Speaker’s cat Attlee. They might, like me, be slightly disappointed by the Minister’s response to the debate. I have great sympathy for all those Members from across the House who talked about the issues with their own animals and those of their constituents. When I was elected, I promised to stand up for cats, and I am pleased to be able to do so—
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Performance of Royal Mail
From coastal Devon to rural Warwickshire, we have the same issues. My constituents are not receiving letters on time. They are missing NHS appointments—really important appointments—documents are getting lost, and letters informing people of fines to be paid are arriving too late. We know that our postal workers are doing their best, and are working very hard in very difficult conditions. Does my hon. Friend agree that both Ofcom and Royal Mail need a radical overhaul?
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Civil Service Pensions
I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement and for the briefing last week. Since the last ministerial statement in July, Capita is reported to have met its own September target on priority cases, but as the Minister has said, that does not match lived experience and hon. Members have heard promises of improvement before. Capita missed both its April and June targets, and months later it is being propped up by a Cabinet Office taskforce. I welcome the news from the Minister that Capita is improving its technology, and I am glad that it has been deploying additional resources to support improvements to its dashboard so that it can get through more cases. Time will show us if that work actually results in Capita working through its backlog—there are still too many people across the country waiting. My constituent, Diane, who lives in Offerton, applied for retirement at the end of August last year. She finally received her formal quote this month—a full 14 months after applying. It was a whopping £14,000 less than she was informally quoted, which may well have changed her decision to retire had the quote been received in a reasonable timeframe. There are 1.7 million current and former civil servants who simply want to know that their pension will be handled competently, fairly and with dignity. I heard the Minister’s statement on holding Capita to account, but will she say, in terms that our constituents will relate to, exactly how she is planning to do that and what the impact will be on families around the country? I note the Minister’s comment on debarment, but, given the absolute shambles Capita has made of this situation, can she truly say that she would be happy for it to bid for future Government contracts? Will the Government finally commit to inflation-linking payments for all outstanding cases in order to ensure that those affected by Capita’s mistakes do not pay even more for Capita’s delays?
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Antisocial Behaviour
Too often, antisocial behaviour on our streets comes with a racist edge, and tackling it starts with naming it, something that shamefully the wannabe Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick)—I have informed him that I would be referring to him—could not do this weekend when asked whether calling the Leader of the Opposition a “Nigerian scammer” is racist. Will the Minister say what he could not, and outline what the Government are doing to tackle racist antisocial behaviour?
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Antisocial Behaviour
Following recent changes, police are now able to seize vehicles that are used antisocially without first issuing a warning. This is potentially a way for police in my constituency to deal with illegal street racing meets on the A24 and the A264 from Kilnwood Vale down to Southwater. Can the Minister confirm whether this new power is proving to be effective, and how many vehicles have been seized thus far?
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Performance of Royal Mail
Royal Mail is a British heritage icon. Bright red post boxes crop up in millions of photographs taken by tourists every year, but what residents describe to me is far short of a postcard picture. This debate is starting to feel like a mass therapy session in which we all share our stories. I thought it was just me, but no, it is absolutely everyone. Like others, I respect the incredible hard work of the posties and Royal Mail workers in my patch. I have visited the delivery centre in Horsham, and I have seen them at work. It is a hive of activity, and no one is standing still. Despite their energy, like many hon. Members, I have received messages from Royal Mail workers themselves who are distraught that the service they offer is being undermined by factors beyond their control. Royal Mail wrote to me this month confirming that deliveries in Horsham had been affected by sickness absence and resourcing, that some letter deliveries had been rotated and that it is recruiting for nine vacant posts. It also told me that mail is being taken out six days a week, regular as clockwork. Unfortunately, that simply does not fit the lived experience of residents. They describe post arriving late, all at once or not at all. Yet as recently as August, I understood that the office’s own statistics showed deliveries running satisfactorily and that staffing was adequate. My constituents are living somewhere in the space between these two very contradictory pictures. One constituent has written to me about going without post, sometimes for more than a month. Her son is medically vulnerable, and she has missed appointments, as have so many others we have heard about tonight. She asks a fair question: why can parcels be prioritised almost instantly, yet not letters? Meanwhile, Roundabout Talking News posts out to its users every Friday morning in bags marked “For The Blind”, but a volunteer told me that she has to visit the sorting office roughly once a month simply to sort out the problems with delivery. Royal Mail tells me it has introduced an NHS-specific barcode at no extra charge to protect NHS letters in times of disruption, but it cannot tell me how many NHS bodies in Horsham use it, because each buys its postal services separately. A safeguard that nobody can measure is not a solution, and it simply wastes valuable clinician time. We have a service designed for a pre-internet, pre-email world, and it must adapt, but it must have support in doing so. Royal Mail’s own unions point out that, unlike other European countries, the UK does not subsidise the universal service. The regulator Ofcom now proposes to hold the second-class mail price cap for a further year. So I ask the Minister an honest question: does she think it is possible to run a universal service without any kind of Government support? In my previous career I worked in advertising in Ireland, and the Irish Post Office, An Post, was one of my big clients. It was plain then, 20 years ago, where we were headed, and it is where we have arrived today. There is a fundamental challenge to the business model, and we have not yet solved it. I thought the words of the right hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) were very interesting on the various options that have been considered. That is the conversation we need to have, because the way we are going is not working. It feels as though we are seeing managed decline, and not very well managed at that. This is serving no one—not the residents, not the posties. Either we say we care enough to help this service, or we finally admit that we do not.
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Rough Sleeping and Good Growth Funds
Stonepillow is a local charity tackling homelessness on the streets of Chichester. One of its most vital services is the day hubs, where people can engage if they are at risk of, or are experiencing, homelessness, importantly without any judgment. So much of the Government’s previous funding has been crisis funding, but prevention work, as the Minister knows, is a key part of tackling the root causes and cycles of homelessness. If this programme is designed to be locally led, does the Minister see value in encouraging local leaders to direct some of the funding to outreach services such as the day hubs, which are currently working on an annual cycle and do not have the structure to know that they will survive?
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Prostate Cancer Screening
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Dr Murrison. I am particularly proud to have my constituent Dave Young in the Gallery today. Dave was diagnosed with prostate cancer without symptoms in 2024, following a PSA test, and he has since dedicated himself to helping other men catch theirs early. Around 350 men have been directly tested through his campaigning in and around St Neots, and at an event in September, 122 men were seen in a single day. Of the six investigated afterwards, four have had cancer confirmed, so I thank Dave. The best tribute that we can pay to Dave and other campaigners like him is to get the policy right. I challenge the Minister on whether the National Screening Committee’s modelling back in May actually did that. The committee judged screening against a threshold of £20,000 per quality-adjusted life year, but since April, NICE can approve a medicine for advanced prostate cancer at up to £35,000. Analysis commissioned by Prostate Cancer Research showed that treating a man diagnosed at stage 4 costs roughly 10 times as much as stage 1, so the NHS will pay more to treat this cancer once it is incurable than it is prepared to pay to find it earlier. That does not seem consistent. The case against wider screening rests on harms, overdiagnosis and unnecessary treatment. I will not repeat what Members have said on the statistics for that, but I would like to ask whether the screening was judged as the NHS would actually deliver it today, with MRI scans, or as it was delivered 20 years ago. Can the Minister publish the model on terms equivalent to NICE, so that independent experts can test it and give a dated timetable for reconsidering the decision? Dave and other men campaigning on the issue would very much appreciate that.
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Performance of Royal Mail
Ilfracombe, Lee and Combe Martin on the North Devon coast continue to stand out as areas where residents are suffering repeated problems with postal deliveries. I want to highlight the reality on the ground. A constituent wrote to me on 17 September to say that, after weeks without a Royal Mail delivery, she had driven several miles to the sorting office to collect her own post herself. She collected no fewer than 16 undelivered letters, including—as we have heard from many Members —notification of an NHS appointment. That letter was already a full week behind not just the date on the letter, but the actual appointment. The oldest letter in the bundle was from 14 August—nearly a full month out of date! I have visited that sorting office myself. The staff I met there were hard-working and dedicated, and I really struggle to believe that repeated Royal Mail service issues like this are their fault when similar issues are being reported right across the country, as many Members have stipulated tonight. Local residents in Ilfracombe found it especially frustrating that mail posted to engage people in the town’s successful nomination for the title of UK Town of Culture 2028 did not reach residents in time. There is a pattern of post going undelivered owing to short staffing, parcels being given priority, and bundles of overdue letters turning up at a later date. Missing post can have terrible knock-on effects if people miss GP appointments, or cannot act on important legal or financial letters. A reliable service is important for farms and remote rural communities, which often suffer poor internet access and where people cannot easily visit their local high street. Along the north Devon coast, the postal network is heavily dependent on vehicles, and relies on retaining posties with strong local knowledge.
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Performance of Royal Mail
I thank the hon. Lady for describing so eloquently what is happening in her constituency. I think that Ofcom needs a few more teeth to enable it to engage with Royal Mail and hold it strongly to account. I have met representatives of Royal Mail who insist that these problems are being ironed out, but it is clear that the postal service is falling well short of its obligation to deliver post on time in areas such as mine. I hope the Minister can answer the following questions. Do the Government believe that Ofcom has the enforcement powers that it needs to push Royal Mail on its quality of service? Does the Minister have a picture of whether certain areas or postcodes are particularly badly affected? What assurances can she give us that Royal Mail is being held to account over staffing levels? I am being told by posties that staffing is a big issue. What remedy do service users have when Royal Mail persistently fails to deliver the service that customers have paid for and residents deserve?
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Local Policing
West Mercia police have changed the hours of police community support officers, introducing an 8 pm finish in order to save money. Unsurprisingly, that has led to an increase in antisocial behaviour in my constituency after 8 pm. The police are very thin on the ground: Ellesmere’s safer neighbourhood team consists of one police officer—who I do not think works 24/7—and just two PCSOs. Our officers and PCSOs do a fantastic job, but they are far too thinly spread. Will the Minister meet me so that she can understand the challenges facing rural policing and the resources that are required in places such as Shropshire?
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Performance of Royal Mail
Jane Austen’s Mr Knightley said: “Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very positive curse”. But it seems to me that Royal Mail very much treats letters as a matter of indifference, and that is causing a huge problems for my constituents, such as those who have missed NHS letters, as has been discussed, and the farmers who are not receiving animal tags in time to get their livestock to market. It is a really serious issue. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Royal Mail needs to get its act together and treat the letter service as seriously as it treats the parcel service?
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Prostate Cancer Screening
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for securing this important debate. Prostate cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men in the UK. Around 540,000 men are living with or after prostate cancer. Each year, more than 64,000 men are diagnosed and over 12,000 will die from prostate cancer. One man dies of prostate cancer every 45 minutes—two lives will be lost in the short time of this debate. The estimated lifetime risk is one in eight for men overall, but that rises to one in four for black men. In England, black men are also twice as likely to die from prostate cancer as white men, with a lifetime risk of one in 12 compared with one in 24. Like with all cancers, the earlier the stage at diagnosis, the better the chances of survival: five-year survival rates are almost 100% at stages 1 and 2, around 95% at stage 3 and around 50% at stage 4. Who is diagnosed late also follows a pattern. In England, men in the most deprived areas have an 11% higher chance of a metastatic diagnosis. Men in the most deprived areas also have a 19% lower chance of receiving a prostate cancer diagnosis than men in the least deprived areas. Prostate cancer mortality rates in England mirror that diagnosis trend. Mortality rates are 14% higher for men in the most deprived areas than for men in the least deprived areas, and around 740 deaths from prostate cancer each year are linked with deprivation. Incidence rates of prostate cancer have risen by 54% since the early 1990s and are projected to rise a further 14% by 2038-40. That means around 85,100 new cases of prostate cancer each year. Part of the rise in diagnoses reflects much greater awareness, with more men coming forward for PSA tests. The issue of prostate cancer screening could not be more important. The Liberal Democrats applaud the tireless hard work of all cancer survivors, bereaved families and campaigners in securing a screening programme. However, we must do more to fight this devastating disease, and that is something the Liberal Democrats have continuously campaigned on. The Liberal Democrats are proud that our campaigning played a role in driving the Government to take action on this issue and ultimately deliver a prostate cancer screening programme. The programme will save thousands of lives, and it is unacceptable that no screening programme existed previously. Screening programmes are standard across a range of cancers, but until recently there was no screening programme for prostate cancer at all—there is now only a targeted programme. The Government must urgently guarantee the delivery of the targeted screening programme across the country. That will lay the foundations and establish the infrastructure needed to further broaden screening as soon as possible. The Government must make improved testing for prostate cancer a priority; it is fundamental to saving lives. The Liberal Democrats will hold them to account on delivering better testing and ensuring that more men can be protected from this devastating illness. The issue of prostate cancer testing has been handled, in many instances, very insensitively. Alongside the announcement of the screening programme, the NHS quietly tried to change the rules around a man’s right to request a PSA blood test. That is not right. It is shocking that it then told campaigners and NHS staff that that had been the case all along. It is simply not good enough. Patients and their families deserve honesty and transparency. Is it really the Minister’s position that we should change years of standard practice and prevent men from making an informed choice to request a test? What has changed in the past few months to cause such a backward step in access? Was there any new evidence that informed the decision? Improved screening must go hand in hand with faster treatment and a guarantee: it must be written into law and backed by investment that every patient, including those with prostate cancer, is treated within 62 days. The Liberal Democrats recognise that speed and quality of treatment are central to increasing survival rates of prostate cancer. To achieve that, we would introduce a guarantee that 100% of patients will be able to start treatment within 62 days from urgent referral, and we would replace ageing radiotherapy machines and increase their number so that no one has to travel too far for treatment. Liberal Democrat research last year found that eight in 10 hospitals are using outdated medical equipment, such as MRI scanners. Those machines are essential to fully diagnosing prostate cancer. We would recruit more cancer nurses so that every patient has a dedicated specialist supporting them throughout their treatment. We would expand the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s capacity in order to halve the time for new treatments to reach patients. The Liberal Democrats also want to make the UK a world leader in cancer research, and we are calling for a cancer survival research Act. That would require the Government to co-ordinate and ensure funding for research into cancers with the lowest survival rates, including brain cancer. We would also start a fellowship programme for US cancer scientists who have seen their funding slashed by President Trump. That would waive the burdensome fees and bureaucracy for international researchers on the whole. Global talent visas for top researchers currently cost £6,000 per person for a five-year visa—that is £18,000 for a family of three. That is significantly more expensive than most of our competitor countries, where a similar visa is typically £200 or £300 per person. The cost of visas for Cancer Research UK alone is £900,000 a year, which is the equivalent of setting up two new research labs every year. The fellowship scheme would also deliver more funding for salary and research costs for researchers by expanding the share of GDP being spent on research and development to 3.5%. That would unlock hundreds of millions of pounds per year for cancer research and billions more for our life sciences sector generally. We would deliver that through a decade-long programme of public investment into R&D. I therefore urge the Minister to reflect on all the contributions and the calls made by me and my colleagues for the 540,000 men who live with or after prostate cancer, for their loved ones, and for the two men who will have lost their lives to prostate cancer in the short 90 minutes of this debate.
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Illegal Use of Electric Bikes and Scooters: Policing
5. What plans she has to bring forward legislative proposals to support police to tackle the illegal use of e-bikes and e-scooters.
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Illegal Use of Electric Bikes and Scooters: Policing
I welcome the new police powers to seize illegal e-scooters and e-bikes that, quite frankly, are out of control. In Epsom and Ewell, Operation Scramble seized 15 vehicles and made six arrests in two days, but some police are hesitant to engage in pursuits because of concerns for wider public safety. It is clear that the police cannot address this issue alone. With Christmas approaching, will the Minister commit to a national awareness campaign to ensure that the general public understand the law around e-scooters, and appreciate that they are legal only if they are part of a rental scheme or are being used on private land?
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Prostate Cancer Screening
As somebody who has the BRCA2 genetic abnormality, I will be eligible for the extra screening that the hon. Gentleman outlined. Unfortunately, too many men are delayed in getting screened, especially in rural and deprived areas, and the delays result in prostate cancer being identified far later. Although I am grateful to the Government for including me in the screening, does the hon. Gentleman agree that more must be done to inform men of the need for regular screening to avoid it being caught so late?
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Prostate Cancer Screening
Prostate Cancer UK has identified that men from deprived areas are 29% more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer only at a point after the cancer has already spread, which touches exactly on the point that the hon. Member is making. Does he agree that as well as having more sensitive diagnostic tests, we must make sure that the people who are most at risk can access those tests?
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Prostate Cancer Screening
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I am here today to speak on behalf of the 217 people in my constituency who have signed this petition, as well as those who have taken the time to write to me and those I met from Breconshire Friends of Prostate Cymru. Today I want to share the experience of one constituent, Mr Peter Morris from Brecon, who contacted me following his own devastating diagnosis. At the age of just 56, Mr Morris was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer entirely by chance after visiting his GP about an unrelated health issue. By the time his cancer was discovered, it had already spread beyond his prostate and was incurable. Mr Morris believes that had he been offered screening at the age of 50, his cancer could have been detected before it spread, giving him a chance of curative treatment. Instead, he and his family have had to come to terms with a terminal diagnosis. I pay tribute to Mr Morris for his courage in sharing his experience and using an incredibly difficult personal situation to campaign for change that could save the lives of others. He has expressed his deep disappointment at the UK National Screening Committee’s draft recommendations to limit screening to a very narrow group of men with specific genetic risk factors. As he rightly points out, many men will have no idea whether they carry those genetic variants, and what about men, such as Mr Morris, who have no known family history of the disease and would not qualify under the proposed criteria? I recognise that screening is not without risks, including the potential for overdiagnosis and unnecessary treatment, but we must also recognise the real and devastating consequences of cancers being diagnosed too late.
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Prostate Cancer Screening
On the hon. Member’s point about lack of clarity, my constituent Richard went to his GP with early symptoms of prostate cancer, but because he did not fit the screening profile his GP refused a PSA test. Does the hon. Member agree that Ministers could issue guidance to make sure that GPs are not misinterpreting the new situation?
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Civil Service Pensions
Another weekly surgery, another Capita complaint—this time, a constituent was told on one of her many calls to Capita that she would have to wait while they accessed the spreadsheet because someone was already using it. When the Minister talks about some slow improvements in technology, one can only imagine that Capita’s starting point was a typewriter and abacus. Even with the support of officials, does the Minister really trust Capita to safely deliver an AI-enabled service to our constituents?
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Performance of Royal Mail
Like other Members, I want to recognise the hard work of postal workers in my constituency. They are not to blame for management’s continued ineptitude and poor delivery of changes. Many are quitting, as fed up with the Royal Mail as we are. Hundreds of my constituents in Thornbury and Yate have written to me about Royal Mail’s failures. One posted something to Australia and it ended up arriving at a neighbour’s house. Bundles of letters appear at their doors at once—weeks’ worth of magazines, NHS letters and post from friends and family. Mail is an essential service for some, particularly the digitally excluded, who rely on it for important correspondence like letters about their NHS appointments. One Thornbury constituent told me only this weekend that he got a hospital appointment letter the day after the appointment. The Government themselves depend on Royal Mail for sending out passports, driving licences and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs correspondence. Our own offices use Royal Mail.
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Performance of Royal Mail
I absolutely agree that is poor practice. I think it is a sign of the desperation Royal Mail finds itself in, with so many people quitting its employment. Royal Mail’s response has not been good enough. It has moved the goalposts, decreased delivery times, and fiddled around with its staff numbers, but none of that has helped. Reports suggest that it is axing its head office numbers, and posties are quitting in droves. Clearly, that is not sustainable. When I raised my constituents’ concerns with Royal Mail directly, the right people did not even attend the first meeting, and subsequent ones have been little more productive. I am told that the Royal Mail complaints forms have been removed from the building it shares with Yate post office. That is not the behaviour of a business that cares about its customers. That brings me to the regulator. I want to use this debate to call again for Ofcom to properly regulate the Royal Mail or be replaced. In correspondence, Ministers have confirmed to me that currently Ofcom cannot investigate local failures. As a result, when Royal Mail does not deliver and its complaints team cannot provide an adequate resolution, my constituents have no one else to turn to but me. In essence, the public look to Members of this House to be the regulators, but we do not have the powers of a regulator. Too often, our complaints are met with dismissive template letters asserting that the service is improving when it blatantly is not. Where is Ofcom? What does a fine here and there really do to a failing business? I wrote to the previous Minister a few months ago, after I raised these issues in the Chamber. I asked what he had done to review Ofcom’s powers and why Ofcom cannot properly regulate at a local level. Disappointingly, he answered that Royal Mail is a private business and Ofcom is an independent regulator, so there is nothing really that the Government can do. I am not sure that is quite how regulation works. This is simply not good enough. In answer to my written questions, the Government stated that they have not assessed moving responsibility for postal regulation away from Ofcom to a new regulator. Why? Surely even Ministers agree that Royal Mail has been failing to deliver for years now and Ofcom has not changed that. Either Ofcom needs more powers to investigate locally and tackle the issue, or we should remove its power altogether and give the responsibility of postal regulator to a whole new independent body that will focus on the issues properly. Why is Ofcom not performing its duties with vigour?
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Performance of Royal Mail
I do not think we can say that regulation has failed at this point, when effectively what we have been doing is using the same battering ram again and again. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and wondering why it leads to the same result. I think there are other things that we can explore first. Last week during PMQs, the Prime Minister stated that if Royal Mail does not improve, further measures will be taken. Can the Minister now reveal what those measures are and assure the House that this company will face serious consequences for failing all our constituents?
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Performance of Royal Mail
The hon. Gentleman is being kind in giving way. Does he recognise that the point about subsidies is really important in constituencies like Frome and East Somerset? We have fantastic, hard-working and very overstretched posties who are each trying to cover a large area. We also have people who may not have access to broadband, and who rely even more on the post that they are not getting.
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Antisocial Behaviour
I would like to add to what the right hon. Member just said about car cruising. Along the A2300 approaching Burgess Hill, car cruising is causing misery to residents, with noise waking people up through the night. It is really intimidating more rural residents as they try to come from rural lanes on to the A2300. I am told by one local farmer that people are coming from as far afield as the Netherlands to get involved. A public space protection order is in place and Sussex police are doing what they can. Please, what else can the Government do to deter and break up illegal car cruising?