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Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,832 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
I welcome the Education Secretary’s statement and welcome her to place. Scarborough is one of the pilot areas for Mission Coastal, which aims to improve educational outcomes in our coastal communities. Could my right hon. Friend provide an update on the progress of Mission Coastal and the steps the Government are taking to tackle regional inequalities in GCSE attainment?
I beg to move, That this House has considered standards for bus stops. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. This is my first time leading a Westminster Hall debate, and there was a degree of excitement in my office last week when the email arrived, alongside another email about a coach debate that I will lead in November. You wait ages for a Westminster Hall debate to turn up and then two come along at once. Many people in the House know that I bang on about buses, because I think they are brilliant. There are 3.7 billion bus journeys made a year. As is often said, they are the most used form of public transport. I assume that means that bus stops are the most used places for people to hang around waiting for public transport. That is why I believe we should lavish some attention on them, not least because they are all around us. About 86% of people live within a 10-minute walk of a bus stop. The Bus Services Act 2025 gives the Secretary of State brand new powers to look at the location, design and construction of stopping places—bus stops.
My hon. Friend has a very snazzy station these days. Cambridge station has much improved over the period he has been the Member of Parliament. Having integrated transport matters. The Government’s strategy, Better Connected, talks to the fact that people use more than one form of public transport, so getting from the train to the bus matters greatly, which I will slightly address later. The Bus Services Act and accompanying guidance tend to focus on accessibility, which is very important.
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I want to encourage as many people as possible to use our bus stops and buses. Seating is important because waiting in comfort makes it more likely that people will choose to use a bus. I am concerned about accessibility, but I also want to ask another question. I want to move beyond, “Can I use the bus stop?” to “Would I like to or choose to use the bus stop?” I said in my maiden speech that bus stops were the window to the soul of buses—[Laughter.] I know: I am strange like that. But at least I keep to a theme. Each bus stop should give a promise of the journey ahead. I believe, therefore, that we should have national standards for bus stops. Whenever I suggest anything like national standards, Ministers tell me that local people are best placed to decide. I absolutely agree that Ministers should not be deciding whether one’s bus stop is here on the road or 25 yards further along, but national standards do reduce duplication. That is one of the issues that many local councils and transport authorities talk to me about. Portsmouth is often mentioned as an example of a place with very good bus stops. They have 579 bus stops, and they decided to do a 72-point audit of them. They checked them all and decided that they were going to improve them in four different ways. Interestingly, their transport lead says that they would have welcomed national standards, because they spent a quarter of their time and budget on developing their own local standards. They would much rather have ploughed that into actually making bus stops better. So even they believe that we should have national standards. I am not saying that one size fits all. It is obvious that a different kind of bus stop will be needed for a small rural area as opposed to a large hospital. Again, people have already done some of this work. Portsmouth has come up with six different varieties of bus stop. The Campaign for Better Transport has four. Norfolk county council has split its bus stops into bronze, silver, gold and platinum. A lot of that work has been done and could be implemented into some national standards. What do I think should be in those standards? The very first thing is: “Can I find the bus?” That is the first question passengers ask. The modern bus stop really came into being in London in the 1820s. The first buses were in Manchester, but the first bus stops that we would understand were in London with a pole and a flag. Yet over a century later, it is sometimes still quite difficult to find the bus stop, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) said.
That is an anecdote that my hon. Friend tells often, and I absolutely agree with him. At completely the other end of the spectrum, I got the train to Stockport recently to make an onward journey to Manchester, for reasons I am sure most Members can understand. When I got to the train station at Stockport, I decided that I would get the bus to a campaign centre in Manchester. I went on a particularly circuitous route to get there, despite the fact that the bus station was actually rather near. That is because the signpost that I could have spotted said it was for Stockport Interchange, Viaduct Park. There was no mention of the word bus and no picture of a bus. As a visitor, I did not have the faintest idea that it meant bus, so I went on a long walk to find the buses. We need to make it simple for people, whether in a rural area or in a larger city. Sometimes we make public transport too complicated. I am also reminded of a time when a transport officer was trying to explain this snazzy new concept of a transport hub to me. He went round and round in circles until eventually I said, “So it is a bus stop with a bicycle pump.” He reluctantly agreed, but he really did not want to call it a bus stop. We need to talk in a language that passengers understand, so national standards should absolutely start with the basics: a recognisable stop, name and clear signage. We have found the bus stop, so what next? My second question is: “Does it smell?” It is really slightly broader than that: “Is it clean? Is it well lit?” As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned, is there somewhere I can sit? The Campaign for Better Transport ran a survey called “Bus Stop Stories”, and a man called Paul was quoted as saying: “The bus stop I use has a shelter, which is positive. However, the so-called seat is far too narrow for someone to actually sit down.” If the bus stop is just a pole, how does it look—dilapidated or delightful? At the bigger bus stops, are there other things passengers can do? Can I charge my phone or get wi-fi? Some bus stops allow people to call for help; is there CCTV to make people feel safer? I really welcome the requirement for all local transport authorities to use Transport Focus’s “Your Bus Journey” survey. That is absolutely a push in the right direction, and it will encourage some of the more recalcitrant authorities—perhaps authorities such as Central Bedfordshire council—to collect information on what local passengers actually think. The survey found that, overall, 81% of people were satisfied with their bus stop, but I think there might be a difference between actual passengers who use buses and would-be passengers. I am really bothered about the would-be passengers, because we will have a growing and thriving network only if we get those people on board. The Campaign for Better Transport says that 23% of people are put off using the bus because of poorly maintained shelters, and that 47% of people say that a clean and comfortable shelter would make them use the bus more often. My third question is: “Do I know when the bus is coming?” We could have an entire debate on things like real-time information, ghost buses and the like. A timetable really helps people to know whether the bus is coming, but currently only a third of bus stops have up-to-date timetable information, and only around 16% of stops have real-time information—the proportion is growing, which is good. The research in this area is really rather fascinating. If someone standing at a bus stop with real-time information has been there for 10 minutes, then the bus arrives, and they are surveyed afterwards, they say they have been waiting for 11 minutes. If exactly the same thing happens—someone waits for 10 minutes—but there is no real-time information at the stop, and the passenger is asked how long they have been waiting, they will say they have been waiting for 21 minutes. Obviously, I want all passengers to think they have been there for about 25 seconds, and that it all passes in the blink of an eye because it is so fun waiting at the bus stop. But the key point is that nothing has changed in terms of the clock, only the passenger experience. There have been positive developments on real-time information. The major bus operators are definitely sending out their pings as to where the bus is far more often than they used to. Non-passenger stops—rest stops or stops when drivers change over—have also been added to the bus open data service, or BODS, which is the national database. That makes it much easier for passengers to know when buses are actually coming. Challenges remain, though. In some ways we are slightly going backwards: some of the older buses in rural and coastal areas were using 3G, but they are now using 2G because 3G is being turned off. There will always be on-the-day challenges around roadworks and congestion, with bus operators making decisions to try to get their buses back on the timetable; that information also needs to be fed through. Will the Minister please update us on what is happening with the proposed disruption tool that the Department has been working on for some time? We have many examples of bus operators manually updating their records on the day because a bus is delayed, and then physically ringing up the local transport authority to tell them the same information, so that the authority can manually input it into their systems and it appears at the bus stop for passengers. Is any work going on, perhaps at the Bus Centre of Excellence, to overcome some of those issues, perhaps using AI? All those are issues we would like to see covered in a national standard. Throughout the country, some places are doing bus stops really well, including the award-winning bus stop outside Asda in Dunstable, which has a green roof, is really wide and spacious, and has seats. There is also a fantastic bus stop in Norwich—I have read about it but not yet visited—that apparently has a swing in it, and which also won a prize. I look forward to visiting. Given that the latest enhanced partnership manual has in effect recognised that best practice exists throughout the country—for example, on multi-operator ticketing—but that it does not necessarily happen without a bit of a carrot-and-stick approach, would the Minister consider including further national standards on bus stops in a future update of the manual? Finally, there is the parallel issue of who owns the bus stop. Currently, it is a complete and utter mess—read council websites and weep. This is from West Sussex county council: “The different elements that go to make up a bus stop are managed by one of 3 different organisations. Please ensure that you contact the correct one if you have a query or wish to report an issue”. This is from Cambridgeshire county council: “It should be noted that whilst bus shelters are located on the highway, they do not form part of the highway asset provided and managed by the County Council as the Highway Authority.” Mayoral devolution could make this even worse. Many unitary authorities are concerned about splitting up transport and highways powers. A strategic authority officer I spoke to yesterday told me that “Devolution by default” should include giving highways powers to the regional authority, not least to make sure that the revenue that some of the bus stops generate is not then diverted to something like adult social services. We brought track and train together; it is not beyond the wit of man to bring bus stop and bus together, too. The local transport authority clearly ought to have that responsibility. We also need to make sure there are resources on an ongoing basis. I very much welcome the multi-year funding settlements, but it is not always linear. For example, snazzy new real-time information screens were introduced in Lancaster and then turned off because money was not available for their ongoing upkeep. They are back on again now, but this remains an issue. Some in the industry are concerned that, because we have so much investment right now, in five years’ time—when the contracts end, when the screens need renewing or the batteries start failing—not everything will be in place to allow us to fix any issues. Fundamentally, we need national standards for our bus stops, because a really nice bus stop brings in more passengers and grows the network. They also give pride in place. They look different and they look good. I therefore urge the Minister to consider national standards for bus stops so that everyone can have a great British bus stop.
We are driving action across Government to deliver our landmark commitment to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. That includes the national roll-out of our life-changing domestic abuse protection orders across England and Wales, setting up pilots in schools to tackle harmful behaviours and delivering a flagship GP referral programme in England to better support victims.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this vital point, and my thoughts are with everyone tomorrow recognising the day tomorrow. The Law Commission is looking at the links between suicide and domestic abuse, we are working with the Office of the Chief Coroner to formally establish a pathway, and we are also working with brilliant organisations, such as the one from the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, that support bereaved families and individuals.
Absolutely. Prevention is at the heart of our flagship strategy to tackle violence against women and girls. That is why we are working on healthy relationship guidance so that all children can understand where to get help and what is an important relationship in their lives. Secondary pupils will be given information on where to report abuse and seek medical attention when required. Just yesterday, I got to witness that in person in Colchester at the Centre for Action on Rape and Abuse—a fantastic organisation that helps young people to rebuild their lives following sexual violence.
We have had to put the early release scheme in place to ensure that our criminal justice system is able to function and help all victims, regardless of the type of crime. I regularly meet with all the organisations mentioned in that letter to discuss what protections we can best put in place. He will know that we have increased funding to support victim support services, and there will be a presumption on tagging on release. We are introducing world-first restriction zones to ensure that victims no longer have to constantly look over their shoulder, wondering where their perpetrator is. We are also working on timely communication to ensure that we keep victims and survivors informed, and they can feed in directly to licensing conditions. I will happily discuss this matter with him further if he wishes.
I am happy to reiterate that commitment at the Dispatch Box today. I pay tribute to the Killed Women campaign, which has fought long and hard to secure this change. We will introduce a new 25-year starting point for domestic murders applying to anyone who murders their current or former intimate partner, and we will bring forward the change as soon as parliamentary time allows.
I welcome the hon. Lady to her place, and I look forward to working with her on tackling violence against women and girls. This issue should not be party political or involve any borders, and the answer to tackling it includes us all. Our flagship strategy on tackling violence against women and girls is to tackle all forms of violence against women and girls, wherever it occurs and by whomever.
Deportations of those who commit crimes in this country are up significantly under this Government—we are taking that direct action. I would say to the hon. Lady that anyone who commits crimes against women and girls should expect the full force of the law, and they will face it. We are seeking to educate everyone on what is acceptable in our country, because those are our British values.
I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for raising this issue. She will know that great strides have been made in this campaign, including by my hon. Friend—my good friend—the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). I will happily meet with the hon. Lady to discuss this further to see what more we need to do to protect women and girls, and all children, from these heinous crimes.
Four thousand job losses will have a massive impact on the west midlands, and particularly on Birmingham Selly Oak, where hundreds of jobs will be affected and people’s economic futures will be cut short. I welcome Richard Parker’s half a million pounds of support, but I worry that JLR’s “global market conditions” boils down to three key things: Chinese domination of the electrical vehicle market, not just in the UK, but across the entirety of Europe; tariffs from America; and perhaps the first salvo in what we would call advanced or artificial intelligence taking over administrative and managerial roles in major manufacturing companies across the entirety of Europe. What are the Government doing to prepare themselves for AI replacing a lot of these jobs, and what are we doing to help?
In my previous career teaching—first, secondary physics, and later, degree-level apprentice engineering—I saw over and over and over how powerful apprenticeships are in enabling both excellence in our brilliant engineering sector and personal social mobility for the apprentices themselves. May I therefore thank the Secretary of State for her statement today and her renewed commitment to technical education generally? Will she elaborate on the role of degree-level apprenticeships specifically in her ongoing vision for our world-class education system?
The Secretary of State commented on the extensive and continued disruption of passenger and air freight services that has occurred as a consequence of the collapse of the NATS system yesterday. That disruption will not be fully resolved before the weekend. For people and businesses in Scotland and across the UK, this is deeply concerning. It results in lost work time, affecting productivity, and it disrupts time-critical services, including medical flights and cold-chain delivery mechanisms. For example, about £1 million-worth of Scottish salmon is exported through Heathrow alone every single day, and that is just one sector in one of the home nations. That level of disruption, affecting all the home nations and, indeed, many other countries, cannot be allowed to happen again. There is a serious question to be asked about the clear lack of back-up systems, given that this incident lasted for several hours, with an estimated quarter of a million passengers disrupted. I welcome the actions that the Secretary of State set out, but I urge the Department to publish an assessment of the cost of this episode to individuals and businesses as soon as practicable. I am certain that Ministers will have cross-party backing in holding hold NATS to account and ensuring that it has far more robust back-up systems in future.
Yes, absolutely. People in airports up and down the country are having to manage the delayed flights at their end. Pulling in people from around the airport adds cost. Some regional airports are operating on much smaller margins, and the expense of bringing in additional staff has a significant impact on them. This incident will have been not just frustrating for many people, but quite distressing and very costly. The measures in this Bill are predominantly welcome, and the SNP here and in government in Scotland is broadly supportive. However, I draw attention to amendment 33, tabled in the Lords, which introduced a review of airport parking charges, which was not in the Bill originally. I am not against that in principle, but the original text would not have required a legislative consent motion. It looks like consent will now be required, following the introduction of amendment 33 in the Lords, and I ask the Minister to address that point. If a legislative consent motion is required from the Scottish Parliament, it is essential that appropriate time is built in for proper scrutiny of this element of the Bill by MSPs, prior to Report. I want to raise the issues facing people with e-visas. Many have not been allowed to board aircraft coming to the UK, even though they have a legitimate right to travel and gain entry, because ground staff are not sufficiently trained or aware of how to check and scrutinise e-visa documentation. In these circumstances, passengers who are incorrectly refused boarding may not have a right to be compensated. That can be hugely costly and is inherently unfair. The legislation provides protection for adequately documented passengers who are denied boarding, but it does not define what constitutes being “adequately documented”. The Prime Minister has talked about giving people agency, but many people in such circumstances clearly do not have agency. For digital documentation, it seems obvious that the onus should be on the carrier to check it. A passenger in another country, with potential language barriers and limited digital access, is clearly disadvantaged if the onus is on them. The campaign group the3million has proposed a well-considered amendment to the Bill, which I am sure the Minister will be aware of. Will he give consideration to tackling that issue through an amendment to the Bill? It is a significant consumer issue for people who are entitled to travel and have a visa, but are refused boarding. It is a very costly experience if they do not get compensation for being incorrectly refused boarding. I have two significant airports in my constituency: a civilian airport in Inverness, and an airbase at RAF Lossiemouth. Clearly, military aircraft movements do not come under civilian aircraft legislation, but people who live in the vicinity of a military base experience noise and environmental issues. I am not suggesting for a minute that there should be constraints that would make operational flying difficult for the military. However, in the case of regular training exercises and regular training flights, which is predominantly what most flights out of our military bases are, more work could be done to improve how the military communicates with local communities. The expectations should be a bit closer to our expectations for a normal domestic airport. Has the Minister considered that, and will the Department have conversations with the Ministry of Defence to see how much room there is for manoeuvre? We do not necessarily need hard legislation that says the MOD must do x, y and z, because it would be wrong to constrain its ability to do its core work. However, we could explore how to minimise the environmental impact of routine flights on people who live close to what can be very noisy bases. They accept the noise, because the bases produce a huge amount of employment. People recognise their importance to the defence of the country, so they are very accepting, but that does not mean that this issue should not be addressed in the best possible way to try to improve things. We should always be looking for improvement. Finally, I commute to this place 40 weeks a year, give or take, so I take 80 flights a year. I spend about seven hours a week either in airports or on aircraft. Like other Members, I emphasise that it is a predominantly positive experience, and is largely without significant delay, but when significant delays do occur and people miss connections, often to long-haul flights, it can be really distressing, so the consumer element and protecting people are absolutely critical. I have regularly seen passengers who have been distressed about the circumstances they are in. Sometimes, they are flying for deeply personal reasons—bereavements and such like—and it is a more stressful form of transport than getting on and off a bus. Unlike people taking a single bus for a few miles and getting off at the other end, they have to plan for security, plan for their baggage and all those things. It requires a lot more thinking before someone gets on a plane, and for those who are there in difficult circumstances, it is all the more important that we ensure the experience is as good as it possibly can be for the people using it.
In the coming weeks, energy bills will rise again for households across the United Kingdom; within the last few days, five major mortgage lenders have pushed up mortgage prices for households across the United Kingdom; and within the last few hours, the cost of a barrel of oil has gone to over $100, pushing up prices at the pumps for motorists across the United Kingdom. Despite that, the Prime Minister still seems fairly well liked. I will let you into a wee secret, Mr Speaker: I quite like the new Prime Minister. But popularity will not pay the bills during this winter’s looming cost of living emergency, so will the Prime Minister stand up now and tell people what he is going to do to help?
Q11. In response to my question last week, the Prime Minister stated that he was “very aware of every word in the Good Friday agreement, and I will stick to it 100% as Prime Minister.”—[Official Report, 1 September 2026; Vol. 790, c. 50.]He will therefore know that the Northern Ireland Act 1998 contains a provision for a referendum on leaving the United Kingdom, but no equivalent provision exists in the law for Scotland. Does he recognise that the people of Scotland have an equal right to choose their own future, and that the conditions for a second independence referendum should be set out in law?
There are aspects of the Secretary of State’s statement that I welcome. I was going to say that no one had yet mentioned white working-class boys, but she mentioned them just a minute ago. She will know that the data is compelling. White working-class children, in particular boys, have one of the lowest participation rates in GCSEs, are more likely to flag as persistently absent from school and have the worst educational outcomes. Does she agree that that failure reflects the profound challenges with the curriculum, teacher training, discipline in the classroom, parental engagement and vocational training, and that we need targeted measures rather than generic approaches?
This House needs to wake up urgently, because the truth is that these 4,000 JLR jobs are being sacrificed on the altar of net stupid zero, which was introduced in 2019, since when JLR production has collapsed from almost 400,000 vehicles to under 200,000. Energy prices have doubled, and the previous Conservative Government introduced the ridiculous zero emission vehicle mandate. Meanwhile, Chinese imports have increased from a few thousand vehicles to almost 300,000—some 15% of the market. The whole of the UK market will be destroyed in the next five to seven years unless this Government take urgent action. Will the Government do the right thing, scrap the ZEV mandate, and do what the US has done: introduce 100% tariffs on all Chinese EV imports?
Q9. Yr Heliwr in Nefyn is a community-owned pub, and it is buzzing with events fuelled by local beers and food. I have to declare an interest; I have shares in Yr Heliwr, and it makes my husband very happy indeed. Supporting businesses like Yr Heliwr is key for economic growth in coastal areas, but they are held back by a 20% VAT rate; in France, Spain and Italy, hospitality pays just 10%. Will the Prime Minister have a word with the Chancellor before the autumn Budget and cut VAT for hospitality to prove that postcodes furthest from London and Manchester will not be forgotten in his drive for growth?
Q4. Community energy is a fantastic way of empowering communities and helping with both energy security and the cost of living. The Energy Security and Net Zero Committee recently published a report in which we identified that people living around a community energy project still cannot buy that electricity because of complex market regulations. Beechen Cliff school in Bath has solar panels on its roof that produce lots of excess electricity during the summer months, but the many households living around it cannot buy and use it. Will the Prime Minister support the acceleration of change to market reform to ensure that we unleash the full potential of community energy?
I recognise the hon. Member’s police service; I myself served for 12 years in Lothian and Borders police. One of the challenges we now have is that there is a continual churn in police roles, which means that communities do not know their police officers and their police officers do not know them. Does the hon. Member agree that, culturally, that is something the police service needs to tackle?
When we talk about confidence in policing, it is important that we acknowledge that we have a role to play in that as elected representatives. Youth antisocial behaviour has been a problem in my North East Fife constituency over the summer, in places such as Crail and Elie, but when I engaged with local officers, I found they had good intelligence and had dealt with the events pretty robustly afterwards. The fact of the matter is that the community were not aware of that. Does my hon. Friend agree that we have a responsibility to tell the public about the work our local officers are doing?
I am one of the co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group for the survivors of Fayed and Harrods. In recent weeks, the APPG has met the Metropolitan police and the Independent Office for Police Conduct. There is absolutely no doubt that historical failures in investigations have damaged the survivor cohort’s trust in the police and the criminal justice sector more widely. My hon. Friend is talking about violence against women and girls now, but does he agree that historical legacies also play a part?
Will the Secretary of State commend the staff at specialist schools such as Summerwood in Dorset, where my son George goes, who pick children up after they have been failed by mainstream education, give them the confidence to sit exams such as GCSEs that they never believed they would sit and, when they do not actually make it, give them the resilience to have another go? It is so important to give these children hope. Will the Secretary of State explain how parents, young people and the teaching staff themselves can influence which qualifications children will take, because so often it is based on “the funding says no” and the children then cannot take the qualifications that suit them best?
In Bournemouth, the charges have now gone up to £8, yet there are no buses to the airport. Two buses, which go at 6 o’clock in the morning and come back at 6 o’clock in the evening, serve the industrial estate, but they do not serve the airport staff or passengers, and it is impossible for people to get there any other way. Does the shadow Secretary of State agree with me that these charges should be restricted or banned until such time as the airport provides alternatives for all passengers?
Would the hon. Member like to reflect on what happened to me over the summer when I was flying back from a family holiday? Our flight was continually delayed, and we kept getting told that there were “extraordinary circumstances”, which we know is code for, “You won’t get compensation.” That was the message throughout the wait, but when we got on the plane, the pilot told us the truth. He listed all the things that had happened, and I believe he did that so that we knew that it was not extraordinary circumstances. Does she agree that removal of that phrase is key to changing passenger rights?
4. What steps she is taking to ban conversion therapy.
I welcome the steps that the Minister has outlined. Under the Conservative Government, we saw multiple attempts to bring forward a Bill but one never made it through the successive Government cycles, so I hope that the Minister will learn from those lessons and bring forward a Bill that is properly trans-inclusive too. The Bill talks about “abusive” conversion practices, but that risks implying that non-abusive forms exist, leading to a potential loophole. Will the Minister outline what steps and conversations he is having to ensure people cannot be pushed through those other alternative loopholes?
Other jurisdictions and countries around the world have taken steps to look at the issue of fume events in aircraft cabins. When such events happen, there is no requirement to engage with passengers and let them know, and there is a lack of regulation and scrutiny. Will the Minister meet me and the other members of the all-party parliamentary group on cabin air quality to look at the issue?
The tower block at Torbay hospital was like an oven this summer; it is no longer fit for purpose, and it is even seen to be a fire risk for staff and patients alike. On 5 February, myself and my hon. Friends the Members for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) and for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) wrote to the Government backing the foundation hospital’s bid for funding for a new ward tower block. Secretary of State, is the cheque in the post?
On the same day that the Chancellor stood up and claimed that his growth mission was working, it was reported that 4,000 more manufacturing jobs were being cut in the west midlands. This news will have been devastating for the thousands of workers and their families affected by the redundancies at Jaguar Land Rover as well as for the companies in the supply-chain industries that are affected. When Starmer’s Government announced that they would underwrite a rescue loan for JLR last year, the Liberal Democrats asked that the Prime Minister assure workers that the deal would be enough to protect their jobs; it was not. This development lays bare the fact that the Government’s growth mission is falling far short. We need to see bold action from the Chancellor on growing the economy across the UK. Earlier this year, we called for the Government to review their tariffs on the steel sector due to the impact they would have on our manufacturing and defence industries, yet Ministers will not even negotiate a new growth and defence partnership with the EU that would unleash our auto industry by removing crippling rules-of-origin trade barriers. Is the Chancellor’s growth mission serious ambition or just words? What will the Government do to ensure that those highly specialised skills are not lost but fully utilised in our manufacturing sector?
I welcome the announcement of £32 million for cooling and ventilation in hospitals. I received letters from seven children over the summer about the closure of Littletown primary school for two days in June, because it acted like a greenhouse and was deemed unsafe. Likewise, Ottery St Mary primary school is fundraising for air conditioning. Will the Secretary of State talk to her counterparts at the Department for Education about adapting the school estate to climate change, so that children do not end up with heatstroke?
Last Friday I visited a community pharmacy in Tiverton, and it was announced on Monday that an application for another pharmacy in my constituency had been turned down. Currently I have three pharmacies in Tiverton when I actually need four. Does the hon. Member agree that we really need to grasp this nettle and make sure we have enough pharmacies on our high streets?
T3. I thank the Secretary of State for her earlier answer about Meta smart glasses. She is right to acknowledge that this technology can provide benefits to people with disabilities, but that it is also being used for the covert recording of women—so can I push her a bit further? What discussions with other Departments can she commit to in order to ensure that tech company products advance equalities and human rights, rather than undermine them?
I start by joining the Secretary of State in thanking the House of Lords for its work in developing the Bill, and I pay particular thanks to the Liberal Democrat peer team led by the noble Baroness Grender. I also note at the start that it has been a season of reshuffles, and I congratulate the Secretary of State, the Minister with responsibility for aviation, the hon. Member for Selby (Keir Mather), and indeed the shadow Secretary of State on their reconfirmed appointments in recent reshuffles. It remains to be seen whether I survive the next Liberal Democrat one. There is much to be encouraged by in the Bill. It necessarily fills in some gaps in our aviation regulation resulting from our leaving the European Union, it brings potential for improving passenger rights, and it enables modernisation of our airspace, which has not been done for decades, including air traffic control, landing slots and optimising main routes to and from airports. Of course, the point about air traffic control is timely following yesterday’s NATS Holdings air traffic control disruption, which is a fresh reminder of the need for reliability. Perhaps the one thing I would agree with in the shadow Secretary of State’s speech is that a Second Reading debate on new legislation is a somewhat unorthodox way for the Government to be held accountable, and it is a matter of regret that the Government have not decided to make a statement to the House on that important disruption yesterday. However, we do have some concerns about the Bill. As drafted, it relies far too heavily on delegated powers and secondary legislation. By leaving critical details to future ministerial regulation, the Government are bypassing meaningful parliamentary oversight and leaving passengers and local communities without robust statutory safeguards. The Bill, as it stands, also grants sweeping powers to the Civil Aviation Authority. Consequently, the Bill could be used to support more flights at any cost. We will be looking to the Government to engage positively with amendments that would make all changes to airspace utilisation subject to strict caps on noise, carbon emissions and night operations, and to accompanying improved transport services to and from airports to reduce their road congestion impact. I note the assurances given by the Secretary of State that airport expansion is not connected to this Bill, but we will fight to ensure that the new powers in the Bill cannot be used to facilitate airport expansion through the back door, and that Parliament is properly involved in any future proposals that impact our environment. The Liberal Democrats will also be calling for the Bill to go much further by adopting a genuinely passenger-first approach, with a focus on passengers with disabilities, who are so often let down by their experience of aviation travel. Critically, we want to see a statutory air passengers charter written on to the face of the Bill to enshrine these rights in law, tackling issues such as inconsistent luggage rules, airport drop-off charges, and disruption and compensation arrangements. At this stage, we support the premise of the Bill, as modernisation is clearly needed. However, our support at further stages will be conditional on positive engagement with our proposals for putting passengers first and for environmental safeguards. Specifically, modernisation must be used to make the most of what we have, rather than increase the noise, carbon emissions, night-time and ground road congestion impacts of aviation. Only if the Government give assurances in subsequent stages that the Bill will do this, and that they will properly commit to advancing passenger rights and protections, will it retain our support.
May I welcome the Secretary of State to her new role? It is good to finally have the chance to question her on this announcement. Despite some of the rhetoric, academic and vocational education are not enemies; a successful economy needs both. However, creating technical pathways without ensuring that they have parity of esteem and funding has led to children from more disadvantaged backgrounds being disproportionately funnelled into technical pathways earlier, and having their options narrowed too soon. Successive Governments have rightly moved us away from that. Academic excellence matters, and remains a powerful engine for social mobility. We should never apologise for wanting children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to have access to the same intellectual opportunities as the most privileged. Yesterday’s PISA scores show that, here in England, we have some of the best results in the world. That is a testament to the dedication of brilliant teachers and the work of all parties to drive up standards across our schools in recent years—and yes, I am proud that the Liberal Democrats have played our part through the introduction of the pupil premium and Progress 8 scores. Although the Prime Minister has put a heavy emphasis on parity of esteem, how will the Secretary of State ensure that technical qualifications will be as rigorous as academic qualifications? Will a child be able to move easily between technical and academic pathways after the age of 14? Crucially, parity of esteem needs parity of funding. Budgets have already been cut to the bone, and on top of that, there are the upcoming SEND reforms, unfunded enrichment activities, and underfunded pay rises and school meals, so will there be new funding attached to the reforms? Despite Labour’s promises, teacher numbers are down. Where will schools find new specialist teachers? Will the Secretary of State be reversing the mandatory qualified teacher status?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. I thank the hon. Member for Leicester East (Shivani Raja) for securing this important debate. I declare an interest as a vice-chair of the APPG on pharmacy, my colleague on which, the hon. Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan), I am happy to follow. For many residents in rural constituencies such as mine, local pharmacies are the first, and often only, point of contact with the NHS. Longer distances to travel, limited public transport and patchy digital connectivity mean that the trusted and timely in-person service that they provide for our communities is vital. However, access is thin on the ground. Analysis by the National Pharmacy Association has described west Berkshire as England’s “pharmacy desert”, with the lowest number of pharmacies per head of any council area. To put that in context, the UK average is about one pharmacy to every 4,600 patients; in my constituency, it is one to every 7,200. Twelve pharmacies still open their doors to residents across Newbury and west Berkshire, and they do essential, extraordinary work. They dispense more than 111,000 prescriptions every month and deliver enough consultations through Pharmacy First to save more than 8,000 GP appointments, all while acting as a specialist and friendly front door to our NHS. Like many here, I welcome the Government’s recent investment in the sector. We have heard the cash figures, but the 10.3% uplift for 2026-27 is the largest increase anywhere in primary care this year, and the move to expand prescribing rights is a vital step in the right direction. However, a positive uplift does not in isolation deliver the sustainable settlements that pharmacies desperately need. Pharmacies cannot plan their workforce or their services throughout the year when settlements are negotiated and have to be fought for year by year. Nationally, we have lost over 1,300 pharmacies since 2016, and this year’s uplift will not plug the underlying funding gap, which now stands at over £2 billion. It is no wonder that Community Pharmacy England accepted this year’s deal on the condition of further reform, stating clearly: “Accepting this deal does not mean we think it is enough”. With budgets stretched, that instability is compounded by broken medicine supply chains and a framework that leaves many pharmacies in the impossible position of dispensing medicines at a loss. On visits to Lambourn pharmacy and MedWell chemist in Newbury, staff told me that current funding would quickly be absorbed by rocketing drug prices, with some pharmacies paying 14 to 15 times more for prescription medicine than at the start of the year. In rural areas, where proximity to provision is already paramount, older residents in particular cannot afford to lose access to their prescription because their pharmacy down the road has been priced out of existence. Despite those challenges, pharmacies are doing incredible work, and I know how much residents across Newbury and West Berkshire value their expertise and care. In September 2024, the Government commissioned the Lord Darzi report, which rightly acknowledged the huge potential of pharmacies within the NHS. Two years on, with a workforce eager to do all it can, that potential remains unfulfilled—not for a lack of experience and care, but because of a lack of investment from the centre. The 10-year health plan’s ambition to shift care from hospitals into communities is absolutely the right one, and pharmacies are the linchpin of that push. As their responsibilities continue to rise, so must the Government’s backing. Pharmacies have spent the last 10 years being squeezed to near breaking point; the next 10 and beyond must be different. I therefore ask the Minister to launch a strategic review of medicine supply, including reforms needed to build domestic manufacturing capability, and to commit to an above-inflation multi-year funding settlement that allows pharmacies to continue to serve my constituents and millions of patients across the country for decades to come.