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Labour Party
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Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,832 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
Lambourn pharmacy, which I mentioned earlier, worked out that about 90% of its profit came from serving the NHS and only 10% came from shampoo and other things, so it wonders whether the Government could pro rata those NI and other costs, meaning that they are paid only on the 10%. Would the hon. Gentleman welcome that type of approach?
We have some alumni of the Youth Parliament in this Chamber today. As a young person, I was on the steering committee that set it up. It is great to see so many former MYPs taking a seat in this Chamber, although sadly not so many on my side of the aisle. Does the hon. Member agree that the UK Youth Parliament plays a crucial role, but that young people who are less confident and more disadvantaged or who simply feel that politics has nothing to do with them might not engage through it? This is an opportunity for the Government to encourage more engagement across youth politics, not just among those who want to take elected roles.
6. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle violence against women and girls.
Tomorrow is World Suicide Prevention Day. Given the well-established links between domestic abuse, coercive control and suicide, does the Minister agree that organisations such as Project Salama in my constituency, which provides joined-up support to victims of DA, are important? How will the Government ensure that domestic abuse services, mental health services and the suicide prevention strategy work together?
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I congratulate the hon. Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) on securing the debate. Something odd has happened recently that has turned the debate about crime and policing in this country on its head. The hard right have always presented themselves as the defenders of law and order, but a problem has arisen because people on the hard right, in Reform and parties such as Restore, have started to argue about two-tier policing. That is a daft suggestion—there is nothing of the sort—but such accusations are a real problem in this country, because all sorts of issues have arisen and trust in the police has diminished specifically as a result. According to the Office for National Statistics, confidence in the police has decreased in the past decade, even if crimes against people and property have mostly decreased. Tackling that will require proper resourcing. The hon. Member for Pendle and Clitheroe mentioned the 20,000 police yo-yo: there were 20,000 police fewer, and then the previous Government restored them. There is still a question about whether the Government have fulfilled, or are on track to fulfil, their pledges on police numbers.
I have an awful lot of sympathy with what the hon. Member says. We could get into a debate purely about police numbers—I know that the hon. Member for Pendle and Clitheroe was not keen to—but we should focus on not just the numbers but the visibility of police officers. We need police counters in our local communities and police officers on our streets. In contrast with Members who have suggested there is two-tier policing, I would like to place on record my party’s thanks and admiration for hard-working police officers and their public service—I believe there are at least two former officers here today. I would also like to thank the police team in Cheltenham, ably led by Inspector Steve Benbow and Superintendent James Glansfield, who I visited recently. This debate is not about parochial local issues, but it is important when we have experience of joining our police officers on the streets that we reflect that in this Chamber. During my visit, I learned that police officers in Cheltenham work very hard in increasingly difficult circumstances. I joined Inspector Benbow and Superintendent Glansfield as part of Operation Shield, which followed a summer in which we suffered very visible antisocial behaviour and crime in our town centre, and I know that that has been reflected in towns and cities across the country. One of the most arresting things I learned was that even in Cheltenham, which most people think of as a well-heeled place, there are several, mostly independent, shops where large groups of teenagers are making the lives of the shop workers and owners a misery. We were shown a video captured on a mobile phone by a shop owner of what looked like dozens of teenagers. They apparently go into that shop several times a week, steal stuff and abuse staff. That is not acceptable.
Absolutely. As it happens, I was invited along by my local police force because I was talking about crime and antisocial behaviour in the town centre. The more we talk about the issue and raise it in our constituencies, the more likely it is that the police will be able to get their messages out about extra resourcing and making tweaks to legislation that will help them do their jobs better. I will come later to some of those points, which were raised by the hon. Member for Pendle and Clitheroe. Another thing that is clear from Cheltenham town centre and across the country is the concerning and increasing aggressive and misogynistic behaviour targeted at women. I have been hugely disturbed to hear reports of women being catcalled and abused with increasingly frequency in my constituency, most notably early in the morning when they are commuting to or from work or the gym. Clearly, a visible policing presence disturbs those who might cause problems and, crucially, gives reassurance to women in our town and city centres. Will the Minister provide an update on tackling the growing problems with violence against women and girls, much of which is encouraged by the online world? One in four women have experienced domestic abuse. Perhaps more shockingly, fewer than one in six victims of rape or attempted rape report the assault to the police. The reasons they cite include the belief that the police simply will not be able to help, or the concern that they will not be believed.
Absolutely. The more we learn about the al-Fayed case, the more shocking it becomes. I commend the work of the APPG, of which my hon. Friend is a leading member, alongside the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson). It is uncovering what seems to be a bigger and bigger scandal every time we hear more about it. We need Harrods to be open and transparent, to start co-operating and perhaps to give more resource to aid the investigation. The issue of violence against women and girls needs to be tackled now, with taskforces that work in partnership with frontline women’s services. That also requires a very visible presence to reassure women that their safety is a priority. To do that, it is clear that police resource must be more focused on the community, rather than just having officers behind desks—although we of course need desk resource too in these complex investigations. The Liberal Democrats are calling for a police counter in every community to increase visibility across the country. That will allow people to share information and intelligence with the police in a convenient and accessible location. Simply emailing a local police officer does not always bring the desired result for local residents who are trying to work out what is going on or share intelligence. We say that we need extra police counters, in contrast to the huge decline in police counters seen under the previous Government and the specific issues in Labour’s London. On a more structural note, will the Minister provide an update on the Hogan-Howe review and the Government’s response to it? Can she also update us on whether police force boundaries are now due to match the boundaries of regional mayors? It is important that we hold to account the people responsible for policing. That is of particular interest to rural areas. In recent years we have seen rural crime become seriously organised and persistent, yet it is often overlooked. Rural crime networks can also be harder to detect and prosecute. Will the Minister commit to giving rural police forces the necessary resources to clamp down on organised crime operating in the countryside? The hon. Member for Pendle and Clitheroe mentioned public order and free speech, which is a really important point. Big Brother Watch revealed this weekend that more than 60,000 people have been arrested in the last five years for communication offences. There are some high-profile cases, such those of Lucy Connolly and others, who are held up by the hard right as martyrs of free speech, but they are nothing of the sort. They have rightly been prosecuted, even if some people have valid questions about the severity of the punishment. Despite that, the facts seem clear: too many people are arrested not for committing crimes but for making tasteless online jokes, offering controversial opinions on social media or non-violent protest. It is a result of legislative failure that the police are not able to do their job properly on these issues. That undermines trust in the police and the work of officers, whose job it is to keep us safe, not to intervene in online arguments that would not trouble us if they happened in verbal form in the Dog and Duck. That is a threat to faith in policing, and to the very fabric of our liberal democracy. It gives space for people such as Reform’s James Orr to make bizarre comparisons between free speech in the UK and Russia and to peddle daft conspiracy theories, undermining British democracy in the process. We must all stand up against that in this place. In the light of the Big Brother Watch report, can the Minister confirm what the Government are doing to work with police and crime commissioners and chief constables to clarify the legal position, give officers greater clarity in their frontline work and protect British free speech rights? Earlier I mentioned the issue with the right, who were previously the big defenders of policing and order. They have traditionally told us that they stand up for those ideas, but the corrosive narrative of two-tier policing has crept into that side of politics. Where they once backed the police, they now use that daft “two-tier” phrase and tell us the police are part of the problem. That places the police alongside those who would do us harm; it is a dangerous narrative, and one that we at the moderate centre of politics must address. Support must be given to and extended for those working in the police, who put their lives and wellbeing on the line every day. Mind has reported that 91% of police officers report mental ill health. That is a shocking statistic, and it undermines the work they are able to do. Let us ensure that, as part of efforts to boost trust in policing, we are able to support police officers too. Improving their working conditions and the support available is vital to ensuring that we have the police force we need, staffed by brilliant police officers, and that they are able to fulfil their vital role to keep us safe.
I asked a specific question about the alignment of boundaries. In my constituency of Cheltenham, we are served by Gloucestershire police. We are apparently due to get a regional mayor with Herefordshire and Worcestershire. We are served by the health board for Bristol and the west, but policing apparently is being sent eastwards. Given the Government’s devolution agenda and the need for transparency and accountability in public services, that causes a real issue. There are rumours that the Government are changing course and trying to align boundaries. Is that the case—yes or no?
The Secretary of State’s mention of prevention was welcome: that means keeping people cool in their own homes. For those who live in a conservation area or a listed building, however, that is extremely difficult. So many people in my Cheltenham constituency and many other places like it have experienced temperatures way in excess of 35°C on their upper floors this summer, which is a particular problem for older people and for parents with young babies. Is it not time for the Secretary of State to get involved with Historic England and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and to lead a big conversation about sensible reform of conservation and listing rules so that the planning system does not stop people cooling their own homes?
Last month, BBC news reported on a woman who discovered only by fluke that the man she was in a relationship with was a registered sex offender, after he was summoned to court over an assault charge under a different name. While the law allows police to block a sex offender’s request to change their name, it does not require them to. Women, campaigners and safeguarding groups all say that this is not good enough. Will the Minister work with Home Office colleagues to close this loophole, so that sex offenders are prevented by default from changing their name and police are required to individually approve each request?
This announcement is a devastating blow for my constituents who are employed by JLR, and they will be incredibly worried for their future and their families, so what discussions have the Government had with JLR and the affected authorities—not just the West Midlands combined authority, because JLR is present in Warwickshire as well—regarding support for employees at risk of redundancy, and what measures will the Government put in place to help affected workers secure alternative employment?
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This afternoon, the Metropolitan police confirmed that a criminal investigation is under way into allegations of foreign money reaching Reform UK. The allegations are being investigated under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The party denies any wrongdoing and it is right that the police continue their investigation without any interference from this House. However, just a week ago we finished considering the Representation of the People Bill and it is now in the other place, where it can be strengthened. Will you, Madam Deputy Speaker, or the Speaker’s Office indicate whether a Minister intends to come to the House to update Members on whether the Government think that the measures in the Bill are still sufficient? The public should not have to rely on an undercover reporter to reveal where their politics is being funded from.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I hope to continue the excitement of that result in the Chamber. As an engineer, former aviation consultant and now chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the future of aviation, travel and aerospace, I know that hon. Members will have become accustomed to me calling for stronger growth in the aviation space, and to my belief that technology and innovation can enable us to do that while achieving our obligations to reach net zero and stop the climate crisis. Aviation is the bedrock of our trade agreements. It enables high-value cargo to move along supply chains in a way that no other form of transport can. It makes it feasible for businesses to operate across borders and make connections with other businesses that drive economic growth forward. It has meant that the last three generations of Brits have been able to take advantage of affordable foreign holidays, with massive benefits for them, their mental health and their ability to expand their horizons and make enriching memories in unfamiliar settings. It has been so transformational for Governments, businesses and individuals that it can be safely hailed as one of the most influential technologies in history. But aviation has come at a cost. Consumer and commercial aviation has, without a doubt, contributed to the climate crisis we face. Estimates suggest that annually aviation accounts for 2.5% of global CO2 emissions. However, it has contributed around 4% to global warming to date. As the MP for a constituency halfway between Heathrow and Gatwick, and given my former life in the aviation industry, I know that the politics of airports is fraught with complications. The impact on communities, if not handled properly, can be deeply challenging. It is my hope that the Government will listen and engage with the points I make about how we upgrade and improve civil aviation in this country for consumers, communities and the planet, and that they will have understood that events like those we saw yesterday serve only to underline how crucial this mission is, and how, following the third major failure of our airspace management in the past three years, it is imperative that this Bill is amended to include measures to stop that happening again. NATS is quite clearly not fit for purpose. We cannot suffer a major air traffic outage once a year. Following the outage yesterday, I am told by industry contacts that, again, communications with airlines were poor. I gently suggest to the Minister that whoever briefed the media that the disruption was akin to “a day with bad weather” should be found another position far away from the media team rather sharply. In the Lords, amendment 65—submitted by Lord Young—would have required NATS to hold responsibility for compensation for disruption caused by its failure, rather than airlines that were not at fault for these delays. The Government declined to accept the amendment, and Lord Hendy responded in a letter to Lord Young in July that he was satisfied that, following the 2023 outage, “the Government was able to place considerable pressure on” NATS “and appointed the person who led the review into the outage. This helped ensure that NATS took the necessary steps to prevent a recurrence of those particular circumstances.” For the benefit of Hansard, I raise my eyebrow and glance at the Minister knowingly. I invite him to address this issue directly in his response and seriously consider the merits of that amendment—a change supported by the International Air Transport Association and airlines. That specific challenge aside, the Bill needs to address three broader challenges, and I hope to work with the Government to ensure that it does. The first challenge is the generational risk of decarbonising aviation, which will require short, medium and long-term solutions as we work with researchers and companies to develop the breakthrough fuels that could reshape the industry. That is how we enable sustainable growth to drive our economy. The second challenge is the more procedural, but equally important, task of updating and upgrading our aerospace infrastructure to keep it competitive, while keeping communities impacted by these changes informed, engaged and fundamentally in control over what happens to them. Here we must secure our infrastructure at the same time as empowering communities. The third challenge is rebalancing the power mismatch between airlines and passengers, giving power to people and not the big airlines, so that the passenger experience can be as positive as possible, and not continue to allow airlines on some occasions to scam passengers like cheap fairground hucksters. We need serious measures that will allow the airline industry to decarbonise. That will require the same collaborative work across the public and private sectors that informed the passage of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Act 2026, on which I was grateful for the chance to work with the Government in passing. Such enormous industrial transitions take a very long time, and moving existing fleets and fuel infrastructure to green alternatives while they are still in use is outrageously difficult. Contrary to what some would like us to believe, however, it is not impossible. The interchangeability of sustainable aviation fuels and fossil-based aviation fuels, mixed and fed into the same pipelines and engines, makes this a transition that is unusually straightforward compared with other decarbonisation challenges. However, the sheer scale of the challenge and the existing infrastructure is the real difficulty. That, as well as the laws of physics and Breguet’s range equations, which I have mentioned in the Chamber before, mean that by sheer necessity the industry may be among the last to transition away from fossil fuels fully. We should not be afraid of that—it is the reality of achieving the growth we need—but we cannot ground aerospace or regulate it into submission, because to do so would have a catastrophic impact on our economy. We hear from neo-Luddites that we should effectively do that anyway—that we must constrain our horizons, put up with constraints and self-enforced recession, and tell families and businesses that they must put up with penalties and restrictions that their peers and competitors around the world do not put up with. The intention of protecting our world from catastrophic climate change is absolutely right, but these solutions are utterly wrong. Aviation is a Pandora’s box technology—once invented and tasted, it cannot be put back into the box. Like the internet or artificial intelligence, the only valid pessimistic question ought to be about how we transform it to regulate the externalities and make sure it continues to serve people, communities and the planet. The positive question concerns how we grasp the opportunities it offers to keep pushing progress forward. That means backing decarbonisation technology, which is the only way to achieve the future we need. There are great examples of this being done in practice: I spoke about Operation Blue Skies as merely a concept in the SAF Bill debate almost a year ago, but it is now funded and ready to be trialled this winter. That is concrete proof of the progress being made. However, there are things that we are failing to do as a state to remove roadblocks to this progress and there is a need for real leadership from the Government to continue to drive these opportunities forward. Yesterday, I chaired a roundtable discussion about sustainable aviation fuel to allow MPs to hear from the industry about the progress being made and what roadblocks remain. We heard how the pipeline of SAF production is not progressing at the rate needed to achieve the SAF mandate targets over the next few years, and that further Government action is needed to ensure that we do not plateau and then fall behind the target of 10% SAF by 2030 and of 22% by 2040. At the Farnborough international airshow earlier this summer, I was fortunate to witness the first flying demonstration by a fully electric aircraft, and the exhibition halls showed the huge progress on hydrogen and electric aviation that will be the future of travel. Last week, the Hydrogen in Aviation Alliance released its report, “Hydrogen-powered aviation: a pathway to delivery and growth”, which set out a clear set of steps towards harnessing that exciting new technology. Particularly interesting was news of trials led by the Cryogenic Hydrogen Optimised Systems for Aviation—CHOSAN—consortium to be based at Bristol airport, which hopes for the first hydrogen-powered flight from a UK commercial airport by 2028. That is hugely ambitious and gives hope that solutions are available, but it also reminds us that the Government need to play their part in speeding up development and roll-out even more. Whether aviation decarbonisation ends up being achieved by SAF, hydrogen, electricity, methane or some other pathway not yet discovered, it is a huge opportunity for us to grasp in order to continue our great British global leadership in aviation technology. The Bill does not bring forward specific measures on these decarbonisation goals, other than through improvements in efficiencies delivered by airspace modernisation. I see that as a huge missed opportunity, and I will look for chances to bring forward such measures in Committee. Turning to the second task on infrastructure, I greatly welcome the elements of the Bill that will help to deliver the airspace modernisation that will improve the efficiency of the UK’s airspace, reduce nuisance noise pollution around airports and facilitate the decarbonisation I have just spoken about. Far from being change for change’s sake, airspace modernisation is a vital step forward in upgrading our essential infrastructure, which has not been maintained and developed to keep up with changing and growing demands, and is at risk of periodic and then more consistent failure, as we all witnessed yesterday. Airspace modernisation should be done as part of a wider project of renewal across our transport and otherwise critical infrastructure. The lack of modernisation is visible in the chronic and consistent mismanagement of our roads and bridges, in certain aspects of public services and even in the political infrastructure that sits beneath everything else in this country. That is why, to unlock safe and sustainable growth and drag our infrastructure not just into the 2020s, but into a state of readiness for the future, airspace modernisation is utterly essential. However, my support for this Bill is not without reservations. In particular, I am disappointed that, in its current form, it does not guarantee communities a meaningful say over the impact of these changes on them. Progress and improvements in route efficiency will inevitably have negative impacts on many, with new flight paths and concentrations of disturbance taking shape over communities previously not impacted by noise. Those impacts must be considered carefully, and the communities impacted must have a genuine and meaningful say in the changes that will be delivered. As I have said before, my approach is a desire to get to yes on delivering these changes, but doing so requires buy-in from the communities that will live with the decisions for decades, so my response to this Bill has to be yes, if: yes, if we build meaningful community involvement that actually changes options; yes, if we can ensure that the scheme is able to benefit from public scrutiny; and yes, if it can be done in a way that is sustainable and not likely to be unpicked years later because it did not achieve some level of consensus. While the moving parts in aviation are aluminium, steel and carbon, these are ultimately human systems. It cannot be that changes are made that deliver what might look good on a spreadsheet or on the maps that I used to draw in the aviation industry; this must be about how the human situation is impacted by those changes. On Monday, I attended a meeting of the APPG on airport communities. We heard how the airport night noise effects study has shown the huge impact of aviation noise on families living near airports. While aircraft types have become considerably quieter over the years, the more we learn of the health and psychological impacts of noise disruption, the more it is clear that the science is consistent and the impact is real. As such, we must demand that programmes to mitigate those impacts are made available to all those affected. It is also true that as airline traffic approaches capacity and demand continues to grow, airlines are likely to upgauge their aircraft fleets, which typically leads to higher noise signatures from larger, heavier aircraft. We should also remember that the very constraints we put on air traffic are creating an increase in those disruptions. The parts of this Bill that will make airspace modernisation easy to deliver must not be allowed to cut scrutiny of the impact of that modernisation on residents or limit their voices over the options considered and how final flight routes are designed. I am particularly concerned about the impact on communities in my neck of the woods in south-west London, at Heathrow and further afield at Gatwick, which have already been sounding the alarm about the impact of night flights, particularly on their wellbeing. I know that my hon. Friends the Members for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) have worked on this issue for many years on behalf of their constituents, and this Bill needs to do more to protect the interest of their residents. I expect to hear shortly from my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) on a similar issue. The Civil Aviation Authority and The BMJ have both demonstrated that living under night flights not just harms mental health, but will inevitably damage a person’s productivity the next day. In extreme cases, it can increase the risk of stroke. If it is done properly, airspace modernisation can improve many of these issues, but, where it cannot, we must insist on mitigations through soundproofing programmes or respite periods. Airspace modernisation has the potential to shift flight paths to less densely populated areas and lower the noise impact on take-off and landing with more efficient, steeper approach and departure paths that balance emissions with noise reduction, but there is no guarantee that it will do any of those things if those living in the communities affected are denied a seat at the table, either through badly designed consultations or top-down diktat. Let me turn to my third and final challenge—I am sure Members will be glad to hear that. It is important to remember that the first two challenges will affect the planet and communities near airports, but the third challenge—passenger rights—is the one that will hit passengers most directly. In the Lords, the Liberal Democrats tabled amendment 36 to implement a passengers’ charter for air travel, with various targets for minimum service levels that an airline can deliver. Lords amendments 10 and 11 would have prohibited airlines from separating passengers on the same booking to force them to pay for assigned seating, or from forcing other passengers to sit next to an unaccompanied minor. Lords amendments 2 and 20 would have stopped the UK from implementing lower standards and diverging away from existing international standards. All of those are good things, and I hope to convince the Government of their wisdom in Committee. However, my favourite amendment, which I hope to push for and convince the Government of the merits of in Committee, is Lords amendment 13, which would have required airlines to standardise the maximum dimensions for permitted cabin baggage across all air carriers in alignment with recognised industry standards. Who here has a Ryanair bag, 55 cm by 40 cm by 20 cm; a Wizz Air bag, 55 cm by 40 cm by 23 cm; an EasyJet and British Airways bag, 56 cm by 45 cm by 25 cm; and an Aer Lingus bag, 55 cm by 40 cm by 24 cm? Each one is subtly different in size, and each one is liable to set someone back a hefty penalty if the check-in agent does not like the look of them. No, I did not think so; we do not have that number of bags—or we do not have all four. It is absolute madness. This is 2026; we have universal phone chargers and universal electric car chargers, and we have had standardised shipping containers for nearly half a century. There are also universally sized overhead lockers on aircraft, so Lord Hendy was not correct when he asserted: “Aircraft have different overhead and under-seat storage capacities. Setting a standard size would necessitate using the smallest aircraft capacity, resulting in many passengers needing to use a smaller case or bag.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 June 2026; Vol. 857, c. GC71.] That is incorrect and frankly insulting to the intelligence of the passenger who has just been stung for £75 by an over-zealous Ryanair boarding agent due to having an oversized bag, because they picked up the wrong one that morning, and that 5 cm difference cannot possibly fit into the overhead bin of a Boeing 737 but could slip smoothly into that of an A320. Passengers need protection from predatory practices; we need the BSS—the British standard suitcase. That is the well-regulated market that the Liberal Democrats believe in, and I hope I am able to make the Government see the benefit of that during the Bill Committee. In summary, the Bill really is a huge opportunity to take meaningful action to improve our airspace infrastructure to reduce emissions, to improve safety and reduce noise and to improve passenger experience and make flying less expensive and stressful. Those are good aims, but they can only be achieved with careful and clear leadership that listens to the voices of industry, communities and those of us who believe that they must be delivered in the context of a wider rethink about how we maintain and upgrade our systems in this country. I thank the Minister for bringing forward the Bill, and I congratulate him on making a strong, if incomplete, start. I look forward to helping him fix the Bill in Committee.
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that particular reference should be given to the previous failures and to the 37 actions, I believe, that should have been completed to resolve the previous incident, as well as explaining quite how this was allowed to occur again? As he says, it is critical that we get to the bottom of what happened, but also that we are able to hold it to account.
To add grist to the mill of all our travel experiences, I had a case in which a customer chose to pay for a seat allocation so that they could sit with their children. They got on the flight and were then moved, and had to claim compensation on the extra service they had paid for—otherwise they would not have got a refund. Does the hon. Member agree that these sorts of things need to be automated and quickened up to improve passenger experience and customer protection?
I must confess that I am a little frustrated, because I think this is the third time that the ventilation system at Stepping Hill hospital has been announced by a Minister—and it is not new money. There is a £138 million repairs backlog, so may I invite the Secretary of State to join me on a tour to see the remarkable work done by some of the remarkable people working at Stepping Hill, as well as the state of repair of buildings that in many cases are older than the NHS itself?
May I welcome the Secretary of State to her place? I look forward to working with her as I have done with her predecessors. May I draw her attention to our Committee’s work on corridor care, and the correspondence between the Committee and the Minister for Secondary Care, who is in her place? I thought it was a constructive session. In our correspondence with the Department, we raised the issue of staff fatigue. Staff will understandably have questions, such as whether summer is the new winter, what now happens to the leave they were planning to take and the training they must attend, which they often cannot attend during the winter, so can she be clear with staff about that? In the letter responding to the Committee, the Department said that there are new NHS staff standards and new occupational health and wellbeing support, which is all fine, but it then says that there will be “a continued focus on workforce sustainability through the upcoming NHS Workforce Plan.” Where is that workforce plan?
With regard to noise specifically, the Government recently reduced the height at which noise is considered an important factor, from 7,000 to 5,000 feet. Noise between 5,000 and 7,000 feet now has less impact on decision making. That change was not meaningfully consulted on; it was just made and enforced on everybody. It has an impact in my constituency, and perhaps in many others. Will the Secretary of State comment on how that decision was reached and whether it is changeable?
In my constituency, people understand the importance of Gatwick to the local economy—not least because many of them have a job there. However, the way that public consultation has been handled over the last decade has created deep anxiety about what changes to airports and airspace will mean for them, their families and the communities they live in. It is on their behalf that I am asking for the introduction of a dedicated aviation ombudsman, especially in the context of the need to lay out new flightpaths. I am wholly supportive of the need for airspace modernisation, which is being carried out across the whole of Europe. It will bring welcome improvements in both emissions and safety. As part of that process, Gatwick Airport Ltd is looking for a change to a particular currently agreed flightpath, such that planes leaving west and turning south to Europe will be able to do so almost immediately after take-off, instead of building up height first. In doing so, Gatwick will inflict major noise pollution over north Horsham and three rural villages that are not currently overflown to a great extent. When the same route, known as ADNID, was trialled 10 years ago, it provoked an explosion of public distress. The then CEO swiftly withdrew it and promised never to introduce it again. However, lo and behold, in the last round of public consultation—subsequently cancelled—Gatwick gave Horsham people a choice of three airspace plans, all three of which contained that identical route. It was less Gatwick’s choice, more Hobson’s choice. Why did Gatwick do that: simply because it would enable it to increase the number of take-off slots, which are potentially worth millions. That is a clear conflict of interest, and I have great difficulty believing that the financial incentive had no influence whatsoever on Gatwick’s thinking. Either way, at the very least it risks the perception of bias. What is particularly aggrieving is that the route is not necessary. Given all the other changes going on at the same time, it would make a negligible contribution to efficiency, emissions reduction or even capacity, seeing as Gatwick is heading for a huge increase in capacity owing to a second runway and other measures. Unfortunately, the voice of the consumer plays such a small part in the process that no one is able to add up the pros and cons. It is all on the side of industry. I therefore asked the then aviation Minister to include an independent member as standard on airspace review panels. He declined, and now the whole process has been restarted anyway, but we still have a situation where the citizen has no power to challenge major changes that will affect their lives. Another CAA reform further illustrates my point. The Department’s new air navigation guidance, published last month, lowers the altitude up to which noise must be prioritised over efficiency from 7,000 feet to 5,000 feet—I referred to that in a previous question to the Secretary of State. That means that fewer people will be able to argue against such a route on noise grounds. That happened in the same year that the CAA’s own new research—the aviation noise attitudes survey and the aviation night noise effects study—found that the noise level at which people become highly annoyed is 43 dB, rather than 54 dB, as previously advised. Communities are more sensitive to noise than the Department’s own evidence said a decade ago, yet the response has been to shrink, not extend, the altitude band where noise takes priority. Where is the voice of the resident in that? It will have a material impact on decisions in my area, as well as at other airports. Why is the CAA allowed to mark its own homework when no one else is? There already is an alternative dispute resolution available for consumer complaints—such as a refund for a delayed bag or cancelled flight—but it is not a usable tool for regulatory decisions, such as where a flightpath goes, how the noise is distributed or which homes end up underneath it. The Government’s written answers confirm that dissatisfaction with a CAA regulatory decision cannot be pursued through the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman; it can only go to internal or judicial review. For the great majority of residents, neither of those is a realistic option. We have been here before. Water is another industry that touches growth, employment, the environment and people’s daily lives, and where trust has been totally destroyed. The Government’s answer to that issue was that there should be a new legally binding water ombudsman. Like campaigners the length and breadth of the country, I believe that aviation deserves the same treatment. The Minister has written to me arguing that there is already a consultation process, but most residents will be left completely unaware of major changes, and, even if they were aware, they would be unable to do anything significant about it. As proposed, the process is so completely dominated by the industry voice that even a modest request, such as not repeating the same mistake on flight paths around Horsham, can never get any kind of hearing. I think that the Minister is wrong to assume that the industry always knows what is best in all circumstances. Fairness and objectivity should be offered on CAA regulatory decisions and on consumer and passenger rights alike. I therefore ask the Government to look again and to shore up this Bill with an independent ombudsman for aviation.
The Department previously had to delay the plans for defunding BTECs, and although there has been progress on T-levels, there are still shortages of placements and teachers. Can the Secretary of State guarantee that the transition to V-levels will not have the same uncertainty? Previously delayed transitions have been damaging by not providing certainty to young people.
I welcome the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), to their places—I have to say that I was not expecting to be the continuity figure in the health portfolio. We need to be honest: the NHS is now in permacrisis, as outlined by the National Audit Office report. The hallmarks of peak winter pressure in the past—overcrowded A&Es, queuing ambulances and soaring 999 calls—are now a feature year round. This summer was particularly difficult due to record temperatures across the UK, with over 33 NHS trusts reporting temperatures well above the 28° limit set by NHS England, and we can all agree that is not acceptable. It is inhumane not just for patients but for staff—42° is unbearable. A constituent of mine suffered in his final days in a desperately hot setting in Royal Shrewsbury hospital until managers worked with my team to ensure that he was made more comfortable. We do not want to be dealing with cases like that every year. We need hospitals that can withstand the heat, and the Lib Dems have been calling for a new NHS rapid adaptation unit to urgently heatproof the most heat-affected hospitals and care homes. Turning to corridor care, the percentage of people waiting 12 hours or more in A&E has tripled since before the covid-19 pandemic. Analysis suggests that people waiting this long are twice as likely to die within 30 days of leaving A&E, compared with those who wait just two hours. It is abundantly clear that policies to deal with A&E are not working. Spend is increasing, as outlined in the report, while outcomes are decreasing. We are pumping money into emergency departments with no proportionate improvement. The Lib Dems have outlined our plan to end 12-hour waits in a year by investing more in step-down care and support for people to leave hospital and go into social care. The Health Bill will reduce co-operation between local authorities and integrated care boards, risking those improvements in social care. Although we welcome the cross-party talks on social care, I hope that the Secretary of State will look at this issue as the Health Bill makes its way through the Lords. Will she listen to our plans, change her approach and commit to ending the ongoing A&E scandal?
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Betts. I congratulate the hon. Member for Leicester East (Shivani Raja) on securing the debate, which is important and timely, especially considering that we had the remaining stages of the Health Bill this week. Community pharmacies are a vital part of the NHS, especially in places like West Dorset, where they provide essential medicines, advice and care close to home. At a time when pharmacies are facing severe financial and workforce pressures, we must recognise their contribution and ensure that they receive the funding, support and protection they need. We are asking more and more of community pharmacies, while for too long we have expected them to absorb rising costs with inadequate funding. In West Dorset, 18 community pharmacies serve a population of around 94,000 people. In a typical month, they dispense around 155,000 prescriptions. Since the introduction of Pharmacy First in January 2024, pharmacies in West Dorset have helped to avoid as many as 8,737 GP appointments. Those figures demonstrate the enormous contribution pharmacies make to our local NHS and why we cannot afford to lose them. Today, people are more likely to live with multiple long-term conditions, require regular prescriptions and need advice and support close to home. For someone living in a rural village, a pharmacy is the most accessible point of contact with the NHS. That is why the funding model should properly recognise rurality and population age. Nationally, community pharmacy funding in 2025-26 was around £800 million lower in real terms than in 2015-16, despite a 16% increase in the number of NHS prescription items dispensed over that period. Since 2017, there has been a net loss of 147 bricks-and-mortar pharmacies, which is 15% of the network. I welcome the Government’s recent 10.3% funding increase, worth £340 million, but their own independent economic analysis identified a funding gap of around £2 billion, so the increase does not close the gap. Some pharmacies in West Dorset have reported to me six-figure annual shortfalls. Poor funding leads to fewer staff, and fewer staff leads to shorter opening hours, temporary closures and fewer services being offered. It means that fewer people receive their medicines and fewer patients are able to access care. In NHS Dorset, there were 207 full-time equivalent pharmacists in 2023 and 47 vacancies, which is a vacancy rate of 19%. In places such as West Dorset, in rural Britain, recruiting a permanent pharmacist can be extremely difficult. Pharmacies have to pay more to attract pharmacists from elsewhere or bring in locums, who have to travel significant distances. Those costs do not exist to the same extent in densely populated urban areas. It is therefore wrong to design a funding system that treats every pharmacy as if it operates in the same circumstances. The pharmacy access scheme provides some support for isolated pharmacies, but its funding pot is just £20 million, which is nowhere near sufficient to deal with the structural challenges facing rural pharmacy provision in England. We need a funding formula that properly recognises rurality, population age, workforce pressures and the cost of serving sparsely populated communities. Funding is only one part of the problem. We also need stronger regulation and stronger powers to intervene when large corporate pharmacy operators fail. Jhoots operated 150 branches across England. In West Dorset, its pharmacies in Bridport and Lyme Regis were closed for months, disrupting prescription access for more than 12,000 people who rely on those services. The impact was felt throughout our community. It was felt by the patients who struggled to access their medicines and by other healthcare providers who had to deal with the consequences. It was felt devastatingly by pharmacy staff. Staff across multiple sites reported going months without pay, despite receiving payslips and seeing deductions for tax and pensions. Some were unable to pay their rent or household bills, and some relied on food banks and could not buy their children school uniform. I pay tribute to the amazing staff in Bridport and Lyme Regis for the resilience they showed during that time. The support shown to them by the local community was outstanding. They did not deserve to be treated that way by the pharmacy owners. Our regulatory framework was largely developed when pharmacies were mainly independently owned businesses operating one or maybe two pharmacies, and it has not kept pace with the growth of large corporate operators controlling extensive networks. Local integrated care boards, local authorities and national bodies need powers to intervene quickly, protect patients and staff, secure medicines and ensure continuity of service. When Jhoots’s services collapsed, I raised the issue through an urgent question in the House, and there was clear cross-party support for legislative action to ensure that that kind of crisis cannot happen again. I would like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the hon. Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan), who campaigned tirelessly alongside me. His help and advice were invaluable during that period, so I am extremely grateful to him. We need to strengthen the powers available to intervene when a provider fails to meet contractual patient safety or workforce obligations. We need mechanisms to allow alternative providers to step in quickly. We must hold the corporate bodies—not the pharmacies—accountable, and where necessary take away their rights to control an essential service. We need to protect pharmacy staff when a provider collapses. Protecting the workforce is inseparable from protecting patient safety. I say politely to the Minister that when I met her predecessor, he asked for those powers so that he could step in during the Jhoots scandal. We tried to introduce them through amendments to the Health Bill, but they were not accepted. Will the Minister please meet me and other experts, such as the hon. Member for North Somerset, as her predecessor did? Let us get her the powers to prevent this from ever happening again.
I thank the Minister for being willing to meet me and the hon. Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) to discuss some of the issues raised today. She mentioned that officials are looking at whether legislation is necessary; will she ask them to consider whether the amendments I tabled to the Health Bill would deliver the powers she needs? If so, will the Government support them in the Lords?
I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s opening remarks, not least about the 25th anniversary of the horrific terror attacks of 9/11. I welcome the Government finally banning imports from illegal Israeli settlements, something Keir Starmer should have done a long time ago. On Back British Farming Day, can I also celebrate British farmers? I hope the Prime Minister will do more than that and end the family farm tax. Last week I asked about North Devon’s maternity unit, which is still closed. This week I have to raise Musgrove Park hospital, where the Prime Minister’s Labour colleague Baroness Amos found the “most challenging” maternity estate in the whole country. She described “leaking roofs”, a ceiling propped up by poles and room temperatures that put newborn babies at risk. No mother should have to give birth in such circumstances. Does the Prime Minister agree that Musgrove Park cannot wait until 2033 for work to start on a new maternity unit? Will he offer a meeting to local MPs, so we can move it forward? And will he make fixing the maternity scandal across our country a top priority of his Government?
I thank the Prime Minister for that answer. Britain should be the safest country in the world to have a baby. We will keep raising this issue until it is the safest. The best legacy of the previous Conservative Prime Minister is our world-leading AI Security Institute, which is now essential to our national security, and to global security, in the age of artificial intelligence. But today, the Financial Times reports that Anthropic did not submit its latest model to the institute for testing, apparently due to pressure from the Trump Administration. Does the Prime Minister think it is acceptable for President Trump to undermine Britain’s efforts to keep the world safe from dangerous AI?
I welcome the Secretary of State to her place. I heard from many patients and staff that Winchester hospital was horrendously hot this summer, and I pay tribute to all the staff who are delivering care in those conditions. When we are looking at how we can address the repairs backlog and ensure that the entire NHS estate is fit for the hotter summers we are expecting, can we ensure that clinical staff and infection control experts are also consulted? For example, installing air conditioning is also a way of improving ventilation, air filtration and infection control, as well as reducing the antimicrobial resistance in hospital-acquired infections.
Q12. Hertfordshire has one of the lowest numbers of mental health in-patient beds per head in England. When patients, including some young people, are in crisis, they can be sent hundreds of miles away, which undermines their recovery. The cost of private beds comes in at millions of pounds. Will the Prime Minister commit personally to looking at my three-year campaign to fund a mental health facility in Hertfordshire? It is shovel-ready, would improve health outcomes for patients, and would pay for itself within just a few years.
3. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to make it easier for people with accessibility needs to contact Government Departments.
I have a constituent whose agreed adjustments have been removed and who has had appointments arranged by telephone despite a hearing impediment, and some assessment sites lack disabled parking. Does the Minister agree that adjustments must be applied consistently by Departments and contractors? What action will be taken when they are not?
The Secretary of State mentioned social care. There have been a number of distressing reports in the media about care home deaths from heatstroke, and I have written to her about a case where a resident was left in direct sun for a period of time. Does the Secretary of State have plans to improve knowledge and understanding of heatstroke among the care home workforce, and how will the CQC assess whether they are taking appropriate steps?
The Secretary of State mentioned persistent absence. Parents of children with unmet SEND needs continue to be unfairly prosecuted for their children’s absence. Before recess I met the Minister for School Standards, along with a number of charities, including Square Peg and Define Fine. We are working together to try to end that injustice. As a first step, we are seeking to ensure that the issue is properly recorded, because it is not at the moment. Will the Secretary of State commit to a review of the issue ahead of the education for all Bill, with the aim of ending this scandal?
In June, an individual went on an anti-Muslim rampage at sites in Edinburgh, and since then we have seen a surge in incidents, such as individuals using Nazi salutes at protests. When I spoke to the representatives of one of the mosques affected by the incidents, they said they fear there has been a catastrophic collapse in community cohesion in parts of the country. What are the Government doing on community cohesion? Does she agree that this is not a local problem just for local authorities or regional authorities to deal with, and that we must deal with it on a national scale?
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair today, Mr Betts, and I thank the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Margaret Mullane) for bringing this important topic to the House and for raising awareness of it in this place. As the hon. Member set out, pica is a condition most commonly associated with autism, learning disabilities and some mental health conditions, whereby a person compulsively eats non-food items such as soil, paper, hair, small objects or chemicals. This, of course, carries serious health risks, including choking, poisoning and internal injury, and in the most severe cases, it can be a cause of death. The specific causes of pica are not clear, but the bottom line is that people with pica, especially children, need support and management to help keep them safe. Pica is disproportionately prevalent among children and young people with autism and severe learning disabilities. Research estimates that between 20% and 23% of young autistic children engage in eating non-food items. We know that the more severe a child or adult’s learning disability is, the greater the chance they will display pica behaviour. School staff working in SEND settings, including mainstream schools with SEND pupils, special schools and early years settings, are therefore considerably more likely to encounter pica than the population at large. The Government’s SEND reforms, with their focus on inclusion, will undoubtedly be a cause of concern for parents of children with pica, who need to be reassured that their child will receive the support they need if they are going to be taught in mainstream education. When it comes to SEND, we can probably all agree that the status quo is not working. The SEND system is failing children every single day. After years of neglect under the Conservatives, it is failing to deliver the outcomes that children deserve and is driving local authorities to the brink, so we welcome the Government’s commitment to improve outcomes. Their reforms are an important step in the right direction, but many questions remain about funding, staffing and early intervention—all questions that parents of children with pica need to know the answers to. The Liberal Democrats will continue to press the Government to ensure that vulnerable children, including those with pica, get the support they need. One Liberal Democrat who has done just that is my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire). Unfortunately, she is unable to attend the debate, but her work to support one of her constituents whose child has pica illustrates how the system is currently failing such children. Her constituent lives in constant fear that as soon as she leaves the room, her child will eat something dangerous, such as carpet underlay, which could have fatal consequences. The National Pica Advisory Service—which I believe is represented in the Public Gallery—has been a vital resource for my hon. Friend’s constituent, for which I offer thanks, but it should not have to be. I repeat: children in the UK have died and will continue to die as a direct result of pica, yet no one is taking my hon. Friend’s constituent or pica as a whole seriously. Many medical professionals do not understand the condition, there is a fundamental lack of awareness and it is regularly dismissed as autism, even though it is a separate diagnosis. Importantly, there is a lack of formal support pathways and an absence of national guidelines, which is unacceptable. Children and young people living with pica and their families deserve so much better. Effective management of pica could include staff recognising the behaviour, understanding its triggers and applying consistent, safe strategies, such as de-picaing the environment, teaching children to discriminate between edible and non-edible items, and offering safe sensory or textual substitutes. If we are to have an inclusive SEND system that works for all children, including those with pica, schools and teachers must be equipped with the training they need to support these children. That is one reason why the Liberal Democrats would improve teacher training and continuing professional development, with a focus on identifying and supporting children with SEND, including those with autism, dyslexia or other neurodiverse conditions, such as pica. Being aware of this condition is the first step to keeping children safe. We have also consistently campaigned for putting early identification at the heart of any SEND interventions and reducing diagnostic delays by streamlining NHS processes and increasing funding for assessments. Awareness of behaviours such as pica is an important part of keeping pupils safe. Teachers and support staff need to be able to recognise pica when they see it. As a result, advice on recognising pica should be included in the new SEND training offer for teachers and support staff at a general level. However, although there needs to be a greater emphasis on teachers and support staff being able to identify conditions such as pica and other general barriers to learning as part of the SEND reforms, it should not be their responsibility to diagnose or offer detailed support. Knowing how to safely manage and support a child who is showing pica behaviour is a specialist skill, and more detailed advice and support must be available to teachers who have a child with pica in their class. That is why it is so important that the health element of an education, health and care plan actually means something. Currently, there is no legal footing for ensuring children, including those who have conditions such as pica or avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, can access the healthcare they need as part of their education, health and care plan. We Liberal Democrats were disappointed that earlier this week the Health and Social Care Committee’s amendment was not added to the Health Bill. It would have given statutory footing to the “H” in EHCP, and helped children with pica and ARFID get the health support they so desperately need. It is also why we need to ensure that teachers have the help they need in the classroom, with more specialist staff in schools to meet neurodiverse children’s needs. We welcome the Experts at Hand service, but we cannot create these people out of thin air. Given the lack of such specialists, the Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to publish a credible workforce plan to recruit and train the staff needed and to encourage trained specialists back into the profession. Pushing the emphasis on to individual teachers to spot and manage learning needs without new specialist capacity is a cost-saving measure, rather than a genuine improvement in support for our children. Teachers cannot be expected to have every form of SEND training required to meet the specific needs of every child, while also having all the skills necessary to teach the class. We cannot shove the burden of SEND on overworked, burnt-out teachers and expect good results for all children with special educational needs, as well as all the other children in the class. It is important to note that inclusion-focused SEND reforms will be deliverable only if we reduce wider pressures, such as workload, on educators. I recently ran a survey of teachers and got just under 1,000 responses. Nearly half of those teachers said they were planning to quit the classroom in the next five years, citing high workload as a key reason. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for proper enforcement of teachers’ legally mandated working hours, the introduction of reasonable limits on overtime and for all schools to be required to introduce flexible working policies. Returning to the topic of the debate, the Liberal Democrats are clear that children with pica must be kept safe if they are to be taught in mainstream school, and their parents deserve that guarantee, which I hope the Minister can provide. Every child with autism, dyslexia or another neurodiverse condition, such as pica, deserves the chance to thrive in school and move confidently on with their life and into work. With earlier assessment, better training for teachers, inclusive education and more specialist support, we can unlock the talents of neurodivergent young people and help them to thrive in life.
I welcome the announcement about technical education, which I think is really valuable, but approximately 40% of colleges have had to cancel or scale back trade and vocational courses because of a lack of staff, and around three quarters of colleges in England are unable to recruit the necessary staff to teach technical subjects. Could the Education Secretary tell the House where the workforce will come from to teach technical subjects in every school in the country?
The Secretary of State mentioned the 10-year plan, and central to that plan is the shift from hospital to community. One of the things she will have no doubt noticed in the quarter of a century since she was last a Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care is the dramatic cut in acute hospital beds, and the resulting pressure that that is putting on frontline services. As summer pressures become winter pressures—in Cornwall, at least, the pressures are all year round, with 98% bed occupancy most of the time—the result is dysfunctionality and crisis on the frontline. Will she look again at this issue and ensure that hospitals are stabilised before that shift? Otherwise, further dysfunctionality and crisis will occur. I recommend that she comes to Cornwall and sees what it is like on the frontline in order to understand what I am talking about.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I sincerely commend the hon. Member for Leicester East (Shivani Raja) for securing this important debate and setting it out in such clear terms. Community pharmacies are often overlooked as a source of care for those in need, but in constituencies such as mine in Mid Sussex they are vital. Many of us know what the 8 am rush for a GP appointment can be like, so the fact that there is an alternative trusted high-street healthcare service where people can walk in, speak to a professional and receive advice and treatment is enormously valuable. It is also exactly the kind of shift towards preventive and community-based care that we need to see more of and not less. Pharmacies take pressure off GP surgeries. They help people get advice earlier, manage conditions locally and, importantly, can keep people out of hospital, but community pharmacies are under immense pressure, as we have heard. Last year, I visited Kamsons pharmacy at the Vale primary care centre in Haywards Heath, where I met Julia from Community Pharmacy Surrey and Sussex, as well as Mark and the wider Kamsons team. I was struck by just how much local pharmacists do beyond dispensing medicines. A little like the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) when he was much younger, Kamsons provides free home deliveries for prescriptions and help patients organise multiple proscriptions into pill organisers. For vulnerable and elderly residents, these services can literally be a lifeline. They enable people to remain independent and to continue living safely in their own homes, while having the support they need to manage their medication. The team I met were enthusiastic and deeply committed to helping local people, but they also expressed real disappointment at the level of support currently available to community pharmacies. There is a strong feeling among local branches that the extraordinary contribution pharmacies made during the pandemic has been forgotten. They are struggling to balance the books, as a number of Members have explained. Community pharmacy funding has fallen substantially in real terms over the past decade. The Government’s recent funding settlement is a welcome step in the right direction, with significant increases announced for ’24-25 and ’25-26 and continued support for services such as Pharmacy First, blood pressure checks and contraception, but we must be honest about the scale of the challenge. That additional funding came after years of financial pressure, while analysis has identified a funding gap of more than £2 billion across community pharmacies. Rising energy, staffing and medicine costs are placing further strain on businesses that are already operating on tight margins, and patients increasingly experience another pressure directly: medicine shortages. Pharmacists tell me that they can spend hours every day simply trying to source medicines that they have been asked to dispense. That time could be spent with patients, and it means that the pressure does not stop at the pharmacy door. In my constituency, I have heard from patients whose pharmacies have had to reduce opening hours and staffing because of financial pressures. When a pharmacy closes earlier, a prescription issued later that day can potentially be delayed until the following day. For someone waiting for an essential medicine, that can be deeply distressing. When a pharmacy is struggling to fulfil prescriptions, the consequences ripple through the entire health service: a patient who cannot get their medication may return to their GP; that GP surgery then has another appointment to deal with; a patient whose condition worsens may ultimately require hospital treatment; and another pharmacy, already under pressure, may have to pick up the pieces when a patient desperately seeks an alternative. That is why I ask the Minister to look at community pharmacies not as an optional extra but as a vital piece of the system. We can see the difference locally. Through Pharmacy First, community pharmacies in my area have reportedly saved almost 2,000 GP appointments—1,937, to be precise. That is 1,937 occasions when people have been able to receive appropriate care closer to home, freeing up GP capacity for those who need it most. That is the model we should be expanding, but we cannot ask pharmacies to keep doing more with less. The Liberal Democrats are calling for a new long-term and sustainable funding model for community pharmacies. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) tabled amendments to the Health Bill about rescuing pharmacies when they have gone bust, which the Liberal Democrats supported; will the Minister seek to add those to the Bill when it goes to the Lords? We want further investment to be directed towards smaller towns and rural areas, as other Members have set out, including parts of Mid Sussex where access can be particularly difficult. We want Pharmacy First to be expanded, giving patients more accessible routine services and freeing up GPs to concentrate on more complex cases, and an exemption for pharmacies from the national insurance contribution increase so that funds are being spent on patients and vital medications. We also need to tackle the practical problem of medicine shortages. Pharmacists need greater flexibility to substitute medicines where clinically appropriate, rather than spending hours trying to source a particular product that may simply be unavailable. The message I heard in Haywards Heath was very clear: pharmacists want to help. They want to provide more services, support their patients and take pressure off GPs and hospitals, but they need a system that recognises the value of what they do. Community pharmacies are often the first place someone turns to when they need healthcare advice. They are local, accessible and trusted. When they are properly funded and supported, they can keep people healthier for longer, help vulnerable residents remain independent in their own homes and take pressure off the rest of the NHS. The Government have made a start with their recent funding settlement; I welcomed that, but a first step is not enough. I urge the Minister to listen to the pharmacists I have spoken to in Mid Sussex and across the country and put in place a genuinely long-term plan for community pharmacy. Our local pharmacies have been there for our communities; we need to make sure that the Government are there for them.
On social care, the Secretary of State pointed to the better care fund in her statement. I am glad that she recognises its importance, but why is she weakening provisions for pooled budgets, including the better care fund, in the Health Bill? Will she reconsider that?
I thank the hon. Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) for securing the debate. I was just going to intervene, but after hearing this important debate, I want to take part. One big way that confidence in the police has been damaged in Yeovil constituency is under-investment. For years, we have had fewer officers and less funding. The result is a force that is not visible enough for my constituents, who then feel that the police cannot help them. That is a damaging place to be as a society. In Yeovil, we do not have the money or staff to run a custody suite, even though the police station is being revamped and is going to reopen. Officers are therefore away for hours after an arrest, and I found it so frustrating when I was out with the police on a ride-around that we spent as much time driving to the nearest custody suite, in Bridgwater, as we did in our community. That is just ridiculous. The result is that antisocial behaviour, drug misuse and shoplifting have got so bad that businesses are considering their futures. I have heard recently from a series of business owners—even of toy shops such as The Entertainer—who are at their wits’ end, and I have heard similar stories from residents. Whether at work or out and about, locals feel unsafe. I recently held a drop-in event between 3 pm and 6 pm with the police in Chard in my constituency. When I got to the event, eight police officers were there and police vans were outside, but a police van was stolen right in front of our eyes—just outside the event. That was the first crime. Secondly, a guy came to speak to us who had just come from Snowdon Park in Chard, where his bike had been stolen. Thirdly, the hairdressing salon opposite, which had only opened the day before, had its windows smashed. Fourthly, a considerably drunk guy walked past and fell over right in front of our eyes. That all happened in the middle of the day on a Thursday when I was holding that event. I even asked the police, “Have you put this on?” because it was mind-blowing that this was happening in our communities. I have been meeting regularly with the police and our fantastic police and crime commissioner. Ultimately, we need investment to expand officer numbers and build a custody suite in Yeovil. The cost of a lack of officers is huge. It is unsafe for communities, businesses are closing and people are leaving our area. Our police community support officers do amazing work in south Somerset, but one issue for them is that they are not allowed handcuffs. Some forces do allow PCSOs to have them, but our force does not. The PCSOs sometimes tell me they do not feel safe. At other times they say, “We want to do the job well, and we could detain someone, but we physically cannot because we do not have the tools for the job.” That is one of the pressures on our local police force that I am trying to address. If the Minister would back me on that issue, it would be very helpful. I hope the Minister will commit to meeting not just me but residents, the police force, the council and businesses in my constituency. The missing piece of the puzzle is Government, because it is ultimately down to them: we need more investment. I hope the Minister will meet me to discuss these issues.
Thank you for being here today. Will you commit to asking the Policing Minister to meet my local police force and me to discuss the custody unit, which is a huge issue in my constituency? The decision was made well before my time, but it is affecting the community throughout south Somerset.