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Showing every spoken contribution, including 11,997 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
Is the hon. Member aware that while defence spending when Labour left office in 2010 was 2.5% of GDP, it fell below 2% under the Conservative Government and is now set to rise to 3.5%? Does he understand the correlation between Labour Governments and increased defence spending?
I welcome the Chancellor’s Budget, particularly the additional £1.5 billion for social and affordable housing, taking the Government’s investment to more than £40 billion. The only lasting solution to our housing crisis is to build more homes, particularly council homes, but I want to address a crisis that cannot wait for those homes to be built: the almost 200,000 children across the country who will spend tonight homeless. In London, <span id="505" class="column-number" data-column-number="505"></span>that figure is one in 30 children, or one in every school class. They are not sleeping on the streets—they have a roof over their heads—but they are homeless. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for households in temporary accommodation, I see the national picture and scale of the homelessness crisis we face, but as the MP for Mitcham and Morden, I see the faces behind those statistics week in, week out at my constituency advice surgery. I see families living in a single room, parents desperately trying to keep their children at the same school, and children without anywhere to do their homework or cooking facilities where their parents can prepare a proper meal. Temporary accommodation is increasingly anything but temporary. Earlier this year, my APPG published research into child mortality in temporary accommodation. Between 2019 and 2025, 104 children died in cases where temporary accommodation was identified as a possible contributing factor to their vulnerability, ill health or death. Seventy-six of those children were babies under the age of one. Behind every one of those numbers is a child whose future has been taken away and a family who will never recover from that loss. We must never accept that as an inevitable consequence of homelessness. There is also a serious financial argument for tackling this crisis. London councils are spending more than £5.5 million every single day on temporary accommodation. Much of that money is spent on securing accommodation from private providers, often at considerable expense, without creating the permanent housing assets that councils so desperately need. The cost of unsuitable temporary accommodation does not end with the council’s housing budget; it is felt in our schools, our NHS and other public services, through disrupted education, worsening health and the additional support that families so often need. That is why we must consider the full cost of homelessness to the public purse, not simply the price of providing a roof over someone’s head. I welcome the Chancellor’s additional £432 million to tackle rough sleeping, but homelessness is not confined to our streets. The Budget recognises this and confirms that the Government’s ongoing value for money review of homelessness funding will examine temporary accommodation. That review must consider how councils can acquire more suitable accommodation locally, reducing their reliance on costly private placements. But we cannot wait until 2027 to improve conditions for children living in temporary accommodation today. Every child deserves somewhere safe to sleep, somewhere to do their homework and somewhere their parents can prepare a proper meal. Those are not luxuries but the most basic requirements of a home. The Chancellor’s additional investment in social and affordable housing is a welcome commitment to tackling the root causes of homelessness, but building the homes we need will take time. For the children growing up homeless tonight, time is something we cannot afford to waste. We must ensure that the Government’s ambition to end rough sleeping is matched by an ambition to end child homelessness.
As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing the debate—he must contribute to more debates than any parliamentarian I have ever come across—and for giving us the opportunity to discuss the important role that hospital helipads play in supporting urgent and specialist care. My hon. Friend the Minister for Secondary Care, who has responsibility for this policy area, is always happy to meet Members, in particular the hon. Member for Strangford, and I know she will look at <em>Hansard</em> to read the contributions of other right hon. and hon. Members. The hon. Member for Strangford is a long-standing supporter of air ambulance services. He has regularly talked about their importance, particularly for rural and coastal communities, where the geography can make it harder to reach patients quickly. In his excellent opening speech, he paid tribute to the important and vital work of the air ambulance service in Northern Ireland. I too recognise its invaluable work. I also recognise the work of the air ambulance charities around and across the United Kingdom, which provide a vital service helping seriously ill or injured people. Across England, air ambulance charities carry out more than 50,000 missions each year. I am very grateful to everyone who works and volunteers in the sector, and to the communities that support them. As a Yorkshire MP, I have to give a shout-out to my local air ambulance—Yorkshire Air Ambulance—for its brilliant work. I thank all Members who contributed to the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) asked about the Royal Cornwall hospital. Although decisions on capital investment are a matter for local NHS systems, I understand that work is under way to look at options to improve the air ambulance <span id="236WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="236WH"></span>access at the hospital. I also understand that the hospital is investigating alternative options so that coastguard helicopters can land safely. My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) talked about the necessity of the service in rural and coastal areas. She and a number of other Members raised fuel resilience. We routinely engage with air ambulance charities on contingency planning, and as part of that we have addressed fuel resilience. The Government will continue to work with fuel suppliers to make sure that essential services are supported. The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire) said that Cornwall Air Ambulance is based in his constituency. He brought the whole debate to life when he talked about 15-year-old Lewie, who suffered horrific injuries, and about how the service saved his life. He also talked about how important the service was when three-year-old Mia had a seizure. I send my best wishes to them both—I am sure all Members would like to do the same—and I hope they have made good recoveries. My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) gave the example of a family member—I think it was his niece—who needed an air ambulance. I was pleased to hear that she is now 21, and hopefully she is in good health. There were some very good contributions to the debate. I heard what the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) said about Essex & Herts Air Ambulance, and the issues with the local hospital. I will relay those points to the Minister for Secondary Care. I recognise the concerns raised by hon. Members and the all-party parliamentary group for air ambulances. The points are well made. In June, the APPG published its report making the case for safeguarded 24/7 on-site hospital helipads at major trauma centres and specialist hospitals, which is a very good piece of work. We all accept that getting seriously ill or injured patients to the hospital quickly matters. Air ambulance teams work alongside NHS ambulance service and hospitals to provide specialist care at the scene and help patients to reach specialist treatment quickly. We also need to think about what happens when the aircraft reaches the hospital. If direct landing is not available, a patient may need an onward transfer by road ambulance, which can add time to the journey and place additional demand on ambulance vehicles and crews. Alternative landing sites are an important part of resilience when a hospital helipad is unavailable, so clear local arrangements are needed to minimise delays. Hospital helipads therefore have an important role to play, but the current picture is not the same everywhere. Helipad provision has developed locally, over many years. There has not been a single national approach setting out where helipads should be provided, what the provision should look like and how it should be funded. Currently, responsibility for hospital helipads sits with local NHS organisations, working with planning, aviation and local authority partners. Decisions about investment, including improvements to allow night-time operation, are generally made locally, as part of a wider NHS estates and capital planning programme. But I recognise the arguments made today that we need to look again at whether those arrangements remain right for the future.<span id="237WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="237WH"></span> NHS England has identified challenges, including changing aircraft and aviation standards, secondary ambulance transfers, and differences in landing infrastructure. Work has also started to strengthen safety arrangements. Following the tragic incident at Derriford hospital, NHS England worked with His Majesty’s Coastguard, the Department for Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority to strengthen assurance. Sites are now required to have a named accountable manager, a site-specific risk assessment and a helipad operating manual. Chief executives have been asked to confirm that appropriate safety standards are being met. NHS England continues to work with the air ambulance sector and regularly meets the DFT and Air Ambulances UK. It also takes part, when needed, in the onshore surface landing group, which brings together organisations including the Civil Aviation Authority, the DFT and the devolved nations. I want to be clear about what we are doing next. I am pleased to announce that the Minister for Secondary Care has instructed the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England to scope a strategic review of air ambulance resilience, including hospital helipads and landing sites. That work is starting, and I do not want to pre-empt what it may find or any recommendations that it may come up with. It will give us the opportunity to look at current landing facilities, onward transfers, future clinical and aircraft requirements, and the condition of existing infrastructure. The hon. Member for Strangford rightly recognised that different hospitals have different clinical needs, geography, landing arrangements and planning constraints, and that the same solution will not be right for every site. I agree that any future approach needs to be proportionate and informed by clinical and operational need. Let me turn to the concerns, raised by a number of hon. Members and the APPG, about the impact of the planning system—
I will set out the position on planning. The Government share the concerns about the potential impact of new developments on the operation of hospital helipads. That is why our new national planning policy framework, published in August, makes it clear that existing public services should not face unreasonable restrictions on their operation because of development that takes place around them. The framework is clear that where a new development could be affected by an existing activity nearby, the impacts should be identified and suitable steps taken to address them. It also gives substantial weight to the benefits of new or improved public service infrastructure, including healthcare facilities. Work is happening on that now, and I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman wants to discuss it further, we will be able to facilitate that.<span id="238WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="238WH"></span> Work is happening on aviation standards, too. The CAA’s civil aviation publication 1264 provides guidance on the design and operation of hospital helicopter landing sites. This matters, because safe access depends not just on having a landing site but on whether an aircraft can use it safely. The guidance is not currently mandatory, but the DFT and the Civil Aviation Authority are working towards the formal regulation of hospital landing sites, which is currently expected around 2028. NHS England and the DFT are also working to build a clearer picture of which hospital landing sites comply with the existing guidance. Currently, helicopter operators make their own decisions about where they can safely land. That can depend on things such as the aircraft being used, the weather and the obstacles around a landing site. The DFT is working with NHS England, the CAA, the air ambulance sector and His Majesty’s Coastguard on those issues. There is obviously much more work to do, and I absolutely recognise the concerns raised in the debate and through the APPG report. The Opposition spokesperson, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), asked about capital spend in previous years, and I will have to write to him about that. On his comment about announcements in the Budget, our contribution to the defence investment plan, including at the extended level set out yesterday, will avoid impact on frontline NHS services, patient safety, investment in technology and the delivery of the new hospital programme.
I am not the Minister for this policy area, but I will ask my hon. Friend the Minister for Secondary Care what information might be available about timescales. I understand Members’ interest as to when the review might conclude. We have had a useful debate and I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford for bringing the debate before the House. I again thank the APPG’s members and the air ambulance sector for all their continued excellent work.
May I too say how nice it is to see the Clerk of the House in his place? I pay tribute to him for his long service in this place, and wish him the very best for the next chapter. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith) on securing this important debate, and thank all hon. Members who have contributed on this sensitive and important topic. We have had important contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist), for Shipley (Anna Dixon) <span id="551" class="column-number" data-column-number="551"></span>and for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson), and the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). You too, Madam Deputy Speaker, have been a long-standing supporter on this issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre has been working tirelessly for many years on behalf of her constituent Janet Williams and all the campaigners and the families, including Emma Murphy, to whom she referred. We need to ensure that the voices of women and families are heard, and that they are at the heart of our discussions and debates. I agree with my hon. Friend about the perseverance of women, and there is clear perseverance here. I have been very moved by the stories I have heard, including before coming into office, and the more I look into this matter, the more tragic it appears to be. I will watch that television programme on 9 November that my hon. Friend referred to. As my hon. Friend would expect, since becoming the Minister for Public Health and Patient Safety, I have been briefed by officials on the Hughes report and the progress we have made so far. Of course, I am happy to meet my hon. Friend and the families affected. I am also determined to make progress on the Government’s response to the Hughes report, and I will of course work closely with devolved Governments in doing that because, as has been said, this affects all parts of the United Kingdom, so we need to work together. My predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed), established a direct line with the Patient Safety Commissioner to start to drive this work forward. I think that was the right approach, and I look forward to meeting Professor Hughes shortly. I am conscious that it has been more than two years since Professor Hughes published her report, and more than five years since the independent medicines and medical devices safety review was issued by Baroness Cumberlege. We know that the lives of women, children and their families have been profoundly changed. Their voices must be heard as we address these issues with the urgency demanded.
I will of course take that away. As a Minister, I have made it clear that we should respond in a timely way not only to Members of Parliament, but in other correspondence, and in a way in which people can understand what is being said to them. I absolutely take my hon. Friend’s point. Moving on, we are determined to build a system that listens, that hears and that will act, and we need to do that with speed, compassion and proportionality. As someone who has fought hard for the compensation <span id="552" class="column-number" data-column-number="552"></span>due to the victims of the infected blood scandal, I fully understand the strength of feeling on this matter, and I can also appreciate the frustrations of the families and the campaigners. This is a complex and sensitive issue that requires careful co-ordination across Government. The support we offer to those who have suffered profound harm must be meaningful and responsive to their needs. The Government are clear that those affected have already waited far too long for answers. While a decision has not yet been taken to provide financial redress, my priority is to drive these discussions forward with greater urgency, while ensuring that any decisions we take are underpinned by a thorough assessment of the available options, with continued engagement across Government. Our discussions so far have considered the scope, affordability and practical challenges of a redress scheme, so I will say a few words about non-financial redress.
My understanding of what the previous Secretary of State said is that he wanted to see progress within this Parliament. I am mindful of the Hughes report, which set out clear recommendations around redress, and I have just tried to set out that that is the avenue I am pursuing with some speed, looking at what the options are. I hope that that answers my hon. Friend.
I fully understand and appreciate the frustration, because it has been two years since the report was published. I will do my very best. I know that my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South, who is in her place, was also looking at what more we could do to speed up matters. I give an undertaking to this House that I will do my very best to make sure that we make progress on redress and all the recommendations in the Hughes report.
I can see that my hon. Friend wants me to give way, and I am happy to.
I am very happy to discuss that with my hon. Friend and see what we can do. I want to deal with non-financial redress. It is important to recognise that people need support now. The Department is working with the NHS to put in place a range of measures to support the women and their families, alongside action to strengthen the safe prescribing of sodium valproate. In February, on the second anniversary of the Hughes report, the Minister for Secondary Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), set out how the Department is addressing their needs by improving the clinical services and treatment that patients receive, commissioning further research and initiating long-term preventive measures. I would like to update colleagues on those initiatives. First, on the improvements to services and treatment, the number of women who have been prescribed sodium valproate has gone down since 2018, although there is a cohort who have already been affected and require specific treatment. We must ensure that our healthcare system is shaped around their needs and experiences. Shortly after the Government came to office, NHS England began operating the foetal exposure to medicines pilot service in hospitals in Manchester and Newcastle, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre referred. The project is providing multidisciplinary assessments, diagnosis and treatment planning, and its findings will inform the way we do this at a national level. The proposed extension of the pilot project includes setting up a third site and an independent evaluation of the pilot, because we should not be marking our own homework. That should give us the evidence we need to determine whether a nationally commissioned service could be implemented across England. This approach balances the need to improve support for affected individuals <span id="554" class="column-number" data-column-number="554"></span>and families with the requirement to ensure that any future national service is evidence-based, clinically effective and financially sustainable.
Of course I will. I would be very interested in doing that and learning more, and I am sure my office will be in touch with the hon. Gentleman about that. Secondly, on research and development, we are working with clinicians from the pilot and other experts to see how we can improve the services available to affected patients. Finally, on prevention, NHS England and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency have introduced strict measures to minimise valproate exposure during pregnancy, including pregnancy prevention programmes, and prescribing controls and specialist counselling for women who may become pregnant while taking the medication. Let me close by again paying tribute to all the families whose lives have been changed forever by sodium valproate and the other issues that were set out in the Hughes report around pelvic mesh. I hope I have made clear how determined we are to respond to the Hughes report with the urgency and the compassion that those families absolutely deserve.
The Minister knows about my frustration with LGR and the original outcome. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) and the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden) agree that the outcome that came for Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre to merge as one authority was the worst outcome possible, given the challenges that we face in an authority like Blackpool. Will the Minister look at the “minded to” decisions to ensure that if local areas object, they are able to feed in other proposals that were originally on the table and may work better—not just for our area but across Lancashire? On top of that, if local areas want to go back to authorities of 500,000 people, will he look at that?
Yesterday the Chancellor affirmed this Government’s commitment to good growth in every postcode. As the MP for a town that has been neglected by previous Governments, I welcome this investment in communities like mine because it is desperately needed. Through years of austerity and economic decline, places like Blackpool were asked to do more with less, again and again, until there was nothing left to cut. I believe that with the right investment and with local people in the driving seat, no community needs to feel left behind again. Many of my constituents have already welcomed the cost of living measures this Budget set out. A £100 household energy payment for eligible households in council tax bands A to D means 97% of households in my constituency will feel that benefit. Freezing fuel duty rates and extending the 5p cut to July 2027, along with more generous mileage rates for people who use their own vehicles for work, will make a real difference to the Blackpool’s tradesmen and care workers alike. Taken together with a welcome increase in the minimum wage, these tangible changes will have an impact on my constituents’ pockets. However, improving people’s lives also means improving their environment. People want to walk out their front doors and be proud of where they live, not be met by boarded-up buildings. High streets are the beating heart <span id="502" class="column-number" data-column-number="502"></span>of our communities, and hard-working businesses should be able to thrive on them. The derelict buildings fund, announced alongside the Budget, lets us bring prominent long-term vacant buildings back into productive community or commercial use. After campaigning hard in this place for funding to tackle the blight of derelict buildings in Blackpool, I am delighted that we have been allocated £1.35 million from that fund. This is the type of investment we have to make count, and I will be leading on this work locally. I want local residents to tell me the buildings that matter most to them, or the projects to back that have the potential to transform the area. This fund is exactly what we mean when we talk about putting power back into every postcode, and it is another step towards building a better Blackpool. It is right that this Labour Government have now committed more than £40 billion to the biggest house building programme in a generation, with an extra £1.5 billion committed in the Budget. At the end of last year, 11,844 people in Blackpool were waiting for social housing. I therefore urge Ministers not to overlook us, like their predecessors did, and ensure that we get a share of the additional homes to meet the scale of our need. I welcome the Chancellor’s additional £432 million to ensure that people sleeping rough have a route off the streets. Figures from Blackpool council show that applications from people seeking help with homelessness in 2024-25 were running at nearly three times the national average. We must make sure that safe accommodation sits alongside the practical health, addiction and housing support that people need to rebuild their lives and stay off the streets for good. We have fantastic homelessness and outreach organisations across Blackpool, such as Streetlife, whose youth advisory group I welcomed to Parliament last week. They told me that they need wraparound support and for us to see the whole person. Unfortunately, the odds have been stacked against our young people. We face serious concentrations of deprivation and poor health, and high demand on services for children and families. Blackpool currently supports nearly three times the national average of children in care. Despite the immense pressure, Blackpool council has significantly improved its children’s services. We were recently graded outstanding by Ofsted, thanks to the tireless work of frontline staff and dedicated leadership from Councillors Jim Hobson and Kath Benson. The leader of Blackpool council, Councillor Lynn Williams, joined me in urging the Government to commit to a dedicated children and families transformation investment package for Blackpool, so that we can build on the work that has already been done to bring down the numbers of children in care. We stand ready to work with the Government to make our town a national example of prevention-led children’s services reform. I have told this House on numerous occasions that I truly believe that when Blackpool succeeds, Britain succeeds. If we can fix the problems of a town at the sharp end of many statistics, we can fix them anywhere. We are now a town on the cusp of change. We have a wealth of creativity and culture and the ambition to be the city of culture in 2029. That could be the connecting tissue between all the areas of good work being done. In conclusion, breathing room is needed, and this Budget provides some of that, but we must scale up the ambition <span id="503" class="column-number" data-column-number="503"></span>and the speed of the projects. Blackpool’s motto is “Progress”. The town has pioneered so much and has kept moving even through deep spending cuts. We are on the right path; what we need now are a Government who walk with us.
The A259 coast road runs the entire southern length of my constituency, but daily delays on it are a huge frustration, particularly for constituents in Rottingdean, Telscombe and Saltdean. What more can the Minister do to unlock long-promised upgrades to this road, and to finally get Reform-led East Sussex county council to put in the funding and focus needed to get those upgrades over the line?
The Minister will know, because of the many times I have raised it with him and the Secretary of State, that there is still real concern in Peacehaven, Telscombe and East Saltdean, in my constituency, about the proposed merger into Brighton and Hove. Given today’s announcement and the “minded to” decision, can he explain a little more clearly how my constituents can feed in, during the three or four-week period, and how I can ensure their views continue to be heard?
<Question HRSContentId="{6BB54C1C-72D0-4A02-8E3E-0DBE3AC5A7D5}">8. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{4151827B-6C7C-448C-9404-439537B39582}">What recent progress she has made on helping to improve the experience of air passengers through regulation of the aviation industry.</QuestionText> </Question>
If my Harlow constituency was not brilliant enough, we also have an international airport on our doorstep, with Stansted airport providing jobs for over 1,000 people from Harlow and even more on apprenticeships. With the planning application for the expansion of Stansted airport approved, will the Minister put his backing behind this vital project and agree to work with local partners to ensure it really benefits my constituents of Harlow?
<Question HRSContentId="{29A351CF-C238-49B6-A429-6F6C6068B985}">1. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{5419C551-8AEB-46A2-B145-07480682E3E9}">What steps she is taking to support active travel.</QuestionText> </Question>
The Tour de France starts in my constituency in July. Portobello high school’s Girls Gone Cycling project has already got over 70 girls on to bikes, and it is now being extended across Scotland. The grand départ trophy visited Portobello this month to mark the race’s first start in Scotland and to recognise the girls’ excellent work. What are the Government doing to capture that energy and inspire the next generation of cyclists? May I invite Ministers to Edinburgh in this Tour de France year to meet our impressive cyclists?
Bonfire night can be difficult in Edinburgh, and previous years have seen serious disruption and pretty terrifying antisocial behaviour in Niddrie and Craigmillar. I have been working closely with the police for months and with the Hays Community Hub, Sandy’s Community Centre and many other groups across Craigmillar and Niddrie to keep disruption this year to a minimum, backed by £20 million from the UK Government’s Pride in Place funding. Will my right hon. Friend support a debate on how we back community organisations to tackle antisocial behaviour around bonfire night?
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I am so pleased to support a Labour Budget that is backing Scotland and backing Edinburgh, despite the best efforts of the SNP to talk down its benefits and talk down my city. In particular, I welcome the announcement, which is of importance to my constituency, of £18 million for a UK advance chip design academy at Edinburgh University. That is how we build hope for the future. Modern iPhones contain at least a dozen chips designed in Edinburgh, and Edinburgh researchers helped to design a crucial sensor used in iPhone cameras, billions of which are now produced worldwide. Consider this remarkable statistic from historian Chris Miller: last year, in a single year, the semiconductor industry manufactured more chips than humanity had produced of all other manufactured products combined throughout human history. Artificial intelligence might appear digital, but it depends on something profoundly physical: chips, semiconductors and the infrastructure that powers them. We cannot afford to watch from the sidelines while the United States, Taiwan and others lead the field, and thanks to this Budget, Edinburgh will join them in the future.<span id="534" class="column-number" data-column-number="534"></span> I have argued for years that Edinburgh can be one of the great powerhouses of the British economy, provided we have a Government who are willing to back its potential. For too long, however, we have had an SNP Government letting us down at every turn. Edinburgh is the local authority with the lowest funding per head in Scotland, and there are more homeless children in Edinburgh than in the whole of Wales. The SNP Government hoard money in Holyrood and starve Scotland’s capital city. Yesterday, we heard a Labour Chancellor reject that, and make the decisions that will help Edinburgh to thrive. Support for entrepreneurs, start-ups, scale-ups and founders will mean that the innovation of Edinburgh researchers pushes us into the future. The SNP position on Labour’s investment in Scotland is absurd in the extreme. We heard the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan) attack the removal of standing charges from bills, despite having advocated for that policy in this Chamber only months earlier. The Scottish Government’s budget is 12.4% higher, even setting aside new responsibilities. Since Labour came to office, we have delivered £18 billion extra for Scotland’s budget. Where has that money gone? Why are my constituents still facing waiting lists, homelessness and potholes? It is because the SNP Government are so keen to look for grievance that they cannot even work out that they have been given more money. Labour is delivering for Edinburgh. What is holding us back are an SNP Government with no plans, no conception of what Scotland’s capital city can do, and no notion of how to use government to improve people’s lives.
In our era of perma-meta-poly crisis, the decisions the Chancellor has taken to provide our country with a little breathing space will be welcome to many of my constituents. The longer-term question that remains is what we mean by good growth, because, looking back over the last two decades, it has proven perfectly possible for GDP growth to happen, and yet simultaneously for almost everyone’s life to get harder. Our country will drift until politicians can give a meaningful definition of good growth that the whole country can strive for and mobilise around. Fortunately, we do not have to reinvent this wholly anew for ourselves. John Maynard Keynes, the greatest economic mind our country has ever produced, left us many of the answers we have been fumbling for. Nearly 100 years ago, he warned that a focus on the wrong priorities would keep us “for ever in the pit of want”. In other words, chasing the chimera of infinite, exponential increases in consumption completely misses the point of what economic policy should achieve. Since Keynes’s time, there has been nearly a sixfold increase in UK GDP per capita. We have more than enough wealth to ensure that every one of our constituents is meaningfully employed, can afford decent food and is well housed, yet hardship, reliance on food banks and the housing crisis do not just persist but, in many ways, continue to worsen. When Keynes wrote about the economic possibilities for his generation’s grandchildren, I do not think this is what he had in mind. We may have a growing surplus of AI slop, all the poisonous social media one could possibly want to consume, and the jolly good fun of casino capitalism that does not actually produce anything, but we lack safe, comfortable and genuinely affordable homes for millions of people. We lack food that is both affordable and nutritious for all and, almost everywhere outside London, we lack a public transport network that can reliably get us to where we need to be. The reason for that economic failure is straightforward: we have not had the self-confidence and determination to mobilise our enormous resources to meet our fundamental problems. Keynes was right when he argued that we already have all the “resources and technical means” to erase economic need in our country; what we have lacked is the organisation to use them. There are literally trillions of pounds managed by UK pension funds and asset management schemes. If we directed just a fraction of that to investing in our actual priorities, our country could finally hop off the nauseating merry-go-round of chasing growth that endlessly forces us to make trade-offs that have brought our natural world to the brink of collapse. I will end on this. The fundamental fact about all our lives is that they are transient. The promise of consuming more every year than the last is irrelevant to making the most of the time we are each allotted.<span id="533" class="column-number" data-column-number="533"></span>
<Question HRSContentId="{C065D31F-9E25-45C2-A74D-999B97D0516A}">3. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{F81D7570-F040-405E-B47D-B4E4631D26EA}">What steps she is taking to help improve disability access to train stations.</QuestionText> </Question>
I thank the Secretary of State for her answer, but over 1,500 people have signed my petition to make Chepstow station fully accessible. Currently, disabled travellers need to go east into England, cross over a road, get back on a train and travel back through Chepstow to go west to Cardiff, so Chepstow residents were incredibly disappointed that they missed out on the last round of Access for All funding, despite being nearly at the top of the priority list given by the Welsh Government to Westminster. Can the Secretary of State please confirm when the next Access for All round will begin, and when Chepstow station will be fully accessible to residents?
Of course, we all want an efficient, fair, secure and sustainable asylum system. I thank the hon. Gentleman for acknowledging our really good success recently, but how would setting up a new Department help us to speed up those processes and get the asylum system back under control?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for so generously giving way again. We have cut asylum hotel use by 50% since we have been in charge, so we are already having success with the Home Office as it is.
<Question HRSContentId="{8EADEA9F-CAEA-4999-8FCF-934E068DE9BD}">T6. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{7CED1999-72AD-4C5C-8941-B592AED79C22}"></QuestionText>Most of us in Monmouthshire have to rely on our cars for every single journey, so I am over the moon that, following meetings with National Express, it will bring services back to the Monmouth area next week, with coaches stopping at Raglan services, so passengers can travel from Haverfordwest to Birmingham. Will the <span id="432" class="column-number" data-column-number="432"></span>Minister come with me on a journey on the coach so that he can see how important the route is for my constituents?</Question>
Derby built the engines that powered the Spitfire. In the Budget, the Chancellor announced a £2.5 billion joint investment by Government and Rolls-Royce to develop the next generation of aircraft engine, which will support thousands of jobs and should create tens of thousands more in the next decade. Does the Leader of the House agree that this is a brilliant example of our Government rebuilding British industry and working alongside business to deliver skilled jobs and opportunities for young people and to strengthen our economy?
Mr Speaker, I believe that, as I did, you visited the Parkinson’s UK drop-in for MPs yesterday, where it was highlighted that across the country we have a postcode lottery on access to blue badges for people who are suffering from Parkinson’s. May we have a debate in Government time about this postcode lottery, because access to blue badges is a real enabler for people with disabilities to get out and go to work, education, appointments and so on?
I thank the Minister for his statement, but there remains some confusion in Lancashire, so I hope he is able to clarify a few things. Moving away from the different tranches suggests that there is now no timetable for what might happen in Lancashire. Councillors are asking me for clarity on a timetable for Lancashire. I also seek reassurance that the decision means that Lancaster will not lose its city status in any part of the reorganisation, and that the building blocks with which we are making the reorganisation do not have to be strictly borough councils. For example, Wyre borough council, which was already an amalgamation of other councils, might want to look in different directions.
It is not the first time that I have had an Adjournment debate on sodium valproate in my 11-and-a-bit years as a Member of Parliament. It continues to be an issue that affects so many, and for which justice still feels so far away. Given the history of this House debating the topic, I do not intend to spend much time going over the history of the drug, which has been used to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder since the early 1970s. For the benefit of anyone who is tuning in for the first time, I will go over the brief facts of what happened. The drug is teratogenic and was known to be teratogenic from the time it was first licensed. Despite that, doctors were initially advised that the risk did not justify “discouraging a woman who needs anticonvulsant treatment from having a child or changing a satisfactory drug regimen when the epilepsy is well controlled.” The result has been that we have been playing catch-up ever since, with the Valproate Pregnancy Prevention Programme only being launched in 2018, following tireless campaigning from women affected, such as my constituent Janet Williams—who is in the Public Gallery—and her friend and colleague Emma Murphy. It is difficult to calculate the number of children exposed to valproate in utero since its 1973 licensing. The Patient Safety Commissioner has made an estimate of around 14,000 for the period from 1972 to 2017 in England. Diagnosis often gets picked up when clinicians, or in some cases parents, recognise facial dysmorphic features. Children born with foetal valproate spectrum disorder can have a wide range of physical and mental health symptoms, including but not limited to weak muscles, visual problems, hearing difficulties, difficulties with balance, social anxiety, low energy, heightened sensitivity to noise and difficulties in regulating emotions. One of the biggest health conditions facing people with foetal valproate spectrum disorder is autism. A significant number also have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, dyspraxia, sensory processing disorder and epilepsy. It can affect children in very different ways. In some of the most severe cases—I know that the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) has a constituent who is very severely affected—the individual can end up bedbound and very severely disabled. For some children, autism and sensory processing may be more of an issue.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the case of his constituent Karen and her daughter, Bridget. I agree entirely that the time is now. He raises an important point that because this scandal has been going on for so long—the drug was first licensed in the 1970s—the babies who were harmed are no longer babies or even children, but adults with disabilities, whose parents are getting older every year. When I speak to those parents, one of their biggest anxieties is about who will look after their children when they no longer can. That is why we need compensation to be paid out sooner rather than later, because it has frankly already been too long. I turn to the case for compensation. The case for redress from the Government for the families affected by this maladministration has been conclusively made. This is not the first debate we have had in this Chamber on this matter, and there have been multiple reviews on it. In 2020, the Cumberlege review, established by the previous Prime Minister, Theresa May, found that “the state and manufacturers have an ethical responsibility to provide ex gratia payments to those who have experienced avoidable damage”. These payments should be made to cover costs such as “travel to medical appointments, respite breaks or emergency payments where a parent has to stop working to cover care.” I pay tribute to the former Prime Minister for her work on this issue, because she really is a doughty campaigner on this.
I totally agree with my hon. Friend, but I would go further still. For parents of children with additional needs, the last thing they need is to be fighting a national campaign for justice. They already have enough on their plate trying to cope with their child and ensuring they are accessing the support they need without having to run a national campaign, but that has been the reality for many of the parents—primarily mothers—of children who have been harmed by valproate. That is exactly what they have had to go on and do. I turn back to the history of the reviews into this scandal. The Conservative Government initially rejected the recommendation that I have just set out; however, in 2022, they had a change of heart when the then Health Minister, Maria Caulfield, tasked the patient safety commissioner with providing options for financial redress. That felt like a real step forward for the campaign at that point. The commissioner produced the Hughes report in February 2024. It reiterated what we already know. It says: “The Government has a responsibility to create an ex-gratia redress scheme providing financial and non-financial redress for those harmed by valproate”. The Hughes report recommended that the Government create a two-stage—<span id="548" class="column-number" data-column-number="548"></span>
The Hughes report recommended that the Government create a two-stage financial redress scheme, comprising an interim scheme and a main scheme, with the interim payments commencing in 2025. Those who are paying attention will realise that it is now somewhat later than that. The commissioner further recommended that the payments be made by an independent body that commands the confidence of patients. That point is particularly important. The patients who have been harmed have lost so much confidence, so it is really important to have an independent body administering the scheme, to give them confidence in it being done properly. Both the Cumberledge review and the Hughes report stressed the need for speed when responding to this issue. That is to a large extent, as the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) set out, due to the time and nature of the scandal. We now have a cohort of adults with foetal valproate spectrum disorder whose parents are finding it increasingly difficult to support their needs, due to their own health and care requirements. Sadly, over two years on from the Hughes report, the Government have yet to formally respond to it, despite a clear recommendation that interim payments were to have commenced last year. The previous Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), gave a television interview with ITV Granada’s Líse McNally in February this year in which he indicated that he wanted to commence compensation payments before the end of this Parliament. It is therefore troubling that, as set out in answers to parliamentary questions from me and colleagues, the Government’s line today remains that “a decision to provide compensation has not yet been made.” I want to touch on the responses that colleagues and I have been getting to our written parliamentary questions, because they are increasingly frustrating. It almost feels as though, when Ministers see a written parliamentary question come in with the word “valproate” in it, a stock answer gets lifted off the shelf and given to Members. Some victims have told me recently that they feel quite gaslit by some of the answers to written parliamentary questions; they keep referring back to the same answer. We really need to make progress on this issue. Does the Minister understand the considerable distress that such uncertainty and inconsistency causes, and will she today make it unequivocally clear that the Government accept the case for financial redress for the victims of sodium valproate, and put in place a clear timetable for delivering financial redress? My right hon. Friend is a good Minister and will want to do the right thing, but if she needs any more persuading, she can tune into BBC Two at 9 pm on 9 November and watch “Mums v Big Pharma”, which was produced by the <span id="549" class="column-number" data-column-number="549"></span>same people who made the programme about the Post Office scandal. It shows the human cost of the scandal for so many families, some of whom are in the Gallery tonight. The programme is the perspective of two Lancashire mams who have absolutely had enough and are fighting for justice. If I know one thing about Lancashire women, it is that when we have got our teeth into something, we tend to stick at it, and we will persevere. That especially goes for Janet Williams, who has been campaigning for justice since 1996. It really is time that justice was brought forward for these victims. In addition to the conversations I have had with victims of the scandal, I have heard concerns raised by those living in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, who feel that the Government have not engaged as well with victims in the devolved nations. Part of that will be because health is devolved to those nations, but although health is a devolved matter, the regulation of human medicines and medicinal products remains reserved. Those victims, too, deserve to be taken seriously and brought with English victims on that journey towards redress, both financial and non-financial. The Government have previously put in place UK-wide schemes for redress, such as for infected blood, and I know that the Minister is well aware of that. Will the Government therefore commit to working closely with victims from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and with the devolved Administrations, on this matter?
I commend my hon. Friend for the work that she does, along with others, on the Public Accounts Committee. That report is right to stress both independence as a means of giving confidence to victims, and schemes being designed with victims. These families have already had so much done to them that it is important, when it comes to redress, that they are part of designing the solution. Part of redress, and of getting justice, is no longer having things done to them, and instead being part of designing the solution.
I thank my hon. Friend for all the work that she has done over a number of years on this issue. She has been a doughty campaigner on sodium valproate, and she has the confidence of many of the victims and is very well thought of. I entirely agree with what she says about the Hughes report. It is a very good report that should have been acted on already. It is frustrating that we have been waiting as long as we have. There were many things in the report on redress, including on non-financial redress. As part of that, we have the pilot clinics in Manchester and Newcastle, which support children and adults who have been affected by valproate. They are pilots, however, unlike some of the other clinics. In the case of mesh, the clinics are permanent, and they are able to provide psychological support as well. The clinics for the victims of valproate are still in trial, and we do not have any outside the north of England. As a north of England MP, I am very glad that the clinics are local to me, but victims of valproate live right across the United Kingdom, and accessing support should not become a postcode lottery. Will the Government update the House on whether the clinics will be made permanent and perhaps expanded to cover a wider geography? Finally, will the Minister meet me and victims, especially those from the campaign organisation INFACT, to discuss in detail the Government’s long-term intentions in this area? Many of the victims feel that they have been in the dark about what is happening for an awfully long time. We have been in government since 2024, and the time has come; we can no longer drag our feet. Justice needs to be done, and redress needs to be put in place. The families affected are owed no less than that. I am so glad that you are in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you, too, have been a doughty supporter of these victims, and I know that you are fondly thought of, especially by those in the Public Gallery, for your support on this. I am grateful for the interventions from Members on both sides of the House. This truly is an issue that cuts across party politics. Regardless of what colour rosette we wear, we cannot fail to see the injustice that has been done to these families. I would like it to be a Labour Government who deliver redress to these victims. This scandal has been going on since the 1970s. The time for just talking about this has passed—we need to start acting. The families who have been affected are owed nothing less. I hope that in the Minister’s reply, she will give them some hope, because I am told that hope is back. Let us make sure that means something, and let us have some hope from the Dispatch Box tonight.
I seek some clarity. The Minister says that the decision has not yet been made, yet a previous Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), told ITV that he was expecting financial redress by the end of this Parliament. Can the Minister just clarify that, because it seems inconsistent?