Advanced Manufacturing
4. What recent steps his Department has taken to support the advanced manufacturing sector.
Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,868 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
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Advanced Manufacturing
The Secretary of State will know very well that Glasgow South West is home to a storied, nationally significant collection of advanced manufacturing, from Type 26 frigate construction at BAE Systems, to small satellites at Craft Prospect, to the maritime supply chain at the Malin Group. What conversations is the Secretary of State having with businesses in Glasgow and Glasgow South West specifically about how we can grow this advanced manufacturing base, so that Glasgow can play its full part in Britain’s reindustrialisation?
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Health Bill (Tenth sitting)
I am very interested in the increase in the number of people waiting for mental health care, particularly mental health assessments. Does the hon. Member think that that is because the funding is inadequate, or is there some other reason why the waiting list numbers have been shooting up?
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Health Bill (Tenth sitting)
We are talking about investing in mental health services, and we should consider more widely the causes of the mental health disorders that we are having to approach. If we are spending public money, we may be better off spending it on dealing with the causes of mental health problems rather than the consequences.
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Business of the House
On Sunday, I was delighted to attend a teatime event with the Fulford community choir. It was an uplifting and joyous event, and I congratulate Gail Sullivan, Wendy Godfrey, Dan Hollinghurst, Rowena Davies and all the volunteers and musicians who helped organise the event. Does the Leader of the House agree that choirs and community events, such as the one at Fulford village hall, do so much to improve mental health, tackle loneliness, and strengthen our communities and villages, such as Fulford?
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Historical Forced Adoption
I thank the Prime Minister for his really heartfelt statement—I think everybody here could feel that. Does he agree that we must recognise that a lack of empathy and dehumanising approach was adopted in this practice? I am minded that the statement “Don’t judge someone before you walk in their shoes” should apply. Unfortunately, in some service areas, we do not apply that principle, and it is demonising and dehumanising people. We need to recognise and support our common humanity.
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Health Bill (Eleventh sitting)
As ever, it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I have listened very carefully to people’s speeches, and it is important to say that we are debating that clause 47 stand part of the Bill. The clause creates the single patient record and, while many Opposition Members have justifiably and understandably asked how we will do this right and what safeguards we will have, it is important that what we are debating is that the clause stand part of the Bill. The clause creates the single patient record, and it creates the overarching ability for the NHS to use data better than it currently does. I am not a data scientist. I am a physicist by training, and I taught physics and worked in trade unions for a long time. Because of my training and my use of data, every group of people I have ever worked with invariably came up with nicknames for me, which usually boil down to “Data Dave”. There is something so valuable about being able to use aggregated values to tell us something that we do not already know. One of the most valuable things we may get from this is that, when a clinician talks to a patient and they say or present something that does not match what is on the single patient record, it will raise a red flag that leads the clinician to realise something they would not have realised if they did not have access to notes previously taken elsewhere. I genuinely think that is one of the most valuable things that will come from this. On a wider stage, the ability to aggregate data and properly track what is going on within the health service, and for people to be able to track what is going on with their care, with a wider view of what is going on, will be so valuable to clinicians and wider afield.
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Health Bill (Eleventh sitting)
I am not entirely certain that I want to agree with “one of” the most valuable datasets in the world; I think it could potentially be the most valuable dataset in the world. We know that the NHS is the largest healthcare provider in the world. We know that the data is potentially very valuable. Creating this will allow our NHS to be at the forefront of managing how it works, in a way that no other health system will be able to, and certainly to a scale that no other health system anywhere in the world will be able to. That obviously comes with risks. I have been listening carefully, and it is important that we tease out those risks and make sure that we stay as red hot as we can on all the issues that hon. Members have raised. I go back to the salient point of whether this clause should stand part. I fully support that this measure should be part of the Bill and that we should be moving in this direction. I have spoken about the more global ideas and the reasons why, intellectually, I think this is a good idea, but let me take an example from my home county of Staffordshire up in the west midlands. There are reports that one hospital in Staffordshire uses 450 different electronic systems, which is absolutely bananas. For so long, we have not had a single patient record. We have not had one unifying system. Over a cup of tea with the Minister a couple of days ago, I got very excited and started talking about primary keys because, although I am not a data scientist, I like the use of data. I do not think we need to get into a situation where there is a single primary key that is instantly recognisable to everybody and where we are necessarily using some machine learning to assess that. That could potentially come later down the line. That is not what the clause is doing, and it would need a much wider discussion than we are currently having. If we take the example of Staffordshire and its 450 different data systems in one hospital—I do not know that number for certain, although it has been reported to me by two or three colleagues—I cannot imagine the difficulties that the IT team has in trying to get that number of systems to talk to each other. It will be nigh on impossible. All it leads to is delays. All it leads to is people having to reproduce data from one system to another manually. By creating an overarching single patient record, we will force it to happen.
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Health Bill (Eleventh sitting)
I appreciate the intervention, and it is nice for the hon. Member to get me back after I got him the other week. He is absolutely right. I do not think anybody in this room expects that after we have this discussion and the clause forms part of the Bill, and after the Bill goes through the parliamentary process and hopefully becomes an Act very soon, the next day there will instantly be this magical, ethereal thing called a single patient record and everything will drop into place immediately. I have a bridge to sell to anybody who thinks that. What the clause does is put the NHS on a path to being able to deal with data appropriately, in a 21st-century way, by adding the ability and requirement for the NHS to use data appropriately. In terms of how that is done technically, I am very far from a computer programmer—I have done a tiny bit in parts of my life, and it always drives me absolutely wild—but there would be a number of architectures that could be used to make this work. I am not an expert and would not profess to be or to give anybody advice on that. An advantage of the way the Bill is written is that things can be picked up by secondary legislation, which can go into a lot more technical detail. That is a real strength of how this is drafted. If we tried to mandate in primary legislation, in an Act of Parliament, far too granular a level of data science and information technology architecture, we would run a real risk of falling behind. Everybody is very aware of AI, and it is rare that I go a day without hearing people talk about it. Quantum is just behind it, and it is potentially much more disruptive and much more beneficial to huge parts of the economy, especially healthcare. Trying to do everything through primary legislation is absolute folly. However, making sure we have primary legislation that allows us to drive the NHS into this space and to require and enable the NHS to stay on top of the proper use of data and to modernise its structures and practices can only be a good thing. I close by saying that I absolutely support clause 47 standing part of the Bill. It has the potential to drive huge improvements in the NHS, both on a local scale and on a more global scale.
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Health Bill (Eleventh sitting)
The phone analogy is really valuable. I am not an expert on the various architectures that make up phone operating systems, but I know a little about drivers and a little about computer programming languages. The hon. Gentleman is right that all the different bits of hardware in every single phone speak to themselves in a different language. Lots of them use different computer programming languages, and they all require drivers to translate that into whatever the operating system uses. There are two or three major providers when it comes to mobile phones in the UK: Google and Android, and iOS. There is effectively a requirement on the phone companies that says, “If you want your app to be on our phones, it’s going to have to be able to use this language.” Depending on the operating system, the language will be slightly different, but the commercial requirement that apps must be able to use a certain language obliges the individual app producers and the individual pieces of hardware to have the driver to translate whatever language they use to talk to themselves into the one that works with the operating system. Does the hon. Gentleman think there is a parallel in the Bill? Having a piece of legislation that requires a single patient record, whatever that looks like and whatever language it uses, potentially shortcuts some of the problems he is talking about with using a plethora of systems. Rather than having 450 systems, which could potentially use 450 languages, and trying to teach all of them all 450 languages, we create the requirement to use a specific language. We then teach all 450 one additional language and they will all be able to feed in—
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Health Bill (Eleventh sitting)
Apologies.
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Health Bill (Eleventh sitting)
I don’t know about that!
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Commonhold and Leasehold Reform: Managing Agents
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) and the members of her Committee for their excellent pre-legislative scrutiny work, which we have heard about today. Since becoming an MP, one of the most common issues I hear from my constituents is the poor quality of service provided by managing agents to local leaseholders. When the boilers broke at Walsham Court and Hinds Court last November, residents tried to contact Anthem, but to no avail, and they were left without water for four weeks. Middlesex House residents were left without water for days, without extra support and supplies, until my office intervened. At Armstrong House, FirstPort has let the quality of communal areas deteriorate to a shockingly poor extent. I could go on for hours, but I have only three minutes to go. As Members have said, there are countless examples of service failure from managing agents. I welcome the Minister’s actions to date, and the proposals in the draft Bill to cap exploitative ground rents, which will save thousands of pounds over the lifetime of leases, pushing for service charge reform and transparency, and pushing for commonhold as the default form of tenure. These are long overdue changes. However, having seen these cases at first hand, I know that more is needed. My ten-minute rule Bill in the last Session proposed the establishment of an independent regulator of managing agents, modelled on the excellent recommendations of Lord Best’s 2019 report. I understand that the Government are willing to move on mandatory qualifications for managing agents—again, that is welcome —but I am concerned that, without an independent regulator to enforce codes of conduct and ensure we can reap the benefits of those qualifications, that will be of little benefit to many leaseholders. Furthermore, without a dedicated regulator, the burden of enforcement will continue to fall on individual leaseholders—and, in future, commonholders—to take up lengthy and expensive legal action to hold their managing agents to account. Three key benefits show why a managing agent regulator is desirable. First, good regulation is good for markets, and I think this will help growth, not hinder it. There are significant costs and financial waste in the current system, and the leasehold brand has been exceptionally damaged by the poor behaviour of managing agents. A regulator has the chance to restore confidence in leasehold and commonhold in the future. Secondly, introducing a regulator for managing agents would help ensure the success of the commonhold tenure. The need for managing agents will not go away with the introduction of commonhold. Thirdly, introducing a regulator for managing agents is strongly supported by those in the system, the customer—the leaseholder—and also the provider of services themselves. As the Chair of the Select Committee has mentioned, leaseholders overwhelmingly responded to the survey that they want to see this change, and the Property Institute, RICS and even the managing directors of FirstPort and Rendall & Rittner are all supportive of the need for more effective regulation and a regulator of managing agents. Those in the industry understand that there is nothing to gain from the poor behaviour of some undermining the good behaviour of many more. Yes, we need to take forward the existing important proposals in the draft Bill, but the time for the regulation of managing agents is now—in this Bill. It is vital that something is done and is clearly seen to be done before the next election for existing leaseholders struggling day in and day out with rogue managing agents. The establishment of a regulator would be a clear signal to existing leaseholders that we are serious about protecting them, as well as a signal to the property and construction sectors that this Government are focused on restoring stability to the housing market and, crucially, calling time on the poor practice of rogue managing agents, which are far too common in our system, finally fulfilling the promise of ending fleecehold for good.
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Heart Disease and Stroke: Premature Deaths
Gentlemen may take off their jackets off if they wish.
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Heart Disease and Stroke: Premature Deaths
I remind Members to bob if they wish to be called in the debate.
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Heart Disease and Stroke: Premature Deaths
I call Mark Francois.
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Heart Disease and Stroke: Premature Deaths
I call Paul Foster to wind up, very quickly.
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Business of the House
St Helier hospital has the fourth best maternity unit in the country, the only exclusively NHS-run assisted conception unit in south-west London, and a specialist gynaecology ward where nurses are highly trained in counselling. Yet all that is set to close next May because of the need for emergency repairs. Could the Leader of the House find time for a debate on those vital services, and whether they be temporarily relocated somewhere else on the St Helier site and returned to the current building on completion of the repairs?
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Historical Forced Adoption
I echo the Prime Minister’s powerful tribute to the women—the mothers—and the families who suffered and struggled for so long for this apology, and who suffer still the legacy of such state failure and, indeed, state cruelty. It shames us, but never them. The moral outrage targeted against unmarried mothers has largely passed, but the Prime Minister spoke about the lack of compassion that enabled the state cruelty; still today, we too often see, increasingly in bureaucratic processes, in technology and in under-resourced state capability, a lack of compassion and understanding. What can the Prime Minister say to reassure us that action can be taken to ensure humanity and compassion from the state?
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Commonhold and Leasehold Reform: Managing Agents
Will my hon. Friend give way?
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Commonhold and Leasehold Reform: Managing Agents
My hon. Friend has mentioned a number of times that nobody should be left behind by this legislation. My constituents suffer from the actions of the St Mary Magdalene and Holy Jesus Trust, a supposed charity that refuses to allow them to extend their leases and is using a loophole in the current legislation, leaving them—as one constituent put it—as prisoners in their current homes. Does my hon. Friend agree that the legislation should address those concerns and liberate my constituents?
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Air Pollution
I want to bring in the Front Benchers at 3.58 pm, so Members can work out for themselves that it is roughly seven minutes for each Back Bencher who is on their feet.
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Air Pollution
Order. Obviously, this is meant to be a brief summing up by the hon. Gentleman—
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Air Pollution
There is certainly not scope for giving way in his couple of minutes for summing up.
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Unpaid Carers: Workplace Support
9. What steps his Department is taking to help support unpaid carers in the workplace.
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Unpaid Carers: Workplace Support
I thank the Minister for her commitment to unpaid carers. I speak to unpaid carers across my constituency all the time, and I personally thank them for all that they do in caring for loved ones and in the wider community. However, so many unpaid carers I speak to tell me that they struggle to hold down a job, and many of them have had to give up really important careers. I absolutely welcome the Government’s commitment to a review, which has the potential to be absolutely transformative, but does the Minister agree that we must continue to support unpaid carers in Harlow and beyond?
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Historical Forced Adoption
I thank the Prime Minister for coming here with this heartfelt apology. I also thank all the campaigners for being here today and for the evidence they gave to the Education Committee. I was proud to be on the Committee when we reopened this inquiry. I pay tribute to the Chair of the Select Committee, to my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for her work, and to the Ministers. We heard compelling evidence from mothers whose babies were so cruelly ripped away from them, as many have described, and from those who were adopted—I see Sally in the Gallery; she spoke about a feeling of not belonging. Does the Prime Minister agree that supporting the victims of this terrible injustice is about supporting not just the mothers, but the babies, now adults, who were adopted?
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Supply Chain Security
2. What assessment he has made with Cabinet colleagues of the adequacy of the security of UK supply chains.
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Supply Chain Security
We have already seen the vulnerability of our economy to global supply chain shocks from the impact of wars on food, fuel and fertiliser prices, but scientists now warn that we are likely to be heading into a super El Niño—a global heating event that will trigger extreme weather around the world, threatening fish stocks and agriculture, disrupting the Panama canal and bringing climate-induced fires that destroy vital timber supplies. How are Ministers preparing for those risks?
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Supply Chain Security
Resilience is vital in all our supply chains. That is why we have launched the supply chain centre, which will help to strengthen that resilience. War, extreme environmental events and the deliberate or accidental closure of shipping routes can affect everything from agriculture to construction in the UK. We want to do everything we can to predict, assess, minimise and mitigate those risks.
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Supply Chain Security
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise El Niño. We believe that it has already started, and we are conscious of the issues that may arise from it. We are closely monitoring it and trying to ensure that we have resilient policies in place in every single sector, including agriculture and fisheries. I should underline that the launch of the supply chain centre is an important moment for us. For the first time, we will have a body that can anticipate future supply risks, identify the inputs the UK needs, build domestic resilience and foster resilience through global partnerships. Those are important ways of ensuring that the UK has strong supply chains.
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Supply Chain Security
We are doing that all the time, and that is why we bring the issue of resilient supply chains into consideration in all our international trading relationships. For instance, particularly important to Northern Ireland is our relationship with the European Union, to which the hon. Gentleman referred in mentioning the Windsor framework. I am keen to ensure that resilient supply chains are looked at in the relationship between the EU and the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, because it is not just what happens on the continent of Europe that is important; it could be what happens in the Gulf or the situation in Ukraine, which had dramatic effects on supplies of fertiliser around the world. We take specific action to ensure that we guarantee those supply chains.
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Supply Chain Security
What is really important is the work that the Department for Business and Trade does in knitting together all our different policies—for instance the trade strategy, which looks at these issues, the critical minerals strategy, the small business strategy and the industrial strategy. All those need to mesh together. One of the key things we have done is to produce, for the first time, a growth-driving inputs list that specifies the particular elements that are vital for SMEs’ growth into the future. That is precisely the kind of action that a Government need to take to guarantee economic growth for the future.
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Supply Chain Security
What’s wrong with interpretive dance?
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Supply Chain Security
I know from my constituency and across south Wales how important it is to have a defence investment plan that delivers jobs across the whole of the United Kingdom. One of my anxieties about the previous Government was that they refused to take action either to invest in our armed forces or to ensure that we were able to produce things in the UK, rather than relying, for instance, on steel to produce everything that our armed forces need. That is why we introduced our steel trade measures earlier this week. And there is nothing wrong with interpretive dance, Mr Speaker. As you know, the creative industries are an important part of our economic future, with 5% growth under this Labour Government.
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Trade with Europe
We are taking two steps to try to drive up our trade with Europe. First, we are seeking bilateral wins with individual countries like the small modular reactors deal that has just been done by Rolls-Royce in Sweden, or opening up the pilot digital trade corridors that we have with Germany and France. We are also seeking to renegotiate a reset with the European Union as a whole. In the words of the Sugababes, we stand ready to “Push the Button”.
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Trade with Europe
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, not least because in the most recent figures, our trade in goods with Europe has fallen by 2% in the last year, whereas our trade in services has grown by 7%.[Official Report, 14 July 2026; Vol. 789, c. 12WC.] (Correction). All of this shows what a shockingly appalling, shameful, despicable deal was done by the previous Government with the European Union. It was bad enough leaving, but the terms on which they left were absolutely appalling for British businesses. We are determined to turn that around, and we will.
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Trade with Europe
I want to recruit the hon. Lady to my campaign to make sure we end up with a better deal with the European Union, so that UK farmers can export easily and readily into the European Union and we can get goods from across the rest of Europe into the UK easily. So many sectors are affected. I sat down yesterday with Tracy Emin, one of the world’s greatest artists, who explained to me the problems since Brexit in bringing artworks in and out of the European Union from the UK. Resolving those problems is an important part of ensuring that we remain the second biggest art market in the world—again, part of the creative industries, which we should be supporting.
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Trade with Europe
I do agree on the broad principles, but the Lib Dems were part of the coalition Government who created the momentum toward the Brexit referendum in the first place, so I am not going to sign up to any Liberal Democrat campaign. We are going to make sure that we reset the relationship with the European Union.
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Youth Employment
Give us the opening line!