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Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,942 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
My constituent Emma has long been committed to achieving justice for people with brain cancer and has been writing to me about it ever since I became an MP. She has highlighted the survival rate of 12.9%. As we have already heard, research funding in this area is very low, at just 1% to 2% of overall cancer research funding. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to increase the research funding to improve that five-year survival rate?
I will start by praising 42 Commando for the planning and execution of what could have been a difficult operation. Today the Ukrainian Speaker, Ruslan Stefanchuk, visited us in Parliament, and the all-party group on Ukraine hosted him. He said that he hoped to see further action on the shadow fleet, including the Arc7, Arctic ready, liquefied natural gas tankers, which are still unsanctioned by the United Kingdom. I also wrote to Minister Doughty, who responded to me—
I wrote to the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty), about the remaining licences for Russian fossil fuels—[Interruption.] And here he is. He said that those licences would be ending in January 2027. Now that the strait of Hormuz is open, could that be finished earlier, because another six months of Russian profiteering from the UK is not acceptable?
9. What steps his Department is taking to expedite road adoption.
Residents in Fossett Grove have been battling for 10 years for the adoption of a piece of land that is strewn with litter. Elsewhere in my constituency, roads are not gritted during the winter months, in Bidwell West we have an area where they cannot get a post box and, where a car crashed into a house, we cannot get any speed humps. What can the Minister do to put pressure on the council to hurry up?
16. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of Pride in Place funding on levels of community cohesion in Aldershot constituency.
Having campaigned hard for investment in my community since becoming a Member of Parliament, I am really proud that the Government have invested £20 million in Cherrywood ward. Will the Minister set out how this Pride in Place funding will help strengthen community ties, give local people a voice in shaping the place they call home, and make a difference to families living in Farnborough?
For the past 18 months, I have been talking to the former Defence Secretary and Ministers across Government as part of my campaign for the UK to co-found the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey) noted in his resignation letter, we need to find different ways to finance our defence industry, and that should include standing with our allies and working internationally. Will the Government listen to calls from across the House to join this world bank for defence as a matter of urgency? We cannot afford for the British defence industry to be locked out of this bank. The charter will be signed at the NATO summit, and the clock is ticking.
May I welcome the Secretary of State to his place? We are looking forward to welcoming him to Aldershot and Farnborough for the national Armed Forces Day celebrations. On behalf of my constituents, I thank the British personnel involved in the operation in the channel for their immense bravery and professionalism. This was a major blow to Putin’s regime, and it underscores the growing Russian threat to European security. Everyone knows about NATO article 5, but the lesser-known NATO article 3 is our commitment to preparedness. Does the Secretary of State agree that we need a total-Government approach to delivering NATO article 3, with every Minister clear on how they can help us to be prepared?
My hon. Friend may know that Aeralis, a British aerospace company seeking to develop a replacement for the Red Arrows, has gone into administration, and the company is in part blaming the delays to the defence investment plan for that terrible outcome. I thank my hon. Friend for the time he has taken with me, looking for opportunities to invest defence spend in my constituency, but can he do more to ensure that the defence investment plan creates good-quality jobs across the country?
In 2022, my constituents at No. 1 London Road in Newcastle-under-Lyme were told that urgent action was needed due to fire safety concerns over the building’s cladding. It is now 2026 and, four years later, that urgent action is yet to begin. Can the Minister set out what steps she will take to ensure that the Building Safety Regulator functions effectively and does not create greater risk through significant delays—delays that have a huge impact on those directly impacted in Newcastle-under-Lyme and across the country?
I acknowledge the service of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey) and others who worked in his office, and I am sorry to see them go. I thank the Minister for his response, but I have to say that this is one heck of a mess. I know how difficult it can be to work with the Treasury, and that there is much we have to do, but my constituents want to know that we will do whatever we must to keep them safe. When I go home on Thursday, how can I tell them that we will do that?
Just when the High North and the Arctic is emerging as one of the world’s most important strategic hotspots, we have witnessed a major UK Government Department disintegrate before our eyes, with the Secretary of State—because of the parsimony of the Treasury—resigning, and taking a junior Minister, the Armed Forces Minister, with him. Why does the Minister think the Prime Minister can convince our NATO allies that he is capable of defending the strategically important Greenland-Iceland-UK gap when he cannot even convince his colleagues that he can?
The SNP welcomes today’s statement addressing what is a clear and growing threat to our children’s wellbeing. The devil will of course be in the detail, but we will work constructively and positively to make sure the measures are meaningful and effective. Platforms such as Roblox, on which games are user-generated with a chat functionality, pose the risk of children being exposed to inappropriate content, online predators and scammers. How will the Government tackle such gaming platforms which are in reality just another form of social media?
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his appointment. I, too, pay credit to the Royal Marines on a job well done, and welcome anything that helps our allies in Ukraine fighting for their freedom. Of course, decisive action against the Russian shadow fleet could and should have been taken much earlier. I do not think that I am being overly cynical in suggesting that there may be a link between the Prime Minister finally sanctioning this operation and the disintegration that we witnessed at the MOD last week. Given that disintegration was entirely due to the failure of the Treasury to adequately fund our conventional forces, does the Secretary of State share my fear that the seizing of unarmed merchant shipping could soon become the limit of the Royal Navy’s surface capability?
I have been told from a reliable source that our Prime Minister, in stark contrast to all other previous modern-day Prime Ministers, has never visited our special forces’ headquarters in Hereford. Is that a reflection of how low down defence is on his priorities list?
I welcome the Secretary of State to his place, and pay tribute and give thanks to our incredible armed forces in the successful seizure of the shadow tanker. It was nice to see the Chancellor alongside the Secretary of State for the first half of this statement. Shall we take from her departure that she is only half committed to funding the defence investment plan?
The defence funding is obviously very late and it will clearly be inadequate as well, but an even greater scandal is surely the fact that the spending itself is so poorly conducted. Our procurement system is slow, wasteful and outdated. The Minister praised them earlier, but does he not accept that the bureaucrats who gave us the Ajax programme cannot command the confidence of the armed forces? Will he acknowledge that the part of the MOD that he oversees is slow and wasteful, procures outdated equipment, and is the most dysfunctional part of the British state?
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and the efforts she is making to protect children and young people from the harms of social media. I welcome her sentiment that social media platforms have more to do and a greater responsibility to keep our children safe. With that in mind, will there be greater consequences for platforms that, for whatever reason, still allow and provide services to children online?
Diolch yn fawr, Mrs Barker; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. It is a privilege to talk today on behalf of my constituents about the impact of living with a brain tumour. They have raised four similar concerns: far too little research, the need to improve therapies, a lack of clinical trials and the preservation of tissue. Improvements in those areas would give those living with brain tumours a fighting chance to survive and thrive. One person who has been able to thrive after her diagnosis is my constituent Mared. Mared was a hugely talented singer-songwriter who went by the stage name of Swci Boscawen. She was 26 when her brain tumour was diagnosed; after receiving surgery, she lost the ability to sing and compose, but in recovery she discovered a passion for art as a form of therapy. She adopted the new name of Swci Delic, and her musical creativity changed to artistic creativity. She lives locally. Her cancer is still there, but she lives a fulfilling life within her physical ability. Her artwork can be seen around Carmarthen town, created with the engagement of local young people. Nathan, who was in school with my daughters, is also living with a brain tumour, and his story is very similar to Mared’s. Both of them started with GP visits because of severe headaches, and both eventually received brain scans that confirmed their diagnosis. My ask of the Minister is very simple: can we please have a greater percentage of funds for brain tumour research, as well as clinical trials and further treatment options for patients, leading to better outcomes for our young people? Today I have been given the privilege of being the voice for Mared, Nathan and others like them, and I hope that the Minister will be able to address their concerns.
Shortly after becoming the MP for my constituency, I was contacted by Jeremy in Wimborne, who lives with his wife in a leasehold flat. In 2023, all the funds from the management company were fraudulently stolen. I have been working with the Financial Services Authority, but have been told that such issues are not covered, and that there is no route to redress via the financial services compensation scheme. While I welcome the draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill, will the Minister commit himself to developing it and working with the Treasury to bring property management companies into scope?
Martin from Wimborne contacted me at the weekend to share his suggestion on funding the defence investment plan. He thinks that the Lib Dem idea of issuing defence bonds is a really sensible one and has told me that, in his view, many people with money in cash ISAs might be tempted to invest if the investment were taken out of their inheritance tax liability. Will the Minister confirm whether discussions are happening about innovative ways to access the capital needed to ensure that the DIP can be fully funded?
On Saturday night, I heard the unmistakeable sound of Chinook helicopters passing over my home in Dorset, en route to intercept the Russian tanker. Whether it is a shadow fleet funding the war against Ukraine, spy ships scanning our seabed, or political interference in our democracy—including the former Reform leader in Wales taking bribes—it is clear that Russia is upping its game. Last week I asked about energy, food and information security, so what assurance can the new Secretary of State give the House about how this situation is being addressed to keep us all safe at home?
It is great to follow the hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards) as I recall my husband losing his two front teeth to a crash helmet in his face, and my nephew Arlo currently has plastic on his teeth having lost his two front teeth at the age of 10 to his little brother. Jonathan, a senior NHS dentist in my constituency, whom I consider to be a true expert, as he has worked for almost 40 years in NHS dentistry, told me that, in 2024, we had a £9 million underspend in our dentistry budget—goodness knows where that has gone—and a freedom of information request has revealed that, this year, £6 million was removed from a supposedly ringfenced budget for dentistry. What is going on in Dorset? The ICBs have arranged for urgent care to be done through NHS 101, but no one knows about it. That means one provider that provided 4,000 appointments last year will deliver only 1,300 this year. Alongside my colleagues, I have been calling for a dental school in Dorset for years. It seems that we may be getting something in Bournemouth, but only for dental technicians, not for dentists, which is not much good to those of us who need complex care. In Poole, we have heard proposals for a centre for complex care for people with disabilities or neurodiversity, but we need £4 million of capital, and no one can tell us where capital for dentistry comes from. So it seems that in Dorset things are in a bit of a mess. We have heard that dentists were told they could have an additional 10% in the number of dental units, but they were not given the information until six weeks before the end of the year, meaning they have no opportunity to spend them. Residents who do have a dentist tell me that their dentists are refusing extractions or anything complicated, instead referring them to the hospital, where they are added to the secondary care waiting list. Why? Because the dentists cannot make enough money from them, and the tax trap apparently means they are reducing their number of hours on the NHS, because the tax treatment of the fees in the private sector means that they are better off doing it that way round. Frankly, it is a complete mess. I welcome the changes that mean dentists have to stay in the NHS for three years, but I do have to ask the question: why should our residents only have junior dentists dealing with their complex care? It is a disgrace that, over the five years to 2024, 100,000 children were admitted to hospital with rotting teeth. This issue is now urgent. We cannot waste any more time, and if it is not addressed, we will continue to lose NHS dentists as quickly as my constituents and our colleagues are losing their teeth.
On behalf of children and parents across the country, we welcome the Government finally taking action to keep children safe online. I know how important this issue has been to the Secretary of State. For almost 18 months, the Liberal Democrats—as the first party to force a vote on the issue—have been pushing for action to raise the digital age of consent and implement doomscrolling caps, health warnings and a film-style age rating to ban harmful social media for under-16s. Today, we welcome the fact that the Government have finally caught up with those calls to act and listened to the parents and tireless campaigners who have worked relentlessly, and often in difficult circumstances. It is just a shame that it does not seem that it was those cries for help from parents and young people, or the mounting evidence, that finally made the Prime Minister act. After months of dither and delay, what has been announced today seems more like a panicked policy cobbled together ahead of a by-election and a Back-Bench rebellion. It is a real disappointment that, in their last-minute rush, the Government have not learned from Australia and other countries about how we can do better and deal with the root causes of online harm. Our Liberal Democrat harms-based approach would deal with addictive algorithms and features, such as from chatbots—not just the romantic companions or therapy bots that the Government have highlighted, although we of course look forward to hearing more about that next month. Our approach is supported by more than 40 charities and experts who stand up for children and a safer online world. It would create a clear framework for new platforms and future harms that have already arrived, whereas Australia is playing a game of whack-a-mole. We can learn to do better, so why have the Government not learned from the experiences of other countries as the Secretary of State said she would? How will the Government protect children from emerging threats and addictive features elsewhere, and not just prevent young people from signing up? How are the Government deciding what platforms will be included? What framework differentiates YouTube from YouTube Kids, for example, and will children still be able to access YouTube without an account, as they can now? What addictive features will be tackled, beyond infinite scroll, and what assurances are there beyond the Government being “strongly minded” to act? We do not mind the Prime Minister borrowing our ideas; we just wish he had borrowed all of them, and sooner. Of course, we continue to offer our services to work together. Our approach would ban harmful social media for under-16s by default and set a new safety standard to make the internet truly a safer place, just like the standards for films and toys that we have had in the offline world for decades. Children are growing up in the attention economy, where their focus is being sold. They deserve a Government who treat this as a seatbelt moment, not a press release for Makerfield. Will the Secretary of State use this opportunity to truly hold the tech giants to account and back a harms-based framework that puts children’s safety at the heart of this quickly changing technological world?
Standing up to Russia, standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine and supporting our military depends on our military infrastructure and our defence manufacturing. However, today a roundtable of advanced manufacturers across the whole supply chain has raised very loud alarm bells about the impact of steel tariffs, especially on category 14 and category 17. The deadline of 1 July is looming. Will the Secretary of State speak with his colleagues, especially those in the Department for Business and Trade, to ensure that those tariffs do not have an inadvertent impact on our defence capabilities at this important time?
6. What steps he is taking to increase the accountability of housing developers.
Constituents of mine living on the Kingsley Farm development have spent months chasing the developer, Stonebridge Homes, to finish elements of the estate that were agreed and outlined in the planning permission when it was granted. Residents of The Willows now find themselves in the exact same situation with the same developer. This is an issue not just in North Yorkshire, but across the country. My mum, a councillor in the neighbouring local authority, has outlined issues in her patch—in both Knottingley and Normanton—where developers are clearly taking residents and customers for a ride. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to give local authorities the additional powers they need and to ensure that they use them?
The UK is home to world-leading and award-winning game studios, and some games rely on multi-player communication; it is a core part of their design. The Secretary of State was talking about banning particular features and functions. Can she elaborate on whether the Government have conducted an assessment of the impact that this might have on UK game studios?
It is an honour to serve under your guidance, Mrs Barker. In April 2025, my constituent Phil was diagnosed with aggressive, incurable glioblastoma. Due to the tumour’s location, surgery was not possible, and Phil was given a prognosis of just 12 to 18 months. As parents of two young children, Phil and his wife found themselves navigating a complex system and researching treatments, clinical trials and emerging therapies, and doing so pretty much on their own. Despite evidence suggesting that immunotherapy could help Phil, NHS funding for treatment was denied, and he could only access it through his own tenacity and pharmaceutical company support. Phil’s experience is typical for brain cancer patients, represented by everyone here and beyond: limited treatment options, barriers to clinical trials and being forced to fight your own corner to get anywhere at all. I thank Phil and his family for sharing his story with me and allowing me to share it with you, Chair, and with the Minister. I also thank the 1,241 people who signed the petition in my constituency, many of whom are directly affected. Alongside everybody here, we simply ask that the Government deliver the full funding promised for brain tumour research. Given that only 12% of patients get to participate in trials, we also ask the Government to ensure comprehensive access to those trials for Phil and for everyone.
How will the Minister stop developers using viability assessments to wriggle out of providing affordable homes for communities such as mine in Westmorland, where an agreement for 12 affordable houses to be delivered in Allithwaite near Grange-over Sands has been torn up and the council has no power to stop it? Will he help us?
The sluggish and unambitious delivery of the defence investment plan is not the only threat to our security. Given that we have Russian ships threatening our cables and such like, does the Minister agree that the fact that the United Kingdom is reliant on imports for 45% of its food supply is no longer an economic convenience but a national security liability? Does he also recognise that England is now the only country in the UK, and the only country in Europe, that does not directly support its farmers to produce food? Is that not a threat to our national security, too?
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement—it was brilliant. May I raise concerns about historical data held by social media companies? Has she thought about what powers she, and parents and carers, might hold to invoke something like the right to be forgotten, in order to ensure that children’s records and data footprints are destroyed, if that is what is wanted, and the social media companies’ memories are wiped, with a real penalty enforced if they do not comply?
I welcome the Defence Secretary to his position and thank him for his statement. Sanctions are ineffective unless they are fully enforced, and I join the Lib Dem spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (James MacCleary), in pointing out that we cannot allow loopholes to undermine our sanctions regime against Putin’s war machine. Numerous shell companies, as well as flags, are used as shields to disguise operational control of Russia’s shadow fleet, but Russia is also making extensive use of non-military, dual-use manufacturing and the global commercial supply chain to support its war. What action is the Secretary of State taking to prevent Russia using dual-use manufacturing; to boost the UK’s manufacturing expertise, so that it can identify potential dual use, and prevent Russia using commercial supply infrastructure to support its war; and to ensure sanctions are fully enforced?
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) for securing this debate. I welcome the fact that the Government have decided to tie in newly qualified dentists so that they work in the NHS for three years, but does my hon. Friend agree that since that only starts next year, and the crisis is now, we should be starting that measure in September 2026, not waiting until September 2027?
I cannot understand why we have to wait an extra year to introduce that provision. It will take three years, while those students are in college, for it to actually kick in, will it not? I am wondering why the Minister does not introduce the measure in September this year, with the new dental students.
T2. The Government’s proposed high-value council tax surcharge will be collected by councils but retained by the Treasury. If councils neither control the charge nor keep the revenue, why is it being called a council tax? Will the Minister commit to changing this misleading policy title? Given that most of the revenue from the surcharge will be raised in London, will the Government ensure that a fair proportion is reinvested in the capital?
I congratulate the Secretary of State for Defence on his appointment. Given his experience as Security Minister, few Members of the House understand the threats better than he does. It was welcome to learn last Friday that the Government have committed to banning imports of diesel and jet fuel made from Russian oil by 1 January, and it was impressive to see a shadow fleet vessel interdicted in the English channel this weekend. Given that that is one of 550 sanctioned shadow fleet vessels, does the Secretary of State think that the Government would do well to revoke the licence to import diesel and jet fuel made from Russian oil before the end of this year?
I pay credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) for working with the Backbench Business Committee to secure this debate. He knows that the south-west is the worst-affected region for NHS dentistry—according to NHS data from March 2025, fewer than one in three adults in the south-west had seen a dentist in the previous two years. That is the lowest rate of any region, and a full 14 percentage points below the north-east or the north-west of England. When people cannot access a dentist, they end up in an acute hospital. In 2023-24, one in every 460 people in the south-west went to accident and emergency for a dental problem; that is almost twice as common as in London, where the figure was one in every 860 people. The south-west has the highest vacancy rate for NHS dentists in the country, at 22%, and it also has one of the lowest ratios of full-time dentists to head of population. Despite the Government’s pledges and dental plans, little has changed on the ground. In 2025, just 38% of adults in Devon had been seen by a dentist in the previous two years. That is down from 54% a decade ago. Only 47% of children in the county had seen a dentist in the previous 12 months—down from 61% a decade ago. Those who cannot afford private dental treatment are often left with no choice but to let their children go without care for years. We must move towards a preventive model of dentistry. Affordable, routine check-ups can catch problems early, saving the NHS the greater cost of emergency care later. I want to give the example of Ken from Northleigh. Ken is a pensioner. He has dentures that no longer fit, and with no NHS dentists accepting patients in our area, he went to a local private dentist. That dentist told him that it would cost £800 to prepare his mouth and a further £3,000 for the new dentures. Ken is lucky—he has savings; he can afford to pay—but how could anybody on the state pension ever afford such a price? The last Conservative Government proposed targeted recruitment incentives, or golden hellos. However, the local democracy reporter Bradley Gerrard discovered that only one had been taken up in Devon in November 2024. Let us properly fund the training and retention of dental professionals. No one should end up in A&E because they cannot get seen by a dentist. The Government say that they are serious about fixing the system; let us see it on the ground in our constituencies.
I have been contacted by constituents on behalf of young adults and children who are fighting for access to treatment. I am afraid that this all became far too real for me this time last year, when a dear friend of mine was diagnosed with glioblastoma; they are now in palliative care, probably with only a short time to live. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need to boost Government funding into research? As he said, too many companies think that this is just too hard to do, so we need a Government initiative, in partnership with the amazing life sciences innovators in our universities up and down the country, as well as those in industry, to really crack this problem so that families do not face this devastation year after year.