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1. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Lincoln Jopp

   Future of British Horseracing

   The hon. Member makes a very good point. I think Europe’s largest antiques fair happens at Kempton Park racecourse twice every month. I have been around it and met stallholders who travel from Germany and France. It is absolutely enormous and produces oodles of cash for the Jockey Club—I cannot understand why the Jockey Club would want to sell the family silver. How can we save our racecourses? First, everyone should be going racing. It is a bit like the local pub—use it or lose it. Secondly, we need to educate a lot of people about horseracing, so that things like planning applications are considered from a position of understanding. I am obviously doing my bit by advocating as much as possible.

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2. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Lincoln Jopp

   Future of British Horseracing

   The hon. Member reminds me that I, too, should declare that I am a member of the APPG, and that he is my chair. I received the following email from Kerry Lee: “I am writing to express my full support for your opposition to the proposed redevelopment of Kempton Park Racecourse and to thank you for securing Tuesday's debate. Kempton is far more than a racecourse. Since opening in 1878, it has become part of Britain’s sporting and cultural heritage. It is one of the country’s few truly year-round racecourses, staging over 70 fixtures annually through its all-weather track while also hosting the prestigious King George VI Chase and some of the finest jump racing in the world. It is nationally significant sporting infrastructure”. She goes on to say, to the point made by the hon. Member for Liverpool Walton (Dan Carden), that it is “an internationally recognised venue and a major economic asset that, once lost, can never be replaced. Locally, it supports jobs and generates substantial spending for hospitality, retail, transport and many other businesses, while providing valuable green space. Nationally, it underpins an industry supporting tens of thousands of jobs”, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) pointed out, “across racing, agriculture, veterinary services, transport, media, tourism, hospitality and countless rural businesses. Internationally, it strengthens Britain’s reputation as a global leader in horse racing, attracting overseas owners, investment and visitors…This debate is about far more than one racecourse. It is about protecting jobs, heritage, tourism, green space and one of the most successful global industries. Once Kempton is lost, it is lost forever”— I will continue with these quotations until Members get bored or intervene.

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3. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Lincoln Jopp

   Future of British Horseracing

   I think the hon. Member was being kind to me there, as much as anything else. I thank him for his point, and he is right. Everywhere I have lived, I have gone to the races. I used to go to Perth races; when I was in the Army, I used to go to Catterick races. The racecourse is part of the experience of a place. This is from Alan King at Barbury Castle stables: “I have run horses at Kempton Park for over 25 years, training over 100 winners. In my opinion Kempton is in the top four of British Racecourses. It is a very fair track and attracts top class horses in both National Hunt and Flat Racing. Its other huge attraction is that it produces decent going mid-winter which is the only southern track that provides this. I think it is irreplaceable.” This is from Philip and Sarah Hobbs: “As a trainer of National Hunt horses for 40 years I am very opposed to Kempton Racecourse closing down to build houses. It is the home of the King George on Boxing day as well as plenty of other important races, and is very free draining maintaining good ground in the winter. It also has a place providing plenty of opportunities for flat horses on the all-weather circuit.”

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4. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Lincoln Jopp

   Future of British Horseracing

   The hon. Member speaks with passion about animal and horse safety. I do not know a single owner, trainer or jockey, or anyone involved with horses, who does not care deeply for them. At Kempton Park, I have been struck by the extensive lengths the racecourse goes to in redesigning fences and barriers to ensure that animal welfare—horse welfare—is a very high priority. I did not see the incident the hon. Member referred to, but I take it on trust that the industry cares deeply for its animals, which are both highly prized and very expensive. This is from Martin Fetherston-Godley: “Dear Mr Jopp…As a former racehorse trainer, I am very concerned to hear that one of our premier racecourses could…be sold for redevelopment. Kempton, with its all weather track, offers valuable opportunities all year round to flat racing owners and trainers and hosts some of the most important races in the jump racing calendar. With its proximity to London and its good transport links it is also a highly valued local amenity. I would like to add my voice and support to preserving Kempton Park’s status as a racecourse.” I would not like hon. Members to think that I was in any way scraping the barrel by now. Mr Russell Grant—he was not in horseracing, but I believe he is the nation’s favourite astrologer—said: “Good morning…Someone has just told me that” you are “leading a campaign regarding the proposed development of Kempton Park. Is this true they want to build over the racecourse? Do let me know if I can help. Kempton Park is one of the four jewels in the Middlesex sporting crown.” Another email states: “Good afternoon Lincoln, I have read the article in the Racing Post today regarding the application that Barratt Redrow intend to make for Planning Consent on the land at Kempton Racecourse. With the closure of Chelmsford, the importance of retaining Kempton as a dual purpose racecourse providing owners with All Weather racing all year round and National Hunt racing during the winter, within easy access of Central London, has become even more important. I have horses in training in Lambourn for both the Flat and National Hunt, where for the latter Kempton is probably the best drained and fairest course in the United Kingdom, rarely impacted by adverse weather. I understand the house builder’s option to purchase the course expires in 2028, which suggests that it is likely to be exercised within the next year. The Council should resist any Consent which would mean that Kempton Park has to close for racing as it is not only Green Belt, but also a course supported by all owners and trainers, providing employment for many”. I am not going to continue with these quotations—I think the Minister and hon. Members have got the message. I was really surprised when I reached out to horseracing, because I thought it would speak with 50 or 60 different voices, but the whole of horseracing—with the exception of the Jockey Club—appears totally united by the notion that we must save Kempton Park racecourse from development. The Minister may be concerned that I am being a nimby, but I can reassure her that if she wants to build homes in Spelthorne, I can show her other places that are not on iconic racecourses, green belt and partial floodplain. I hope I have given her enough political ammunition so that she can go away, make some inquiries and ensure that if this planning application ever sees the light of day, strong signals could be sent to Barratt Redrow about its ultimate lack of success. If it wants housing in Spelthorne, I can direct it elsewhere.

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5. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Lincoln Jopp

   Future of British Horseracing

   I am grateful to the hon. Member for Doncaster Central (Sally Jameson), my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey), the hon. Members for Liverpool Walton (Dan Carden), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane), as well as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire), and our own resident expert, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French). I am grateful for the Minister’s reply. I took great note of what she said, and I hope they were also listening to it in the boardroom of Barratt Redrow. I look forward to rereading her words tomorrow, because they told a very large story. I also thank all of racing who have come in behind this campaign to save Kempton Park racecourse and the members of the public, including my own residents, a number of whom have come up here today, and those from racing more widely. I hope that racing is reassured that the expert voices that have been given airtime today show that there are some very fierce advocates for horseracing, and we look forward to it having a bright future. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the future of British horseracing.

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6. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·John Lamont

   Topical Questions

   T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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7. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·John Lamont

   Topical Questions

   The cost of heating oil remains a major concern for many residents in the Borders, particularly as families plan for the autumn and winter. The Government promised to cut energy bills by £300, yet since they took office, bills have risen by £300. What more will the Government do to support households in rural communities who rely on heating oil to keep warm?

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8. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·John Glen

   Summer Jobs

   Will the Minister give way?

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9. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·John Glen

   Summer Jobs

   I recognise that the Minister wants to come to what the Government are going to do, but does he not accept that the decisions already made in the last two years—with respect to the price of employment and the national living wage, the cost of employment with regard to legislation, and business rates—have depressed the appetite of many small businesses to employ more people? Regardless of the strategic changes around the Milburn review, which I accept need to be evidence based, those decisions have had a chilling effect on the capacity of the economy to employ young people.

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10. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·John Glen

    Summer Jobs

    My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. In responding to me, the Minister pointed out that it was necessary to increase the national living wage so that everyone had enough money, which is obviously a reasonable point to make. Does my hon. Friend feel that the pace at which that was done—it increased faster than the rate of inflation—has caused a situation in which some young people will no longer have the jobs that they could have otherwise expected?

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11. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·John Cooper

    Early Release of Prisoners

    The Scottish Government famously take no lessons from anyone, but perhaps in sentencing we might learn something from them, because they are in the grip of soft-touch-justice fever. There is a warning from Scotland about rapists and sex offenders, because rapists there will be set free more than two years early under the latest expansion of that soft-touch-justice approach, as the Scottish Government fail to grip the prison places crisis. The average jail time served by people who are guilty of rape will be reduced by more than two years and four months as a result of Scottish National party proposals to automatically release long-term prisoners after only two thirds of their sentence. Rape Crisis Scotland chief executive Alev Taylor said: “Organisations like ours have fought hard to maintain the exemption of rape and sexual offenders from early release schemes, both to ensure the safety of survivors and to maintain overall confidence in the justice system.” What a searing indictment, from someone who has seen the aftermath of one of the most awful crimes that can be committed: the violation of a person’s body, which leaves physical scars and lifelong mental scars. I have visited HMP Dumfries, where the SNP’s former chief executive Peter Murrell, estranged husband of ex-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, is beginning a five-year-and-three-month sentence for embezzling £400,000 from his party and, it is suspected, from the public purse. I do not envy him, despite headlines about the jail being “cushy”. The staff there struggle with a lack of resources in a Victorian-era prison ill-suited to the modern world. Governor Andrew Hunstone made it clear to me that the loss of liberty is a genuine and serious punishment in itself, and that is the core point of justice. Loss of liberty is what serious criminals rightly face. The public know that simple truth, and legislators should not be lily-livered about it. Politicians salami-slicing sentences is a betrayal. It is a betrayal first and foremost of victims. It is a signal of, “Yes, you have suffered, but we politicians are awfully fixated on prison numbers.” It is a betrayal of the police who work so diligently and so hard to bring criminals to justice. It is a betrayal of the courts themselves, as it ties the hands of those who pass sentences, effectively neutering them. It is also a betrayal of the public, because justice delayed is justice denied, but so too is justice watered down. Today we televise sentencing hearings while simultaneously pulling the wool over the public’s eyes, because what may sound like a hefty sentence is automatically subject to a craven rolling back or to early release. I am all for rehabilitation, and I am all for helping people who have served prison time getting back into society, but we must all be about the victims. Our constituents want custodial sentences to be real, not illusions. The public know that custodial sentences are about punishment, not revenge. They also know the deterrent effect. Legislators who are too queasy to accept that should get out of the way. A well-regulated and just society must have prisons, no matter how many so-called progressive politicians would will them away. Prison works. We should use it, and sentences should be served in full.

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12. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Joe Robertson

    Health Bill (Twelfth sitting)

    My hon. Friend is making a comprehensive speech and getting to the nub of all the relevant points. He talks about the system failing; to me, that is the absolute nub. The CQC is absolutely part of the system and of the establishment. If anyone is put off from making a complaint to the CQC when they think the CQC may be to blame, how on earth can the functions currently exercised by HSSIB continue in any effective way?

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13. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Joe Robertson

    Health Bill (Twelfth sitting)

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. The issues relating to clause 59, principally the abolition of HSSIB, have been well articulated, not least by my colleagues on this side. I wish to add some of my own views too. The debate has been framed as a transfer of the functions of HSSIB to the CQC, and indeed that is the title of the clause. The Minister has certainly articulated her arguments in that way. Effectively, it is the abolition of HSSIB. In fact, clause 59(1) plainly says: “The Health Services Safety Investigations Body is abolished.” Its functions may be transferred, but that is quite a significant change, and I do not want that to be lost within the context of this debate. At the heart of it is this idea around investigatory and regulatory functions. While the argument remains technical—and it is of course easier for the Government and indeed Dr Dash to make the arguments to abolish HSSIB in the abstract—when we talk about the real-life implications and how real people react to different circumstances, it is plainly very significant and negative. That is particularly true when it comes to investigating where things went wrong and when the system is at least in question and could be at fault. When there are things that need airing that people are afraid to air, confidence in the new framework is essential. Regardless of the systems, processes or protocols that the Government may wish to put in place to ensure that the safe space concept continues to exist, who on earth, if they are worried about making disclosures, will be satisfied and confident that those in the CQC, who may themselves be at fault, will not learn about a disclosure to the arm of the CQC that is empowered and entrusted with investigating the problem? An independent organisation, which HSSIB currently is, provides not just technical confidence but genuine confidence that people can speak freely on matters that may well be extremely unhelpful to their employer or the CQC—the national regulator itself. As the hon. Member for North Shropshire noted about the Shrewsbury and Telford situation, it developed while the CQC gave a good rating. It may be that the CQC was fair in doing that, but it does not look good in the eyes of the public, and it will be a consideration for individuals seeking to make disclosures to an investigation. What will the public think?

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14. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Joe Robertson

    Health Bill (Twelfth sitting)

    My hon. Friend leads me to a point I was going to make later, but I will make it now. He is absolutely right: the CQC has not had a lot of good press and does not instil a high degree of confidence in professionals and the public. That is a very real issue. The Minister and, I think, Dr Dash have said that the transfer of powers from HSSIB to the CQC will not happen until it is in a better place, and that is all very well, but these changes are intended to last for a long time—indefinitely, presumably. To merely wait until an organisation is in a better place to transfer those powers, and to expect that organisation to remain in a better place in perpetuity, is wishful thinking. The CQC has had leadership issues. We all hope and I am sure that the leadership will be in a better place in the near future, but if an organisation can be in such a bad place because of a failure of leadership, those circumstances can return in the future. Of course, it might be leadership failings within the regulator that HSSIB is asked to investigate. Again, if its functions are delivered by a regulatory organisation with leadership failings, there will be no confidence whatever that a truly independent and meaningful investigation can take place. Let us not forget that the public are somewhat jaded by investigations, inquiries and reports—justifiably so. They clearly have a valuable function, but their function is far more valuable if there is confidence in them. If a powerful organisation such as the CQC—the regulator—can effectively mark its own homework, that does nothing to help the reputation of investigations and inquiries with the public. I suspect that the problem with them in the public’s mind is that it always looks a little bit like the establishment is looking at itself and coming up with an argument it can then justify. There is a perception that that does not lead to meaningful change. With this Bill, we will create an environment where that perception is even stronger.

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15. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Joe Robertson

    Health Bill (Twelfth sitting)

    It is, of course. I have been focusing on public perception, and my right hon. Friend is absolutely correct that that is only one part of it—an important part of it. Probably, the most important part is what actually happens, and that requires the NHS to learn and improve, which is very unlikely to be improved by this proposal.

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16. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Joe Robertson

    Health Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

    The shadow Minister is absolutely right. Perception is a problem, but the reality on the ground is perhaps an even greater problem. Both are issues here with what the Government plan. There could be a reason why this merger, or the abolition of the Health Services Safety Investigations Body, needs to happen, but we have not seen that compelling argument. We have seen some attempts at justification, but they seem to be incredibly thin—and that is being generous. The principal argument seems to be that there is a busy and confusing landscape when it comes to investigatory and regulatory bodies. The figure Dr Dash put forward was something like 150 different organisations; she was asked to review just six of those. Even if she were to have abolished all six, it clearly does nothing to reduce the busy and confusing landscape. My hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon made that point well. A busy and confusing regulatory landscape should not be a justification for getting rid of an essential investigatory body and disincentivising the investigation process and whistleblowing and disclosures, by tying it up with the regulator, which itself may be at fault. Streamlining and dealing with a busy and confusing landscape are objectively good reasons to do something, but not this. That is the central point. As my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon referred to, the question was put to Dr Dash, the author of the recommendations, when she gave evidence: what happens if there is a problem with the Care Quality Commission once HSSIB has become part of it? I think we rightly expected a fairly clear answer on that. The answer was a rhetorical response: “‘What happens if the problem is this organisation or that one?’”––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 8, Q9.] That was the response from Dr Dash. But we are not talking about whether there is a problem with this organisation or that one; we are talking about the CQC, the organisation that HSSIB will become. If there is a problem with another organisation, HSSIB can investigate it; if there is a problem with the CQC now, HSSIB can investigate it; but when HSSIB becomes the CQC, there will plainly be a problem with investigating the CQC. When that question was put to the author of the report on whom the Government are relying, no answer was provided. The reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon was a rhetorical question. I urge the Minister to reflect. There is a major issue here that has not been addressed. Until she, or those on whom she relies, can articulate the answer, I urge her to delay these proposals.

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17. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Joe Robertson

    Health Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

    Will the Minister give way?

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18. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Joe Robertson

    Health Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

    Will the Minister give way?

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19. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Joe Robertson

    Health Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

    I am a member of the Health and Social Care Committee, and the hon. Member is absolutely right to say that Healthwatch England raises issues with us. When the Department assumes those roles and functions, I very much doubt that it will be as keen to disclose such issues to the Committee.

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20. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Joe Robertson

    Health Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

    It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. This is another example of the Government seeking to abolish an independent voice and merge its functions into an organisation that, frankly, will probably benefit to some extent from not having that independent scrutiny, but it is not for the betterment of patients or indeed the system. Healthwatch England is effective specifically because it is an independent voice for patients. We have not heard any compelling arguments for why, just because the system is not perfect, this change is better than leaving it alone. The argument has been advanced that this brings patient voice closer to decision making, but I would hope that the directly elected Ministers who represent people are what bring the voice of the people closer to decision making in the Department of Health. They should be the ones bringing patient voice to the heart of decision making—I am sure that they do, of course—and there are other means by which the Department formulates policies and decisions; it does not need to remove an independent patient voice through Healthwatch England, which serves a different purpose, to enhance that. That different purpose is this: some of the things that Healthwatch England advocates for and shines a light on are uncomfortable truths for decision makers and the Department of Health. It looks far too cosy to now bring that function into the decision-making process. Some of these issues need the light shedding on them that comes with an independent organisation providing patient voice. We have heard how the Select Committee and MPs, in their free-ranging Back-Bench function, benefit from hearing that voice through an independent organisation such as Healthwatch England, because it allows them to fulfil their scrutiny function. This is not just about decision making; it is also about scrutiny of decisions once they have been made. What will the Select Committee, MPs and journalists do when they no longer have the light shed by that independent voice? As my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon has pointed out, representatives who are employees in the Department of Health and Social Care rightly have other overriding primary duties to the employer—the Department itself. Let us ensure that patient voice is articulated by those who do not have a primary obligation to their employer, but have an obligation to an independent organisation with functions that serve solely to amplify and project the voice of patients. There are a number of issues with the abolition of local healthwatches, but I will save that for the next discussion. I want to make the wider point that there is a centralisation issue here too. Whether the Government like it or not, this measure will centralise powers into the Department; it will take outside powers from Healthwatch England and bring them in-house. That is nothing short of a centralising measure. The Minister needs to address the justification for that, because the more negatives there are to this decision, the more we need to understand the positives. So far, they are light indeed, or she has failed to articulate them. I think that there is a reason she has failed to articulate the positives: they simply do not exist. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I urge her to take some more interventions, because the arguments she has given to the Committee in her speeches at the end of each discussion have tended to raise more questions than they have answered. We can only deal with that by intervening on what she says.

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21. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Joe Robertson

    Health Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

    The Government’s proposal to abolish the independent voice of patients is a mistake. It is a backward step, and I have seen no compelling reason why it should happen. Apparently, the voice of patients is going to be realised through integrated care boards and local authorities themselves, but that is not an independent patient voice. The very point of independence is that that voice is represented through an organisation that has no other function—no other skin in the game other than to represent that voice. It is remarkable that the Government are taking this step. I suspect the Minister will say—she has already given a number of reasons—that this is happening in order to bring the voice of patients closer to those who make decisions, but that is not the function of Healthwatch. If she wants to achieve those things, she can achieve them while maintaining Healthwatch as an independent patient voice. That independent voice ensures not only better decision making, but more effective scrutiny of decisions that have been made, and it does it by ensuring there is no blending or conflict of interest within a certain organisation—the decision maker. It does it by ensuring that light is cast on the critique, the scrutiny and the voice of patients, and that that process takes place outside the closed doors of, in this case, the integrated care board, not behind them. I suspect that the Minister will say that the system is not working, because there are too many good reports by Healthwatch that sit on a shelf and have not been implemented. I would far prefer for us all to be able to see reports that have not been implemented sitting on a shelf and try to do something about them than for the patient voice to be heard behind closed doors and not acted upon. That is the inevitable conclusion from this merger—this abolition of the independent patient voice. I want to talk about my experience on the Isle of Wight of the important work that our local healthwatch does. It assists me in my role as a parliamentarian and representative of the people, which is to scrutinise the decision-making of my local integrated care board and others, by providing the objective and unfiltered voice of patients through data, statistics and records, all of which will be lost within the ICB when this abolition takes place. Guess who is often on the sharp end, or who is often critiqued by the evidence provided by Healthwatch? It is the ICB itself. Therefore, it is no wonder that Professor Croisdale-Appleby, the chair of Healthwatch England, agreed with the characterisation that this looks like the ICBs or other bodies marking their own homework. They will get to decide which part of the patient voice is acted upon, and which part is ignored, without the public gaze or scrutiny that is provided by an independent report that decision makers, parliamentarians, local councillors and the independent media can also use. I will give a particular example from the Isle of Wight. Not so long ago, the integrated care board for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight proposed to reduce funding for Mountbatten hospice on the island and to redistribute that money to the mainland—it was, in my view, outrageous. The integrated care board had all the information available at its fingertips to realise that that was a bad proposal, and it had all the patient voices and views that it could possibly come across to realise that it was a mistake. It did not first consult representatives, such as me, my neighbour the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) or local councillors, before making its proposal. It was then Healthwatch’s data on the views and voices of patients, which had already been gathered, that helped the hon. Member, local councillors and me to make an argument against the proposal, directly to the ICB, in the media and to councillors at county hall. Without the tools that Healthwatch provided, it would have been so much harder to make that case. The ICB backed down on that proposal, but, if all that infrastructure, and all the information that Healthwatch independently provided, had sat behind closed doors within the ICB, we would not have had the opportunity to make our case and reverse the decision. That is one of the many thousands of real-life examples across the country where the affected patient voice was aired and properly used to reverse a bad decision, and it is an ability that will be lost. Another issue is the fact that the centralisation of powers will inevitably water down the patient voice. There are over 150 local healthwatch branches, but there are not 150 integrated care boards. In the case of the Isle of Wight—I use that as an example because it is my own patch, but it will be the same situation up and down the country—we have our own Healthwatch Isle of Wight, which represents the unique insight and views of patients on the island. If those powers go to the integrated care board, that will cover Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, a population nearly 10 times as big. Our unique patient voice will be watered down into the patient voice of Hampshire; while the Hampshire patient voice is equally valid, that will nevertheless reduce the unique insights of smaller populations all over the country by including them in something bigger. Particularly unique to my constituency and Isle of Wight West is health travel—that is, the reality of having to cross the Solent on a ferry to access so many health services. That is something that Healthwatch Isle of Wight uniquely understands through its direct consultation and work with island patients. Indeed, the people who work for our local healthwatch and its trustees are islanders. They do not just get it because they hear it; they get it because they live it. If that entire function is taken up to the Hampshire and Isle of Wight level, that unique insight will be lost. The ICB may give some regard to the cost of ferry travel and the implications of the disruption caused by having to travel on a ferry in order to access a hospital service that is not available on the Island, but its decision making will be much devalued in weight if it does not have the unique, independent patient voice coming from the Isle of Wight via our Healthwatch.

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22. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Joe Robertson

    Summer Jobs

    Nowhere is the summer job more important for young people finding work than on the Isle of Wight, but employers are telling me that it is increasingly hard to employ young people because of the tax and the red tape that this Government have put on them, so it is no wonder that youth unemployment is up. I have an idea for the Minister: why does he not reform welfare and reverse the decisions made by his Government so that young people can find a job?

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23. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Future of British Horseracing

    Like my hon. Friend, I am no expert on the racing world, but I am lucky enough to represent Fakenham racecourse. Does he recognise that the loss of a racecourse impacts not just the racing world but the community that hosts it, both in direct employment and, importantly, in the indirect employment that supports the surrounding community and infrastructure? Furthermore, does he agree that, when a course goes, it goes forever and will never be replaced?

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24. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Draft West Midlands Combined Authority (Key Route Network) (Amendment) Order 2026

    Thank you for agreeing to chair us today, Sir Desmond. May I take this first opportunity to apologise to all members of the Committee for my late attendance? I am afraid I was at the Bar of the House of Lords, listening to the noble Lord Hendy speaking on Second Reading of the Railways Bill; his soaring rhetoric got the better of me, and I took my eye off the time. It is quite right, as the Minister has said, that the West Midlands Combined Authority is currently the odd one out when it comes to the application or the designation of key route networks. All other MCAs have the power to designate KRNs administratively, whereas, as we have heard, the WMCA has to use secondary legislation. These draft regulations therefore appear to the loyal Opposition to be a sensible tidying-up exercise and we do not intend to divide the Committee on it. The measure only works, however, if the powers that are devolved are used well. This is one of the big debates that we have in a central Government such as ours: we seek to devolve power to the lowest common denominator, to get power closer to the people, but at the same time, in giving up authority, we also give up the ability to change other people’s mistakes. With, perhaps, a new Prime Minister, I think that that is an issue we will be considering more frequently in this place. There are many examples, even to date, where devolution has not been successful, particularly when it comes to transport schemes. We only have to look outside the window at the mess that Mayor Khan is making of London with his persecution of drivers. There are many hon. Members on the Labour Benches—I have spoken to some; they are not in this room, I admit, but they sit on the Labour Benches—who look at low traffic neighbourhood orders with despair.

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25. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

    Draft West Midlands Combined Authority (Key Route Network) (Amendment) Order 2026

    I have already made clear that I think this is a sensible statutory instrument, and I am not proposing to oppose it. It is none the less a relevant consideration when considering devolution, of which this is a part, that we look at the wider issue of devolution to make sure that this is a sensible course of action. That is why it is relevant in this debate to consider what has happened in London, and also in Birmingham, where there has been notorious mismanagement of the roads fund, leading to a lack of repairs despite many hundreds of millions of pounds in private finance initiative credits’ having been awarded to that council. There is a bigger issue, of which this statutory instrument is a part—a sensible part, I accept—and it is incumbent upon the Minister to explain, in her response to my comments, how she will ensure that local authorities and mayoral combined authorities, particularly the West Midlands Combined Authority, use the powers granted effectively to enhance the experience of road users, rather than merely giving them powers and washing her hands of them.

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26. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·James Wild

    Early Release of Prisoners

    It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), whose incredibly powerful speech gave voice to the victims and the impact that the horrific abuse has had on them. He has led on this issue consistently in this House, and his words should carry incredible weight. Today we are debating what should be an uncontroversial motion: to exclude from the Government’s automatic early release scheme anyone convicted of a serious offence against a child or an adult, including rape, and anyone convicted of attempted conspiracy or incitement to commit such offences. By any definition, those are some of the most serious crimes. I find it very difficult to understand how anyone would oppose the common-sense position that sex offenders should not benefit from the Government’s early release scheme. Sadly, it has been necessary to bring forward this motion, because Labour Members and Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords voted down our amendments to the Sentencing Act that would have done precisely that: prevent the early release of such offenders. Now it seems that there will not be a vote and our motion will simply be accepted. That is very welcome if it reflects a shift in policy, but the Minister who opened the debate was not clear whether he accepted that shift in policy or was simply making a tactical retreat on a vote that the Government knew they would lose. He repeatedly set out the rationale for the changes, as he had done earlier today to the media. The urgency is clear. Thousands of victims have received letters—my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley spoke about the offensive nature of those letters and their dreadful impact on victims—telling them that in September the first wave of criminals will be released. Others will not yet have been informed. The Minister once again failed to give the basic figure for the number of sex offenders who will be released under the provisions. Surely he must know—it is his job to know—and he should be honest and up front with the House. We can already picture the unedifying scenes of bottles of champagne being opened at the prison gates when these offenders are released. Meanwhile, the survivors of their crimes will—as they told every Member of this House in the letter to which the shadow Justice Secretary has referred—be feeling scared, heartbroken and angry that their perpetrators are not facing justice. The Minister once again rolled out the Aunt Sally argument that without these measures the justice system would have fallen over, but it is now two years since the general election; two years in which the Government have chosen to let people out early rather than take action on prison places. There are 16,000 people on remand in our prisons, yet the Government are failing to ensure that our courts are used to the maximum capacity.Today, for example, 14% of the Crown courts are not sitting. Where is the commissioning of emergency prison capacity? Where is the greater use of the rapid deployment cells that the previous Government rolled out, including at HMP Norwich in my county? Where is the urgency? That should be a national priority.

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27. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·James Wild

    Early Release of Prisoners

    I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The Lady Chief Justice appeared before parliamentary Committees to tell MPs that she could have more sitting days if only the Government would produce, I think, about £20 million of funding—a fairly minimal amount in the scheme of the £1.3 trillion that the Government spend every year—rather than go down the route of removing people’s right to jury trials in certain cases. The prison places coming online are those commissioned by the last Government. Yes, I accept that we should have commissioned more, but the Minister has confirmed in parliamentary answers that no new prisons have been planned or approved by this Government since the general election. Politics is about choices, and Ministers have chosen early release and softer sentencing rather than ensuring public protection and punishment. That is despite Ministers saying that the most serious and violent offenders would be excluded from this change. Anyone who has listened to the testimonies shared with the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley could not consider that they do not represent the most serious and violent offenders.

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28. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·James Wild

    Early Release of Prisoners

    I agree with my right hon. Friend. It looked like Labour MPs were set to be whipped against this motion to stop the early release of sex offenders who had committed crimes against children. When I was first elected to this House, I had to explain to my Whip and the Minister in post that I would not support a measure to bring forward an early release scheme for offenders—I expect that many of my newly elected colleagues did the same—and that measure was withdrawn. While MPs may not be whipped to vote against the motion, and there seems to be common cause from Government Members in the Chamber, we heard nothing in opening from the Minister, who spoke but failed to address the next steps. There might be some grounds for optimism as apparently the right hon. Member for Makerfield is looking at how to tighten the scheme to exclude such offenders, but if that change is to happen, the legislation needs to come forward now. We know that the new Prime Minister will not be in post until we have risen for the summer recess. Tomorrow and Thursday, we will have general debates in the House. The motion—it looks like it will pass without a Division—calls on the Government to bring forward legislation immediately, so if the Government are accept the motion, what is their plan? Will they bring forward commencement regulations to delay implementation, as set out earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy)? Will they table emergency legislation tomorrow, Thursday or next week? We had no response on that from the Minister, which I found deeply disappointing. Those who were in the Gallery earlier and those victims across the country deserve answers today on what the Government will do. By passing the motion, we can begin the process to prevent those guilty of rape or grooming from being released early, we can provide reassurance to victims that we put their interests first, and we can show that public protection is our priority.

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29. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Harriet Cross

    Topical Questions

    Just this year, Norway has opened up a licensing round for 70 new oil and gas blocks. It is reopening three old gas fields and has permitted development plans for three new fields. Meanwhile, this Government are still banning licences, taxing the industry out of business and not permitting Rosebank and Jackdaw. Why does the Secretary of State think he is right and our Norwegian friends are wrong?

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30. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Health Bill (Twelfth sitting)

    On a point of order, Sir Roger. I am a parliamentary patron and champion of Action on ME. I feel I ought to put that on the record, as we have an amendment on ME.

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31. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Health Bill (Twelfth sitting)

    As my hon. Friend said earlier, the problem comes when this new body within the CQC has to investigate the CQC. In the oral evidence session, I asked Dr Dash what would happen if the problem was CQC, and she gave what is probably the most extraordinary answer out of the many extraordinary answers she gave. It is worth repeating: “Well, we then have to deal with that as a problem. That is the same as saying, ‘What happens if the problem is this organisation or that one?’…What if the GMC is a problem? What if the Nursing and Midwifery Council is a problem?”––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 8, Q9.] She did not answer my question at all. In fact, she entirely sidestepped it. How can we have confidence in the Government’s proposal if the architect of the procedure cannot answer the most basic questions about the investigatory framework?

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32. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Health Bill (Twelfth sitting)

    Before I address the clauses, I say for the record that 21 years ago this morning, 52 people were murdered and 784 injured by Islamist terrorists in London. I pay tribute to all the medical professionals who treated those people in such difficult circumstances. I will speak to clauses 59 to 63 together because they all concern one of the most significant structural changes proposed in the Bill: the abolition of the Health Services Safety Investigations Body as an independent statutory organisation, and the transfer of its functions to the Care Quality Commission. At first glance, that may appear a relatively modest machinery-of-government change. The Minister argues that HSSIB’s functions will continue, its statutory safe-space protections will remain and operational independence will somehow be preserved. However, when one examines the evidence presented to the Committee, and that given to the Health and Social Care Committee, of which I am a member, it becomes increasingly difficult to identify the problem that this merger is intended to solve. Instead, what emerges is a remarkable degree of consensus among those with the greatest expertise in patient safety that this proposal carries significant risks while offering little measurable benefit. The question before us is therefore not whether HSSIB’s statutory functions can be transferred to another organisation, but whether Parliament should abolish an institution that it deliberately created to be independent. That distinction matters. Across public life, we recognise that effective scrutiny depends on institutional independence. Government expenditure is examined independently by the National Audit Office, citizens complain to independent ombudsmen rather than to the organisations about which they are complaining, air accidents are investigated independently by the Civil Aviation Authority, and rail accidents are investigated independently of the regulator. In each case, Parliament has recognised that organisations charged with investigating failures should not also be responsible for regulating, inspecting or enforcing against those they investigate. Healthcare should be no different. Indeed, if anything, healthcare should demand an even greater degree of independence. Learning from failure depends on the confidence of patients, clinicians and families that they can speak openly and without fear that the information that they provide will later be used for regulatory or enforcement purposes. That is precisely why HSSIB was created. Its purpose was never to attribute blame but to understand why systems fail, identify the underlying causes of patient harm and ensure that lessons are learned before similar tragedies occur again. That philosophy represented a deliberate shift away from a culture of blame and towards one of learning. It was modelled consciously on the air accidents investigation branch, whose success over many decades has demonstrated that independent, no-blame investigations produce better safety outcomes than investigations driven primarily by enforcement. It is therefore difficult to understand why the Government now seek to move away from the model that other safety-critical industries continue to regard as fundamental. Clause 59 would abolish that independent body and transfer its functions to the Care Quality Commission. In doing so, it would bring together two organisations with fundamentally different statutory purposes, different powers and, perhaps most importantly, different cultures. HSSIB investigates and the CQC regulates. One exists to ask why the system failed; the other exists to ask whether the organisation complied with required standards—those are not the same questions. Nor do HSSIB and CQC require the same relationship with those from whom evidence is obtained. An investigation depends on trust; a regulator depends on compliance. An investigator encourages candour; a regulator necessarily retains enforcement powers. The different roles are not a weakness of the system; they are precisely why Parliament chose to establish separate organisations. I would be grateful, therefore, if the Minister could explain what assessment has been made of the impact on public confidence of the investigator and the regulator becoming part of the same statutory organisation. More specifically, what assessment has been made of the likely effect on clinicians’ willingness to speak openly if the organisation receiving confidential evidence also contains the regulator responsible for inspecting and enforcing standards? That concern has been expressed not only by the Opposition, but repeatedly by independent experts—and indeed, we just heard the hon. Member for Lewisham East asking similar questions. Even the Care Quality Commission has expressed reservations. Evidence that it submitted to the Health and Social Care Committee earlier this year acknowledged that a lack of clarity remains regarding the respective roles of HSSIB and the CQC. Rather than resolving that uncertainty, the proposed merger risks deepening it. The CQC warned that preserving an effective separation between its investigatory and regulatory functions would be essential if confidence in HSSIB’s safe space were to be maintained, and it recognised the genuine risk of perceived conflicts of interest if those functions become blurred. I think that should give the Committee pause for thought. When the organisation receiving the additional responsibilities is itself warning about the difficulty of maintaining the boundaries, we should listen very carefully. If the CQC believes that the risks exist before the merger has even taken place, what confidence can Ministers offer that those risks will somehow disappear afterwards? Similarly, the all-party parliamentary group on patient safety, of which I am a member, has expressed concern that HSSIB should remain institutionally independent so that its evidence-based recommendations can continue to command confidence across the health system. Such concerns, as I said, are not confined to Parliament, nor are they confined to one political party. They are shared by patient safety organisations, healthcare professionals and those directly involved in investigating serious incidents. During our oral evidence sessions, I put a straightforward question to Dr Penny Dash. I observed that I could find almost no one apart from her and the Department who believed that moving HSSIB into the CQC was the right course of action. That was not intended as some sort of rhetorical flourish; it reflected the evidence before us. Former Secretaries of State, patient safety experts, independent investigators and numerous professional organisations have all questioned the proposal. Despite the breadth of concern, the Government have not produced compelling evidence that HSSIB, as presently constituted, is failing. Nor have they demonstrated that the separation between investigation and regulation is itself creating harm. Instead, Ministers have repeatedly assured us that HSSIB’s operational independence will remain, that safe space protections will remain and that independent investigations will remain. If that is indeed the Government’s position, an obvious question follows: if HSSIB will continue to operate independently, if its investigations will continue to be conducted independently and if its statutory protections will remain intact, why is it necessary to abolish the independent organisation at all? That question goes to the heart of clauses 59 to 63, and throughout the evidence presented to the Committee, I have heard no convincing answer. The Government ask Parliament to believe that everything that makes HSSIB valuable will continue unchanged, but at the same time, they ask Parliament to dismantle the very institutional structure deliberately designed to protect those characteristics. That is not merely an administrative contradiction, but a constitutional one. If institutional independence genuinely matters, it should be preserved. If institutional independence does not matter, Ministers should explain why Parliament was wrong to establish it in the first place. That question of necessity leads directly to the Government’s principal justifications for clauses 59 to 63, the Dash review. The Government have repeatedly relied on that review as the intellectual basis for abolishing HSSIB as the independent body, yet when one examines the report and the evidence given by its author to this Committee, the case becomes increasingly difficult to sustain. Without doubt, the review identifies a genuine problem: it concludes that the patient safety landscape has become crowded and in places confusing. Dr Dash told the Committee that she had identified more than 150 organisations operating across the wider patient safety landscape, and that clinicians were spending considerable time responding to different organisations, requesting information, completing forms and participating in overlapping reviews. She said that the system had become “busy and confusing”, and that that was distracting clinicians from improving the quality of care.

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33. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Health Bill (Twelfth sitting)

    My hon. Friend makes several key points, and he is absolutely right: what problem are the Government trying to solve here? If we believe in independence, believe in an investigatory body and believe it is working well—and it demonstrably is working well—why on earth would we change it? That goes to a further point: these clauses not only potentially provide for a transfer of HSSIB into CQC but add risk and failure in that procedure. My hon. Friend asks how we can be confident that the system is going to work if a patient or a clinician does not want to put their head above the parapet because they are frightened that there will be regulatory consequence. That is a fundamental problem with the Government’s proposal. As I have said several times in this speech, we have not had the answer to that and no answer seems to be forthcoming. I may touch on that in a bit more detail in a moment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash was clear on this topic when he gave evidence to the Committee: “My concern was that the NHS and actually health systems across the world are not very good at learning lessons when there are tragedies.”––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 29, Q52.] That is the problem that HSSIB was created to address and why I struggle with the Government’s argument. If the problem is that the NHS does not learn lessons effectively, the answer should be to strengthen the organisation designed specifically to help it to learn, not to weaken the independence of that organisation. My right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash identified the precise part of the system that remains broken. He said: “the Bill does not do anything to address the bit that is not working well, and that bit is that the NHS is still very poor on acting on recommendations that are made”.––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 30, Q52.] That is the crucial point. The Government’s justification for the merger appears to be based on a concern that there are too many recommendations, too many reviews and too much duplication, but the evidence of my right hon. Friend highlights a different problem. The issue is not that we do not know what needs to change but that we too often fail to act on what we already know. The answer to that problem is not fewer independent investigations but stronger accountability for implementing recommendations. Indeed, my right hon. Friend made that point powerfully in his evidence. He explained that “What there needs to be is a formal system with a legal obligation on the Government.”––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 30, Q53.] He warned that too often recommendations disappear into what he described as “agree in principle”, which allows organisations to acknowledge a problem without committing to a timetable for fixing it. The Government are proposing structural change because recommendations are not always acted on, but the problem is not the existence of HSSIB; it is the absence of sufficient accountability when recommendations are made. The Government appear to be addressing the wrong failure. There is another important point from my right hon. Friend’s evidence. He explained that one of the long-term purposes of HSSIB was to reduce the need for expensive public inquiries. He told the Committee that “Ideally, when something goes wrong, what you want is for there to be an investigation and for lessons to be learned, so that grieving families can say, ‘Well, at least we are confident that this wouldn’t happen again.’” However, because families often lack confidence that lessons will actually be learned, they understandably seek public inquiries. My right hon. Friend explained: “families still think the only way they can get real change is through a public inquiry”––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 32, Q56.] That is an important warning. If confidence in HSSIB is reduced, the unintended consequence may be more public inquiries, not fewer—more cost, more delay and, most importantly, more time before lessons are learned and acted on. That is the opposite of what the Government say they want to achieve. The Government’s second argument is that safe space can be protected through legislation. I accept that Ministers intend to preserve those protections; however, the evidence we have heard demonstrates that the issue is not simply one of statutory wording but of culture and confidence. My right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash gave a particularly important example: he explained that the CQC plays a vital role because it rates healthcare organisations. Hospitals and GP practices care deeply about whether they are rated “outstanding”, “good”, “requires improvement” or “inadequate”. His concern was this: “If a staff member is talking openly to HSSIB about a failure of governance in their organisation, and that is the same organisation that could decide whether they get stripped of their ‘outstanding’ rating and downgraded to ‘good’ or ‘requires improvement’, my concern is that some people may worry and say, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be open, because this could affect my hospital’s rating.’”––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 33-34, Q59.] That is the practical problem: the Government’s argument relies on the assumption that staff will distinguish perfectly between different parts of the same organisation, but the concern is that a frontline clinician may not see those internal distinctions. They may simply see that the investigator and the regulator now sit under the same roof. When people are deciding whether to disclose something that may have consequences for themselves, their colleagues or their organisation, perception matters. As my right hon. Friend said, “we have to be really careful that people still have confidence in the safe space function if this merger goes ahead.”––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 34, Q59.] A similar point was made by Professor Carl Macrae from the University of Nottingham. While giving evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee, he said that it is difficult to conceive how legislation alone could overcome the fundamental conflict created by merging an independent safety investigation body with a regulator, given that the two organisations perform inherently different functions. The Government’s case depends on trust surviving that merger, but the evidence tells us that trust is precisely what is at risk. Dr Benneyworth made a similar point from HSSIB’s perspective. She told this Committee: “There needs to be much more clarity about governance and how that will work in the legislation to protect independence.” She went further and suggested that if the Government proceed, there would need to be much stronger safeguards, including “a legal duty on the CQC to protect the safe space.”––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 26, Q44.] That evidence is significant because it is not a witness arguing that change is impossible; it is the organisation at the centre of this proposal telling this Committee that the legislation, as drafted, does not provide sufficient reassurance. The Government’s response cannot simply be that they intend to be careful. The former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), said that the integration would be approached with “enormous care”, but we have to ask what that actually means in legal terms. Where are the enforceable safeguards? What prevents a gradual erosion of independence once HSSIB is part of the regulator? History tells us that institutional safeguards matter precisely because they protect against future changes in culture, leadership or priorities. A body can begin with the best of intentions, but still drift over time—that is why Parliament creates independent institutions in the first place. It is not because Ministers are untrustworthy; it is because good governance recognises that structures matter. In this case, the structure matters enormously. Those concerns become even more significant when we consider the legal framework around protected information and the practical operation of safe space. The Government’s argument appears to rest on the belief that if the right protections are written into legislation, the independence of HSSIB can be preserved, but the evidence we have heard suggests that the challenge is much more fundamental. The question is not simply whether information is legally protected but whether staff, patients and families will continue to believe that it is protected. That distinction matters. During our evidence session, Dr Benneyworth highlighted a very specific concern about the drafting of the legislation. She explained that, at present, the clauses related to connected individuals could create uncertainty about who in the CQC might have access to protected material. She said: “The legislation needs to be much clearer around the protection of protected disclosure materials, to give the system confidence in our ability to hold and not share confidential information.”—[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 25, Q41.] That is the crucial point: the success of HSSIB depends on confidence that information provided in confidence will remain within the investigation process. If there is uncertainty about whether information could move elsewhere in the organisation, the very existence of that uncertainty risks undermining safe space. Dr Benneyworth went further. She explained: “There needs to be a legal duty on the CQC to protect the safe space.”––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 25, Q41.] That is a remarkable admission. The organisation whose functions are being transferred to the CQC is telling Parliament that the Bill, as drafted, does not provide that sufficient certainty. The Government’s response cannot simply be that everyone involved will act in good faith. Good governance requires more than good intentions; it requires a structure that protects independence, regardless of who happens to lead an organisation in future, who is Secretary of State or who is in government. That is why Parliament creates these independent bodies in the first place. There is also a practical issue that cannot be dismissed. Dr Benneyworth explained that HSSIB is unique because it can investigate every part of the healthcare system, including national bodies. She told the Committee: “At the moment, we have the ability, being an independent organisation, to investigate any part of the system where there is a concern.”––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 23, Q38.] That includes looking at how national systems operate, how regulators function and how different parts of the health service interact. That independence is important, because sometimes the problem is not the provider delivering care; sometimes the problem is the system around it. A regulator may look at whether an organisation has complied with standards; an independent investigator may ask a different question: why did the system make it possible for failure to happen? The questions are complementary, but not interchangeable. Dr Benneyworth made precisely that point when discussing national failures. She explained that some problems cannot be solved by regulating an individual organisation, because the underlying issue sits elsewhere in the system. She said that is not something that can be changed by a regulator—a fundamental distinction. Regulation can identify whether standards have been met and independent investigation can identify whether the system itself needs to change. Both functions are necessary, but combining them risks weakening both. Those concerns sit within a wider challenge on candour in healthcare. The statutory duty of candour was introduced following the Francis inquiry into the failures of the Mid Staffordshire health trust. The duty’s purpose was straightforward: when something goes wrong, patients and families should receive an honest explanation. Despite that legal duty, however, evidence remains of a defensive culture within parts of healthcare. Legal advice can sometimes encourage organisations to think first about liability, rather than about learning. Administrators can understandably become concerned about litigation risk—and where fear dominates, openness suffers. That is precisely why the safe space matters. HSSIB was created to provide an environment where the priority is not defending an organisation, but understanding what happened. If we weaken confidence in that environment, we risk making the wider culture of candour even harder to achieve. The irony, of course, is that the Government argue that the merger will strengthen patient safety, and yet the evidence suggests that it could weaken one of the most important ingredients of patient safety: openness. I also want to express concerns shared with me directly by people working within HSSIB. During a meeting with some of my constituents who work in the organisation, individuals involved in patient safety investigations raised significant concerns about the proposed move. They believe that bringing HSSIB into the CQC represents a backward step for patient safety. They also expressed concern that the rationale for the merger has shifted. Initially, the argument appeared to focus on streamlining and reducing duplication; increasingly, however, it appears to be about reducing the number of safety recommendations being made. That misunderstands the problem. As I have pointed out before, the challenge is not the existence of recommendations but ensuring that those recommendations lead to action. Indeed, I was informed that HSSIB has already been developing a recommendations monitoring system, specifically designed to improve implementation and oversight. In other words, the organisation is already working to address the very issue now being used as justification for restructuring it. That brings me back to the evidence given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash. He identified what I believe to be the central weakness in the Government’s argument: “the Bill does not do anything to address the bit that is not working well, and that bit is that the NHS is still very poor on acting on recommendations that are made”.––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 30, Q52.] That is the point that Ministers need to answer. If recommendations are not being implemented, strengthen implementation; if accountability is weak, strengthen accountability; and if learning is not embedded, create mechanisms to ensure that learning happens—but do not weaken the independence of a body responsible for identifying those lessons. The risk is that the Government solve the wrong problem. They will remove the independence of the investigator, while leaving untouched the failure to act on what investigators discover. After considering the evidence presented to this Committee, the evidence that we heard in the Select Committee and my conversations with my constituents and others, I remain unable to support clauses 59 to 63. That is not because I oppose reform or believe that the patient safety landscape cannot improve—of course it can. The NHS must continue to learn, adapt and improve, but improvement requires honesty about what is working and what is not. The evidence suggests that HSSIB’s independent investigative model is one of the things that is working and that failure lies elsewhere. It lies in whether recommendations are being implemented, whether organisations learn quickly enough and whether staff feel safe enough to speak up. The answer to those problems is not to remove independence, but to strengthen it. The creation of HSSIB represented a recognition by Parliament that healthcare needed the same principles of independent safety investigation that serve aviation, rail and other high-risk industry so well. Those principles exist for a reason: when something goes wrong, society needs an organisation that people trust to ask what happened, why it happened and what must change to prevent it from happening again. That organisation must be separate from those responsible for regulating the system. It must be able to investigate without fear or favour. It must command the confidence of patients, families and healthcare professionals. The Government say that the protections will remain, but the evidence we have heard overwhelmingly demonstrates that confidence in those protections is precisely what is at risk. Once institutional independence is removed, it simply cannot be recreated through internal guidance or assurances. The structure matters, the culture matters and the trust matters. For those reasons, I urge the Minister to reconsider clauses 59 to 63. If the Government believe that improvements can be made to co-ordination, accountability or implementation, discussions on that should absolutely continue and the Opposition would welcome them. However, the clauses go much further. They remove the independent status, which is so important. Given the enormous human and financial cost of avoidable harm in healthcare, Parliament should be extremely cautious before weakening one of the few mechanisms specifically designed to prevent it.

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34. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Health Bill (Twelfth sitting)

    As I said throughout my speech, I am against this proposal whatever the nature of the CQC. However, does it strike my hon. Friend, as it strikes me, that the problems of moving the functions of HSSIB into the CQC are compounded given that the CQC, as he alluded to, is not functioning well and does not have the confidence of patients and clinicians?

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35. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Health Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

    I hesitate to intervene on the hon. Gentleman, because he seems to be straying into the next grouping and I do not want to encourage him down that route, but now that he has raised it, I share his concern. I do not know what it is like in his area, but the ICB areas that local branches of healthwatch will be absorbed into are even larger than counties. In my area, Surrey and Sussex make up three administrative counties. That is an even larger area. The provisions are clearly not the solution to the problem that the hon. Gentleman is outlining.

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36. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Health Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Ms Lewell. I think right hon. and hon. Members will be disappointed to know I am not going to speak too long on this, but they need not worry: in the next grouping, usual service will resume. I want to pick up a few points on the abolition of national Healthwatch. When we took evidence from Sarah Woolnough of the King’s Fund, I asked her a fairly open-ended question about when she gave evidence at the Health and Social Care Select Committee. I put it to her that she “seemed to suggest that the Government could achieve what they needed to in the 10-year plan without this reorganisation.”––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 15, Q23.] She gave me an answer that essentially said it could all be done without the need for the reorganisation that is in the current NHS Bill. I then asked Mr Jacob Lant, a representative from National Voices, whether he would agree with that and, unprompted, because I did not mention Healthwatch in my question, he replied: “Yes. I kind of think, as the debate goes on, that—with the changes to Healthwatch in particular—you could achieve so much without legislation. You could beef up the internal functions for listening to a patient and engaging with them without legislation—there is no requirement for that. You could invest more resource in that, and you could do the same with Healthwatch.”––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 16, Q24.] We already know from the evidence that we received, unprompted, from National Voices and the King’s Fund that the abolition of NHS England will not solve the problems that the Minister, the Government and the Department think are there, and indeed it could be done in a different way. I listened closely to the hon. Member for Lichfield. He seemed to be presenting a number of problems, but the solution that the Government have come up with does not hold water. As right hon. and hon. Friends have said, the removal of Healthwatch England and the introduction of a director for patient experience simply does not work because the independence—which is so fundamental to the HSSIB that we talked about— of local healthwatches, which we will talk about, and of Healthwatch England is fundamental to the ability of that organisation to do its job. In a previous career I worked for the Getting It Right First Time programme in the NHS. When that programme first started, it sat outside the structures of what was then NHS Improvement, latterly NHS England. At that point we could make recommendations to the NHS— I do not mean this flippantly —in a way that was unrestricted. As soon as we were brought into NHS England, into a governmental structure, the recommendations that we put forward were looked at and scrutinised and we were told often, “We do not have the money to afford that”, or, “That is not in our plan.” And that is precisely what will happen if recommendations are put through the director of patient experience. As others have said, when this director of patient experience arrives at a Select Committee, he or she will be there to represent and defend the Department and Ministers, understandably, because that is who he or she will work for. They will not be able to stand up, go on television or the radio, do the broadcast interviews or make representations, because they will be a creature of the system rather than a scrutineer of the system and an advocate for patients. That is a fundamental problem, and while I accept that there may be ways to improve Healthwatch England, as Members have outlined, this simply will not do it.

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37. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Health Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

    I want to address this clause because I believe that the Government are making a significant mistake by abolishing Healthwatch England, as they have just done with the group of amendments, and local healthwatch organisations. The Government have sought to reassure the Committee that the functions currently carried out by Healthwatch will continue; however, that is not the question before us. The question is whether those functions can continue with the same degree of independence, credibility and public confidence once they are absorbed into the organisations that they currently scrutinise. Having listened carefully to the witnesses who appeared before the Committee, and having reflected on the debate on Second Reading, I do not believe that the Government have demonstrated that they care. Once again, the Government’s case rests largely on the recommendations of Dr Penny Dash. Dr Dash argued that patient engagement should sit much closer to those responsible for planning and delivering services, that providers and commissioners gather and respond to patient experience themselves, that integrated care boards already possess engagement functions capable of undertaking that work, and that the variation between local healthwatch organisations means that the current statutory model is no longer justified. Those are interesting arguments, but they were examined by this Committee and, in my view, were not sustained by the evidence that we subsequently heard. Indeed, what struck me throughout the oral evidence sessions was not simply that witnesses disagreed with Dr Dash’s conclusions but that they challenged the central assumptions on which they depend. Dr Dash’s recommendations assume that independence is desirable but not essential. The overwhelming weight of evidence presented to this Committee suggests precisely the opposite. That distinction matters, because this debate is not fundamentally about patient experience. No member of this Committee disputes that patients should influence the design and delivery of services; Healthwatch already exists to help to achieve precisely that. The issue before us is different: it is whether those speaking on behalf of patients should remain institutionally independent of the organisations whose decisions they are expected to scrutinise. Throughout our proceedings, I have become increasingly convinced that that is the question that Ministers have not answered adequately.

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38. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Health Bill (Thirteenth sitting)

    Obviously, I have sympathy for what the hon. Member is trying to achieve—ensuring that our data systems are free from potential hacking by either state or non-state actors is very important—but I cannot see anything in new clause 4 about the size of contracts. Does his suggestion relate to any contract, however small, that was given to a non-UK-based company? It is not clear what he means by a non-United Kingdom company. Is that one that is headquartered here, one that is listed on our stock exchange, or one that has a CEO who is a British citizen? I am not quite sure what he means by a UK-based company, but if we can define an outside-based one, is he saying that any contract of any size given to such a company will have to come to Parliament?

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39. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Topical Questions

    T6. During the election, the Government promised to cut bills by £300; in fact, they have gone up by £300. With that level of financial acumen, the Secretary of State will fit right in, in his new job at the Treasury, but my constituents and local businesses want their bills cut now, not at some nebulous point in the future. When he gets to the Treasury, will he remove the taxes on our energy industry, to ensure that bills actually come down?

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40. 7 Jul 2026·Parliament·Greg Smith

    Large-scale Solar Farms

    Ministers have consistently been trying to argue that solar needs 1% of agricultural land, yet in a spectacular display of disjointed Government, their own land use framework talks about 9% of our agricultural land being taken out of food production for environmental schemes. At the same time—[Interruption.]

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