Showing every spoken contribution, including 5,578 under 12 words. Hide short remarks

1. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Graham Stuart

   Inheritance Tax

   My hon. Friend will remember that the centre-left Social Democratic party in Sweden abolished inheritance tax years ago, because it had gone down the route of this envy-filled, left-wing, socialist approach, and found that it was counterproductive, led to complexity and reduced wealth in the country. Afterwards, business thrived, and even the Communist party in Sweden, in the face of the facts 20 years ago, could see how wrong it was. It is a shame that the modern Labour party does not understand that.

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2. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Esther McVey

   Chetwynd Bridge

   A date for the diary.

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3. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst

   Inheritance Tax

   One of the liberating elements of speaking at this stage of the debate is that many excellent and eminently sensible points have already been made, so I can do an assorted highlights of the best bits that have come out of it. But it has made me reflect that perhaps if we all took a stroll down to Clapham, got on the omnibus, and spoke to the man and woman who had boarded it, I suspect that their vision of this country would not be the same as the purported utopia that we have heard from those on the Government Benches today. I suspect that if we asked people what they want to see from the tax system, they would want to see something that is not unnecessarily detrimental to a single group and not punitive in its intent. Fundamentally, it should not be something that disincentivises those who have done the right thing.<span id="468" class="column-number" data-column-number="468"></span> Looking at the tax landscape in this country, it has become far too complicated and burdensome—we are now at more than 20,000 pages of tax codes, whereas in 1997 there were fewer than 5,000.

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4. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst

   Inheritance Tax

   I recommend that the hon. Gentleman get on the Clapham omnibus, because it is a great opportunity to have his finger on the pulse of the British public. I think most will say that they want a fair system so that when they have worked, strived and built up a legacy for the next generation, they have something to hand down, because that is the most loving thing that people can do. I have not built up a family business or run a family farm, and I cannot imagine the stresses and strains that that involves, but these individuals understandably want to hand their businesses down to the next generation. We need them to do so, because if we do not have the farmers of tomorrow and the generation after that, we will not have on our tables the food that we enjoy today and that we hope our children will enjoy in years to come.

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5. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst

   Inheritance Tax

   I fundamentally do not agree with the hon. Lady’s point, and I suspect that farmers in this country will be wondering why her party has not stood up for farmers over fertilisers today.

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6. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst

   Inheritance Tax

   From a sedentary position, my hon. Friend makes a very valid point. Let us not kid ourselves: this debate has been framed as though we have some sort of Dickensian model of the idle rich and then the poor who are propping up the state. That is not the truth. The reality is that, as my hon. Friends have said, those who are very rich will inevitably put their affairs into trusts and escape inheritance tax. We are talking about those who are just about managing: those who are trying to earn a crust and to support their families. It is the middle class who get caught—those who go out to work every day to provide for their families. The average property price in my constituency of Solihull West and Shirley is now £345,000. Such properties are owned not by the toffs who are often derided by those on the Labour Benches, but by people who get up every morning and often work more than one job to provide for their families. People have tripped into paying inheritance tax by virtue of property prices being pushed up and the threshold remaining the same. The reality is that this tax is not operating as it was <span id="469" class="column-number" data-column-number="469"></span>intended. It is not capturing the individuals it was intended to capture; it is capturing the ordinary man and woman. The fact that the Government have frozen the threshold until 2031—a threshold that was first put in place in 2009—means that, whereas only 4% of deaths were captured by this particular tax between 2001 and 2024, 9.5% of deaths will be captured by 2030. When we compare ourselves with other OECD nations, we see that 18 of those 38 nations do not pay any inheritance tax at all—Australia, Canada and New Zealand among them—and none of the remaining 20 has it at such a punitive rate as we have here. The purpose of a tax system is of course to help fund our public services, but it also has to be fair, sensible and aspirational in its intent. It must ensure that those who strive and work hard are not penalised as a consequence, and I am afraid that this Government’s direction of travel is simply taking out those that do work hard—our family farms, our family businesses and others—by the knee.

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7. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Neil Hudson

   Inheritance Tax

   Are there any black Labradors at any of the premises that my hon. Friend mentions?

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8. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Neil Hudson

   Inheritance Tax

   These are people who are doing the right thing: farmers who feed us and look after our precious environment, family businesses supporting their local economy and families who work hard to provide a family home. Is not their being able to pass on their farms, family businesses and family homes to the next generation free from inheritance tax, about fairness?

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9. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

   Draft Boiler Upgrade Scheme (Amendment to the Energy Act 2008 etc.) Regulations 2026

   It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse, in my first outing on an SI from a Department I spent 18 months in. Not only is it amazing how much things have changed; it is amazing how much they have not, given some of the arguments that have come forward. As the Minister rightly set out, the draft regulations extend the BUS to thermal energy storage systems and make it a little easier for Ofgem to recover payments. However, it would be remiss of me not to point out the context of this debate, when we have heard in the media that this could be one of the schemes facing funding cuts. We only have to look at paragraph 5.5 of the explanatory memorandum to see that it still refers to the £2.7 billion. We discussed this issue yesterday in Energy Security and Net Zero questions, when we asked whether every single penny of the warm homes plan—that £15 billion-worth of funding—would be kept. However, the Minister was unable to give an answer, so it will be interesting to see whether that will be the case today. When we boil this SI down, the real question is whether this further extension of subsidy represents value for money. The Government’s wider ambition was to install 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028, but deployment remains far below that level. Of course, this scheme was introduced by the Conservative Government, but we should judge policy by its results, and not defend it simply because we introduced it. The fundamental problem is that electricity remains too expensive. Rather than addressing the underlying problem, the Government continue to reach for subsidies. That risks having to ask taxpayers to compensate for an energy market that makes electric heating less attractive than it should be. There is also a question of fairness: households unable to afford a new heating system should not face additional costs to subsidise those who can.<span id="5" class="column-number" data-column-number="5"></span> Heat batteries may well have a role, particularly in homes unsuitable for heat pumps. We are not opposed to the technology; we are simply questioning the economics of subsidising it. The Government have announced a grant of £2,500 per installation, but they appear to have decided the level of subsidy before demonstrating publicly why that figure represents good value. In essence, Ministers have put the cart before the horse. A question still arises over whether the necessary standards have been established. If so, that is welcome, but standards tell us whether a system is safe and properly installed; they do not tell us whether it is worth subsidising. For example, a car can pass its MOT, but that does not mean the Government should give anyone £2,500 to buy it. I therefore have three areas to explore. The first is the standards, which was also raised in the other place. Can the Minister confirm that all necessary product safety, design and installation standards are now in force? Will those standards assess real-world performance and not just safety? What redress will consumers have if properly installed systems fail to deliver the efficiency or savings they were promised? The second area I would like to explore is the methodology. What evidence led Ministers to select heat batteries for taxpayer support? Heat batteries can store energy bought at cheaper times for use later. That may lower bills, but shifting electricity consumption is not the same as reducing it. The benefit depends on efficiency, household demand, electricity tariffs and the system’s operating life. Will the Minister publish the Department’s underlying analysis, including its assumptions about consumption, efficiency, running costs and lifetime carbon savings? How does that analysis compare heat batteries with other heating technologies? My question is not whether heat batteries work, but why the technology was selected for subsidy over other electric heating solutions. What criteria were applied and what alternatives were assessed? If another technology can deliver the same or greater carbon reduction at lower cost to the taxpayer, why should it not qualify? That leads me to the final area: the costings. I simply ask the Minister how the Government arrived at £2,500. It would be helpful to understand what average purchase and installation costs were assumed. What annual running costs have been modelled, and what proportion of the total cost will taxpayers fund? Most importantly, what is the expected taxpayer cost per tonne of carbon saved, and how does that compare with the equivalent support for heat pumps? If the Government cannot answer those questions, how can this Committee judge whether £2,500 represents value for money? Ministers may point to high satisfaction, as they did in the other place, among existing boiler upgrade scheme recipients, but satisfaction with one subsidised technology does not justify the price of subsidising another. They may also argue that the extension increases customer choice—the Minister mentioned that in his speech—but genuine choice requires clear information about installation costs, running costs and long-term performance, not simply the Government promising a grant. This is not an argument against innovation, but one for evidence-led policy and proper stewardship of taxpayer money. We ask the Government to establish the standards, publish the methodology, and demonstrate the carbon savings and value for money, then determine the subsidy. Parliament should not be asked to approve an extension <span id="6" class="column-number" data-column-number="6"></span>of subsidy without clear evidence that the Government have the economics right. The Minister would do well to explain not simply why heat batteries might work, but why the taxpayer should pay £2,500 toward them, and what measurable benefit we will see. Of course, this is all in the context of what will come in the Budget, so I am very interested to see if the Minister can answer those questions today.

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10. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    The fact is that the hotels have been closed down because HMOs have been opened up, and the Government will not even specify how many HMOs are involved because they conglomerate the data, so we cannot even obtain transparent answers for my community. That puts my community at risk, and it puts at risk the people who are housed in the HMOs. Does my hon. Friend not agree with that?

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11. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    That happened in my neighbouring constituency. Does my hon. Friend understand why my community is so upset when we see people moving into HMOs, given the risk posed and the evidence base that she has just announced?

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12. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    Will the Minister give way?

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13. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    Did the Minister reflect on what the National Crime Agency said about the need for a deterrent? What assessment has she made of how effective the Australian approach to third-country processing has been in bringing down its crossings?

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14. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    On that point, will the Minister give way?

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15. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    The hon. Gentleman talked about the UK becoming a pariah state if we are not in the ECHR. Does he think that Canada, which is not in the ECHR, is unable to provide a framework of rights for its citizens?

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16. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    The hon. Gentleman is talking about the benefits of co-operation with the EU and how that might help us. Does he accept that when we were in the Dublin convention, we took more asylum seekers than were sent back?

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17. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the work going on in relation to article 8. What is his view on how article 3 has changed from a protection against torture to a way to access particular forms of healthcare? Does he think that is reasonable?

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18. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate. The concerns and worries of women in Piddington about the sorts of people being placed alongside them are shared by women up and down the country. You and I, Madam Deputy Speaker, know better than many exactly what those concerns are, because of the camp in Crowborough. The Government have placed more than 500 young men in Crowborough, in your Sussex Weald constituency, and they are pledging to keep them there all the way till 2030. Madam Deputy Speaker has had to do her best in the face of a Green, Lib Dem and Labour council that has totally failed in its responsibilities to support those residents. The contrast in scale at Piddington, where there are just 350 residents, is even greater. At the heart of the debate is whether women have a legitimate, reasonable concern to be worried about the people being placed in their communities. I am not afraid to say that I think the culture of the people often placed in these communities is inferior to ours when it comes to women’s rights and attitudes to women. Let us be clear that more than 72% of the people crossing in small boats are men, and the vast majority of them are aged between 18 and 39. They come predominantly from countries like Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq. What do the people of those countries—men primarily—think about women and women’s rights? This is not speculation or stereotyping; it is evidence from social surveys and reports of third parties. In Syria, more than 70% of women report that they are severely restricted in their ability to leave their homes. In Afghanistan, more than 90% of the population think that spousal physical abuse is justified. In Iraq, more than 46% of currently married women are exposed to at least one form of spousal violence and eight in 10 women have suffered some form of sexual harassment. In Pakistan, the UN estimates that between 70% and 90% of Pakistani women experience some form of domestic violence in their lifetime. In Eritrea, misogyny is embedded so deep that over half of women aged 15 to 49 think it is entirely justified for a husband to beat his wife.

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19. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    I wish we had a system in which we could test the hon. Member’s proposition, because at the minute, we have absolutely no idea about the attitudes and values of the people coming from those countries. She is correct to say that we have issues of misogyny in this country, but for our country the equivalent figures to those I have just mentioned are significantly lower. That is the point: these cultures are worse than ours on the many issues we care about in relation to women and girls. On the one hand, the Government are pledging action on women and girls and driving improvements in that area—we have done so in our society for many decades—but on the other hand they are pretending that the citizens of those countries, which have done none of that work, are exactly the same as us and will come over and treat our women exactly the same. I am afraid that flies in the face of common sense and the clear statistical evidence I gave about rates of crime and the social attitudes of those people. I am not afraid to say that there is a lot to do when it comes to women and girls in our culture, but we have a significantly better culture towards women and girls than countries such as Eritrea, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and a whole range of others, so it is perfectly reasonable for women being asked to live alongside huge numbers of unvetted people from those countries to be concerned and to have worries. We should not be afraid to call that out, and it has nothing to do with racism. We have a culture of football hooliganism in this country, and it is predominantly white people who engage in that football hooliganism. I am happy to say that; it does not make me racist towards white people. It does not make me racist towards other cultures when I point out the issues and problems that they have, which we should not be afraid to call out.

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20. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    It is around one in four. It was 80% in the country I referenced, which is significantly more. The equivalent figure for this country is much, much too high—I would want it to be zero—but that makes the exact point, which I think the hon. Member did not want to draw out, that those countries are worse than we are. We should not be importing large quantities of unvetted young men from those cultures without a proper way of dealing with that. We do not have a way of doing that. The Government inadvertently admitted that, as they have had to actively tell those people not to rape women. That is because they know the things I have said about the differences in attitudes towards women in many of those countries. The question is: what do we do about it? I am clear that it should be up to us to decide who comes here from what countries and on what basis. We should decide asylum policy—not the people smugglers—and the routes on which people come. The Conservatives have been clear and admitted that we should have been quicker in bringing in our own deterrence policy, but we are committed to doing that now and have a plan for it. That is what actually counts.<span id="398" class="column-number" data-column-number="398"></span> The only country that has successfully dealt with this issue is Australia. It saw a decrease of more than 90% in the number of people crossing the sea and entering illegally by saying, “If you come here illegally under that method, you don’t get to stay—end of story.” That worked, and we should do exactly the same thing. The Government like to talk about the failure of the Rwanda plan and the four people sent as volunteers. They know that those people went voluntarily. It is clearly not a deterrent if someone goes voluntarily, but we were never allowed to use the scheme as a deterrent to deport people whether they wanted to go or not. The Government can do everything they want to reform and tweak the operation of human rights laws in this country, but there are two ways in which that approach is fundamentally flawed. First, it does not matter if a claim can be successfully rejected if someone cannot be deported to the country they came from. It is completely futile. Unless the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) thinks that we will deport people en masse to Afghanistan or some other third world, war-torn country, clearly, whatever we might want to do around the validity of their claim is worthless if we cannot send them to another country or back to the country they came from. Secondly, we have talked about the nature of the claims and how we might tweak them. The European Court of Human Rights is a precedent-setting Court. If it makes a ruling and sets a precedent, ultimately, that will hold sway. I asked the hon. Member for South Norfolk to comment on article 3, which he failed to do. That is just one example of how the European convention on human rights has become totally distorted. Article 3 was originally envisioned to prevent people from being deported to a country where they might face torture. That was the aim of the article. It is now used to say that when someone comes to our country and commits horrendous crimes such as rape, but they have a psychiatric illness, it is torture if the country we seek to deport them to does not have adequate healthcare provision. Under article 3, that is not allowed. Who can reasonably argue that that was envisioned by all the people the hon. Member referenced when they created a set of rights which, at the time, were appropriate and applied appropriately? Does he really think that those people envisioned that, 50 years later, that would mean we could not deport a rapist because he would not get adequate healthcare in the country that we were deporting him to? The article has been totally distorted from its original purpose, and the question of whether we can operate a safe and decent framework of rights in this country without the use of the ECHR is quite clearly scaremongering. Canada manages it, New Zealand manages it, Australia manages it. They all manage to have a framework of rights and international agreements, and that includes Canada, which is seeking a closer relationship with the EU, which is not part of the ECHR.

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21. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    I urge the hon. Gentleman to read Lord Wolfson’s report, which makes it clear that we can engage in international agreements. To make the point valid, the hon. Gentleman has to suggest that no other countries in the world manage to enter into complex legal arrangements without both being part of the ECHR. Of course they do. Agreements will be subject to renegotiation. This country is absolutely right to respond to what our people want us to do, which is to protect our borders and put them first, and not the sorts of people we are putting up at taxpayers’ expense in Crowborough.

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22. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

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23. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    The hon. Gentleman is talking about how a system can effectively manage the risk of the sites. Does he not accept that the women in Piddington and others just do not want the risk there at all? They do not want it to be managed; they do not want it there at all.

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24. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    Will the Minister give way on that point?

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25. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    Does the Minister think that, in any circumstances, a rapist should not be deported from this country because of access to healthcare?

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26. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Caroline Johnson

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West on introducing this important Bill. I also recognise the contributions of Members of both Houses, and that of the former Members of Parliament Andrea Leadsom and Will Quince, who have done so much work in this area. I declare an interest, Dame Siobhain, as a consultant paediatrician in the NHS and a member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. I put on record that the Opposition support this Bill. Child development is hugely important; that is why Committee members are here today. It is also why I am in this place at all, as it was a major motivator for me to become an MP. As a paediatrician, I saw the profound effect that children not receiving the care that they need in the early years can have. Some cases were of deliberate neglect, and I saw children who had delayed growth, delayed development or physical changes. I remember one little boy who was admitted with vomiting, but he was not ill with a medical condition. We discovered that he had learnt to vomit because nobody came when he cried. Those children need us to step up in a way that we do not always do at the moment. There is a spectrum, and most of the children are thankfully not in that situation, but it does demonstrate the profound changes that can occur if children are not looked after. However, we also see the profound improvements that can occur if children receive all the things that they need to thrive to their best potential. Sometimes parents may not understand the importance of certain interventions, or they may need support to deliver them. That is where this Bill comes in.

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27. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Caroline Johnson

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I think it is important that we have both women and men in politics, because fathers have an important role to play with babies too, and gentlemen can talk about their experiences of fatherhood. <span id="16" class="column-number" data-column-number="16"></span>One of the challenges that some babies face is the lack of that male role model. It is a balance between the two. And, of course, women and men can talk about each or either topic if they wish to do so. The other thing I want to talk about is interaction and play—the serve and return. Being played with and stimulated is very important for brain development, and a lack of it can lead to reduced attention span, reduced memory and weaker impulse control in the long run. People might believe that interaction and play come instinctively, and to some they do, but to others less so. Support and understanding of what they can do to help their baby is something that I think women and men value, because almost everyone loves their children intently, so they will want to do the best for their baby, and sometimes it is helpful to know what that is. I often get patients in clinic who come with one problem, but if they have a small infant, they will often say, “While I am here, doctor, can you just look at this? Can I just ask about that?” I am sure the hon. Member for Stroud, as a GP, will tell us the same. Parents ask because there are so many questions, and having the opportunity to have them answered is very important. I also want to talk about inequalities, because we have talked a lot about them this morning. There is now inequality between the services provided in cities and those provided in rural areas. Does the Minister have any comments on how those services will be provided in rural environments? Very often the average income for a postcode may be good, but there will be hidden poverty within it, because of discrepancies within postcode averages that are seen less in cities. Transport can also be more difficult in rural areas. How will the Minister ensure that the services are accessible to those who need them? I want to talk about the money, because if we invest £1 in a child’s life at this age, we can get £10 in return owing to better outcomes in the long run. Will the Minister confirm that the money for those services will be provided in full, and that there will be a workforce plan to ensure that there is a workforce to deliver them? The hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South, who I know has done a lot of work in this area over the years and cares about it very deeply, talks about outcomes. Outcomes are important, but so is value for money, because we must be careful with taxpayers’ money. What interventions are making the most difference, and how do we focus on achieving them? We need to think carefully about what we measure. Overall, however, this is a good Bill that will help infants and children to develop their full potential and have equality of opportunity, and therefore I will support it.

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28. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Caroline Johnson

    Underperforming NHS Trusts: Government Oversight

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I congratulate the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) on securing this debate on a subject important not only to her constituents but to all of us right across the country. The performance of the NHS is key to the health of the nation. It gives us all the best chance of good health and recovery, which is important for our social wellbeing and brings economic benefits. The first question is this: how do we know which trusts are performing well and which are not? First, we need to decide what good performance looks like. We can look at that in a couple of ways, in particular in relation to outcome and experience, both of which are important. The outcome, for example, may be a death. That will come to us all eventually, but the experience might be one of comfort, in line with the wishes of the individual—as good as can be delivered. Conversely, one could on the face of it have a good surgical outcome from a trust but a poor experience of care during that experience. Experience is measured in a number of different ways: individual staff, such as consultants, have patient feedback as part of their appraisal and revalidation; the friends and family test enables people to give anonymous feedback; the number of complaints or compliments can be measured; and trusts do their own surveys—but those are all to some extent internal processes.

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29. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Caroline Johnson

    Underperforming NHS Trusts: Government Oversight

    Sorry, the microphone went off, but it has just come back on again. The processes are mostly internal. Healthwatch is an independent patient voice, which looks at people’s experience across the health service in a way that is independent of Government. As part of the Health Bill, however, the Government plan to abolish Healthwatch and to bring it inside the Department. Will the Minister comment on whether they still plan to do that? When he was Mayor of Greater Manchester and in charge of its integrated care board, the Prime Minister wrote to the Government to suggest that they might be on the wrong path. As Prime Minister, does he still think so? What instructions has the Minister had in relation to that? People are sometimes frightened to provide feedback to trusts, but they will be more willing to do so when they have confidence in being heard independently.<span id="180WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="180WH"></span> Other ways in which the Government measure experience relate to waiting times—how long it takes to be seen in clinic, how long it takes to be seen in A&amp;E, how long it takes from the decision to admit a patient to actually admitting them, or how long it takes for a procedure or an operation. The Government produce lots and lots of figures but many of them, I am afraid, go in the wrong direction. The Government have a dashboard for the referral to treatment statistics, and the waiting lists are rising. The number reached a low point in March 2026, just after the reports of exceptional numbers of removals, but it has now risen by 222,000 in the past four months. I am afraid that the numbers waiting for a procedure or operation are higher now than at the general election. This year, many more people than in 2024 waited more than 12 hours in A&amp;E after a decision to admit them. Staff sickness rates, mentioned earlier in the debate, are also consistently higher than they were before the general election. Statistics across the NHS are not going in the right direction. The Government also measure outcomes through the financial management of a trust, leadership and Government metrics, the number of procedures performed, the number of “never” events, and CQC inspections. Again, the Government are planning to fold HSSIB into the CQC, which many commentators have warned against; the Liberal Democrats and we the Opposition have spoken against the abolition of HSSIB. When the Government take the Health Bill through the Lords in Committee in the next week or two, I hope that they will think again. The Government also plan to roll a number of other things into the CQC at the same time, including events management; I wonder whether they are asking an organisation that they acknowledge has been struggling to take on too much. If poor performance is identified, who is responsible? Is it the consultant or the matron? Is it the directors’ suite—the chief executive or the chair? Ultimately, if a trust is underperforming at the moment, governors are supposed to hold the board to account. The Health Bill abolishes those. The ICBs—the commissioners—can hold the trust to account but their budgets have been halved, so will they have the capacity to do so? Many of them have merged, and some of those mergers have been paused by the Government. This is all a distraction. NHS England has a role, but it is being abolished too. Apparently, the overall headcount in the DHSC and NHS England is to be halved. How will they have the bandwidth to provide the scrutiny that the Government say they will have? Having identified the management of poor performance, the Government chose five trusts—North Cumbria, Mid and South Essex, Hull University Teaching Hospitals, Northern Lincolnshire and Goole, and East Kent—to have a special intensive recovery programme in March 2026. However, it is not clear what has been instituted in those trusts, what outcomes that programme is developing, how long it will last or what the Government will do for those trusts that fall just outside that group of five. How will the Government improve the variability between trusts that do not fall into the bottom cohort? How did they choose the five trusts that were chosen? As we heard earlier, there are several metrics by which some trusts could be considered in the bottom five, but they were not chosen, and some metrics by which those <span id="181WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="181WH"></span>that were chosen may not be in the bottom five. How has the Minister chosen those trusts and how does she intend to improve those that do not fall into her chosen few? The Government have promised a workforce plan, but the workforce is the most important thing. Right hon. and hon. Members have spoken in this debate about the really good staff in their trusts working extremely hard in very difficult conditions. The previous Conservative Government developed a long-term workforce plan. This Government decided that they wanted their own workforce plan—they won the election so they are very much entitled to make one. But they have still not written it. They promised it by the end of 2025; we are rapidly approaching the end of 2026 and it is still not with us. Can the Minister—<em>[Interruption.]</em>

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30. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Caroline Johnson

    Underperforming NHS Trusts: Government Oversight

    Before the interruption, we were talking about the importance of workforce to the health service and to any improvements that we wish to make to services. The previous Conservative Government developed a long-term workforce plan. This Government decided to develop their own, which is fair enough, but it is very delayed. Can the Minister tell us, without using the words “in due course”, “imminently” or “soon”, when it will be published, preferably giving a date? Returning to other plans, the Government say that maternity and neonatal care is their priority, which is good, but when they came into government, they said that they had a plan to improve it. They spent the first 12 months writing their 10-year plan, which said that they would produce a maternity and neonatal plan. They did a review, which took six months longer than it was supposed to. They were then two years into a parliamentary term. That plan says that they will have a commissioner, who they have yet to appoint, and another plan for a modern service framework, which is apparently due by Christmas. Can the Minister guarantee that, two and a half years into the Parliament, they will have a delivery plan for maternity improvements? The bottom line is that I am concerned that the Government are too busy reorganising the NHS to deliver on their promises. NHS performance is declining in many areas. There is huge variability between trusts and departments. The Government picked five for intensive treatment. What about the others? Can the Minister clarify that it works? The Government are internalising patient experience, which means that it may suddenly look much better, but how will anyone have confidence in the figures if they are produced by the Government marking their own homework? The abolition of NHS England has been badly planned. ICB cuts, mergers and paused mergers are simply a distraction. The removal of the need for governors removes another layer of accountability and scrutiny. The Government say they are working at pace, but it is a very slow pace. The workforce plan and the maternity plan have been delayed, but so have things like the Hughes report. People suffering from valproate and mesh have been waiting and waiting. It is getting towards <span id="182WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="182WH"></span>three years since that report was published. They have waited long enough. I urge the Minister to say when the Government intend to respond to that report. The Government need to get a grip of who is holding the trusts to account, so that when the Health Bill comes out the other side of the Lords, there is a clear chain of command. Perhaps it will lead up to the Secretary of State, but it is clear that they will not be able to micromanage every detail. There needs to be a clear path so that people know who is accountable, who will drive improvement, who to congratulate when improvements are made and who to hold accountable when it goes wrong.

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31. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Caroline Johnson

    Underperforming NHS Trusts: Government Oversight

    Will the Minister give way?

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32. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Caroline Johnson

    Inheritance Tax

    It is clear that the hon. Member is taking this issue very seriously and thinking about it very deeply. What does he think about inheritance tax on businesses? I give him the example of a bandage factory making sterile bandages, owned by a family, where the 40-odd-year-old gentleman currently running that factory stands to lose quite a lot of money when his father dies. That will mean laying off people or selling the factory. How does that help the people who work there?

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33. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Caroline Johnson

    Inheritance Tax

    Will the hon. Lady give way?

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34. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Caroline Johnson

    Inheritance Tax

    The hon. Gentleman is making a distinction between money earned by somebody and money earned by their father. If a man and his daughter run a business together and the father dies, should the daughter not inherit? How much did she earn the money by working in that business? Did she not earn it? Why should it matter? That business employs people—whom the hon. Gentleman has talked about—who will lose their job if that business must close.

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35. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Caroline Johnson

    Inheritance Tax

    What proportion of people working in the private sector on low wages are employed by people who own businesses?

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36. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Caroline Johnson

    Inheritance Tax

    On the point of ideology, what I have tried to get from my interventions is an understanding on the Government Benches that inheritance tax penalises people at all levels. If people do not start a business because it is not worth the bother, if they do not invest because it will be taken off them, and if they cannot pass a business on to their children and, as a result, it has to be sold and the jobs are lost, people do not have jobs and employment, and everyone is affected.

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37. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Caroline Johnson

    Inheritance Tax

    My husband is a farmer and runs businesses. He feels a huge responsibility not just in building his business, but to the people he employs. Those people will be affected if the business does not grow or does not invest because he is worried about this tax.

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38. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Ben Spencer

    Inheritance Tax

    Does the hon. Gentleman understand that the bank of mum and dad comes from the hard work of mum and dad so that they can pass things on to their children?

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39. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Ben Spencer

    Inheritance Tax

    This is, without doubt, one of the most important debates we can have, because it goes to the heart of a simple question: when someone works hard, saves diligently, builds a business, a family farm or buys a family home and wants to plan for their children’s future, why are they penalised by this Government? Why is their success targeted? And when will fairness be restored, so that those who work hard to achieve success are rewarded, not attacked and subject to the politics of envy? The answer, I hope, will be after the next election. Labour’s answer is always the same. Its instinct is to ask, “Who can we tax?” That is not me saying that, but the Work and Pensions Secretary, who admitted that every conversation he had had with Labour Back-Bench MPs was them asking who they can tax to pay for increased welfare spending. It is constituencies like Runnymede and Weybridge that are firmly in their sights. I can picture them now, sitting high in their Whitehall ivory tower, looking for new ways to tax and spend. Surrey and the south-west comes into their sights: the successful businesses, the skilled workforce and the resulting high house prices. Rather than looking to replicate that growth and success, they simply look at their spreadsheet. They see a house price. They see something they think they can tax. But people’s assets are not lottery winnings. They are the product of decades of hard work, discipline and sacrifice. To tax wealth and savings in this way is not fairness; it is a penalty on individual responsibility. It sends a damaging message that those who work hard, build a business, and save for their and their family’s future will be punished for doing so. I believe in fairness, not redistribution. At the next election, the country will be offered a clear choice: a Labour Government whose priorities put welfare spending above our country’s defence and whose commitment to raising taxation will bankrupt our children’s future; or a Conservative party that believes aspiration should be rewarded, not targeted, that savings belong to the individual not the state, and that planning for the future should be encouraged, not penalised. Whether it is an increase in taxation on savings and investments, increased taxation on businesses, the mansion tax or the family farm tax, Labour’s approach is to tax success. Labour is asset-stripping our country, and targeting the very people and businesses that create growth, prosperity and opportunity. At the next general election, the choice could not be clearer: a Labour party, facilitated by the Liberal Democrats, that sees taxpayers as targets; or a Conservative party that backs enterprise and rewards hard work, and stands up for those who want to build a better future for their children. People’s money is their own. It is not the Government’s money that Labour has not taxed yet.

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40. 14 Oct 2026·Parliament·Dr Andrew Murrison

    MOD Bicester and Illegal Migrants

    Is it not the case that those on the Labour Benches have entirely missed the point? Dealing with the problem once it has arrived in our communities will not do. We need something fundamental that deals with the problem, which, admittedly, did not arrive in 2024—it is of relatively long standing. We need a solution, just like the Rwanda solution, which was on the cusp of being implemented at the general election. The first thing that the Labour party did on coming into office was to can that.

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