Showing every spoken contribution, including 5,750 under 12 words. Hide short remarks

1. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Stuart Andrew

   Topical Questions

   Again, the Secretary of State cannot answer. His answers are too vague. He is very good at making promises, but the facts are that he is presiding over a reorganisation that has stalled, creating uncertainty for staff. Waiting lists are up 50,000 in the past three months, hospices are in crisis because of national insurance contribution rises, and we have had strikes again—despite big pay rises—with the threat of more. If the Secretary of State wants the leadership in the future, perhaps he should show leadership in the NHS now, and tell us not just the plans, but when he will give the details and how he will deliver on his promises to patients.

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2. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Stuart Andrew

   Points of Order

   On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Before beginning my questions, I meant to pay tribute to our former colleague Oliver Colvile, who sadly passed away last night. He served as the Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport between 2010 and 2017 and was named by Conservative Home as one of a minority of Conservative MPs not to have voted against the Government, which, as a previous Whip, I thought was exceptional. He was a true gentleman whose eccentricities endeared him to many. I am sure the thoughts of the whole House are with his family.

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3. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Stuart Anderson

   Mandatory Digital ID

   As a veteran, I was disgusted to see yesterday that veterans are being used as guinea pigs, with a smokescreen, to test this system. Our veterans do everything for us. They are brave people. They should not be the ones on whom this is tested. Does the hon. Member agree?

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4. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Stuart Anderson

   Mandatory Digital ID

   We should start not by asking what the Government can do, but what the Government should do. Mandatory ID cards are an overreach and far above what any Government should be doing. I have reached out to my South Shropshire constituents with a survey to ask for their views, and they are strongly against it. Among the points they have raised is digital exclusion.

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5. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Stuart Anderson

   Mandatory Digital ID

   My hon. Friend raises a valid point. That has been a concern in South Shropshire, where I have huge areas that do not have high-speed connectivity. A lot of elderly people are not able to use an iPhone or computer, so they feel that they will be digitally excluded. Whether it is mandatory or voluntary, it is still—

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6. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Stuart Anderson

   Mandatory Digital ID

   The hon. Member has just highlighted the confusion around this. If the Government are considering hard copies, the costs could be into the billions of pounds, as the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) mentioned. There is no money, and there is not a problem in this area, so why create a problem, spending billions of pounds that the country does not have on something that no Government should be doing? On the subject of digital exclusion, a large percentage of my population is not connected or does not use IT. My concern is whether the digitally-excluded pensioners in South Shropshire will be hounded by the police. Will the police be chasing them around, asking them to sign up? Will people find that they cannot get a job unless they have digital ID? There are huge concerns about this. [Interruption.] Members can shake their heads, but the scheme is being rolled out to stop illegal immigration. It is a dead cat story, and no Government should be looking to do this. I have major concerns, and so do my constituents. I am worried about the security of the scheme. Look at China and Russia: we have continual cyber-attacks on the UK, as we have just seen with Jaguar Land Rover. With the advancement of AI, if we believe we can keep our data safe, why have spreadsheets been emailed to the Taliban? Mistakes happen, but imagine having the whole country’s data. It was done by a civil servant, and it is a disgrace it happened under whoever’s watch. We should not be joking about things like data going to the Taliban. This is a major issue. It is the start of an authoritarian Government, and I do not believe we should have any involvement with it. It should be cancelled straightaway.

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7. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Stuart Anderson

   Mandatory Digital ID

   Does my hon. Friend agree that the way this idea was launched is a complete smokescreen and did not reveal the real reason for digital ID? The real reason is to gain control over the British people.

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8. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

   Sentencing Bill

   We hear a lot about rehabilitation from Labour Members, and we hear a lot about recidivism. The most likely spur for recidivism is letting people out who will continue to do harm. We will be told by the Government that those people are being let out on licence, so will my right hon. Friend invite the Minister to predict how many people will be recalled while they are on licence? The Justice Secretary has already described that number as being too high, but will it rise as a result of these measures?

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9. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

   Sentencing Bill

   The hon. Gentleman is indicating his diligence—as though any evidence of that were required—in tabling these technical but important amendments. However, will he deal with the fundamental issue? As he has just said, the Criminal Justice Act 2003—from memory, section 250—allows criminals who are released on licence to be subject to all kinds of conditions, but the truth is that if we let more dangerous people out, more people will be recalled, because they will do immense amounts of harm. Recalls are going to go up as a result of this legislation, and many more people are going to suffer because of those who are let out early.

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10. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    I pay tribute to that campaign, and in particular to my hon. Friend’s commitment to victims, which I know is outstanding. Will he acknowledge, too, that many of the people who suffer are suffering at the hands of repeat criminals—career criminals? Sometimes people who have been let out on licence breach the licence conditions. For instance, in my constituency a young woman was killed by a dangerous driver, on licence, who had been banned from driving. There are many like her, and my hon. Friend is standing for them. Will he therefore impress on the Government that they are letting out people who cause grief, harm and hurt? That is just not good enough.

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11. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    My hon. Friend is now coming to the nub of the issue. There are different views across the House. There are those of us who believe that the justice system should be retributive, that punishment matters and that punishment should fit crime, and there are those who do not. There are those who do not think that the justice system should be punitive, whereas I think that it should be punitive. I think that more people should go to jail and should go for much longer, not just because it is a deterrent but because it signals public outrage at these heinous acts. That is why it matters, and everyone in the House should realise it.

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12. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    The hon. Gentleman is an old friend, and I appreciate his attempt to improve the Bill. The new clauses that he supports are interesting and have merit. Will he acknowledge, though, that it is not just probation services that will be put under extra pressure by this Bill, but that the police will be too? Will he invite the Minister, when he sums up, to talk about the extra resources he can make available to Lincolnshire police and other authorities, as well as to the Probation Service, to implement the provisions of the Bill that he has brought to the Committee?

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13. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    My hon. Friend is making a bold case on behalf of victims. I hope that he will agree that the more we agonise about the circumstances of the guilty, the more we displace consideration of the effects on the innocent. Over the whole of my lifetime, the focus on the circumstances of wicked people has had exactly that effect, and unfortunately it has permeated so much of the establishment, including the judiciary; sentences are sometimes inadequate for that very reason.

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14. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    I had not intended to start this way but I will do so, following the last remarks by the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) about acquired brain injury. I am chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for acquired brain injury, and we recently held a session specifically on the relationship between acquired brain injury and the criminal justice system. She is quite right to emphasise that. I will say no more in detail about it, except to refer the Minister to the report that we published, which includes a section on criminal justice and acquired brain injury. Beyond that, in talking about the fundamental consideration of this Bill, I want to speak about the facts, the reasons for them, their effects and the alternative, very much in the spirit that my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) spoke in when moving her amendment. I recommend her amendments, almost without reservation. They are a bold attempt to rescue the Bill from the damage it might do. I do not claim that that damage is intentional, because I do not think that anyone in this House intends to do harm—we would not be here if we did. None the less, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) said, harm, whether unintended or otherwise, will be the result of this legislation. It is undeniable, I am afraid, that the Government present to the House a paradox. On one hand, they say that this Bill is necessary because of practicalities, including the inadequate number of prison places. That is a plausible argument, because the prison population has grown, as we heard earlier in the debate, and we simply do not have enough places to accommodate all those who might be sent to prison. On the other hand, they say that it is a matter of principle, and they tell us that short sentences do not work. In doing so, they are conceding to the rehabilitationist argument that has pervaded criminal justice thinking and criminology more generally for the whole of my lifetime. I remember that when I was studying criminology at university, there was exactly that narrative. Other academics challenged it: Philip Bean, the criminologist, wrote a definitive book called “Rehabilitation and Deviance”, in which he made the case for just retribution. The public certainly believe that the criminal justice system should be retributive.

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15. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    It is certainly true that a very significant proportion of criminals are repeat offenders, and there are people who choose to live a life of crime. This is not an illness to be treated; it is a malevolent choice to be dealt with through punishment, because we need to punish people for doing harm. That is not complicated—it is what all our constituents would take as read—yet, as I say, we seem to agonise about it perpetually.

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16. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    It is certainly true that one perverse choice leads to other consequences, and when people become involved in drugs, it often leads to all kinds of horrors. The key thing is therefore to stop people getting involved in drugs, and successive Governments, including this one, have intended to do that. Through a series of measures, we try to deter people from involvement in drugs, to deal with drug dealers and to do all the other things that you will not allow me to speak about at length, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I would be deviating from the content of the amendments if I did—

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17. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    I am extremely grateful, Madam Chairman.

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18. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    I do agree with my hon. Friend. Just stepping back a moment, Ms Ghani, I am mindful that the only female Speaker we have ever had once famously declared, “Call me Madam”, so I will from now on call you Madam Chairman rather than anything else. It is certainly true that we need a war against drugs, drug dealing and all the effects of drugs, but it would be quite wrong to separate that from the public desire to see people who do bad things dealt with appropriately. When those bad things are at their extreme, and as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton pointed out, we are speaking of extremes—acts of violence against women, minors and, let us face it, men—they need to be dealt with with severity. There is nothing wrong with saying that because it is what most people intuitively feel, and it is right that they do. Grotius, the jurist, once said that criminal justice was about “the infliction of an ill suffered for an ill done”, and that sense that the punishment must fit the crime rings true now, as it did when he made that observation. The Minister needs to explain whether the Bill is about practicalities or principle. I have yet to determine which position the Government have taken.

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19. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    The hon. Lady makes a valid point. While I attack the rehabilitationist dogma, I do of course believe that we should try to save souls, and the best way of doing that is to address people’s fundamental problems, as many Members across the Committee have said in the course of this debate. That might be about ensuring that people have adequate learning, or it might be about the acquisition of a particular skill. The hon. Lady will know from her rich experience in these matters that if someone can get a job when they leave prison, they are much less likely to reoffend. When someone in those circumstances is unable to get a job, it is usually a result of the fact that they do not have core skills, in terms of basic competencies, or specialist skills. Where those can be provided through learning in prison, that undoubtedly has beneficial results—I have seen that myself in prison, where I have met both the people who run such services and the people receiving them. The hon. Lady is therefore right. However, I am really speaking about something more fundamental than that, which is a willingness to recognise —as the hon. Lady did, by the way, in her brief intervention —that punishment matters. The reticence or unwillingness to declare that as openly as I have, or the attempt to ignore or avoid it, is at odds with the instincts of the vast majority of our constituents. It is, perhaps, a product of a society that has lost its moral compass, where right and wrong have been eroded through a kind of moral relativism. Perhaps it is because of some quasi-Freudian need to explain crime in more complex terms than it may warrant—for it is simply a question of someone wanting something they cannot get and using force, violence or some other means to get it.

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20. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    I agree with the hon. Lady, actually. I remember visiting the former Justice Secretary—the former Member for Cheltenham, Alex Chalk—with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman), to tell him that we would not vote for it if that Government brought forward a measure to let people out early. My position on this matter has been entirely consistent; I would not have voted for a Conservative measure that let people out of prison early any more than I will vote for this measure tonight. I suggested three things to the then Justice Secretary: first, that we deal more robustly with foreign national offenders; again, our constituents would be astounded and appalled if they realised just how many foreign national offenders are in our prisons. Secondly, I suggested taking emergency measures to provide prison places. After all, during covid, we built Nightingale hospitals; I suggested that we build Fry prisons, named after the Tory prison reformer Elizabeth Fry, which will not be lost on the historians here in the Chamber. I do not see why that could not be done. Thirdly, we should certainly explore prisons that have been closed in recent times, under Conservative and Labour Governments, and see which could be used, either temporarily or on a permanent basis. There is a whole range of measures that we could take. It is not easy, and I say that knowing what it is like being a Government Minister. None of those things are easy, but they are all worthy of further exploration because of the effects that the legislation will have.

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21. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    As my right hon. Friend says with her typical clarity and passion, it may be that the Government bow to public pressure—and there will undoubtedly be public pressure of a kind she describes. We are speaking about people who have done serious harm, including sex offenders of the most extreme kind and violent repeat offenders. These are not people who have committed minor indiscretions; they are very serious criminals. The public will resist their release and protest about it, and the Minister may well feel obliged, as I am sure he is a man of principle, to return to the House and amend the legislation when its effects are truly and fully seen. My judgment would be that the facts speak for themselves: thousands of people will be let out of prison who certainly should not be. The reasons are as I described them; they are practical, but there is an underlying sentiment that I tried to articulate: it is a fear of punishment and an unwillingness to recognise the retributive nature of criminal justice. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) set out far more eloquently than I ever could, the effects are likely to be devastating for our constituents and communities across the country—and bear in mind that it will happen in every part of this country, every constituency will suffer as a result of the legislation. Each one of us will, as good constituency MPs, have to cope with some of these effects. The alternative is, as I described when responding to an earlier intervention, to look at every possible means of accommodating people in prison who deserve to be incarcerated—

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22. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    I am coming to my exciting finale, but I will happy give way on the way to it.

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23. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    On a purely technical point, I am right hon. and so are my right hon. Friends the Members for Tatton and for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman), but let us put that to one side. It is a matter of public record that I almost never disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Fareham and Waterlooville. The truth is, she is right: we should have built more prisons much earlier. We could have anticipated these things—they can be modelled, after all. By the way, Governments are often surprisingly poor at modelling—I saw that throughout my time in government—but we should have modelled this, given the trend change in the prison population.

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24. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    I noted those figures earlier. My right hon. Friend is right—we also rarely disagree, and I did not disagree with a word she said earlier—that more prison places were added, but there are two things about that. What we did not really take necessary account of was the effect of sentencing policy. If more people are sentenced to incarceration, perfectly properly, that changes the trend. We certainly could have dealt more effectively with foreign national offenders than we did, which was another growing problem. Furthermore, over a long period of time, while we were adding places we took some prison places out. We need to think about the number of prisons that closed. She is therefore right. [Interruption.] It is not that we did nothing—far from it; we did many good things of the kind she described—but, unfortunately, not enough account was taken over a long enough period. It is not largely about the immediate policy of the previous Government. It goes back much further than that to a series of Governments of both major parties over a long time indeed. The modelling that I described is decade-long modelling. It is an extremely difficult business to get planning permission to build a prison. The last Government often struggled with resistance to having a prison built or expanded in a locality. It is usually local constituency MPs—we can imagine such people: Liberal Democrat types—who come here and say one thing—[Interruption.] Notice that I said “types” rather than just Liberal Democrats. They say one thing but go back to their constituencies and campaign against opening a prison.

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25. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    With that, I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

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26. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    The thing that I most admire about the hon. Gentleman is his sartorial style—I glanced across towards him earlier, and I was going to say to him as I left the Chamber, “I love your suit”—but I rarely agree with what he says. We come from very different perspectives. In a sense—I do not mean to be unkind—his view is part of the problem. The problem is the persistent idea that putting people in prison is cruel and nasty. Of course, it is pretty nasty, and most of our constituents think it should be—in fact, they probably think it should be nastier than it is. Our difference of opinion will never be reconciled in a few brief exchanges, but it is important to note that a range of sentences are available to the courts—not just prison—and the key thing, about which I am sure we agree, is that those sentences need to be fitting to the events, fitting to the effects of the crime and fitting to the interests of the victims, as my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) said in moving his new clause.

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27. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Sentencing Bill

    No, I do not. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on using the word “appreciated” exactly as in its dictionary definition. I did appreciate his sartorial style, but that is not to say that I either admired or approved it. [Laughter.] In respect of David Gauke, who is a former colleague and was commissioned to produce that report, I do not agree in essence with it. I am more inclined to agree with the analysis of the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle. There is a huge mistake in assuming that incarceration is not of itself beneficial—to deal with the simple issue of recidivism, people cannot do harm when they are locked up. By far the best and most straightforward way of dealing with recidivism is to take people out of harm’s way, and by that I mean taking them out of doing harm. If someone has committed a very serious crime, such as rape, murder or very violent assault, locking them up means they will not do it again. Releasing them means, too often, that they will; the statistics speak for themselves. If the Government want to really deal with recidivism, they should do three things: increase the number of whole-life sentences, raise the minimum sentence for a whole range of crimes and raise maximum sentences. To do that, they have to build more prisons. The mission I give to the Government is that they jettison the Bill before it does harm, think about how they can devise and deliver alternatives to that and be bold in making a case for a retributive system of criminal justice in a way that so few people have for so long.

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28. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

    Social Housing: South Cotswolds

    I am grateful to my friend and constituency neighbour for giving way. She is speaking with a huge amount of common sense. Of course, her problems in the South Cotswolds are replicated in the North Cotswolds. The problem with increasing the housing numbers—doubling them from 500 to 1,000 a year, as she said—is that the planning system is not delivering us the number of affordable houses. The developers will argue against building affordable housing, because they can make more money out of executive three, four or five-bedroom houses. We need to alter the planning system so that developers, through viability arguments, cannot exclude the building of social housing in some cases altogether.

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29. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

    Social Housing: South Cotswolds

    In a recent hearing of the Public Accounts Committee on planning improvements, we heard from the Home Builders Federation that 34,000 social houses in England and Wales remain unsold. That seems to be an absolute tragedy when there is such demand for social housing. I ask the Minister to look at that urgently.

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30. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir Gavin Williamson

    Acute Myeloid Leukaemia

    10. What steps his Department is taking to support people with acute myeloid leukaemia.

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31. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir Gavin Williamson

    Acute Myeloid Leukaemia

    I thank the Minister for her response. My constituent Ruth Wake, who lives in Brewood, was tragically diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia in January last year. She has gone through chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant, and while she has made good process and is in remission, sadly the stem cell transplant has failed after nine and a half months. Under the current rules, if it fails in under a year she cannot have a second stem cell transplant. I know the pressures that the Minister is under in terms of her time, but my constituent has so little time. Could she look at this particular case, and also look at guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which were written over 12 years ago? Science and treatment have moved so rapidly, and I wonder if the Minister could look at both those points.

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32. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir Gavin Williamson

    Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry

    I think we all agree that the voices of survivors have to be at the heart of this. It is worrying and concerning when two of those survivors do not feel as if the process is properly looking after them and ensuring their voice is heard. Will the Minister commit to speaking to both Fiona Goddard and Ellie-Ann Reynolds to try and encourage and reassure them that this is a process that really will listen to their voices?

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33. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir Desmond Swayne

    Sentencing Bill

    The active management of the prison service at those levels of occupation was of course hard work, but that hard work was absolutely necessary, and far preferable to simply taking a view that we will not have all those criminals in prison at all. The reality is that what we are doing now is much worse.

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34. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir Desmond Swayne

    Sentencing Bill

    The importance of the sunset clause is that it relieves the monstrous contradiction we have had from the Government. They have presented this legislation as an emergency measure because the prisons are too full, yet at the same time they boast about their great, expansive prison-building programme. Clearly the two are at odds with one another. Who will be put in these prisons if this legislation persists? That is why my right hon. Friend’s sunset clause is so important.

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35. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir Ashley Fox

    Sentencing Bill

    Does the hon. Lady not accept that most victims of crime would say that a suspended sentence is very much not a custodial sentence?

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36. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Sir Ashley Fox

    Sentencing Bill

    The Gauke review was a thorough exercise carried out in good faith. It was intended to fix some of the problems that persist in the justice system, and was particularly aimed at easing the burden on the prison estate. As a member of the Justice Committee, I had the opportunity to question the former Lord Chancellor and was struck by his thoughtfulness and expertise. Despite that, I do have reservations about parts of the Bill, particularly those around the early release of certain prisoners. Amendment 24, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan), seeks to add an extra protection to the Bill to combat this. It would ensure that the most violent and dangerous offenders—those guilty of crimes like rape, grievous bodily harm, child sex abuse and causing death by dangerous driving—do not benefit from automatic sentence reductions. We all agree that rehabilitation has a place in our justice system, but that is not its only purpose. The public expect criminals to be punished for their wrongdoing and to be protected from those criminals causing future harm. I fear that Labour Members do not know the consequences of the Bill, which are that violent and sexual offenders will be released from prison early and will then go on to commit further criminal offences. We will have to deal with those consequences in the years to come if the Bill is passed unamended. Those who commit the most serious crimes should serve the full sentence handed down by our courts. Early release should never be a reward for those who have shattered lives beyond repair.

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37. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Robbie Moore

    Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry

    I have a copy of the Government’s response to the developments last night addressed to the Home Affairs Committee, and I find the response completely unacceptable. Are the Government seriously implying that Fiona and Ellie, who have been disbelieved and called liars by the British state their entire lives, are spreading “misinformation” about a process they have been directly involved in? That would be a deeply damaging thing for any Government to imply. Worse, there is a line in the letter about the Government’s proposed inquiry in Oldham that says that the Government “have been in discussions with Oldham Council about the right approach for Oldham”. How can that possibly be right? How can the Home Office discuss the right approach with the very local authorities being investigated? It would be like the Post Office inquiry sitting down with the Post Office to negotiate how it should be investigated. Will the Minister explain how the Government will restore trust right now in the process, given the contents of the letter that she sent to the Home Affairs Committee last night?

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38. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    NHS Reorganisation

    6. What recent progress he has made on reorganising the NHS.

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39. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    NHS Reorganisation

    Yesterday I met Lila, a sixth-form student at Coombe Dean school, who raised the issue of long waiting lists for mental health services for children and young people across Devon. What action has been taken as a result of the Government’s policy of reorganising the NHS to reduce the unacceptable delays in mental health diagnosis and treatment for children and young people, particularly in constituencies such as South West Devon?

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40. 21 Oct 2025·Parliament·Rebecca Paul

    Topical Questions

    Most young people referred to gender identity services are same-sex attracted, neurodiverse and/or traumatised. Looked-after children are also over-represented in this cohort. Is the Secretary of State really comfortable with children being given puberty blockers, which essentially chemically neuter them, for the purposes of the PATHWAYS clinical trial?

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