Liberal Democrats MP for North Shropshire since (elected).
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| Party | Office | Area | Period | Began | Ended | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lib Dem | MP | North Shropshire | – present | elected | — | Party history |
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<Question HRSContentId="{B453A442-4B79-4DD2-9492-A31115B72FBC}">15. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{03B199A0-B081-4EBF-9767-968E45E570E0}">What assessment she has made of the adequacy of funding for local authorities in rural areas.</QuestionText> </Question>
Shropshire council is in receipt of exceptional financial support following 16 years of disastrous Conservative mismanagement and a settlement from the Government that reduces its central allocation over the next three years. The issue for the council is that any council tax rises it opts for in future will cover only the repayment terms of that exceptional financial support, and will not allow for any financial restructuring. We are clearly in an unsustainable situation, so will the Minister meet me to discuss the terms of the exceptional financial support?
West Mercia police have changed the hours of police community support officers, introducing an 8 pm finish in order to save money. Unsurprisingly, that has led to an increase in antisocial behaviour in my constituency after 8 pm. The police are very thin on the ground: Ellesmere’s safer neighbourhood team consists of one police officer—who I do not think works 24/7—and just two PCSOs. Our officers and PCSOs do a fantastic job, but they are far too thinly spread. Will the Minister meet me so that she can understand the challenges facing rural policing and the resources that are required in places such as Shropshire?
Jane Austen’s Mr Knightley said: “Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very positive curse”. But it seems to me that Royal Mail very much treats letters as a matter of indifference, and that is causing a huge problems for my constituents, such as those who <span id="91" class="column-number" data-column-number="91"></span>have missed NHS letters, as has been discussed, and the farmers who are not receiving animal tags in time to get their livestock to market. It is a really serious issue. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Royal Mail needs to get its act together and treat the letter service as seriously as it treats the parcel service?
Three minutes is not a long time to represent over 1,000 North Shropshire farmers, many of whom have been in touch with me in the wake of the shambles of the second window of SFI 2026. John, who farms in Whitchurch, was distraught when he contacted me after he was unable to get on to the latest iteration of the scheme. He could not apply first thing in the morning because the window was not open, and when he returned later after doing some farming, he found that applications were already closed. Now he is afraid that he will have to remove acres of herbal ley as he no longer has the funds to manage them, and he tells me it would be cheaper to rip up the hedgerows that he preserves around his farm and put fences in instead. That is not what we are trying to achieve here. Another family farming in Weston Lullingfields watched the website repeatedly crash as the funding was scooped up, leaving them with nothing. What is most frustrating to farmers is that everybody could see this disaster coming from a good country mile away. A budget of £233 million for farmers across England was insultingly short of the public funding needed to recognise the hard work and stewardship that our farmers undertake. One farmer said to me:<span id="1222" class="column-number" data-column-number="1222"></span> “Why bother going through the pretence? The chaos of the first-come, first-served funding allocations, disadvantaged small businesses and family farms. Hardworking farmers cannot afford to take huge chunks of time out of the day to sit and watch a computer screen that won’t load.” This total disregard for, and failure to understand, agricultural life and business did not start with this Government. This year’s SFI failure is a direct consequence of the Conservative Government’s weak attempt to patch up the abrupt removal of the basic payment scheme following their botched Brexit deal. They added insult to injury by signing the UK-Australia free trade agreement in 2023, which undercut British farmers and threatened to flood our markets with low-cost imports but offered no protections to ensure that there was a level playing field for our world-leading UK animal welfare standards. It set a dangerous precedent for future deals, as we have seen with the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership. Farmers have felt increasingly under threat. Every meeting I have had with local farmers centres on how difficult farming has become, including regular meetings with farmers and NFU members from across North Shropshire and indeed the whole of Shropshire. At my most recent meeting, held in Ruyton-XI-Towns in my constituency, their frustration at the SFI system failure was obvious, but they also raised concerns about upcoming changes to water abstraction licensing. After this summer’s devastating drought, which left crops in North Shropshire shrivelled and livestock farmers in a desperate situation with their winter feed, the link between food security and water security is stark. They raised concerns that the hierarchy of water abstraction will propose prioritising water for data centres over water for food production. In what sort of world is that sensible? Will the Minister confirm that will not be the case this year? Will he also confirm that we will not see a repeat next year of the shambles of the bluetongue issue and the SFI? Will he actually take British farming concerns seriously for once?
This week, Matthew Hopkins, who, until November 2025, was the chief executive of one of the worst performing hospital trusts in the country and is now the acute and ambulance network director of NHS Alliance, was reported to have said that the closure of at least 20 rural maternity units was “inevitable” and the “right thing”. In North Devon, we have seen the impact that closures have on women in labour, who have faced an hour and half of driving on country lanes with many turning round to give birth in A&E—a sign of the national maternity crisis being out of control. Rather than agreeing to closures, will the Secretary of State review how we staff rural maternity services to improve safety and protect women, and will she meet me and rural Liberal Democrat MPs who are fighting to protect mums and families?
Last week, ITV News uncovered devastating statistics showing that thousands of children are now being treated in hospital corridors. It shared the heartbreaking story of Finlay Roberts, whose parents spent hours in A&E waiting for help before he died—he was just two. As a mum, I cannot bear to imagine waiting and seeing your child deteriorate like that. The Roberts family deserved better, so will the Secretary of State confirm when we will see data on the number of children receiving corridor care, and will she commit to ending corridor care once and for all within a year and making children an urgent priority?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) on securing this important debate. Tackling underperforming NHS trusts is essential if we are serious about taking the necessary strides forward for patient safety and experience—as well as for the wellbeing of NHS workers, who are suffering anxiety and burnout at an unprecedented and frankly unacceptable scale. The Liberal Democrats have put forward our robust plan to end corridor care and transform patient safety, with essential measures needed to fix our NHS and relieve the pressure at both the front door and the back door of the service. Years of Conservative mismanagement and neglect of the NHS have left many trusts on their knees, with huge challenges from which to recover. The onus is now on the new Labour Government, with their intensive recovery programme, to finally create the right conditions for failing trusts to succeed where their predecessors have failed.
I do agree, and I echo my hon. Friend’s call. The estate that people work in is part of the fundamental problem that we are trying to tackle across the NHS. I hope all the Members here who have made excellent speeches highlighting shocking failures in their own trusts can take heart from the fact that it is possible to tackle the issues in underperforming trusts. In my time as the MP for North Shropshire, I have seen meaningful <span id="177WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="177WH"></span>changes for my constituents. From 2018 to 2023, Shrewsbury and Telford hospital trust was obviously underperforming, with CQC inspections consistently rating it as inadequate. That included inadequate levels of safety and services—reflected in the horrifying stories received at the time in my inbox and those of the other Shropshire MPs, and on doorsteps—and a churn in the management team that led to constant uncertainty about what was going to happen there. The human consequence of those stories was devastating. When I was first elected, the overwhelming issue was the abysmal ambulance waiting times, related to poor handover times, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) highlighted. I will never forget the letter I received from a headteacher: after a pupil dislocated his knee playing football, he and the teachers waited so long for an ambulance in the dark and cold on a winter night that he was at risk of developing hypothermia by the time the ambulance arrived. We heard countless devastating stories, including ones where the ambulance had taken so long to arrive that it was too late, and the outcome was fatal. Following a targeted campaign, which included me joining the West Midlands ambulance service team for an eye-opening shift, wait times have significantly improved, and we see far fewer of these cases in our inboxes. But challenges remain, not least in corridor care in the accident and emergency department, which has at times been rated one of the worst in the country. A constituent told me of the shocking experience of her aunt Cath during this period, who was admitted to Royal Shrewsbury hospital following a serious stroke. One night, Cath fell out of her hospital bed and broke her hip after staff had failed to put up the necessary guardrails. She spent nearly half an hour trying to attract the attention of staff on the ward with the alert bell, but they were so overworked that they did not respond, and in the end she was forced to dial 999 from the floor of the ward. She was left in the ridiculous position of explaining to the call centre staff that she was actually on the floor of a ward in Royal Shrewsbury hospital before the staff reached her. That cannot be right. We heard of many heartbreaking situations where cancer patients’ scans could not take place because waiting lists had meant that they were booked in the wrong order and of fatally long waits for diagnosis in some cases, with the trust failing to hit key targets across the board. Finally, the 2022 Ockenden report shook my community with its devastating finding of over 200 preventable deaths of babies and unimaginable harm done to families. Campaigning and voicing justified anger, which everyone has done today, and working with Ministers on the failings can bring about change. That was essential in Shropshire, and though things are not perfect, it is encouraging to see the improvements that have been made so far. It has been a really difficult environment for staff to work in. I pay tribute to them and the new leadership team for all the hard work that they have put into turning this extremely difficult situation around. The trust’s CQC rating has recently been upgraded, although it still requires improvement, with emergency department waiting times and understaffing as key focuses. However, there is much to be pleased with. Reviews <span id="178WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="178WH"></span>have noted a positive culture, and the trust has recently been shortlisted for several awards for its performance improvements. We must celebrate the many trusts in the UK that provide high levels of care and innovation, and support those making significant improvements. For underperforming trusts, it is our duty to our patients and constituents to ensure that we campaign to bring them up to good standards, and I congratulate everyone here today on doing just that. However, if conditions for care are stretched and staff are expected to deliver the impossible with limited time and resources, it is patients who suffer. How can we transform patient safety? To start, we need to hold failing leaders to account, as I have discussed. Reports have pointed to a culture of unaccountability among NHS leaders, which has accompanied recent scandals and undermines public confidence. Failing trusts need to be held to account, and our amendments to the Health Bill would help do that by retaining the necessary structures for accountability. First, we must retain the independent patient voice, Healthwatch, which was established in the wake of the Mid Staffordshire scandal. Although still in its infancy, HSSIB, the Health Services Safety Investigations Body, should also be retained because it promises to improve the patient safety environment. Our amendments would also introduce duties and a standardised framework for the reporting of suspected health system failings and medical malpractice by coroners, medical examiners and members of ICB and NHS trust boards. Whistleblowing routes to the CQC, the Department of Health and Social Care, HSSIB and the police would be accompanied by statutory protections. We would also place a corresponding duty on senior leadership to escalate any concerns they have about safety or malpractice to the relevant boards. My colleagues in the other place will be re-tabling those amendments at the next stage of the Health Bill, and I urge the Government to accept them.
I fully agree, and that is why HSSIB has a role to play, because it provides a safe space for people to raise concerns without fearing for their jobs. The National Guardian’s Office, which is also being removed by the Health Bill, enables and encourages safe whistleblowing across the NHS, and it is important that we retain it. The Thirlwall inquiry highlighted constant reorganisation as a problem as well. I received a notification in my inbox this week that Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin ICB had clustered with Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB to get ready for a merger, but that it is all on hold now because it does not line up with local government reorganisation. It is really problematic for local health services when their management teams do not know whether they are coming or going from one month to the next. I urge the Minister to deal with that problem as well.<span id="179WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="179WH"></span> It is clear that urgent action is needed to turn around underperforming trusts for the safety of their patients, the welfare of their staff and the value delivered for the taxpayer. I hope the Government will look at the measures we have outlined and accept some of them in the Health Bill as it passes through the House of Lords, so that we can really affect people’s lives and put back their confidence that the NHS will be there for them when they need it most.