Michelle Welsh

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Parliament's party history for this member: Labour (4 Jul 2024 – present).

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1. 3 Nov 2026·Parliament·Michelle Welsh

   Equality Act 2010 Guidance: Gynaecological Conditions

   I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq) on securing this debate. I speak as the chair of the APPG on PMOS and as a woman living with PMOS and endometriosis—I feel like I somehow won the cup when I got both of those. One in eight women in the UK suffer from PMOS, yet despite how common it is, it remains poorly understood, underdiagnosed and too often overlooked. The World Health Organisation estimates that up to 70% of women affected globally remain undiagnosed. Both of those figures are women waiting for answers. For me, diagnosis took over 18 years. During those years I developed an eating disorder—I became bulimic—experienced depression and lost confidence. I passed out in sixth form on so many occasions. I lost the feeling in my legs and when I went to the GP, he told me over and over again, “It’s all part and parcel of being a woman. Take some paracetamols.” I share that because we must understand what delayed diagnosis costs. It reaches into your relationship with your food, mental health, working life and sense of self. Failure to diagnose does not make the condition disappear; it leaves women managing its consequences without the explanation, treatment or support they deserve. PMOS affects more than fertility. It can affect metabolism, periods and mental health and it increases the risk of conditions including type 2 diabetes. Earlier diagnosis provides an opportunity to manage those risks and offer support sooner. Instead, women can spend years questioning themselves when the system should be asking the right questions. Those failures do not fall equally. The condition disproportionately affects women from south Asian and black backgrounds and those on lower incomes, yet access to diagnosis and support remains inconsistent. Without greater awareness, existing inequalities in health can translate into inequalities in employment, career progression and economic opportunity. I cannot tell hon. Members the amount of times I have had a sleepless night before an exam, a driving test or anything important, worried that I would be too ill to stand up and do it. A woman’s income, ethnicity or postcode should never determine whether she is heard or helped. We must tackle racism, language barriers and unequal access to care. For someone on an insecure contract, attending an appointment can mean losing wages, and asking for flexibility can feel like risking her job. The advice to seek support means little if that support is beyond her reach. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to provide for early diagnosis, access to psychological support, targeted action on inequalities and clear workplace guidance. Changing the name of polycystic ovary syndrome to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome must be matched by changing women’s experience. I cannot get those 18 years back, but we can stop another generation enduring the same wait, the same pain and the same anguish. Greater awareness of PMOS and endometriosis in the workplace can help to ensure that women are supported, valued and able to thrive at work, rather than being forced to choose between managing their health and progressing in their careers. No woman should have to lose her health, her confidence or her future before the system finally decides to believe her and act.

   Hansard source
2. 2 Nov 2026·Parliament·Michelle Welsh

   Nolan Principles

   I thank the Minister for the intervention that his Department has made with the rapid best-value assessment at Ashfield district council, in response to my representations over the past two months. These are extremely serious allegations, and my constituents in Hucknall have been let down badly by the council. Will the Minister confirm that urgent action is being taken? Can he say what more can be done to prevent further inappropriate decisions, especially on planning? Does he agree that the severity of the allegations warrants a referral to the police for an independent investigation?

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3. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Michelle Welsh

   Mineworkers’ Pension Schemes: Nottinghamshire

   Does my hon. Friend agree that for former mineworkers and their families in Sherwood Forest, these pensions are deferred wages earned through years of hard and dangerous work, and that, with many members now facing ill health, there is no time to waste? Will he join me in urging the Government to use the Budget to secure a fair agreement on surpluses and ensure that bonus pensions are protected and rise with inflation?

   Hansard source
4. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Michelle Welsh

   Baby Loss Awareness Week

   I want to start by thanking the Secretary of State for making maternity and neonatal safety a priority and for publicly stating that as her priority from the outset. Personally, it felt like a relief, especially after the uncertainty there has been. I wish to personally thank her for that. Baby Loss Awareness Week is a time to remember the babies we have lost, stand alongside bereaved families and recognise that pregnancy and baby loss can change a life forever. Behind every case discussed in this House is a baby who is loved, a family who imagined a future, and a life that will always be part of theirs. In preparing for this debate I watched last year’s debate again, and what saddened me was how much of what we raised then remains painfully familiar today—families still fighting for answers, women still describing concerns that were dismissed, staff still frightened to speak up. Last year I said that grief must be the engine for change. Today I want to go further. Families have carried the grief. It is time that the system carried the responsibility. There has been an important change over the past year. Baby loss, maternity safety and neonatal care are being discussed openly and treated as Government priorities. The work of Donna Ockenden, Baroness Amos and Lady Justice Thirlwall has brought devastating failings into sharp focus. I thank them, their teams and, above all, the families whose courage made that work possible. For the last six-and-a-half years I have fought for change and listened to over 1,000 families and organisations, my own experience of miscarriages and birth leaving me with both physical and mental scars. I am so proud to serve as the Government’s national maternity and neonatal adviser and contribute to the national taskforce. The taskforce brings together families, clinicians and others with the experience and expertise to shape reform. Bringing those voices together in this way is a significant step forward, and I welcome the determination to work together. I also wish to thank the civil servants working behind the scenes, often to demanding deadlines, to turn that determination into action. The measure of our success will be what changes for women arriving at hospital frightened, the midwife trying to keep them safe and the families who sadly leave without their baby. Our goal must be clear: safe care, informed choice and compassionate births, with support that continues when things go wrong. That must be the standard that every family can expect.<span id="110" class="column-number" data-column-number="110"></span> That includes families experiencing early pregnancy loss. We must never confuse an early loss with a small loss. A woman may have known she was pregnant for only a short time. She may have already imagined a name, a face, a future. She may be grieving privately before she has told anyone that she is pregnant. Whatever her circumstances, she deserves compassion. We must think about where care takes place. A woman who has just been told that her pregnancy ended should not have to sit beside someone celebrating a reassuring scan. A woman losing her baby should not be placed on a ward where she must listen to other babies crying and families celebrating their arrival. We should not ask people to endure avoidable distress because the service has failed to consider their needs. We need appropriate private spaces, timely assessment and scans, sensitive explanations and clear information about what happens next. Women need to understand their treatment choices. They need pain relief, follow-up and someone to contact when they are frightened or unsure. Partners need support too. A woman should never be left feeling that because miscarriage happens relatively often, her own loss somehow matters less. The care we provide cannot remove that grief, but it can make the difference between being supported through it and being traumatised further. That brings me to something very simple: time to care. In Nottinghamshire, when someone is struggling we often say, “Come on, let’s have a cuppa.” We put the kettle on and make a brew, but what we really mean is, “Stop for a moment. Take a breath and sit down. I’m here and I’m listening.” In maternity care, time matters: time to hear a woman say something feels wrong, time to explain a scan result, time to answer a father’s question and time to sit with parents after devastating news. A hurried conversation can leave someone frightened and confused. A compassionate conversation can help them understand, feel heard and know what support is available. We cannot ask staff to provide that care while giving them neither the time nor the staffing to do it. Time to care must be built into the service. That means a properly funded, ring-fenced perinatal workforce plan and enough midwives, obstetricians, neonatal staff, sonographers and bereavement specialists with the training and support they need. It means continuity whenever possible so that women are supported by professionals who understand their history, their fears and their circumstances. Compassion must be supported by the way in which we organise and resource care. Listening must also lead to the right action. We need timely access to the right scans, skilled interpretation of the results and prompt referral when concerns are identified. Safe, informed choice depends on having that information and the opportunity to discuss it. We must also confront the inequalities in whose concerns are heard. Black, Asian and ethnic minority mothers continue to face an unacceptable disparity in maternal outcomes. Racism, assumptions about pain and failures to listen must be addressed directly. We need services that take women’s symptoms seriously, provide appropriate interpretation and examine outcomes honestly. A national improvement in safety cannot be judged a success while some women remain much less safe than others. Where you live, the colour of your skin and your ability to make yourself heard must never determine whether you receive compassionate, safe care.<span id="111" class="column-number" data-column-number="111"></span> It would be an omission on my part if I did not speak about responsibility and accountability, because I know how deeply this hurts in Nottinghamshire. Women were left traumatised. Families described fathers sleeping on windowsills only hours after their precious baby had died because there was not even a chair available. Some of those who held senior responsibility during those years did not engage with Donna Ockenden’s review. For families who have revisited the worst moments of their lives to help establish the truth, that refusal hurts. It runs deep. It stings. Families have answered the difficult questions. They have shared intimate details. They have found the strength to speak when speaking has cost them so much. They deserve answers from those who held responsibility. For far too long, we have had a system in which excellent midwives are frightened to speak up and families must fight for answers—and some explanations they have been given are clearly untrue. Women have been made to feel that what happened was their fault. We have to address that. A culture that supports honest learning must protect staff who raise concerns and distinguish between human error and reckless or dishonest conduct. It must also ensure that failures of leadership have consequences. Protecting staff who speak the truth and holding people accountable for concealing it are both essential to safer care. That is why the maternity and neonatal commissioner must have teeth. The commissioner must have the independence, authority and resources to listen to families and staff, identify patterns, obtain information and challenge failures. There must be clear routes to require a response and escalate concerns when organisations fail to act. Families should not have to wait for another major inquiry before someone in authority listens. National oversight must be matched by accountability in every trust. Every trust board should be able to say who is responsible for maternity safety, what concerns have been raised, what action is being taken and how progress will be demonstrated. Improvement plans should have named owners, deadlines and evidence that care has changed and improved. We also need consistent national data that helps us identify warning signs early, and accountability must reach the ward, the boardroom and the organisations overseeing them. We must therefore review our regulatory bodies and how they are fulfilling their purpose. The GMC, the CQC and the Nursing and Midwifery Council have different responsibilities, but all have a role in protecting patients. We need to examine how they respond to concerns, share information and act when warning signs emerge. We have those three regulators, yet families still need large-scale investigations to establish what happened and secure change. The question is simple: how could serious concerns at Nottingham University hospital trust have persisted for over 20 years while bereaved families had to stand up, organise and fight before meaningful change began? That is a broken system. A system that leaves grieving parents to expose its failures is unfit for purpose, and when it forces those parents to fight for the truth while carrying the loss of their baby, it is cruel. We should call out that cruelty. We should reject it, and we should change it. Bereaved parents should never have to become the safety net for a system that failed their children.<span id="112" class="column-number" data-column-number="112"></span> I know that there are exceptional midwives and obstetricians working every day across this country. They listen, they care, they save lives and many have themselves fought to raise concerns. They too deserve a system that supports them, protects them when they speak up and acts on what they say. It is for those staff, for the future of our services and, above all, for babies, mothers and families that we must make change happen. I welcome the Health Bill’s proposal to extend the time limit for bringing relevant prosecutions from three years to five, but we must go further. Families facing bereavement can spend months simply trying to survive, and understanding a complex regulatory system should not fall entirely on them. They need clear information about where to raise concerns, what each organisation can do and how to access support.

   Hansard source
5. 12 Oct 2026·Parliament·Michelle Welsh

   Baby Loss Awareness Week

   I agree with my hon. Friend. Bereavement care also needs proper scrutiny. A poster on a wall cannot demonstrate that a family has received compassionate care. Families need appropriate spaces, trained staff, sensitive communication and support after they leave hospital. Where families wish, equipment such as cuddle cots can allow them precious times with their baby. Parents should be supported to make their own choices about holding their baby, creating memories and saying goodbye. Nobody should be rushed, and nobody should be made to feel there is a correct way to grieve. The quality of that care should never depend on which hospital door a family walks through. I also want to raise the No Breath Required campaign. In England and Wales, coroners generally cannot investigate a stillbirth. Their jurisdiction depends on whether a baby was born showing signs of life. That distinction can leave families in very similar circumstances with different routes to independent scrutiny. The need for answers does not disappear because a baby was stillborn. We should give coroners the power to investigate stillbirths, with appropriate safeguards, expertise and resources. We have seen the harm caused when inadequate reviews fail to identify what went wrong or prevent it from happening again. An extension of coroners’ powers must sit within wider reform, with sufficient capacity, specialist understanding and compassionate support for families. We must also recognise that some losses occur despite good care. Every family deserves an honest explanation, support and the opportunity to ask questions, and that support must continue beyond discharge. Grief does <span id="113" class="column-number" data-column-number="113"></span>not end when a hospital episode closes; it follows people home into work, relationships and, sometimes, subsequent pregnancy. Families must have access to bereavement and mental health support for as long as they need it. They should not have to prove that they are struggling badly enough to deserve help. Bereaved and harmed families have already given us so much. Their testimony has exposed failures, their persistence has driven reviews and their determination has brought us to this point. They should never have needed to become campaigners to make the system listen. As the Government and the taskforce move forward, those families’ voices must remain central, and our promises must be tested against their experience. We need time to care, power to act and responsibility to answer. Last year I said, “Let grief be the engine of change.” This year, we must show families where that change is happening. Families have carried the grief; it is time that the system carried the responsibility. Baby Wynter, baby Harriet, baby Sebastian, baby Koupar, baby Teddy, baby Quinn, baby Aubrey, baby Grace, baby Poppy, baby Dexter, baby Luna and baby Ladybird—we must remember every baby, support every family, and do everything in our power to prevent avoidable loss.

   Hansard source
6. 7 Sep 2026·Parliament·Michelle Welsh

   Local Government Reorganisation

   I welcome the review, which gives us a real opportunity to get local government reorganisation right for my constituents. I hope that they will now be heard. Infrastructure in my constituency is creaking at the seams due to years of neglect by the previous Government. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss the real concerns in my constituency about planning, local infrastructure and local government reorganisation, as well as an exciting opportunity to create a local country park?

   Hansard source
7. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Michelle Welsh

   Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

   For complete transparency, let me say that I am the national maternity adviser to the Government; I wanted to make that clear before I begin my remarks. I wish to place on the record my sincere gratitude and thanks to the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) for bringing this Bill to the House. I am genuinely delighted to speak in support of it, because its subject matter goes right to the heart of why I entered public service in the first place. There is one principle that has guided me throughout my working life: where someone is born should not determine their future. The postcode where someone is born, their parents’ income, and whether they are born in an affluent community or a former mining community, should never determine how healthy they are, how well they do at school or the opportunities they will have throughout their life. If we genuinely believe that, then we have to begin at the beginning—not at secondary school or primary school, but during pregnancy, at birth and in those first precious moments and years when so much of a child’s future is being shaped. That is why the Bill matters so much. It asks us to look seriously at the support available to babies and families, and at whether the provision we have actually meets their needs. This debate takes me back to the beginning of my career, in the heyday. Before coming to the House, I spent years working with children, young people and families, first for the YMCA in America, then back in Nottinghamshire, and then developing Sure Start services across Nottinghamshire and Derby. I worked on the <span id="581" class="column-number" data-column-number="581"></span>frontline, directly with parents and children, and then I moved into management, helping to develop, plan and co-ordinate services for families—all based on the principles of early intervention, support and prevention. I was fortunate to work at a time when there was a real belief that children and families should sit at the centre of public policy. We not only talked about early intervention and prevention; we developed services to deliver it, bringing services together, including things like the common assessment framework. Crucially, we talked to parents, families and communities. I believed in Sure Start then and I believe in the principles behind it every bit as strongly today. Sure Start was never simply a building with a sign on it; it was an idea—a philosophy—not only about how we should treat families, but about how we give every child, no matter their background, the best possible start in life. It said that families should not have to be in crisis before somebody helps them, and that becoming a parent should not mean being handed a list of telephone numbers and then being expected to navigate half a dozen public services on your own. It recognised that a child’s life does not fit neatly into departmental boxes. There was early education and childcare, health visitors, breastfeeding support, parenting programmes, speech and language support, stay and play sessions, and family support and outreach. There was advice about benefits, employment and training. There was support for parents as well as for their children. And sometimes the most important intervention was not a formal programme at all—sometimes it was a cup of tea. In Nottinghamshire, we understand the power of a brew, because what it really means is to stop: for someone to listen, for someone to care and for someone to help. While I am not advocating for tea to necessarily be a national policy or an amendment to the Bill—nor will I ever advocate for how the Prime Minister makes a cuppa—I will always advocate for those working on the frontline having time to care, time to stop and time to listen, whether they are a support worker in a family hub, a health visitor or a midwife. Sometimes Sure Start was about a mum walking into a children’s centre, sitting down beside someone she had begun to trust and quietly saying, “Can I talk to you?” That conversation could be the beginning of getting help—that mattered. Relationships mattered and we worked with parents; I feel incredibly strongly about that. Good family policy cannot simply be designed in Whitehall and done to people. Parents know their children and their communities. They know what works and what is missing. When I worked with parents, we listened to them, we involved them, we asked them what they needed and we learned from them. We understood that the mother who did not attend a group was not necessarily hard to reach—perhaps we were hard to reach. Perhaps there was no bus, or the sessions were at the wrong time. Perhaps she was frightened of being judged. Perhaps she was exhausted.

   Hansard source
8. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Michelle Welsh

   Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

   That is exactly what it was all about. When that approach began to change—and it did change—I did not want to sit on the sidelines and complain about it; I wanted to do something. That journey eventually brought me to this place. I believe the principles behind Sure Start should never be consigned to history. We should learn from them and build on them, and whatever name we put above the door today, the fundamental principle must remain services built around the child and the family. That begins before a baby is born; it begins with maternity, and through my campaign on maternity safety, and—most importantly—through listening to families, those on the frontline, charities and organisations, I have become absolutely convinced that maternity policy cannot sit in a silo, separate from children’s policy. Safe maternity care, maternal physical health and mental health, supporting fathers and parents, and making sure that women are listened to are all early years policy. We cannot talk seriously about giving every baby the best start in life without talking about the care their mothers receive. I believe we need fundamental reform. That is why one of the most central proposals I have argued for is an independent maternity commissioner—someone whose sole focus is women, babies and families, with the independence and authority to change and challenge the system. When something goes catastrophically wrong, families should not have to become investigators, they should not have to understand every layer of the NHS, and they should not have to fight organisation after organisation simply to get the truth about what happened to the woman or the baby they love. We also need better national data, proper national standards and a culture where staff can speak up. Good midwives, obstetricians, maternity support workers and other staff who raise concerns should be listened to and protected, because a safe culture is one where people can say something is wrong before another family is harmed. There is another part of maternity reform that I believe is fundamental, which is continuity of care. I want us to be much more ambitious about what we mean by continuity. I do not believe that continuity should mean a good handover from one professional to another—I believe the same person should stay. A woman should be able to build a relationship with someone throughout their maternity journey. That relationship should not simply end because her baby has been born; every woman should leave hospital following birth with a full debrief, not simple discharge paperwork. That is part of prevention. Continuity also gives us an opportunity to address the appalling inequalities we see in maternity care. The latest MBRRACE-UK data shows that black women still face nearly three times the maternal mortality risk of white women, and women living in the most deprived areas have around twice the maternal mortality rate of women in the least deprived communities. These inequalities are unacceptable, and we cannot simply publish those statistics year after year and call it action; we have to design services that actively confront inequality and <span id="583" class="column-number" data-column-number="583"></span>discrimination. Continuity can be part of that. If somebody actually knows the woman—knows her history and her circumstances—and is responsible for staying with her, it becomes much harder for her concerns to disappear between appointments, or for her to be forced to tell her story over and over again. All of this connects directly to the wider health and development of the baby. After maternity comes health visiting, then perhaps a family hub, early years provision, nursery and eventually school. Governments see these as separate services, separate budgets, and sometimes separate Departments; a parent sees none of that. They see their child—one child, one family, one continuous journey. That is how Governments should see them, too. A health visitor may identify a developmental concern, a mother may need breastfeeding or feeding support, or parents may notice speech and language difficulties. There may be early indications of SEND, housing conditions affecting a child’s health, financial pressure or difficulty in the parents’ relationship. A mother may be experiencing depression. None of those things exists neatly on its own. The worst possible system is one that waits until a family has deteriorated sufficiently to meet a threshold for help. We should not wait for a crisis; early intervention works. If we can support the mother earlier, we should. If we can help a family earlier, we should. If we can identify a child’s need earlier, we should. If we can prevent someone from reaching crisis, we should. That is not wasteful public spending; it is intelligent public spending, and it brings us directly to education. Education can transform a person’s life. I know that personally, as I was the first person in my family to go to university. I defeated the odds, but it does not and should not have to be that way. If we are serious about closing the achievement gap, we have to be honest about when it begins. It does not suddenly appear when a child starts secondary school. For some children, inequality begins to take hold before they ever walk through the school gates. Children arrive in reception having had very different starts in life. Every child deserves the opportunity to fulfil their potential. That should be not an aspiration reserved for the lucky few; it should be a promise that we make to every child born in this country. I know the Opposition do not think that we should talk about the 1980s, but I do, because I know what happens when hope is taken away. Growing up on a council estate in Notts in the 1980s, I lived and breathed it, and now I serve those very communities, which are still up against it. I came into public service and eventually into politics because I believe that government can put hope back. That is what Sure Start represented to me. That is what safe maternity care should represent. That is what good health services, early years support and education should represent—not charity or a favour, but opportunity: the opportunity for a mother to be safe and heard, the opportunity for a family to be supported before they reach crisis, the opportunity for a baby to be given the very best start in life, and the opportunity for every child, whatever street they are born in and whatever their parents earn, to look at their future and believe it belongs to them. Ultimately, that is the test of everything we do here—not whether we can write another strategy <span id="584" class="column-number" data-column-number="584"></span>or create another pathway, but whether the child born tonight in the poorest household in the country has the same right to dream, to thrive and to succeed as the child born into the richest. Where someone is born should never determine their future, but what we choose to do in this House can.

   Hansard source
9. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Michelle Welsh

   Disability Living Allowance: Qualifying Period for Children

   I beg to move, That this House has considered the potential merits of removing the qualifying period for Disability Living Allowance for children. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. It is right and fitting that I start this debate where it all began for me, with dear Mabel—a brave, kind, clever, funny four-year-old girl who lives in my constituency—and her tenacious mum Rachael. When I was first elected to Parliament, I met with Rachael, my constituent, and she shared her experience with her daughter Mabel, who sadly had been diagnosed with cancer. Aged four, Mabel was diagnosed with Wilms’, a form of kidney cancer. After a horrifying six months, including two major operations and a tough course of chemotherapy, the family received the news that Mabel was free of cancer. Now, aged six, Mabel attends her local school, where I was fortunate enough to meet her, and is enjoying her life as a young child should. I know that the House will join me in wishing Mabel well. Following Mabel’s diagnosis, Rachael made an application for disability living allowance, which required completing a 40-page questionnaire that asks questions such as whether the four-year-old needs help monitoring their blood oxygen levels. Disability living allowance is supposed to support families of children with disabilities and serious conditions such as cancer. It can provide a lifeline of financial support at the time when it is most needed, yet the current system requires families to wait three months for the qualifying period. Let me be clear: the financial impact of cancer does not begin after three months. It is instant. Rachael shared with me that Mabel being diagnosed with cancer was the toughest time of her family’s lives. Despite that, she felt that they were in a more fortunate position than many of the other families on the ward. Rachael’s employer gave her six months off work as sick leave and her partner was able to work flexibly so that they could both spend time with their daughter at hospital. That time allowed Mabel to have support and care from her loved ones, and it allowed support from their family. I cannot even begin to imagine the anguish that families face with such a diagnosis—all the more when it is their child. Unfortunately, not every employer is able or willing to offer that support. That disparity should leave us asking: if we cannot be there when a child is diagnosed with cancer, what are we doing?

   Hansard source
10. 2 Sep 2026·Parliament·Michelle Welsh

    Disability Living Allowance: Qualifying Period for Children

    I absolutely agree. Too often, the financial impacts of a cancer diagnosis are forgotten. People think about the hospital visits, the sickness and the endless tablets, but a disability or serious condition such as cancer has an impact on every single part of someone’s life. Following a diagnosis, families immediately have to deal with the financial impact. It is a sad fact of life that bills do not care whether a child has cancer; they will still be due. But we can care. Cross-party, we can care. We can unite and do the right thing. Families with children with a disability or serious condition have to wait seven months on average before receiving a single disability living allowance payment. That is months and months of rent, mortgage payments, electricity bills and council tax, and it is weeks and weeks of food shopping. It is compounded by the fact that household income drops by an average of £6,000 per year. For one in three, that can reach over £10,000. Sadly, it gets even worse: the delay in receiving DLA means that a parent’s ability to claim any carer’s allowance as an additional or an alternative has a further impact on the financial strain. It is also important to note that parents in work are unable to apply for universal credit, and that that cuts out other potential streams of support. All this leaves parents with an impossible choice, a cruel choice that no parent should have to make: do they leave their child alone in hospital to face this battle by themselves, or do they not go to work? Do they skip bills? Do they run the risk of losing their home? Do they not eat? Do they turn the heating off? This is the reality. These are decisions that families should never have to make, yet they happen daily for families up and down this country. During my meeting with Rachael, she told me about a young boy of just six years old who was also on the ward. His parents were left with no option but to carry on working. As the nurses were unable to provide round-the-clock care, Rachael helped him to use the toilet, helped to dress him and helped him to eat. It is heartbreaking to think of the many children who have no one beside them—not just for the children, but for the mothers and fathers being left with no choice. I missed my son’s first day back at school today and have cried about it, but that is nothing in comparison with having to leave a child who is suffering from cancer in a hospital bed. Let me be clear: DLA is not designed to act as a source of income. It is there to help with the extra costs of looking after a child with a health condition.

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