Dame Diana Johnson
MP for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham · Labour · United Kingdom
“Longer-term funding is subject to future spending reviews. The Department and NHS England are committed to prioritising funding for sepsis in future spending bids. The framework is a 10-year plan. I do not pretend that we will deliver everything overnight, but it sets clear targets to reduce deaths by a quarter over the next 10 years.”
“It is not acceptable that when someone has been through the worst experience of their life, they are just left to get on with it. That is why we are committed to improving access to post-discharge support and rehabilitation, with priority actions set out in the framework.”
“I encourage everyone who has not yet come forward to do so, and to ensure that they obtain both doses of the vaccine for proper protection. The framework commits to improving vaccine access. The shadow Minister put a number of questions to me. I will respond in writing, as I am conscious of the time.”
“No one knows a child better than his or her parents or carers, which is why listening to patients, carers and families is vital to supporting sepsis recognition and escalation. Too many cases have shown the devastating consequences when deterioration concerns are not heard.”
“During Sepsis Awareness Month, I pay tribute to the charities, such as the UK Sepsis Trust and Sepsis Research FEAT, that do so much to support families, raise awareness and fund research.”
“That will include research calls that cover sepsis improvement priorities, whether it is vaccination and screening, faster and more accurate diagnosis or innovative treatments. It is true that the most recent data from the Office for National Statistics suggests that sepsis deaths went down in 2024.”
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“My hon. Friend makes that point very well and I absolutely agree with it. I want to pursue the issue of regional inequalities. One core goal of public spending should be to tackle the deep-rooted inequalities between our regions, but all too often our transport and infrastructure spending has reflected those inequalities, or, even worse, compounded them. The gap in transport investment between the north and the capital is stark and widening. Nowhere is this divide more apparent than in Yorkshire and the Humber. We are to get just £190 a head in future transport investment over the next few years, the lowest of any UK region. London will get £1,943 a head—10 times as much. Transport for the North, with new statutory powers, is to get £60 million to develop transport plans for the whole of the north of England.”
“Resolved , That this House has considered transport in the North.”
“Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) said, it is typical of a southern Transport Minister to think that the problems of the north can be dealt with by HS2. The Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), talked about the 120 days he has been waiting for a response from the Department to a letter signed by 10 MPs. The Department managed to get itself working very quickly this evening, because it has already been on the phone to The Yorkshire Post to complain that the newspaper has apparently put about the idea that the Secretary of State has snubbed this debate. It is important to note that this was a national issue; it was not about local transport. It is about a national issue and the Secretary of State’s comments over the summer. Question put and agreed to.”
“We had an excellent debate until the last 10 minutes. We had a tour around the north of England. We went to Cumbria, Hull, Cleethorpes and Durham, and we heard a lot about the A1, the A15, the A63 and even A roads that go through farmyards. We heard about ports and regional airports. As northern MPs, across parties, we are all ambitious for our region, and we want regional inequalities to be addressed by fair funding. We will not be going away. We will be holding this Government to account. I am disappointed with the Minister’s response, because I think he read out a pre-prepared speech. He did not listen to what people were saying. With the greatest of respect, and as the hon.”
“Now, 200,000 women a year can access safe, free and legal services on the NHS. The 1967 Act was a landmark piece of legislation. For a time, it made Britain one of the world leaders in reproductive rights, when this Parliament introduced a humane piece of law. I am disappointed that no Minister from the Department of Health or the Government Equalities Office has attended any of the events marking the enactment of this piece of legislation. I am also disappointed that Ministers have chosen to award funding raised from the tampon tax to Life, which argues for restricting women’s choices on reproductive rights, when so many wonderful charities could have benefited and used the money to empower women and support their choices.”
“Fifty years ago, the noble Lord Steel and thousands of brave campaigners brought about a momentous change in women’s reproductive rights. It is hard to overstate the benefits that their campaign brought to women. Abortion has gone from being a leading cause of maternal mortality, shockingly responsible for 14% of maternal deaths—a fact that organisations such as the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children do not address when they call for the abolition of the 1967 Act—to being the most common medical or surgical procedure in the UK, one that a third of women will have had by the time they reach 45. We used to be a country where an estimated 87,000 to 100,000 illegal abortions took place every year and where unwanted pregnancies changed the lives of desperate women.”
“It seems peculiar that for a procedure so common—one that affects a third of women—the overwhelming parliamentary focus has been on ways to restrict the practice. Had this procedure affected a third of men, it is hard to imagine that we would have debated it in the same way.”
“The 1967 Act was not designed with medical abortions in mind; it was passed when the overwhelming majority of abortions were carried out through surgical techniques. I regret the fact that, in the 50 years since the Abortion Act was passed, Parliament has mostly shied away from debating issues such as those I have just set out. In March, the House of Commons heard the First Reading of my ten-minute rule Bill on the decriminalisation of abortion in England and Wales. In the 50 years before I introduced the Bill, previous MPs had introduced 11 Bills to amend our abortion laws—seven were private Members’ Bills and four were, like mine, ten-minute rule Bills. All 11 attempted to restrict abortion in some way; not a single one was about improving provision or better supporting women.”
“No other medical procedure requires the sign-off of two doctors, and nor does that requirement exist in most other countries in which abortion is legal. While other healthcare areas have moved towards more patient-centred provision, with a better doctor-patient relationship, the provisions of the 1967 Act are, despite the best efforts of healthcare professionals, holding back similar progress in reproductive healthcare. Furthermore, as Professor Lesley Regan of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said: “No other medical procedure in the UK is so out of step with clinical and technological developments”. Since 2014, the majority of abortions in England and Wales have been carried out medically, using pills.”
“Britain’s abortion laws are governed not just by that 50-year-old Act, but by the 88-year-old Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 and the 156-year-old Offences Against the Person Act 1861. Taken together, this is the oldest legal framework for any healthcare procedure in the UK. It is a framework that, astonishingly, still treats the act of abortion as inherently criminal and punishable by life imprisonment. As I have mentioned, one third of women, and the healthcare professionals who support them, are stigmatised by these laws. As Madeleine Simms highlighted, the 1967 Act did not give women authority over their own abortions; it merely handed that authority to the medical profession, subject to the consent of two doctors.”
“Yes, that is incredibly concerning and I think it is a really bad decision of the Government to award money from the tampon tax to that organisation. As this House tonight rightly marks the milestone of the Abortion Act, we should also reflect on whether the Act is still fit for purpose. The Abortion Act was never intended to be the end of the campaign for women’s reproductive rights. That point was put succinctly by the late Madeleine Simms, a former campaigner at the Abortion Law Reform Association and one of the architects of the original law. She said: “The 1967 Abortion Act was a half-way house. It handed the abortion decision to the medical profession. The next stage is to hand this very personal decision to the woman herself.” I want to turn to why the abortion law needs reforming.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point, although the House did give my ten-minute rule Bill to decriminalise abortion its First Reading. It will be interesting to see the result if it is debated again in the new Parliament.”
“The number of abortion pills seized by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency posted to addresses in Britain has risen seventy-fivefold, from just five in 2013 to 375 in 2016. From November 2016 to February 2017, Women on Web, an international organisation that prescribes abortion pills in countries where abortion is illegal, monitored the number of British women who sought help on its website. In the space of just four months, the number seeking help had doubled. Those figures point to this conclusion: there is a rising, and unmet, demand for better abortion provision in this country.”
“Women, including desperate victims of domestic abuse, are increasingly ill-served by our current laws and criminalised for buying abortion pills online. Waiting times for abortion services appear to be on the rise. Recently, figures obtained by investigative journalists at “The Debrief” showed that in 76% of the clinical commissioning groups and NHS trusts they surveyed, average abortion waiting times in 2016 were higher than they were in 2013. The Family Planning Association tells women that they should have to wait only 10 working days for an abortion, but a quarter of CCGs and trusts have average waiting times longer than that. In my local CCG in Hull, waiting times have jumped 6.7 days in just a year—one of the highest jumps identified.”
“Clearly, 50 years ago Parliament took the view that it was going to allow abortions to take place in certain circumstances. It is right and proper that there is strict regulation around abortion. When I discussed decriminalisation earlier in the year, I talked about decriminalising, not deregulating. All providers have to provide the highest-quality care to women. Successive British Governments have failed to act to improve abortion provision. They have sometimes hidden behind the false pretext that issues of provision are issues of conscience, thereby setting the issue aside as too difficult to tackle. In the months before and since I introduced my ten-minute rule Bill, yet more compelling evidence has demonstrated the need for long overdue changes to our abortion laws.”
“It will also allow us to make the best possible provision for the women who have early medical abortions. We need to look at the requirement to obtain two doctors’ signatures. We should also ask whether the second abortion pill could not be taken at home should women wish to do so, just as it is in the United States, France, Sweden and, as announced recently, Scotland.”
“We are now in the position where the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Midwives, plus the noble Lord Steel all agree that the law needs to be updated, and that abortion should be decriminalised. It is now time for Parliament to act on this. Shortly, I will be publishing the text of a Bill to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales. I am currently working on the Bill with legal experts and professional healthcare organisations. The Bill will contain the same safeguards and regulations as those that I set out in March this year. Most importantly, it will take women out of the criminal law altogether. Healthcare professionals who assist in abortions before 24 weeks’ gestation will also be decriminalised, and they will receive further protections after 24 weeks.”
“I cannot live my life like this.” Another said: “I’m never allowed to go anywhere without my husband or a member of his family escorting me. I don’t have a normal life since getting married. Abortion is against his family’s religion and I’m very worried what would happen if I was caught.” For many women, making two trips to an abortion clinic, as is currently required, is simply not an option. A range of practical factors—the distance they live from a clinic, delays in accessing support, and childcare and work commitments—prevent them from making those trips. Yet each time these women purchase pills online, they are committing a criminal act, and because Women on Web does not prescribe pills in the UK, they are forced to turn to other providers, some of which may not be legitimate.”
“I am going to carry on, because I am conscious of time. The personal cases of these women are often deeply moving. A recent study of Women on Web’s services, published in September, has provided unprecedented insight into the challenges that British women face in accessing abortion services. Of the women who approached its service, nearly one in five did so because of “controlling circumstances” at home—from abusive partners to intolerant families. As one woman told the service: “I’m in a controlling relationship, he watches my every move. I’m so scared he will find out, I believe he’s trying to trap me and will hurt me. I can’t breathe. If he finds out, he wouldn’t let me go ahead, then I will be trapped forever.”
“In the face of threats to women’s reproductive rights at home and abroad, the answer is not to become timid and to remain defensive. The answer is to be bolder, to go beyond merely defending what we currently have, and to make a positive case for stronger rights and better women-centred provision. The ’67 Act made Britain a world leader in women’s reproductive rights, but it is time that we took the steps now to ensure that, once again, Britain reassumes this world-leading position.”
“Will the Minister comment on that? Thirdly, how will the Government respond to the calls to decriminalise abortion, supported by three professional medical bodies? Will the Government consider acting on these calls? Finally, we must also recognise the situation in a country where the Abortion Act does not apply. In Northern Ireland, abortion is highly restricted and criminal, even in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality. The ongoing Supreme Court case raises the prospect that this may soon go beyond a devolved matter and become a broader human rights matter. What steps are the Government taking for that to be dealt with by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland? In conclusion, the House should mark the anniversary of the Abortion Act—not just because of what we have achieved, but to look forward to what we need now.”
“First, will the Department of Health look into the problems that women are facing in accessing abortions? The Department should be regularly assessing the problem of abortion waiting times. It should be looking to identify local areas where there is poor provision. The problems that extremely vulnerable women face in accessing abortion care should also be investigated. Secondly, what concrete steps will the Government take to improve abortion provision? A court judgment in 2011 established that the Health Secretary could allow home use of the second abortion pill without the need for new legislation. In the light of that and of what has happened in Scotland, what are the Government planning to do? Furthermore, an increasing number of experts have questioned the two doctor requirement for early stage abortion.”
“I will carry on, because I am conscious that the Minister has to respond. I want to make the point that decriminalisation will not mean deregulation. The 24-week time limit will not be changed, and the conditions for accessing abortions post-24 weeks will not change either, but I do want to see stronger protection for women from non-consensual abortions—whether by assaulting pregnant women, or deceiving women into taking abortion medication. I have a few requests for the Minister. It is time that we acknowledged that abortion provision is not a conscience issue. Access to abortion services is a core part of women’s healthcare. It should be debated in a grown-up way, and Health Ministers should be held accountable for the quality of our abortion services.”
“Last Thursday, the Prime Minister told a journalist from the Eastern Daily Press that the Department of Health would no longer be the sponsoring body for the contaminated blood inquiry. We have not had a statement to the House—oral or written—to confirm that change, so is there anything that the Government would like to tell us this morning?”
“The midlands engine sits as a sister organisation to the northern powerhouse. In the light of the comments earlier, would the Secretary of State be willing to meet Yorkshire and the Humber MPs to discuss the future of devolution in the area, in order to drive economic growth in the region?”
“One point that the Minister made about supporting bereaved families was the starting presumption that legal aid should be awarded for representation at inquest. Can he give me an indication of which facts would actually rebut the presumption that legal aid would be granted?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wish to raise another issue of public policy: the contaminated blood scandal. What with “Sky News” today running a story about what appears to be a 1987 Cabinet cover-up related to the contaminated blood scandal, and with the consultation for the public inquiry having ended last week, have you, Sir, had any indication of when the Government are going to come to the House to make a statement about when that public inquiry will be set up? They promised that it would be done in a speedy manner.”
“As a Yorkshire MP, it is always good to see promises of investment in places such as Shipley. Nevertheless, this summer the Secretary of State said to The Yorkshire Post : “The success of Northern transport depends on the North”. Will he explain how, with London getting 10 times as much money for transport investment as Yorkshire and the Humber gets, that is going to happen?”
“The trade unions from BAE Systems at Brough are visiting Parliament this week to talk to MPs about potential job losses, and 140 MPs from both sides of the House have signed a letter asking the Government to think again about the out-of-service date of the Red Arrows Hawks, many of which were built in the 1970s. Is it therefore not time for a statement about securing those jobs and, more importantly, our sovereign capability?”
“It is another week in Parliament, another set of job losses in the north and another Minister being forced to come to the House to explain what the Government are doing. What has happened to the Government’s northern powerhouse strategy?”
“Can we please have a debate on the future of the Red Arrows? For decades, the Red Arrows display team has showcased the best of British aeronautical manufacturing around the world. The Hawk trainers used by the Red Arrows and built at Brough just outside Hull had been due to go out of service in 2020. As the Prime Minister, David Cameron, said in 2014 and as the lead pilot, Squadron Leader Jim Turner, said, the jets will need to be replaced in 2018. In 2016, the current Defence Secretary said that, eventually, we will have to replace them and will start to think about that in the next year or two. In the light of the announcement from BAE Systems this week, a discussion about the future of the Red Arrows would be very timely.”
“Can the Secretary of State confirm that the Bill will shave £100 from the energy bills of 17 million households, as promised by the Prime Minister?”
“T4. Next week, the Government’s consultation on the contaminated blood scandal will close. As the Department of Health is an implicated party, many people are refusing to take part in the consultation. Will the Cabinet Office now take immediate control of the consultation, because otherwise the rules of natural justice will be offended?”
“The Minister will win no friends in east Yorkshire by saying that people who might be made redundant from BAE Systems can go and get jobs in the renewables industry at Siemens. We need both sets of jobs in both industries—both, not one—to flourish in our area. I am not convinced at all that the Minister is taking our sovereign capability seriously if these jobs go. That is important to our national security, so what will she do about protecting it?”
“It is that basic information that they are still seeking. I hope very much that come next year—I hope there will be a debate again, because this is an important issue, which we need to discuss each year—I do not have to come here and say, “I am still fighting to get a local authority to display the kindness and compassion this group of people truly deserves.” I am staggered that I am still having to fight this case, because it is absolutely obvious that an internal investigation is not sufficient. What we need is to have some fresh air in this case and to have someone independent come in, look at all the records and ask the families about what happened. That seems to me the best way forward, the kindest way forward and the way we will actually get justice and truth for these families finally.”
“In Hull, the report looked only at the families who had come forward and self-identified. A year on from the last time I raised this issue in Parliament, Hull City Council still believes it has done everything it needs to do, despite families saying they still have not got the answers they need. I still do not understand why, in Shrewsbury and Scotland, an inquiry was appropriate, but one is not appropriate for the people I represent. There have never been clear answers and explanations about what happened. One Conservative Member made the point that there seems to be a fear that this will turn into a legal dispute and that there will be an opportunity for compensation. That is not what these families want; they just want to know what happened, why they were told things that were not true, and who knew what when.”
“On 25 July, my constituent Tina was given 27 minutes’ notice that the report was about to be published and given to the press. It was not sent to any of the other parents who were in the group. A 22-page internal report was produced by Hull City Council, but so many questions still needed answering—questions, as I said at the outset, about why babies’ ashes were left on the shelves of funeral directors and why families were told there were no ashes in the first instance. None of that was properly addressed, and there was no investigation into the role the NHS had played or into the independent funeral directors who had been involved. The report also looked at just 2% of the cremations that had been carried out in the area, whereas, in Shropshire, the Emstrey inquiry looked at 100%—it combed through all the records.”
“I was livid and, as Members can imagine, my constituent was completely dismayed. She has now formed a group with the other families called Action for Ashes in Hull. The families were absolutely dismayed, as their hope of getting the answer to what had happened was snatched away from them. However, the new Justice Secretary did write to Hull City Council, suggesting that it might like to meet the Action for Ashes group. The council refused to do that, saying that it was not willing to meet the group, but that it would meet me, Tina and one other parent. We had that meeting on 24 March 2017. I specifically asked for the full investigation that it said it had carried out to be published so that we could see what it had actually done. That took four months.”
“We have suggested that the Hull investigation should have terms of reference similar to those of the Emstrey inquiry.” I was very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that. He met my constituents and was incredibly compassionate and understanding. It is really important to see a politician showing such kindness. However, unfortunately, Hull City Council said that it did not need to hold that inquiry and there was a change in Justice Secretary. Without any reference to me, Tina or any of the other families, the Ministry of Justice decided not to pursue the issue with Hull City Council. It accepted that Hull had done everything it needed to do and that everything was fine. I was not told that. I only found it out because the council told me that it was no longer considering holding an inquiry.”
“It took three and a half months for the council to say that no, it was not willing to do that. I felt that there was an injustice here and that these families needed to know what had happened to their babies’ ashes. In February 2016, I went to see the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who, at that time, was Secretary of State for Justice. He wrote a letter to Hull City Council, which said: “My fellow Secretaries of State at the Department of Health and the Department for Communities and Local Government have agreed with me that there is a need for an historic investigation into the practices relating to infant cremations in the Hull area, and we have today jointly written to the Chief Executive of Hull City Council asking him to commission this.”
“Mike and Tina started to ask questions, and it became clear that they were not the only family that this had happened to. It now appears that there are about 70 families in the Hull area who share their experience. The ashes of those babies may have been left on the shelves of the funeral director’s offices. There was one instance of a baby being cremated, with no indication of an undertaker being used. Nobody seems to know quite how that happened. When this all came to light, I went to see the council, because I knew that there had been similar instances in Shrewsbury and Scotland and that there had been inquiries about what had happened in those areas. It was on 27 March 2015 that I went to the council with Mike and Tina and we asked whether we could have an inquiry into what had happened to these 70-odd families.”
“I am very grateful to be called to speak in this debate. I took part in the debate last year and was very moved by the contributions. I am pleased that we have such excellent speakers again today. I wish to pay tribute to the all-party group for the wonderful work that it has done, and to say to the Government that their record of making improvements and investing in this area is to be applauded. I am having to stand here again because I wish to speak about my constituents, Mike and Tina Trowhill. Members may remember that I spoke about them last year. Many years ago, they lost their little boy, William, who was then cremated. They were told that there were no ashes, but 20 years later they found that there had been ashes and that they had been scattered without the family’s knowledge.”
“The Secretary of State said in his statement that the collapse of Monarch Airlines was deeply regrettable, so I wonder whether he will support the call by the pilots’ union for a probe into what exactly happened around the collapse.”
“Will the Prime Minister say which particular elements of full membership of the single market she thinks should not apply in any transitional arrangements?”
“I thank the Minister for reiterating that answer, but has she given any thought to the fact that the gambling industry is failing to meet the 0.1% donation suggested by GambleAware to help to fund research and the treatment of people suffering from gambling addictions? Will she now act on that?”
“Last weekend, I met a woman who had been subjected to horrific domestic abuse by her partner since the age of 13, and it had carried on for many years. She was concerned that the relatively new offence of coercive and controlling behaviour had never been used against that perpetrator and that it may not be being used as much as it should be. Will the Attorney General look at that when he next meets the DPP?”
“The Minister ended her response to the urgent question by talking about the prudent use of reserves, but why does she think she knows better than the National Audit Office, which demands that police forces keep adequate reserves and says that taking staffing costs out of reserves is financially irresponsible? My chief constable in Humberside explained to me last week how important reserves are when unexpected demands are made on the police service, such as multiple murders that have to be investigated. The money is not there to cover the increased pay costs.”
“I really do not know how the Leader of the House is keeping a straight face when she makes those comments to the heart of democracy in this country. I am sure the Leader of the House will be aware of the landmark news this week that offshore wind energy is now cheaper than new nuclear energy, so can we please have a debate on this new industry and on what more the Government can do to support it—particularly to meet our carbon targets—and to ensure we have continued access to the EU export market after Brexit?”
“Will the Minister join me in congratulating Alan Johnson, the former MP for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, who fought for many years to get the Ron Dearing UTC opened in Hull? It has actually opened its doors this morning for the very first time, and one of its priorities is to encourage more young women to study engineering and technical subjects.”
“(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the responsibility for establishing an inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal.”