Dame Siobhain McDonagh
MP for Mitcham and Morden · Labour · United Kingdom
“Q5. In a capital city still scarred by the loss of 72 lives in the Grenfell fire, we have a second equally flammable and deadly risk. In bedrooms and corridors across London, low-paid deliverers for Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats are charging the tools of their trade: lethal lithium e-bike batteries.”
“I am therefore delighted that NHS London announced up to £57 million to expand and modernise St Helier’s emergency department. However, that cannot be the end. St Helier needs renewal. Only days later, there was an announcement that disrepair in the women’s services block meant that it would have to close.”
“The walk-in centre at the Wilson hospital in Mitcham, which once treated patients every day until midnight, even on Christmas day, has gone. Out-of-hours GP services have been reduced. Those patients have not disappeared; they now go to St Helier.”
“A number of constituents who work as nurses in the A&E department at St Helier hospital asked me to come to see for myself what they were dealing with. They asked me to come late on a Monday morning, rather than a Saturday or Sunday night as I had anticipated. What I saw was deeply troubling.”
“St Helier hospital has the fourth best maternity unit in the country, the only exclusively NHS-run assisted conception unit in south-west London, and a specialist gynaecology ward where nurses are highly trained in counselling. Yet all that is set to close next May because of the need for emergency repairs.”
“I thank the Petitions Committee and my friends from Brain Cancer Justice, who I affectionately think of as the provisional wing of the all-party parliamentary group on brain tumours. In July last year, we launched Margaret’s trial at University College London hospital.”
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“One night, I wondered how I would explain her death in a foreign city, in a country where I did not speak the language or understand the emergency care. But I would do it all again, because I wanted to extend her life and there was nothing for her here in the UK. We were lucky that we could pay for it. Thousands of people are currently following the same difficult path. For some, it is harder because they do not have the money. At a time of great distress, they are forced to sell their homes, run marathons or bake cakes to fund the treatment their loved one needs. Many are forced to travel alone because their partner cannot afford to go with them or cannot afford to take their children. Laura was diagnosed with a glioblastoma when she was just 18.”
“They are able to prescribe drugs for off-label use—drugs that are known to save lives but are not yet available to patients with a specific condition. How can it be right not to offer the same rights to patients in the UK? Instead, the NHS—and healthcare in general—abandons them to die when the outdated and inadequate standard care fails. Understandably, many fight and take the hard choice to travel internationally—in this case, to Germany—to find the treatments denied to them in their own country. I know this path, as I walked it with my sister. I held her head as she was sick into a bin on the concourse at Heathrow airport’s terminal 5. I obscured her from flight attendants in fear that they would take her off the plane, and that we would not get to Düsseldorf.”
“However, it serves another purpose: to give a voice to the thousands of terminally ill patients and the ordeal they are forced to endure in search of a lifeline; to expose the culture of fear among medical professionals in the NHS surrounding individualised treatment; and to suggest a better way forward. Excuse my German pronunciation, but Individuelle Heilversuche is the German law that allows doctors to provide personalised, individual treatment plans. When a terminally ill patient has run out of traditional treatment options, medical practitioners can use treatments that have not been fully approved, or that have been approved for other purposes, as part of individual treatment programmes.”
“In that case, they are likely to receive NHS treatment that has remained unchanged for more than 30 years, with no improvement in outcomes, no access to drug trials and no access to the huge progress that has been made in individualised cancer vaccines or immunotherapy. It does not have to be that way. In Germany, medical practitioners can offer experimental treatments to patients with a terminal diagnosis without fear that they, or the organisations that employ them, will be held liable or penalised. They can offer patients a lifeline that doctors in the UK are not allowed to offer. I am introducing this Bill to protect clinicians in the same way and to allow patients access to the latest medical treatments. In truth, we know this ten-minute rule Bill has no prospect of becoming law.”
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the liability of practitioners, and of the organisation which employs the practitioner, where a practitioner prescribes an unlicensed medicine to or carries out a non-standard treatment on a person who is terminally ill; to make provision about the import, storage and use of equipment and unlicensed medicines for the purpose of such prescriptions or such treatment; and for connected purposes. Advances in medical science wait for no man or woman—unless, of course, they are one of the thousands of people in the UK each year diagnosed with a rare cancer.”
“Before I call Sir John Whittingdale to move the motion, I would like to inform Members that the parliamentary digital communication team will be conducting secondary filming during this debate.”
“Order. I apologise for interrupting the shadow Secretary of State, but I am looking at the time. I am sure hon. Members would like to hear from the Minister.”
“I remind hon. Members that they can make speeches in this debate only with the agreement of the debate holder. Sarah Dyke will move the motion and then the Minister will respond. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.”
“Order. This is Sarah Dyke’s debate, and she can conduct it as she wishes, but it seems to me that it may be more appropriate to ask for a longer debate because of the number of interventions she is accepting and the difficulty that may cause the Minister in responding.”
“Unlike some Members, I think there is a role for volunteers in raising funds, for instance in shops. I have seen the value of that for individuals who contribute, and I am sure that the amazing constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) have all benefited greatly through what they have done to save his children’s hospice. However, hospice funding cannot be jeopardised by being left just to volunteers; the community and its Government, hand in hand, need to look after the most vulnerable children in our country.”
“I appreciate that it is difficult for Governments of all shades to look at issues in this way, but in the long term and in the round hospices save public money. They prevent family breakdown and ensure high standards of care. Few of us would argue anything but that the best place for a child with a short life is at home, supported by the wonderful professionals we have all met. I ask the Minister to support the continued central funding of children’s hospices, as well as to look at what can be done for those services with ICBs and social services departments to ensure that they are held to account for their funding and how they allocate it. Given that we have the opportunity of the 10-year plan for the NHS, is it not time to consider palliative care as part of that framework?”
“Every social services department in those 14 London boroughs—all of them beset by the huge problems involved in looking after children—will have a tiny number of children and families, who can therefore be ignored. That is why, despite the desire to bring everything down to the most local area or unit, we would like the Minister to hear the strong argument for maintaining the ringfenced grant for children’s hospices. To bring that down to local level would be to give it to services that are already under pressure, where numbers and leverage are equally small. The breakdown in hospices and children’s hospices always has a cost. If a family cannot get support to look after a child with a life-limiting condition at home, in the end the NHS and social services will step in.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. In my constituency, we are amazingly served by Shooting Star CHASE hospice, a children’s hospice that serves 14 London boroughs across south-west and north-west London—quite why that configuration exists, I am unsure—and boroughs and councils within Surrey. I calculate that that is around 1.5 million people. The service provides support to 544 children and their families. In essence, the funding crisis is due to the unique and specific services that that hospice provides to those children and families. No public body owns it, and those it serves are so dispersed that any integrated care board can simply ignore the tiny number of families in its area.”
“Does the right hon. Lady think that there is already gridlock in the county courts? As of today, a landlord who secures a possession order will wait 12 weeks to get a bailiff’s warrant. Our courts are gridlocked right now.”
“What bothers me most, however, is the families who present to me in my Mitcham and Morden constituency who are going through a section 21 eviction and know that temporary accommodation is on its way. Merton is a small south-west London borough and does not face the pressure that many others do, but those families know that they are going to be placed tens of miles away, if not hundreds of miles away, from their families and support networks.”
“I stand to support the Second Reading of this Bill, particularly the abolition of section 21 no-fault evictions. It falls to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to introduce a Bill that will fulfil the hopes of the former Member for Surrey Heath to abolish section 21 evictions, which are the sole cause of crisis for homeless families right across our country. We currently have 117,450 families in temporary accommodation, including 151,630 children and—disgracefully—more than 20,000 babies under the age of one. That comes at a cost to the British taxpayer of £1.6 billion a year—all of it public money badly spent; all of it undermining the finances of local authorities of all sizes and in every part of this country.”
“Members, “Don’t believe your local authority if they tell you they do, because they simply can’t do it.” My second example is just in case anybody thinks this issue only affects families. Mr H has dementia. When he was evicted, he was placed 8 miles away, in Croydon. That is not far, but it caused South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust to remove him from its list and he lost the support he got from the geriatrician. We are doing these things to the most vulnerable people. That keeps me awake at night, and I think it should keep all of us awake at night.”
“I will give two examples from my last surgery. Mrs S is a nurse at St Helier hospital and Mr S works morning shifts at a local supermarket. They have three children, one of whom is non-verbal and has autism. Following a section 21 eviction from their home, they were placed 31 miles away from Merton, in Windsor—but only after they had spent eight hours in the reception of the civic centre and got their accommodation so late that when they turned up at Windsor, the estate agent was closed and they had nowhere to go. Mr S had to pay £300 for them to be in a hotel that night. Next day, when they turned up at the house, there were no beds, because nobody from the local authority—nobody from any local authority—checks the accommodation before the families move in. I say to hon.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Local authorities have to rehouse those families in identical accommodation, only in worse repair, because there are not the same legal provisions for temporary accommodation. Children lose their places at school and their educational attainment falls, parents lose their employment, and babies die. We know through the work of Dr Laura Neilson, who works with me on the all-party parliamentary group for households in temporary accommodation, that between 2019 and 2023, 55 babies in temporary accommodation—in the 21st century, in the fifth biggest economy in the world—died for the want of a cot. Members right across the House know this, because we see the families and we talk to them, but most of our friends and neighbours would be shocked to the core that these things happen in our country.”
“The right hon. Lady makes the point that cancer is the biggest killer of people under 40, but glioblastoma brain tumours are the biggest killer of people under the age of 40. What progress has there been in the last 30 years in the treatment and diagnosis of glioblastoma brain tumours?”
“Last week, I received a letter from Professor Lucy Chappell, the NIHR’s chief scientific adviser. Disturbingly, she told me that the NIHR largely funds research based on the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money and scientific quality, but it does not “allocate funding for specific disease areas.” The pharmaceutical industry does not work on glioblastoma. If the NHS also does not, who will? Do we keep on baking cakes?”
“In comparison to 33 similar countries, the UK ranks 25th for five-year survival rates. Life expectancy for somebody diagnosed with a glioblastoma is just nine months. There has not been a new treatment in the NHS for more than 30 years, and the diagnosis is still a death sentence. In 2018, after Tessa Jowell sadly passed away with a glioblastoma, £40 million of ringfenced Government funding was promised for brain tumour research. Of that £40 million, just £11.3 million has been spent. Six years on, and the National Institute for Health and Care Research cannot even get the money out of the door. That is a real failure of Government. In June 2024, just before the election, a roundtable discussed how to spend £15 million of this money, and I have been trying to find out what it decided.”
“Members from across the House will have their own experience of the NHS, but in my case, after caring for my late sister Margaret, who was diagnosed with a glioblastoma brain tumour in 2021, I can say with regret that the NHS failed her, forcing us to travel to Germany when she was at her sickest in order to find some treatment that might extend her life. In his summary letter published before the report, Lord Darzi told us that he was “shocked” by what he had found, but the 3,200 people who are diagnosed with a glioblastoma brain tumour every year are not shocked. They know just how bad things are. The report has told us that the UK has higher cancer death rates than our European neighbours. For patients with a glioblastoma brain tumour, that is news to no one.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for being so generous with his time in this really important Adjournment debate. I, too, had the opportunity to meet Mandy Damari, who wanted our Government to acknowledge that her daughter Emily is a British citizen and requires the support of her Government to do everything they can to allow for her release as a hostage.”
“Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on glioblastoma drug treatments? As Mr Speaker and she will know, 3,200 people each year are diagnosed with this death sentence. It is the largest killer of the under-40s, and life expectancy at five years is just 5%. Without Government intervention in the pharmaceutical industry and the NHS, there will be no improvement for another 40 years, and we will continue to see the same number of people traumatised, dead and scandalised.”
“I will call Sarah Dyke to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.”
“Order. The hon. Member needs to sit down. This issue is clearly of much concern in many constituencies across the country. It could be appropriate for a group of Members to get together and submit an application for a 60 or 90-minute debate in Westminster Hall, which would give Members the opportunity to make their cases and the Minister enough time to respond to their concerns. I am not formally requiring that of anybody, but I suggest that it might be a useful mechanism. Question put and agreed to.”
“Thank you. I apologise to all hon. Members who have not been called to speak today, but we must now start the wind-ups. I call the shadow Minister.”
“Order. Could I just urge the House to think about interventions? There is a very long list of Members who want to speak and lots of people who want to make their maiden speech, and it would be great if they could all get in.”
“The dilemma we face is self-evident: many hon. and right hon. Members want to speak, and we will do all we can to get in as many people as possible. Unfortunately, there will now be a five-minute limit on speeches. The clock will not be used for maiden speeches, but we ask Members to keep an eye on the time.”
“Order. Let me just give the House a reminder—not that the next Member I will call needs this reminder—that for those of us who could be described as veteran Members, it is the custom to praise maiden speeches.”
“Congratulations everybody on getting through that; I am delighted that everybody got to ask their question and I thank the Secretary of State for his responses.”
“I thank the hon. Member for his point of order and for giving notice of it. Although it is not a matter for the Chair, he has clearly made his point and it is on the record.”
“57) Secretary Louise Haigh, supported by the Prime Minister, Secretary Angela Rayner, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Ed Miliband, Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, Secretary Ian Murray, Secretary Jo Stevens and Darren Jones, presented a Bill to make provision for passenger railway services to be provided by public sector companies instead of by means of franchises. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 3) with explanatory notes (Bill 3-EN).”
“57 and 80A) Secretary Angela Rayner, supported by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary David Lammy, Secretary Yvette Cooper, Secretary Bridget Phillipson and Secretary Lisa Nandy, presented a Bill to make provision for expenditure by the Secretary of State and the removal of restrictions in respect of certain land for or in connection with the construction of a Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre. Bill d eemed to have been read the First, Second and Third time, pursuant to the Order of 22 May 2024, and to be printed (Bill 2). Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No.”
“Similarly to my last response, although I thank the hon. Member for her point of order, it is not a matter for the Chair. However, it is clearly recorded and is a matter of record. Bills Presented Budget Responsibility Bill Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57) The Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by the Prime Minister, Darren Jones, James Murray and Tulip Siddiq, presented a Bill to impose duties on the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility in respect of the announcement of fiscally significant measures. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow , and to be printed (Bill 1) with explanatory notes (Bill 1-EN). Holocaust Memorial Bill Presentation and resumption of proceedings (Standing Orders Nos.”
“They wrote back to say that I would need to go to court and there was only a 50:50 chance of my being successful. Finally, we need much more public awareness so that potential victims know how to look out for the scammers. If drivers know the signs of an unfazed driver with pre-written insurance information, they can let the police know and stop this at source. It might seem like a trivial issue, but it is a business worth £392 million a year and all our constituents will be better off if we can stamp it out. It is not a victimless crime. All of us trying to reinsure our cars know how much car insurance premiums are increasing. We must ensure that the law-abiding drivers of this country are not victims of higher premiums because of opportunistic organised crime.”
“It is big business that is only getting bigger—Allianz has reported that the crime has increased by 25%. What can we do about it? The first thing is the Government’s fraud strategy. The crash-for-cash scam is not even mentioned in that document, but if we are serious about our plan to stop fraud at source and pursue those responsible, that would be a sensible first step. The next step is the job of the insurance industry: we need insurers to do a thorough job of investigating opportunistic insurance fraud and to let constituents know that they may have been a victim. In my own case, when I gathered myself and realised what had happened, I sent my insurers photographs and the short video. I said that I thought that I had been the victim of a scam.”
“Since then, I have met representatives of Allianz and LV= insurers—not my own, I hasten to add—and learned that crash for cash is a slick operation that targets women: specifically women on the school run, as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington said, because the gangs feel that they are less likely to put up a fight. That was the experience of Ms T, who was driving near a school at 10 am when the incident happened, and it is the experience of four in 10 people who fall victim to this. There also seem to be hotspots, with criminals targeting the outskirts of major cities and, specifically in south-west London, Thornton Heath, which, although it is part of Croydon, abuts my own constituency. The scam is valued at about £392 million a year.”
“Not until a constituent came to my advice surgery and went on to describe exactly the same sort of case did I really understand what had happened, and I feel pretty stupid now. My constituent, Ms T, told me that she had spotted a stationary moped on a residential road. Then, when she turned to exit a junction, the moped sped up and lightly tapped her car. The driver then threw his bike to the floor and started shouting at her. He immediately took photographs of Ms T’s car, but he fled the scene before she could take down any of his details. Lo and behold, she was then contacted by her insurers, who let her know that the driver had made a claim. Only then did I realise that both my constituent and I were among the 170,000 people targeted every year by organised crime gangs as part of crash-for-cash scams.”
“I was not travelling very fast—it was a residential road—so I did an emergency stop and managed to avoid hitting the moped. Immediately, the driver dropped the moped and began to shout and point at me. I pulled over to see that he was okay, but I was absolutely confused because I knew I had done no damage to his moped and that he too was not hurt in any way. I just did not understand what was going on. He dragged me over, took my details and took photographs of me, of my car, which showed no signs of damage, and of his moped. I gathered myself to take pictures of his moped and watched him drive off on it, and I thought no more of the incident. Then, some time later, I received a letter from a solicitor demanding large amounts of money because of the need for the driver to use a replacement vehicle.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Fovargue. I thank the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for securing this debate about crash-for-cash scams. South-west London has been a target for organised crime gangs seeking to scam constituents in both of our patches, so this is a much-needed debate. The more attention we give the issue, the less likely our constituents are to be the victims of an insurance fraud. I will start by declaring an interest: in retrospect, I understand that I have been the victim of a crash-for-cash incident. About eight months ago, I was driving through Tooting on a residential road when a moped came out of nowhere, overtook me and stopped right in front of me.”
“I rise to speak out of desperation on behalf of the 112,660 homeless families, 145,800 children, and 20,000 babies who are currently living in temporary accommodation. I meet at least three or four of those families every single Friday at my advice surgery, as they are put into cramped, uninhabitable or overcrowded temporary accommodation. When I use the word “temporary” I am being misleading, because homeless families are being placed in temporary accommodation for so much longer than anybody ever should. Some 3,700 families have lived in temporary accommodation for over five years. One family has lived in it since 2009. Some children spend their entire life living in so-called temporary accommodation.”
“My hon. Friend’s story of that particular family is sadly not unusual. I know of the work of the Shared Health Foundation, which is part of the secretariat of the all-party parliamentary group on households in temporary accommodation. I know what brilliant work it does, and that, in the foundation, my hon. Friend will have a strong advocate in trying to resolve the difficulties that she is experiencing. I will use my speech to tell the House about a few families I know of, and the disadvantages that their children face at every stage of childhood, from pregnancy all the way up to A-levels.”
“Alfie’s parents have relied on a strong network of parents to help them navigate through the daily aspects of school life. I would worry that the impact of moving school as well as a new home would be very upsetting for him.” That is one of the many consequences of our country’s lack of investment in new social housing. I am conscious of time, although I realise I have benefited from the early closure of the previous debate.”
“They were moved to West Croydon, from where their kids had a 90-minute journey to school, and at the end of last year they were relocated to temporary housing in Tottenham—again, miles away from the place they called home for nearly two years. They had finally found a school where their children were happy and starting to be more social, confident and secure, and I can read to the House what their primary school had to say about one of their children: “Alfie is currently in reception. He has settled in really well and has a strong friendship circle. His attendance is extremely strong at 97% and amounts to only two absences due to illness. His punctuality is currently 100%. Alfie’s confidence has grown, and we are very proud of his development. We look forward to seeing him progress at this school.”
“They were originally living in my local borough of Merton in south-west London when they were made homeless, but they have been sent to every corner of London to find temporary accommodation—first to Walthamstow in north-east London and then to Ilford. Ms N is now living over an hour away from St George’s Hospital in south-west London, where she needs to go for her for appointments, medication, and scans. Her kids are missing school because of the more than two hours they have to spend on public transport every day. The Minister can also meet Mr and Ms G, who were made homeless when they were living in Colliers Wood, which is also in my home borough of Merton.”
“How can someone possibly start putting their life back together when they are 170 miles away from the borough they have been living in? It is a ludicrous situation, and it means that thousands of children turn up at school dirty, tired and underdeveloped, far from ready for their vital first year. Some will have grown up confined to a small room, shared with the rest of their family, with no space to play, walk or socialise with other children. Others might live in mixed housing blocks alongside drug users, where their older siblings prefer to use a potty in the cupboard rather than queue in the corridor for a shared toilet. I am happy to take the Minister to the temporary accommodation that many of the families that I represent have to live in. She can meet Mr and Ms N, who have five children all under the age of eight.”
“That is a great aspiration, but I know it is not being realised on the ground because local authorities cannot find such accommodation, particularly for larger families. Most schools would be loth to take a child in year 11 or year 13 because they would be in the second year of their exams and the curriculums would not match. Schools of all statuses are concerned about their performance. One child was moved homes five times in the first five weeks of his GCSE exams and was forced to rely on a charity that paid for his taxi to his first exam. On one day at the civic centre in my constituency, the only temporary accommodation that could be offered to families was in Telford—170 miles away from their home borough—and that is not unique.”
“After their children start going to primary school, families in temporary accommodation face a whole new set of challenges, because at least 30,000 families were placed in a borough outside their home: taking children out of school, and the families away from their support networks; taking parents and adult children away from jobs; and taking the families away from the hospitals and GP surgeries that they might desperately need. Once we remove a desperate, vulnerable family from their home environment, there are consequences for their children in school attainment and attendance, and all sorts of other things. The guidance code on dealing with homeless families suggests that priority for local temporary accommodation should be given to children in their exam years.”