Caroline Nokes
MP for Romsey and Southampton North · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He will be conscious that there are in the region of 15 more Members wishing to speak in this debate, and we have not yet heard from the Minister, so I am not minded to accept a closure motion at this point.”
“(3) For paragraph (3A) substitute— “(3A) The returning officer shall also provide each polling station with such equipment as is necessary to ensure that relevant persons are able to vote independently and in secret, including— (a) tactile equipment that enables the voter to navigate the ballot paper and accurately mark their chosen candi…”
“(2) During the period commencing 30 minutes before the time appointed for the taking of a poll at an election, and ending 30 minutes after the close of the said poll, a person shall not, in or in the curtilage of a polling station or in any place within 50 metres of such station, for the purpose of promoting the interest of a political pa…”
“New clause 97— Power of Electoral Commission to require disclosure from financial institutions — “In Schedule 19B of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (investigatory powers of Commission), after paragraph 1 insert— “Power to require disclosure from financial institutions 1A(1) The Commission may give a disclosure n…”
“() In paragraph 6 of schedule 6 (Donations from impermissible donors), after “section 54(1)(a)” insert— “or section 55B.” (8) In Schedule 20, in Table after Section 56(3) or (4) (failure to return donations) On summary conviction: statutory maximum or 6 months On indictment: fine or 1 year” Insert— Section 55A(8) (cap on donations) On sum…”
“(2) The specified elections for the purposes of subsection (1) are— (a) UK parliamentary elections, and (b) local government elections in England and Wales.”
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“We know that a significant proportion of their claims will be granted, but I would like to see more work across Government, perhaps with the MHCLG and the Department for Education, because so many of these asylum seekers are children—children who need school places and who need help to learn English so that they can go on to play a fulfilling role in our society. Moving forward, it is important for us to remember that these are people, who need our help and who have come here fleeing persecution and war. There are those on all sides of the House who wish to find a way to make sure that the tone of this debate is constructive and helpful; not just pointing out the problems, but seeking to find solutions so that we can do better.”
“It is also next to a Ministry of Defence firing range and a shooting school, so those who have come to this country seeking refuge from war must listen to the sound of gunshots resonating over the skies. I know it is really challenging to find suitable accommodation, but this can best be achieved by working with local authorities. I would respectfully point out to my hon. Friend the Minister that the Local Government Association can be his friend. It is really important to find integrated solutions that involve funding following those who are seeking asylum.”
“It is no surprise that we find organisations working in cities such as Southampton, which has a proud track record of helping refugees and asylum seekers. Indeed, the Swaythling ward in my constituency has one of the highest numbers of asylum seekers in supported accommodation in the city. Therefore, it will also come as no surprise that I regard as deeply suspect any proposals to site asylum seekers away from services they need. The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark has mentioned the site at Barton Stacey, which is not only remote from services such as running water, but adjacent to a dual carriageway with a poor safety record.”
“Indeed, in my 18 months in the role, some of the most inspiring visits were ones that I had in Bradford, Southampton and south-east London, talking to the volunteers who are helping in the process of finding routes for asylum seekers to integrate into communities—finding the specialist support services they need; finding the medical attention they require on their arrival to the UK; and helping with their children and integration into schools, which is a crucial part of their journey in the UK. I would like to extend my thanks to the Southampton and Winchester Visitors Group and point out that these volunteers and support services are almost invariably found in significant centres of population.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and thank you to the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) for having secured this important debate. I want to reassure my hon. Friend the Minister that I have a great deal of sympathy with him in understanding the complexities of finding suitable accommodation and working to make sure that those seeking asylum in this country are properly integrated.”
“We have to learn from what is being done internationally and work as a global community to stand up for our democracy. We have to stand up for those women who are brave enough to enter public life, but make sure that the legislation is there to protect them and keep them safe from this sort of abuse.”
“I think that is one of the massive challenges that we face. People are emboldened when they can hide their true identity. We know they are also emboldened when they are behind a screen. While I do not wish today’s debate to turn into a whinge-fest of who has the worst story, the thing that struck me about two of my most prolific online abusers was that the day I met them in the street, they stared at the pavement and shuffled past. Of course, that is what we know about bullies—at heart, they are also cowards. If they cannot hide behind anonymity, it will stamp out their cowardice because they will have to reveal who they are and I do not believe they are brave enough to do so. The problem exists across the globe. I remember meeting female parliamentarians from Jordan who experienced exactly the same as we do in the UK.”
“Friend the Member for Basingstoke was right to point it out—that those who have disabilities and are LGBTQ also face more abuse. We have to stamp out these awful discriminatory, bullying, harassing tactics for good. I do not pretend that the block and the mute button are the solution—they are not. They may be part of it on an individual level, but we need effective legislation. I am pleased to see the Minister in her place, but I have grave concerns that the online harms Bill will not do the job. We know that it aims to crack down on the illegal, which is good, and prevent young people from accessing harmful content on the internet, but we will have to be explicit about what we are trying to achieve when it comes to stopping the abuse that we all receive on a daily basis. There is real merit in stamping out anonymity.”
“While I will always glibly say that the solution to the online abuse that we receive as female parliamentarians is simply to use the block and the mute button, the reality is that we cannot do that in every case and, in so doing, we might miss the person who is a physical threat to us . I was pleased to hear my right hon. Friend talk about diversity, but I regret that she stopped short at one point. We know that female parliamentarians are more abused than their male counterparts, but we also know that black female MPs receive the most abuse of all, and that the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) receives more abuse than every other parliamentarian put together. That is a stark reminder that there is still in our country an undercurrent of misogyny and racism. We also know—my right hon.”
“Thank you, Mr Paisley. I pay tribute to my near neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for leading this important debate today. The Women and Equalities Committee has recently launched an inquiry into the cultures underpinning male violence against women and, sadly, I see the online abuse of female parliamentarians as part of that same culture. Trolling might lead somewhere, and the reality is that none of us either in this debate today or in Parliament more widely knows which of our online trolls might turn into a stalker or who, indeed, might in due course turn into somebody who attends our office, our surgery, our home and threatens us physically. This week’s troll could be next week’s attacker.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her statement. She has focused a great deal on evidence. Does she agree that narrative is also important, and that when the Government respond, it is essential that they do so in full to the 24 recommendations and get the tone right? The Women and Equalities Committee has invited Tony Sewell to come and give evidence to us, alongside other commissioners. I hope my hon. Friend will encourage him to do so, so that the Committee can hear at first hand the evidence that was presented to him and how the report was written.”
“In Romsey and the surrounding villages, much use has been made of the planning easements by pubs, cafés and restaurants to install temporary awnings, marquees, gazebos and so on. Please can my right hon. Friend reassure me that plenty of time will be given to pubs and so on before these structures have to be removed? In many cases, they will continue to provide additional capacity even when indoor socialising is allowed, and our hospitality sector has had a very tough year.”
“I was really pleased to hear my right hon. Friend reference the appointment of Professor Lucy Chappell and the work on vaccines in pregnancy. Will he please update the House on what is being done to reassure young women that there is no plausible way that vaccination can affect fertility? Will he also let us know how quickly he expects pregnant women, who we know might be immunosuppressed, to be called forward for their vaccination, or will they have to wait for the age band that is appropriate?”
“Friend the Minister in his response to make it clear that the Government will grasp those opportunities and do so in a timely fashion.”
“There are positives in the Government’s response and I do not denigrate the hard work that is undeniably going on in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in relation to disabled people’s access to food and in the Cabinet Office on accessible communications; and the work that the Disability Unit is putting into the national strategy for disabled people. The Government have opportunities in the national strategy, the social care review and their SEND review to understand the particular problems faced by disabled people, their carers and their families in the pandemic, to understand the part they have played in those problems, and to start putting things right and restoring trust. I urge my hon.”
“The Government say they need more time to get the reforms right. Of course time is needed to grapple with the complex issues in the SEND system, but if much more time elapses people will start to question whether SEND is the priority that it ought to be. The same is true of the review of adult social care. There is no doubt that the devastating experience of the pandemic in social care settings was exacerbated by systemic issues of funding, of workforce—including pay and staff turnover—and a lack of proper integration with NHS services. That is why we were disappointed in the spending review settlement for social care and disappointed that there was nothing on social care in the Budget. We only know that the Government intend to bring forward their proposals for social care later this year. That needs to happen sooner rather than later.”
“We spoke endlessly in our debates about parents having to fight to get their children the services they need. However, parents are still struggling in an overly bureaucratic system and the evidence that they gave us through our inquiry was that they are still using the word “fight” when describing their attempt to get their children’s needs assessed and provided for. The Government acknowledged that in announcing their SEND review, but that was in September 2019, more than 18 months ago. The experience of children with SEND and their families during the pandemic must provide the impetus to sort these problems out. We called for the review outcome to be published in the first quarter of this year, but we are still waiting. The Government’s response to our report acknowledges the importance of these issues.”
“Their argument that the status quo is sufficient flies in the face of recent experience. If there is not a statutory code of practice, how will the Government prevent these issues from arising in future public health crises? Again, we have to learn from experience. The pandemic has very clearly emphasised and exacerbated known systemic problems affecting disabled people. We know that the SEND system is facing a crisis. The aims of the Children and Families Act reforms have never been consistently achieved. Services for children with SEND are too often inadequate. In too many places, the integrated education, health and care services envisaged in the 2014 Act have never materialised. I speak as a member of the Bill Committee that way back in 2012 or 2013 scrutinised the Bill that became that Act.”
“We all understand the pressures that people were under early in the pandemic, but more than 10 years on from the Equality Act 2010, it is shocking that disabled people’s rights were not properly considered in the formulation of policies and practices in health and social care. That is why we recommended a robust response to prevent such mistakes being repeated. We called on the Government to allow the Equality and Human Rights Commission to issue a statutory code of practice on the public sector equality duty, to provide greater legal certainty about the actions that public authorities must take to prevent discrimination. Greater certainty would provide more effective protection, so the Government’s dismissal of our recommendation is extremely disappointing.”
“The guidelines issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence on the use of the clinical frailty scale in making decisions about who should receive critical care if NHS resources had been overwhelmed were potentially discriminatory against disabled people. We heard from disabled people that, while they accepted that the guidelines were swiftly amended, it left a very bad taste. Extremely concerning issues about the inappropriate use of “do not attempt resuscitation” notices, or DNARs, have been much more prolonged. The Government asked the Care Quality Commission to investigate in October last year, and last month the CQC found that that hundreds of inappropriate DNARs had been applied. These issues demonstrate a deeply worrying lack of concern for the rights of some groups of disabled people.”
“The reasons relied on in written responses—that there is not enough space in Downing Street, or that there is not enough time to make arrangements—are weak. Surely the Government could have found space during the recent media suite refit. I am unsurprised that campaigners have resorted to judicial review, but I am surprised that the Government have not sought to resolve the issues swiftly and simply by finding both the space and the inclination to include a BSL interpreter. Practices in health and social care added to disabled people’s perceptions that their lives were less valued than others.”
“There were no accessible versions of that letter for several days. I know that a great deal of work is going on in the Cabinet Office to provide the shopping list of accessible communications asks put forward by disability charities last year; but the Government could and should go further and faster. I find it utterly incomprehensible, for example, that the Government have still not arranged in-person British Sign Language interpretation of their televised covid briefings. I raised that issue with the Prime Minister at the Liaison Committee in January, and the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) raised it again very effectively at Prime Minister’s Question Time yesterday. On neither occasion was a proper response forthcoming.”
“Disability charities told us that the Government were talking to them, but in broadcast mode—not listening and not resolving problems effectively. When the Government did communicate with disabled people, their communications were not always psychologically informed, and too often they exacerbated disabled people’s already heightened anxieties. There was confusing guidance on shielding, and it was sometimes poorly thought through and poorly timed—for example, a text message sent at the weekend before important changes to guidance were issued on the Monday. I want to see evidence that the Government have learned from what happened. Right from the outset, from the Prime Minister’s letter to the nation in March explaining the need to stay at home, communications have not been fully accessible.”
“The response, “Now is not the time,” will inevitably start to wear thin. The Government should commit to an independent inquiry, including into what led to disabled people feeling the brunt of the pandemic, and they should set out a timetable not just for its start but for its completion. They should do so now. A major theme in our full report was the Government’s consultation and communications with disabled people during the pandemic. We heard that disabled people felt excluded and ignored. Witnesses pointed out that effective consultation with disabled people could have made it possible to avoid some of the problems that they faced early in the pandemic, such as a lack of accessible food shopping.”
“The chance of dying from covid was more than three times greater for someone with a disability than for someone who was not disabled. The chance of dying for a person with a learning disability was probably more than six times greater than that of the general population. A young person aged between 18 and 34 with a learning disability was some 30 times more likely to die than a young non-disabled person. Our inquiry heard evidence about decisions and policies that might have contributed to those tragic statistics, such as a relative slowness to protect people in a range of social care settings, and a lack of clear and accessible information for disabled people. That is why we called for a discrete independent inquiry into the causes, including the decisions made by Government.”
“Removing the power to modify duties in relation to children’s and young people’s education, health and care needs would send a clear message to children and their families that the Government fully support their right to receive the provision they need. I see no reasonable justification for keeping the Secretary of State’s power to modify duties in statute any longer. Over the last year, my Committee’s work has emphasised the unequal impacts of the pandemic on three groups of people with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010; women, groups of black and minority ethnic people, and disabled people—the subject of the debate today, who have received, sadly, relatively little attention. Yet the adverse effects on disabled people have been starkly disproportionate, including tragically high death rates.”
“The power to modify education, health and care plan duties was used by way of national notices issued by the Secretary of State for Education in May, June and July. The power remains available in the Coronavirus Act. My view is that this power must be removed. We are in a very different place in the pandemic. As the Minister for Children and Families acknowledged in a recent letter to me, there is much less need for the additional flexibilities, yet the power is being retained, for the time being, as a contingency. The Government have said they will act to remove temporary provisions as soon as they are no longer necessary. They have done so in relation to the mental health and social care provisions. It is an important matter of principle: the Government must not hold on to emergency powers a moment longer than they absolutely need to.”
“We welcomed the Government’s decision last year to repeal the unused Mental Health Act 1983 provisions. We very much welcome the recent decision to remove the Care Act 2014 easement provisions, and we look forward to this happening as swiftly as possible. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work will chase that up with the Minister for Care at the Department for Health and Social Care. Although the easements were not widely used, their availability in statute exacerbated a perception, which has existed among disabled people right from the outset of this crisis, that their rights are somehow seen as less important than other people’s. The outstanding issue from our interim report is that one of the temporary provisions affecting young disabled people remains in place.”
“Relevant to this debate is our interim report, published in September last year, which was intended to inform the first six-monthly review of the Coronavirus Act 2020 temporary provisions. I will start by drawing attention to an important outstanding issue in this context—one that has not received a great deal of attention. The temporary provisions included unused provisions that relaxed requirements for sectioning under the Mental Health Act 1983, provisions that curtailed or restricted hard-won rights of disabled people to get the care and support that they needed in their everyday lives—the so-called Care Act 2014 easements—and a power to modify duties under the Children and Families Act 2014 in relation to assessment and provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities.”
“With your indulgence, Sir Graham, I would like to highlight that some of the issues we will discuss concern children with special educational needs, and when it comes to autistic spectrum disorders, there was one Member of this House who championed the issue, spoke in pretty much every debate on the subject, and chaired the all-party parliamentary group on autism. Cheryl Gillan is already much missed in this place, not least by me today. I know that she was a real expert and spoke with passion and knowledge in debates such as the one we are having today. I am sure she would have been present to put on record her thoughts about access to services for children with autistic spectrum disorders.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the Fourth Report of the Women and Equalities Committee, “Unequal impact? Coronavirus, disability and access to services: full Report”, HC 1050. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham, and I thank my colleagues on the Committee for their work on both the inquiry and the report. I am pleased to see the hon. Members for Jarrow (Kate Osborne), for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) and for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) participating in the debate.”
“I thank the Minister for giving way on the point about the Secretary of State for Education’s powers. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made it clear that he would require a compelling reason to use them, but he has not used them, he does not plan to use them and there is much less need to use them. Will my hon. Friend indicate whether there might be a timescale for when they are going to go?”
“What Members need now is some sort of assurance that lessons have been learned and will continue to be learned because, should another public health crisis like covid hit us in future, we cannot afford to have disabled people pushed to the back of the queue, have their needs forgotten and feel, as too many of those who spoke to us of their lived experiences said, forgotten, marginalised and as if they did not matter. I urge him to ensure that that sensation is not left with them. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House has considered the Fourth Report of the Women and Equalities Committee, “Unequal impact? Coronavirus, disability and access to services: full Report”, HC 1050.”
“I ask him in particular to take back to fellow Ministers the message we heard repeatedly from colleagues about social care, the lack of attention on it, and the impact that has had on the lived experience of way too many disabled people up and down the country in every single one of our constituencies. As my hon. Friend the Minister said, the pandemic gave the Government an unprecedented challenge, and in many instances there was really good cross-Government working to rise to the challenge.”
“I put on record my thanks to all hon. Members who contributed to the debate. I recognise that lots of Government Departments are very much in the frame here, whether it be the DHSC, the DWP, the DFE or, indeed, DEFRA, and my hon. Friend the Minister has not done a bad job of answering for all of them. However, what has been singularly lacking is the provision to him by those Departments of dates. When might we see an independent inquiry? When might we see the SEND review from the DFE? When might we see measures to integrate health and social care effectively from the DHSC?”
“Yesterday, the Women and Equalities Committee heard from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission on this subject. We heard harrowing stories, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has pointed out, including of women forced to take overnight ferries to the United Kingdom for a termination having to return the same day, because of course, during the pandemic, no hotels were open for them to stay in. I know he takes this duty seriously and that we are discussing this today because of the failure to commission safe services locally. I thank him for the action he is taking, but also ask that he uses every endeavour to make sure that services are commissioned swiftly, so no more women have to make those journeys.”
“Parents are desperately worried that children with special educational needs are not getting access to the assistance they need. They are back in school now, which I absolutely welcome, but I urge the Education Secretary to reconsider and to remove these unneeded easements.”
“The Minister acknowledges in her letter to me, dated today, that the powers are unused and have not been used since last July. Indeed, she goes on to state that today, compared with May, June and July last year, these flexibilities are much less needed. If they are unused and the evidence shows that they are less needed, why are they being retained? I am not some great conspiracy theorist; I do not think that this is an attempt by the Secretary of State for Education to keep this power indefinitely, but it is not used and it is not needed, yet it remains on the statute book. Of course, there is no ability to amend just that one section this evening. Respectfully, I argue that the justification we have been given makes no sense, and I urge the Secretary of State for Education to think again about retaining these powers.”
“I also very much welcome his actions over the course of the last 24 hours in deciding to retire, as it were, the Care Act 2014 easements, which the Women and Equalities Committee had called for and, indeed, which I would be calling for this afternoon had he not already done it. However, the same step has not been taken over the education easements in the Act. Too many disabled children have not received the support they need during the pandemic. These easements have not been used since July, yet the justification for keeping them, sent to me by the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), is that the Secretary of State is keeping them under review in case the evidence changes.”
“It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), who talked about the importance of keeping some of the provisions within the Coronavirus Act, very much in a just-in-case manner. I will speak from my perspective as Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee about three components that have caused us concern in the past and one that still does. We very much welcome the action taken by the Health and Social Care Secretary to remove the Act’s provisions around the Mental Health Act 1983 and sectioning back in December. They had not been used and were therefore not needed.”
“In order to make the streets safer for women, we must tackle the culture underpinning male violence. Does my hon. Friend agree with the conclusion of the February 2020 report of the Government Equalities Office that the use of pornography is an important contributing factor to harmful sexual behaviours? If so, how will she make sure that the Government emphasis is not simply on street lights, but also on the causes of male violence against women?”
“I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new hybrid arrangements. Timings of debates have been amended to allow technical arrangements to be made for the next debate. There will also be suspensions between debates. I remind Members participating both physically and virtually that they must arrive for the start of debates in Westminster Hall and are expected to remain for the entire debate, and that they are visible at all times, both to one another and to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members attending virtually have any technical problems, can they please email the Westminster Hall Clerk’s email address? Members attending physically should clean their spaces before they use them and before they leave the room.”
“Before I move to the Front-Bench spokesmen, I remind them that they have 10 minutes each, which will allow a few minutes for the mover of the motion to wind up at the end.”
“May I express my condolences to Sarah Everard’s friends and family? I thank the Home Secretary for reopening the VAWG consultation and for requesting the lessons learned review into Saturday night’s policing. She has shown that she is determined there will be action, not just words. Some 78,000 responses so far is absolutely enormous. These are women who do not have confidence in the system at present and we desperately need to instil confidence for them. It will take an enormous effort in shifting cultures, coming together and working collectively to make sure we achieve that aim. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that those women are going to have their voices heard on the justice taskforce, which looks suspiciously like an all-male room?”
“We no longer have to look at health policy in the round because of the announcement this week of the women’s health strategy and the call for evidence, but apparently we still have to look at economic policy in the round and cannot accept data from the ONS that women have been harder hit economically. We will not get a female employment strategy, and I do not celebrate that.”
“Remember, they are the ones most likely to suffer domestic abuse. I wish to reference the work of the Women and Equalities Committee and its report on the gendered economic impact of covid. That was reinforced yesterday by the publication from the Office for National Statistics confirming that women have indeed suffered a greater economic impact from the pandemic—more likely to be furloughed than their male colleagues; more likely to be employed on a part-time contract and not entitled to statutory sick pay; less confident that they will not be made redundant.”
“But it is impossible for me to turn my contribution today into an unabashed celebration. It is not going brilliantly for all women—not here, not anywhere. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) will speak later, and I know that she will have had to update that hideous, depressing list she is going to read out to add the name of Sarah Everard, so tragically killed while just walking home. Overnight, we saw an outpouring of stories from women about keys, headphones, clothes and sticking to lit streets. We all know the reality is you will probably not be attacked by a stranger, but the fear is there and the fear is real. On this International Women’s Day, let us champion all women—gay women, who do not need conversion therapy; trans women, who want to be treated with respect and fairness.”
“We have seen more women contributing more often in Commons debates—more female voices in our Chamber, whether physically present or not—and that I celebrate. We have seen stunning contributions and campaigns from women right across the House and across Parliament, making desperately needed amendments and improvements to the Domestic Abuse Bill. We have seen women outside Parliament, such as Kate Bingham, who ran the vaccine taskforce determinedly, making sure that we got that roll-out. We have heard from the Secretary of State for International Trade and Minister for Women and Equalities, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), about her support for the normalisation of flexible working. That could mean so much to women, and I look forward to an employment Bill coming forward that champions that.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who does so much in this place to champion women. Last year in this debate, we were not learning how to run a Parliament remotely, and none of us had ever considered being able to contribute to a debate while admiring the cobwebs on our own light fittings. In the spirit of celebration, I am going to think of uplifting things to start with, such as the sheer fact that this centuries-old institution has learned to flex and change—to adapt to Zoom and remote voting. I thank the Chair of the Procedure Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), for having driven that agenda forward.”
“I really welcome this call for evidence and my hon. Friend’s clear commitment to hear from all women everywhere. Can she please reassure me that the consultation will not just be about reproductive health, important though that is, and that it will include all conditions and ensure that women have the ability to express freely what they want to see from their strategy? I welcome the timescale of the strategy coming forward in September.”