Cat Smith
MP for Lancaster and Wyre · Labour · United Kingdom
“The motions reflect the nature of us being a modern and welcoming workplace where MPs’ participation is supported, regardless of our health status—or, perhaps, parental leave—as such things, which can happen to any one of us, should not bar us from participating and representing our constituents’ views in this place.”
“On behalf of the Procedure Committee, I thank the Leader of the House for bringing forward these motions. I never had any doubt that he would be a radical and reforming Leader of the House, and the motions are evidence of that radical reforming nature that he has always had in him, which I am pleased to see.”
“Does the Leader of the House foresee us having a thorough and timely review of these schemes in time to assess whether they could be made permanent and whether reforms may need to be made to them at that stage? I welcome the motions and hope that the House will choose to support them.”
“I, too, am very much aware of this issue. In my constituency I have a property called Williamson Court, which is run by McCarthy & Stone, and everything that colleagues are saying sounds very familiar. Does the right hon.”
“Survivors of male violence often take a long time to rebuild their lives. I am supporting a constituent at the moment whose perpetrator is about to be released from prison but who is receiving no support from Lancaster city council, her housing provider, to enable her to relocate to another area so that the perpetrator is not released int…”
“The cause was never found—I will leave that hanging, and I pay tribute to them. There are a great many park home sites that are well run, and probably a lot of park home owners are listening to this and thinking, “Actually, I live somewhere that is pretty good.” But unfortunately, the rogue operators are now giving the entire industry a b…”
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“Survivors of male violence often take a long time to rebuild their lives. I am supporting a constituent at the moment whose perpetrator is about to be released from prison but who is receiving no support from Lancaster city council, her housing provider, to enable her to relocate to another area so that the perpetrator is not released into the same community. What advice can the Minister give me, and my constituent, to support that housing move so that she and her children can feel safe?”
“Can he do any more to empower local authorities, which are meant to be regulating and enforcing regulations? Do they need stronger statutory duties or more resources, because at the moment Wyre council does not seem able to protect residents in my constituency?”
“The issues of bullying, intimidation and rules being changed without any consultation are alarming. In the past couple of days, I have heard from one of them that the terms and conditions of park residents have now been changed, so that if someone is selling a park home on that site, they cannot sell it to anyone younger than them. Ultimately, that will force many into an impossible situation, because, given the nature of park homes, older people live on these sites and there are issues when they are looking to sell—they might be towards the end of their life, or perhaps the previous owner had died and left it as an inheritance to their children, which, as I have heard, just ends up becoming a burden. In the remaining seconds that I have left, I will ask the Minister these questions.”
“The cause was never found—I will leave that hanging, and I pay tribute to them. There are a great many park home sites that are well run, and probably a lot of park home owners are listening to this and thinking, “Actually, I live somewhere that is pretty good.” But unfortunately, the rogue operators are now giving the entire industry a bad name, which is why we need to take action. I agree entirely with the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) at the beginning of the debate and I congratulate him on securing it. In the limited time that I have, I will take the opportunity to put on record my concerns about one particular site in my constituency, called Havenlyn residential park. I have been approached by dozens of residents and park home owners on that site.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope). Demographically, Lancaster and Wyre has a very similar number of park homes to his constituency, and I have discussed them with him on a number of occasions, which shows the cross-party consensus that what is going on in this industry is nothing short of a scandal. Colleagues may have seen my constituency in the “Panorama” documentary on park homes in 2024, in which Wyre country park featured. I pay tribute to the two brave park residents who spoke out and were interviewed, but that did not come consequence-free. We have talked a lot about bullying and intimidation, and sadly, in August 2025, both their park homes burned down on the same day, in broad daylight, 90 minutes apart from each other.”
“I thank the Chancellor for her work to lift the two-child benefit cap, which was cruelly brought in by the Conservative Government. Does she agree that that is not only morally the right thing to do, but economically good news for the 1,690 families in Lancaster and Wyre who will have more money in their pockets to spend in our local economy in Lancashire—unlike the super-rich, who would have just taken it to offshore tax havens?”
“I hope that we will be able to make the change in the arrangements for the election of the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee to align it with the election of other Select Committee Chairs, thus showing that it is a Select Committee just like other Select Committees. I thank the Leader of the House for accepting the Committee’s findings in full, and I look forward to supporting them.”
“It is a pleasure to follow a former member of the Procedure Committee. I thank the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) for all that she did in contributing to the work of the Committee, which came to the clear and consensual view that the elections of Select Committee Chairs at the beginning of this Session somewhat resembled a silly season with excessive campaigning. Newer Members of Parliament who may not even have expected to be in the House found it very overwhelming. We were able to take that information and put together a sensible set of rules creating a level playing field for all candidates, while respecting the right of Members to open their office doors without falling over a pile of leaflets, which was one of the problems that were fed back to the Committee last time.”
“I would like to thank the Prime Minister for the £47 million that this Government have given to Lancashire county council to repair potholes. However, my constituents still feel like they need a moon buggy to navigate the streets of Lancashire, so would he agree that the Reform councillors of Lancashire county council are clearly wired to the moon if they think they are making effective use of this £47 million?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I seek your guidance on the rules about how many questions a Member needs to stay in the Chamber for after speaking?”
“On behalf of my constituents, I thank the Minister for his speedy response to the situation, which I know from my inbox has been very welcome to those using heating oil, but can he reassure us that the correspondence from Government to Lancashire county council will make it clear that those on LPG will also be eligible for the fund?”
“Lancashire county council’s consultation on the closure of care homes and adult day centres is now closed, and the decision lies with the Reform-led council. Adult day centres in my constituency, such as Vale View, are at a real risk of closure. May I ask for a debate in Government time about the value that day care centres offer both the users and the families who support them?”
“That is why it is so important that expanding the franchise to include 16 and 17-year-olds goes hand in hand with working with our colleagues in education to ensure that those young citizens are equipped to vote, and have the necessary support. Already, young citizens in Wales and Scotland have the right to vote, and bringing English and Northern Irish citizens into line makes logical sense.”
“For those who were not in the last Parliament to see the Elections Bill go through and become the Elections Act 2022, let me say that time and again, Conservative Ministers told us at the Dispatch Box that if people need ID to collect a parcel at the post office, they should need ID to vote at a polling station; but if we want to collect a parcel at a post office, we can use a bank card for that, so this is completely in line with the arguments made for the introduction of ID, and I would expect the official Opposition to support expanding the relevant ID to include bank cards. It is important that we come together on upholding confidence in democracy, because confidence in democracy is not very high in this country right now.”
“I am really pleased to be able to say that the Bill before us contains many of the important democratic principles that I have been speaking about for the last 11 years in this House, and I am excited to vote for it on Second Reading this evening. Among the Bill’s measures is the expansion of voting rights to 16 and 17-year-olds. We have heard some quite bizarre things said about that so far this evening, some of which were really quite remarkable. The Bill also includes bank cards among the forms of ID that can be used to access voting.”
“Those of us who are in this Chamber on a Thursday morning know that we sometimes have questions to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission then, and I say that because in the last Parliament, as an Opposition MP, I was a spokesperson for that Committee. It is the only time in the parliamentary week when Members pose questions to an opposition Member to answer. That is an important point, because it highlights the fact that the Electoral Commission is not answerable to Government, of any colour; rather, it is answerable to Parliament, because it is a regulator like no other. It regulates politics, and it therefore holds a very special status. I also served in the last Parliament on the Elections Bill Committee, and I saw there what happens when political parties use legislation for political advantage.”
“Now, there are permissible donors to the UK electoral system who claim to have lived in the UK, and we have no way of proving whether they did. That is a huge vulnerability, and I urge those on the Front Bench to look again at that, and at closing that potential back door that we have left open to foreign money interfering in UK politics. We are an outlier in having this rule; in the Republic of Ireland, for instance, those who leave the country lose the right to vote after one year. I would like to finish by saying that many colleagues have made the case for proportional representation, and this Bill would have been a great opportunity to set up a commission to look at all the different options that would be available to make sure that people feel that their vote counts, and that there is no such thing as a wasted vote.”
“There is no plausible argument against introducing caps on political donations to prevent a small number of wealthy people from exerting disproportionate influence. The changes made in the last piece of legislation that went through this House on electoral law have left a huge vulnerability. That legislation abolished the 15-year rule we used to have, whereby citizens who had lived outside the UK for 15 years or longer lost the right to vote and to donate to UK politics. When that rule was abolished, there was no way for elections officers in councils up and down the country to verify that people claiming to have lived at an address in another constituency in 1976 actually did so, because those records were not kept past 15 years, as of course there was no point.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. His APPG sounds very interesting. I am sure that those on the Front Bench heard those points, and I agree with them. In my remaining time, I want to address the need to protect our democracy from foreign interference. In cleaning up politics, we need to address specific weaknesses identified. There is a very good blog by Professor Alan Renwick at the University College London constitution unit, which I would love to quote from, but my time is quite limited. He highlights that while the Bill introduces stricter eligibility criteria for company donors, there are still huge gaps regarding cryptocurrency and the potential for illicit funds to bypass traditional checks. We should be bold enough to start talking about a donation cap, too.”
“The proposed quarry site is within a kilometre of a primary school, and there is another school just 2 km away. We know that when children’s lungs are developing, they are more vulnerable to the kind of things that will be floating around in the atmosphere, with the potential health implications. The health issues combine with having HGVs on narrow country roads and the implications of unstable ground and an area historically associated with localised flooding.”
“Thank you for squeezing me in, Dr Murrison. In the limited time that I have, I want to put on record that the experiences of my constituents in Preesall are echoed by communities right across the country, as we have heard in the debate. Preesall saw a proposal for a quarry to extract sand and gravel. Thankfully, we are in a similar situation to that of the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), as the quarry application has been turned down, but we are now waiting to see whether the developer will appeal. The community feels that it has all the necessary arguments on HGV movements on narrow country lanes and health data from the Over Wyre Medical Centre on the proportion of residents with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma, who could be adversely affected.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point—it does have an economic impact on the area. Preesall is located in a beautiful corner of Lancashire, with the Wyre estuary on one side and Morecambe bay on the other. Who will want to visit this beauty corner of Lancashire if the landscape is littered with quarries? It will have an impact on our tourism offer. All in all, this issue is concerning to my local residents, and I want to put those concerns on record today. I thank the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa); I know he has been pursuing this debate for a long time. When I supported his application to the Backbench Business Committee, I was unsure where my local application would end up. While I hope this is the end of it for my constituents, the reality is that we do not know.”
“One of my biggest asks of this Budget was the alleviation of the two-child limit. Basically, I became involved in politics because I want to eradicate child poverty, so the measures in the Budget to lift these children out of poverty are hugely welcome. The decisions by the last Government, which pushed more than half a million children into poverty, were a disgrace. I am pleased that this Labour Government are reversing that damage.”
“Follow that, I suppose! I cannot promise the same level of entertaining enthusiasm as the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) as I rise to speak on today’s Budget. I want to start by talking about the cost of living, which is my constituents’ major concern. When I have been speaking to them ahead of this Budget, it is the thing they have most wanted me to raise. I therefore welcome the really good measures that cut the cost of living, including the £150 off energy bills, the freezing of NHS prescription charges, and, for the first time in 30 years, the freeze on rail fares alongside the cap on bus fares, which will make a huge difference to people’s commutes. I welcome the fact that the national minimum wage and the national living wage will rise, giving full-time workers a gross annual earnings increase of £900.”
“If it does, I will certainly be putting in a good pitch for the Ridge estate’s playground, which is in desperate need of refurbishment. I have also been contacted ahead of the Budget by pensioners in my constituency who are understandably, like everybody, concerned about rising bills. I hope that they welcome today’s announcement of the 4.8% increase in the state pension.”
“I am pleased that in my constituency of Lancaster and Wyre, the ending of the cap is expected to benefit around 1,550 children, who will be lifted out of poverty because of the measures in this Budget. That, alongside the expansion of breakfast clubs, such as the one at Grosvenor Park primary school, will go a long way towards transforming the life chances of children in my constituency. One very small part of the Budget that is close to my heart is playgrounds. So far in this debate no one has mentioned the £18 million for playgrounds, but that money is incredibly important. The public space that we give to our children shows them how much we value them. If we value our youngest citizens, we should invest in playgrounds. I very much hope that Lancaster city council will receive some of this money.”
“My hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to put on record my thanks to North Lancashire Citizens Advice. We frequently end up referring constituents to Citizens Advice, and I thank its volunteers for all their work to support my constituents and those of my hon. Friend. I do not buy into the idea that those who are in need of state support are in any way irresponsible or on the take. The real scandal in our country is the number of parents who are in work and in poverty. I do not believe it is ever morally right to punish a child for the decisions and choices of their parents, because that was the reality of the two-child benefit cap and its subsequent rape clause, which was abhorrent.”
“I became active in politics because I wanted to fight poverty in my community and in my country. I am really pleased to be able to support this Budget, because lifting the two-child cap and the subsequent rape clause will make a huge difference to my constituents, and to all our constituents. This is a Budget that is anti-poverty and pro-children, and that is surely something we can all get behind.”
“Given the widespread evidence that supermarket-bought alcohol is the primary cause of alcohol harms, narrowing the price gap could also reduce those. I realise that the Government have had to put our public finances on a more sustainable footing owing to the global uncertainty and the irresponsible decisions made by the last Government, but I have had had many emails from and conversations with my constituents about the issue of wealth taxes. The measures that they have been advocating include a wealth tax of 2% on assets amounting to more than £10 million, reforms of existing taxes such as capital gains tax, and closing the tax gap by properly funding and resourcing HMRC to enable it to tackle tax abuse. I want to allow time for other speakers, so I will just say this in conclusion.”
“In 2023 there were 22,644 alcohol-related deaths in England alone; the rates are going up year on year, and have been spiking since covid. The Government could, of course, tax the industry in a way that would enable the money to be put back into supporting those with addiction and reducing alcohol harms—not just the health harms, but the societal impacts as well. According to research findings published in the last few months by the Alcohol Health Alliance, the Government could generate £3.4 billion over five years by introducing an alcohol duty escalator—a mechanism that would automatically raise the price of non-draught alcohol by 2% above inflation every year. That would also help to narrow the price gap between pubs and other hospitality venues and the supermarkets, where more alcohol is now being bought.”
“It is nearly two years since the Patient Safety Commissioner presented her report on redress, and the families are continuing to wait. It would be remiss of me not to mention them today, and I hope that in the next Budget we can hear some welcome news for those who have campaigned for justice for many decades, while supporting their disabled children. This scandal dates to the 1970s, and I hope it will be this Government who can put things right. I must now declare my interest as someone who is quite partial to a milkshake—although I do acknowledge that they are packed full of sugar, so I am fine with the extension of the sugar tax to my much-loved milkshakes. However, I want to ask a question about a drink that kills tens of thousands of people every year.”
“While I welcome today’s announcements, I am sure that many other rural MPs will also continue the dialogue with Ministers on this issue. I ask the Government to commit themselves to looking into the CenTax proposals, which would return the burden to those with the broadest shoulders—the large passive investors and the non-farming landowners, rather than our small family farms in Lancaster and Wyre. That is very much in line with our Labour values. I was very pleased to hear the announcements about infected blood, but as an MP who has been very active in respect of another medical scandal—as I know you have, Madam Deputy Speaker—I urge the Government not to forget those who have been harmed by sodium valproate.”
“I am absolutely delighted for my hon. Friend’s mother. Will he please pass on my best regards? It is not just the state pension increase, but the decision to restore the winter fuel allowance, that ensures that pensioners get the support they need. Will our Treasury Front-Bench team look at other measures to support low-income pensioners in particular, such as a national social tariff for water or enhancing the warm home discount scheme? I represent many farmers, and I was listening carefully to the announcements today. I really do welcome the agricultural property relief now allowing 100% of that rate relief to be transferable between spouses. I am keen to continue working with Treasury Ministers to ensure that we can protect local family farms, because I feel that the thresholds are not quite in the right place yet.”
“I welcome the new Minister to his post. I have been campaigning on this issue for 10 years, and I have a stack of letters and answers to written parliamentary questions that say things like “in due course” and “the Government are considering”. On behalf of a group of people who have been gaslit by the medical profession, will the Minister step up and be the Minister who ensures that these families, who are victims of the sodium valproate scandal, actually see the redress that they absolutely deserve? Will he make sure that they get a meeting with him at the earliest opportunity?”
“They are, of course, the eyes of the world, and we need free, unimpeded reporting about what is happening in Gaza. With that, I draw my remarks to a close and thank all those who have signed the e-petition and given us the opportunity to put on record our concerns about the situation in Gaza. [Dawn Butler in the Chair ]”
“I implore all parties to explore opportunities to offer economic support for rebuilding church-run hospitals, schools and charities, and to secure access to Gaza for the heads of churches. As I mentioned earlier, that has not always been easy for them. We must ensure that all Governments engage constructively with the churches as a partner in the interfaith dialogue that was put forward in point 18 of Trump’s peace plan. Although the Christian community is a minority community, it still has an important and significant role in the ongoing and long-standing peace in the region. Finally, I ask the Minister what pressure he is putting on Israel to allow journalists into Gaza, because without journalists on the ground it is very difficult to know the full extent of what is going on.”
“All three of the Christian sites—the Holy Family church, St Porphyrius and the al-Ahli hospital—have been damaged multiple times since the start of the year. We know that around 600 Christians continue to shelter in the two churches. While there has been an uptick in humanitarian support since the ceasefire came into effect in October this year, it is still small, and the community continues to suffer and to have difficulty accessing the absolute basics, as colleagues have touched on. Very briefly, I call upon the Minister and the Government to hold relevant actors to account to ensure that the current ceasefire is bolstered, supported and maintained, and that an adequate flow of aid reaches local people in Gaza.”
“I want to talk specifically about something that has not yet been touched on as much, which is the way in which the Christian community in Gaza has been impacted by events. The Holy Family church in Gaza was struck in July of this year. That killed three people who were sheltering there and injured 10 more. Following that attack, Patriarch Theophilos III and Cardinal Pizzaballa visited the churches in solidarity with the communities on the ground. On the all-party group delegation visit earlier this autumn, we had the opportunity to meet church leaders in Jerusalem. We heard from them about the relationships they are trying to maintain with the Christian churches in Gaza, and how that is so challenging because of the ongoing war.”
“In fact, I was so inspired by them and by the scenes, and the accounts that we get from aid workers, on the ground in Gaza that I signed up to run the Great Scottish Run in October of this year, and I raised £5,174 for Medical Aid for Palestinians. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Thank you. Shortly after completing that run—I place on the record my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I had the opportunity, with the all-party parliamentary group on Christianity in the Holy Land, of which I am a vice chair, to visit the Holy Land and meet Christian organisations. I will keep my remarks short, because I broadly agree with so much of what has already been said about access to humanitarian aid.”
“This petition was signed by 278 of my constituents, but in the last two years I have had contact from well over 1,000 of my constituents on this issue, and that says to me that it engages, energises and impassions them. They see on their TV screens the suffering in Gaza and they want us, as parliamentarians, to do something about it. I place on the record my thanks to the many constituents who do not just contact me as their Member of Parliament about this issue, but regularly go out and fundraise. My constituents have raised money for various humanitarian charities through fundraising activities, concerts and regular collections right across Lancaster and Wyre, and many of them will be following this evening’s debate.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms McVey, and to be able to speak in this e-petition debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) on her opening of today’s debate. As the former Chair of the Petitions Committee, I know that the e-petition system engages so many of our constituents and gives us the opportunity to talk about the issues that matter to them. With nearly 200,000 people having signed this e-petition, it is clearly a very good example of the Petitions Committee acting at its best and giving us the opportunity to talk about the things that matter to our constituents.”
“I rise to present a petition about the Vale View day centre in Lancaster, which Lancashire county council is consulting on closing. I have met clients and their families, who all tell me what a fantastic job the manager, Emma, and her amazing team do. They offer clients an amazing experience, wholesome activities and exciting days out. The petition states: “The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to make representations to Lancashire County Council to protect users of adult social care in Lancashire, and encourage the Council not to close Vale View Day Centre.””
“Jhoots pharmacy moved into the village of Knott End in 2023, and it was not long before constituents were getting in touch with me to explain that they could not access their prescriptions because pharmacies were closed and unreliable. We do have the very good Over Wyre medical centre, which has dispensing rights, but it is restrained by the one-mile rule, which means that it cannot dispense prescriptions within one mile of a pharmacy, whether that is open or closed. I feel like we are in a Catch-22 situation. What help can the Minister give my constituents to ensure that those who are within one mile of the Jhoots pharmacy that is never open can access their prescriptions from the dispensing Over Wyre medical centre?”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of support for people with postural tachycardia syndrome. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this morning, Sir Desmond. I am grateful for this opportunity to look at a health issue that is often overlooked, misunderstood and under-resourced within our national health service: postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or PoTS for short. It is not a rare disease, yet for too long people living with PoTS have fallen through the cracks of a system that was never designed to recognise or support them. My notes are based on the heartbreaking reality faced by my constituents and the tens of thousands of people across the UK who have PoTS. I must declare, Sir Desmond, that I have had a diagnosis of PoTS since 2012, so some of what I will say is taken from my own experience as well.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; I recognise that a lot of hon. Members are here for this debate, more than I have ever seen for a 30-minute debate before. Hopefully, next time I make an application, I might be granted a bit more time. I am happy to take early interventions from colleagues, if anyone wants to make them.”
“That intervention was an important one; sport was not included in my speech, but as someone who has PoTS and has run three London marathons, I can say that people can have PoTS and be sporty—it is just a lot harder.”
“Absolutely; that is a very good point. When someone is not believed by medical professionals for so long, it can affect their mental health—I recognise that.”
“I urge the Minister to use this opportunity to take decisive action and set out how the Government are going to take people with PoTS seriously and ensure that they are no longer invisible.”
“Finally, I ask the Government to make PoTS and related disorders a health and social care priority to ensure that affected people have equitable access to the NHS healthcare and social support that they deserve. We have an opportunity to fix a long-standing wrong. We must not allow the thousands suffering with PoTS to remain invisible any longer. I thank hon. Members for coming out in numbers that I did not expect to support this 30-minute Westminster Hall debate; I hope that demonstrates to the Minister the strength of feeling across the country. All our constituencies have many people suffering from PoTS who are struggling to get diagnoses or to access services, and ICBs are letting down people with PoTS right across these islands.”
“Thirdly, we need to ensure that every ICB has a clinical pathway and that all patients requiring secondary care have access to a high-quality service regionally and not just in central London—ultimately, the postcode lottery must end. Fourthly, we must fully support existing specialist services, which are currently overwhelmed and under threat from closure by hospital management. That includes immediately intervening in the London crisis and protecting every single specialist across the country. Health is devolved in some countries of the United Kingdom, so that is more challenging, but this is a UK-wide issue—although I recognise that the Minister is responsible only for England.”