Rachael Maskell
MP for York Central · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“I welcome today’s statement and I welcome the Secretary of State to her place. York hospital was heralded as a cheap build, but we are paying a heavy price today. We know that heat in that hospital will have an impact on clinical outcomes as well as on staffing.”
“The conflict is moving beyond traditional warfare; we are now seeing extensive drone use, mercenaries being brought from Colombia, and the exchange of money too. We also know that Russia has its own interests in weapons and gold. We must look at the minimal interest in Sudan and the developments in Port Sudan at this time.”
“When we think about the fact that 33.7 million of the Sudanese population are in need of humanitarian assistance, 13 million have been displaced, 19.5 million are at levels of food insecurity and need urgent attention, and there are 8 million children who are not in the safety of school every day, getting their education, which will fuel…”
“Will the Minister tell us what progress has been made in that area, how that money has been spent and its impact to date? As we see increasing brutalisation in war, we have to focus even more on how we use international law to hold actors to account, and on the pace of that process, because it takes forever and a day to bring people to ac…”
“In the assault on El Fasher in particular, we saw the systematic raping of women, the burning of people and places, and the escalation in the next chapter of the civil war that has raged since April 2023.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) on securing such an important debate.”
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“We need these large empty spaces repurposed for independent social enterprises and what Labour in York has envisaged: a family-friendly York. A family-friendly York demands reform. Since being elected, I have campaigned for York to be a family-friendly city. Local families do not visit: it is too expensive, with too few child-friendly spaces, unless you have the means to pay, and too few public toilets. Worse, the night-time economy clashes with the day, so parents simply do not want their children to come into town. Imagine Government steering local authorities to become family-friendly places where children can play and parents can relax. Urban95 or the UN child friendly cities initiative can drive this. It is good for families, good for economies and good for our environment. York is perfect for that.”
“Businesses are also calling for the reduction in VAT to be sustained. Recovery takes time and when your high street is dependent on the visitor economy and the visitor economy is dependent on the high street, time to recover is needed. Currently, venues are shutting part-time due to labour shortages and less demand, each compromising the other. In summing up, will the Minister say what discussions he has had about introducing the youth mobility visa for EU citizens so that labour supply can continue? In York, labour vacancies are up 10% from August, with 3,400 jobs needing filling. Skill shortages are hitting York’s offer. We do not just want recovery; we want reform. The hope lies in indie York: 65% of York’s retail offer is by independents. The challenge is that the retail space vacated by the big chains occupies 9.3% of the city.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under you, Ms Nokes. We need recovery and reform. Anyone who has been to York will know that our high street offer is incredible, yet now, like elsewhere, we are battling empty shops, labour shortages, logistic challenges and offshore landlords more interested in the financial portfolio generated from their property ownership than invested in their high street. This perfect storm sucks the life out of not only our communities but local finances. With changes to the system, life can be brought back to our urban cores. A few pleas from my local businesses: we need to move away from a property-based tax––I am glad that that is echoed across the House––and build one predicated around profit or turnover. York’s extortionate property prices make business rates unsustainable.”
“The thresholds of the elective recovery fund have a perverse impact, so hospitals with the least capacity are more unlikely to have the money to build their capacity. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that my constituents in York have funding from the Government to help build that capacity and have the elective surgery they need?”
“Missing from the plan is the retrofit skills strategy. The City of York Council has a backlog of more than 6,000 maintenance and retrofit jobs to do. How does the Minister expect those skills to come forward and how will people be trained? Why has he left it so late to upskill the workforce?”
“I am sure that the Minister will share my concern about the York Central site. We have a great opportunity to level up York and see it as an economic and jobs gateway for the north, but instead, with the development of so many luxury homes, there is a risk of it sucking down into becoming a commuter belt for London. Will he ensure that public land is used for public good and that there is greater investment in jobs in York Central?”
“Rising energy prices will disproportionately affect people living in the north, where it is colder during the winter. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of regional disparities, and how will he mitigate against them?”
“The roll-out of the national tutoring programme has been shambolic, as has been evidenced right across the country, including in my constituency. Will the Minister consider allocating the money to local authorities, which already have the relationships with local providers, in order to ensure that additional support for young people can be provided expediently?”
“I am grateful to the York Medical Group, which enabled me to spend last Friday with the group to see the capacity challenges that our GPs face. On our return from recess, may we have a statement on the crisis faced by primary care and its inability to cope with the demand it has to deal with?”
“This reorganisation will not address it. We must sew that into housing, air pollution, jobs—the things that really will bring about a fundamental change.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the chair, Ms Bardell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) for opening the debate with so many facts that we need to reflect on. From before our first breath, to our very last, since 5 July 1948, the NHS has worked day and night to give us hope. The principle was that, no matter who we were—duke or dustman, as Bevan said—we knew that, when the hands of the NHS reached out to us, it neither judged nor differentiated. It simply did everything it could to invest in our health. That equality was the way out of health inequality, which is, sadly, so stark today in constituencies like mine, where the most affluent can expect to live for 10 years more than the poorest. Reading Michael Marmot’s report, there is something fundamentally missing from the NHS.”
“The pressures bearing down now are just indescribable. After listening to staff, all I can say is that the Health and Care Bill is just not the solution.”
“Public health has been so underfunded over the last 10 years, and even under-utilised during the pandemic. It is absolutely vital that it is at the forefront of the future NHS. Regular population screening will start addressing severe health inequalities. Health counselling will ensure that people make the right choices about their future and will divert people who do not access the health service when they need it into early intervention and prevention. If we invest in clinicians in the community to undertake that dialogue and those discussions, and if we invest in social prescribing and other ways of improving people’s lifestyles, we have a real chance to turn this system around. We cannot delay putting together an integrated public health agenda to drive forward our health service. If we continue as we are, our NHS will not be here.”
“They misunderstand the professionalism, care, dedication and love of the people who give all that they have—day in, day out—to care for us. As Ministers introduce more complex systems and more private companies into the health service, the NHS itself is falling apart. The Health and Care Bill is not the solution; it cannot be the way forward. On the integration of the health service and social care, if we do not put the money together, we cannot put the systems together. However, the reforms will create more barriers and more division, rather than solving the challenges before us. The World Health Organisation describes health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” A future NHS must start here.”
“We cannot just keep feeding money into the NHS, and we cannot keep selling it off. When I read the subject of the debate—“the future of the NHS”—I did not consider the Health and Care Bill to be that, nor did the staff who I met with. In fact, they see the Bill as a massive distraction from dealing with the current crisis that they are having to grapple with, and another assault is just one step too many. Staff are saying that to save their own mental and physical health, they are now having to walk. We therefore have a workforce crisis on top of a health crisis, and the NHS is now in a clinically dangerous place. Government Ministers who completely misunderstand how the NHS works cannot just keep interfering in the system. They need to pause.”
“In 2019-20, according to the King’s Fund, £9.7 billion was spent on private provision, up by £500 million on the previous year. According to the data provider Tussell, £37.9 billion-worth of covid contracts have been let. The economic and health shock of covid should prompt us to hit the pause button on the NHS. Last Friday, I spent half a day with York Medical Group, with clinicians, managers, GP partners and support staff; I was there to listen. This Friday, I will be at York Hospital, which is also struggling. The GP practice has received 41,000 calls from a population of 44,000 patients on their books in a month; add to that the 5.6 million, rising to a possible 13 million, waiting for treatment in secondary care. The system is imploding, the staff are imploding, and the NHS is imploding.”
“Unless and until public health is the Government’s first priority, the demands will be ever-growing, but now, unlike before, it is uncertain whether those demands will be met. Just look at covid-19: the countries that put public health first had the lowest sickness and mortality rates, yet over 135,000 lives have been lost here. Whether it is covid or cancer, poverty is the greatest enemy of health, yet as we speak, the surge in poverty that this Government are imposing on our constituents through the changes they are bringing about—whether through national insurance contributions, or by taking away the £20 universal credit uplift and other benefits—is resulting in poorer mental and physical health. After a decade of austerity, poor workforce planning and a continued drive to profit off the sick have taken their toll on our NHS.”
“Just as my hon. Friend describes his school, I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to All Saints Roman Catholic School in York, which is over 400 years old. It has accessibility challenges as well as many of the construction problems that are being described. To refurbish a listed school costs an excessive amount of money. That school needs to be rebuilt and brought on to one site. Does he agree that we need to ensure that the estate is fit for purpose, particularly as this issue affects the learning opportunities of young people?”
“I want to refer back to All Saints school. The school was inspected following my meeting with Baroness Berridge, and although it was acknowledged that it had significant premises challenges, it has not yet progressed on to a capital funding programme. Will the Minister look at how a school such as All Saints can go forward in that programme?”
“Because we have a proud history of upholding human rights; because it is one of the safest countries to be in; and because there are so many good local organisations, such as Time To Be Out in my constituency. We are the only human rights city in the country. This organisation, Time To Be Out, supports LGBT refugees and asylum seekers specifically in resettlement. Will the Minister amend the Nationality and Borders Bill to ensure that these Afghan refugees and so many besides are given a really warm welcome to the UK rather than criminalised and discriminated against, let us face it, because of their sexuality?”
“While the principle may be positive, there is serious risk that some of these agencies will be homophobic, biphobic or transphobic. Rather than advancing an application under the UNHCR, they could end up putting that person at risk. Will the Minister look at this specific issue and raise it with the UNHCR? In these countries, where people have to conceal their identity, how do the UK Government plan to prioritise these people in practice under the ACRS? We have not had the detail we need. It would be helpful if the Minister could share some more detail today, because people need to know how to plan their passage to safety. Finally, I want to raise the issue of alternative routes to safety. In view of these extensive risks, many people may make their own passage to the UK. Why the UK?”
“With many countries absent in advancing the concerns of the LGBTQ+ community, it is important that the UK takes the lead. I urge the Minister to do so in her role. While we all ask significant questions, how will anyone now leave Afghanistan safely if their reason for leaving is because they are LGBTQ+? If there is no safe way of stating this, they will be placed with others wanting to flee. Last night, I heard how sting operations are being undertaken in Afghanistan to out people who are LGBTQ+. This is really disturbing. If people are able to flee, we know that neighbouring countries such as Iran and Pakistan are unsafe for them to go to. How does the Minister propose to address that in her discussions with colleagues at this time? Perhaps most worrying of all, I understand that the UNHCR process for refugees uses local agencies.”
“Thank you, Sir Gary, for calling me in today’s debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) for calling today’s debate and the many organisations such as Stonewall and Rainbow Migration which have provided excellent briefings. I have serious concerns for the LGBTQ+ community in Afghanistan and in third countries in the same way that I do for religious minorities. I believe the systems are insufficient to provide the necessary security and confidentiality to ensure that people can make a safe journey to a place of sanctuary and I call on Government to look at this. To make any declaration could be a death sentence. While many are waiting for the Afghan citizens’ resettlement scheme to be announced, the detail is important in order that people can make the right choices about their future right now and in future.”
“Time and again I have raised with the Government the opportunity to invest in BioYorkshire, which will create 4,000 jobs for my constituents, upskill 25,000 people, and deliver £5 billion in gross value added to the Government. Will the Minister meet me to discuss it? COP26 is just six weeks away, and not pursuing projects like this is holding back the improvements that we can make to our environment.”
“Asking people simply to change their email address seems woefully inadequate, given that names can be extracted from email addresses. What additional security advice has the Secretary of State given to the interpreters on the email list and their families?”
“Today is a sober reminder of the scale of the security threats that we face as a country. I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. While we reflect on the terrible events in Salisbury three years ago, it is right to remind ourselves of the cyber-threats that the country faces. Will the Home Secretary say a little more about the work her Department is doing to deter the investment that countries such as Russia are putting into breaking our cyber-security?”
“For those eligible for the Afghan relocations and assistance policy scheme, arriving in the UK under Operation Warm Welcome has left friends and colleagues of our armed forces stranded in hotels without contact, support and help at the very time they need it. In the light of the outstanding skills of our armed forces, will the Minister talk to the Home Secretary about how his Department can lead on Operation Warm Welcome for those arriving under the ARAP scheme, so the right connections are made with those who served alongside these brave men and women to build vital bridges at each stage of the resettlement journey?”
“The question my constituents will have today is what the cost will be to them. As we know that serious costs are coming on to some of the poorest people in our constituencies, will the Secretary of State commit to speaking to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions about cancelling the cut to universal credit and will he speak to the Chancellor about putting additional measures in place to avert fuel and food poverty?”
“A deterrent to international travel is the cost and conditions of the quarantine hotels. My constituents have talked about poor food, being held with poor mental health and being in grief from losing loved ones. My constituent who had rats in his room not just once but twice is still being charged the full cost for quarantine. Will the Secretary of State ensure that my constituent does not have to pay for that experience of sharing his room with rats?”
“Of course, when children are suspended or excluded, they are outside that safe environment. We have to do a lot more on that. In conclusion, I want to say to this to the Minister: let us draw children into safe places, and not push them away. Let us invest, not deprive a child of perhaps the only hope they have—the only safe place they go. I know that the Government have yet to get on this path, but the whole education system needs reform. With a refreshed Department, perhaps there is an opportunity to once again look at the curriculum, the environment and the purpose of education. Let us not escalate, but de-escalate, risk for these young people.”
“That was with the introduction of isolation units in schools, which are incredibly harmful for children. Looking at the figures for 2018-19, 472 children in York were suspended for disruptive behaviour, 192 for threatening behaviour and 123 for verbal behaviour. We must therefore find alternative solutions to keep those children in school, because many of them would have been pushed further into risk outside school. I also think that we have to take a safeguarding approach. I have raised this issue with the Minister in questions, and we are due to meet to discuss school-age children outside the school environment and the risks that they are exposed to. We therefore need to look at harm reduction in the school environment, where safeguarding is strong, but also outside.”
“My city of York has a high standard of education and a high standard of caring for young people who are very challenged. It gives children an opportunity for a fresh start, so that if children find their school environment challenging, it will move them to a different school in the city. Many schools engage with that, so that children are kept within the school education system. Of course, alternative provision is also available for children. Within that, however, I note what is happening statistically. We saw a real drop in the number of permanently excluded children in the city—it is now about three or four children a year, which I would say is three or four children too many—but the number of suspensions and permanent exclusions has started going up.”
“I have also said many times in this place that we need to look at what children are learning and the environment they are in. My sister, who works in early years with children with many challenges in their lives, last night pointed me to a YouTube clip by Prince EA, called “I Sued the School System”. I recommend it to all hon. Members; it is really worth six minutes of their time. I see hon. Members nodding—I do not know whether they have seen it. It talks about the way we need to develop a different kind of curriculum for children. Of course, it will be about inclusion. It will draw on children’s skills, and draw them into the system more and more. That is how we stop the rejection—the feeling of being pushed away—that so many children feel.”
“Children today are exposed to mental health challenges, trauma and harm—let us face it, none of us experienced this when we were younger—thanks to the scale and pace of social media and so many other things that they have to navigate their way through. We have to find a better space for our young people. As I have said many times in this place, many intergenerational challenges are replicated through children. We therefore need to break some of those cycles with a trauma-informed process. We must look at the child’s holistic needs—their home, their school environment—and understand them far better. If a child is not secure, they will not learn and attain, and inequality will grow. Therefore, that is absolutely crucial.”
“It is therefore important to create safe spaces that any child can go to when they are feeling insecure in class. The challenge I want to set the Minister today is to create therapeutic schools. We should see schools not just as educational environments but as places that support the whole needs of a child. The rise in exclusion demands that. We need not isolation, but engagement; not exclusion, but inclusion. If an excluded child is pushed into rejection, they are pushed into further risk and harm. We have heard about county lines and people who prey on vulnerable children. They give children the rewards that they are seeking—not the right rewards, of course—and draw children into a different space that is unsafe for them. Ensuring that we have safe spaces is therefore absolutely crucial.”
“It is therefore vital that we have relationships to bridge those transition points. A system in which everything changes in those relationships every year for a child can be very disruptive, so we need to look at continuums in a child’s life that can take them through their schooling. If a child is taken to their safe place in a school—a place that is calming, caring and engaging and that invests in them—we will see different outcomes. It is therefore right that we build schools that have those spaces where children can go. As we have heard, and as we know from our constituencies, many children are experiencing real mental trauma at this time. Mental health challenges are starting in younger and younger children, and we are all experiencing from our constituencies children who are in a place of distress at such a young age.”
“Those children already have the challenge of processing their identity, security, trust and attachments. More often than not, they have layers of significant trauma, and are often excluded far earlier than other children. The trauma of exclusion builds on that trauma, and therefore does not achieve the outcome of security, which is why we have to make that early investment. The all-party parliamentary group has looked at the value of the adoption support fund. We must ensure it is there at the right quantum to provide the services and support that are needed. If security and stability are wrapped around a child’s education, with continuous relationships, that can help build stability for them. The transition points, which hon. Members have referred to, can be very challenging and confusing for a child.”
“Member’s report—I believe that more needs to be done to draw children in rather than push them away. That is the experience of many of these children: they are pushed away from so many places, which escalates and spirals their lack of attachment and identity, and makes them so insecure. Exclusion reinforces harm to many children and pushes them further into risk, as the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) so ably said in opening the debate. It destroys the threads of security that a child may have and is ultimately costly both to the child and financially over a life course. Children who experience adoption are 20 times more likely to be permanently excluded, and five times more likely to be excluded for a fixed period. In fact, they are 16 times more likely to be suspended at key stage 1.”
“Parenting is the most important role anyone plays in our society. Yet, the investment in parenting is scant. Of course, that starts before a child is born. We need to invest in the vital skills of a parent to build that security around the child. Also, as a state, we need to think about the instruments we need to put in place to help parents too. It is a difficult journey, but the more investment we put in, the greater the likelihood that we will see the fruits of that investment later on. A child may have multiple challenges. They may be neurodiverse, have underlying health conditions, have experienced trauma or not formed good attachments. At any point along the journey, the system, instead of pushing them away, must draw them close. That is perhaps why I do not fall in line with the hon.”
“I have also looked at children who experience extreme trauma and at the impact that has on them, and talked to parents, young people, agencies and schools in my constituency. Rather than looking just at the behaviour of a child, my conclusion is that a child does not reach the point where their school determines that exclusion is necessary, without first being on a trajectory that takes them to that place. Therefore, we have to look at the life course of a young person, identify early indicators and invest in the stability that that child needs to take them down a different path and to know they are secure, safe and have worth. The work being doing in this place around 1,001 critical days is critical in ensuring we get the right foundations not only for the child, but for the whole family.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) for his review, which I have studied at length. I concur with some of the recommendations and certainly with his speech today, but I think some of the recommendations need to go further. What I have tried to do in preparation for today’s debate is to take a bigger view of what happens in the journey of a child and to look at how we can give a far better experience to that child. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for adoption and permanence, which this week published its report “Strengthening families”, and I thank the hon. Member for his part in that.”
“The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. Is it not right to have those diagnostic opportunities in schools? So many children in school, in particular the neurodiverse, wait years and years before they have a diagnosis.”
“We know that there is a real shortage of clinicians with expertise in paediatric mental health. I wonder, with the work that the Minister is doing, whether she is talking to the Department of Health and Social Care about the need to really increase the number. What we find is that although teachers, as mental health leads, can provide certain support, they do not have the clinical skills and experience to supply the expertise needed.”
“The human rights atrocities against the Uyghur people in China have yet to abate. They continue with such brutality. While co-operation is welcome, how will this new strategy make protecting human rights more possible since escalation of operations can have a chilling impact on diplomacy?”
“Our planet is in crisis, COP26 commences in just 46 days, and yet the Climate Change Committee has highlighted how far we are from not just our sixth but our fifth carbon budget. I have raised many times in the House the opportunity that BioYorkshire will bring to cut our carbon emissions as well as create 4,000 jobs, upskill 25,000 people and create new businesses. The Government have committed to that but have not provided funding. Can we have a debate about BioYorkshire and the opportunity it provides not only for our planet but to produce £5 billion in revenue for the Government?”
“I listened carefully to the Paymaster General’s statement. A significant amount of legislation has come from Europe to protects workers, whether it is health and safety, workers’ rights or equalities legislation. Will he guarantee that under this new bonfire of regulation he will not diminish any of those workers’ rights, which have been hard-fought for by working people across Europe?”
“Some 7,850 of my constituents will in three weeks’ time also lose £20 a week. Does my hon. Friend agree that the real cost will be the impact on people’s lives—the lost opportunities for those children’s futures and the hopes we all carry? Is it not right that we invest in people, not see this as a cut in itself?”
“I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. She says that universal credit is responsive, but when she announced this cut, we did not know that there would be a 3.2% increase in inflation. My constituents are in work; it is just that the cost of living in York is exceedingly high. This proposal will hit them significantly, so will she take it back and reconsider in the light of inflation rising?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for the excellent speech he is making. Benenden Health is a significant mutual in my constituency, and it has serious concerns about the ramifications of this demutualisation for the whole mutual sector and its reputation. How does he believe that regulation could be tightened to avoid this kind of situation occurring again?”
“My hon. Friend is being generous. I also want to ask about the impact the proposals will have on staffing levels. We know that staff are fearful that many could lose their jobs at this time. What guarantees have been given to staff that their jobs will be safe?”