Wera Hobhouse
MP for Bath · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“Q4. Community energy is a fantastic way of empowering communities and helping with both energy security and the cost of living. The Energy Security and Net Zero Committee recently published a report in which we identified that people living around a community energy project still cannot buy that electricity because of complex market regul…”
“The 20% rate cut for music venues and pubs is of course very welcome, but what my high street in Bath really needs is an overhaul of the business rates system, which the Labour Government promised.”
“First, it would help us properly understand the scale of the problem. Without consistent recording, misogyny remains largely invisible in official data, despite being a common factor in many forms of abuse. Secondly, it would improve accountability.”
“That means that misogynistic content is not just present; it is incentivised and rewarded. For victims, the impact is devastating. They are ridiculed and humiliated, they face reputational damage, and they are left fearing for their safety in public.”
“The Government’s amendment to the Crime and Policing Act to recognise misogyny as an aggravating factor in some crimes is a welcome step in the right direction, but they must go further. That means amending the Sentencing Act 2020 so that all crimes motivated by misogyny are classed as hate crimes.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on introducing the debate so thoughtfully. For months, I have been campaigning for legislation to combat the alarming trend of nightlife filming.”
The complete record
Every one of 3,064 lines we hold for Wera Hobhouse, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 35 of 62.
“As a result, A&E is now collecting 12-hour data from the patient’s time of arrival, not from the decision to admit. Despite that, the Government and NHS England have not indicated when the data will be publicly available. Publishing the figures nationwide will allow for transparency across the system, so perhaps the Minister will tell us when that will be publicly available. That should lead to improvements. The Liberal Democrats have been sounding the alarm bells for months, calling for an urgent investigation into England’s ambulance services and a review of ambulance station closures, but the Government keep turning a blind eye to the crisis.”
“The Government must outline the steps they will take to ensure the social care system is adequately equipped ahead of next winter. Last autumn, the NHS published a 10-point plan for the recovery of the urgent and emergency care system. It has no targets or timelines, and it lacks any indication of how progress will be reported. It details only how the whole system will work together to recover urgent and emergency services, focusing on immediate and medium-term activities. The plan aimed to “mitigate against the current pressures felt across systems and improve performance in all settings”— great words, but where are the outcomes? All that is happening is that the situation is getting worse. The NHS standard contract 2022-23 was recently amended to change the way in which 12-hour waits in A&E are calculated.”
“Among those who are suffering from serious but not necessarily prioritised issues, it is elderly and frail patients who are being hit the hardest. Although it is easy for the Government to point the finger at hospitals and management, it is clear that this issue needs to be addressed centrally at Government level. It is not exclusive to Bath or north Shropshire; it is a national problem, as the range of MPs in the debate demonstrates. What is more, the consequences of a failed social care system, which does not allow for the timely discharge of patients who are medically fit to leave hospital, has resulted in further crowding and corridor care in our hospitals. The chief executive of NHS England recently acknowledged the important role that social care plays in supporting patient flow through hospitals.”
“It found that 59% of respondents experienced burnout during the second wave of the pandemic, and described their levels of stress and exhaustion from having worked the second wave as higher than normal. The report found that operational pressures, patient safety and staff wellbeing are intrinsically linked. In 2021, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine highlighted a UK-wide shortfall of 2,000 to 2,500 whole-time equivalent emergency medicine consultants. The needs of our population’s health and wellbeing are greater now than they have ever been. We cannot afford to lose even more of the workforce at this critical time of need. It is clear that this very serious issue is a matter of life and death for many patients.”
“Unfortunately, some patients end up on trolleys in crowded corridors with many other patients. We should be treating patients with dignity. We know that crowding is dangerous and is linked to avoidable harm and, in some cases, death. The pressure that the NHS faces, which has been building over recent decades, has real detrimental consequences on the emergency medicine workforce and patients. Staff are considering reducing hours, changing careers or retiring early. Additionally, emergency staff face constant abuse from those left waiting, which is hugely distressing. The more people leave, the more pressure is created. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s “Retain, Recruit, Recover” report detailed findings from its survey of emergency medicine clinicians.”
“Transparency is key, and reporting metrics from the moment of arrival at the A&E department must be the starting point. Such delays mean that emergency services are not able to respond to 999 calls from critically ill patients. Instead, they are being held in stacks of hundreds each day, and staff are forced to prioritise among even the most serious cases. Staff have to wait with the patients in corridors, and sometimes even outside the hospital, unable to have them treated and unable to respond to new emergency calls. We must think very carefully about what that means. Behind every statistic is a patient. Those patients are stuck and have no choice but to wait for a bed to be freed up so that they can be admitted and can receive the care they need.”
“There have been more patients waiting 12 hours or more from the decision to admit this year than there were in the entire reporting period leading up to 2022. In May, there were more than 19,000 patients waiting 12 hours or more from the decision to admit, yet research from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine shows that that number is only the tip of the iceberg. We know that far greater numbers of patients endure waits of 12 hours or more if the clock is started as soon as they set foot in A&E. Many more patients endure extremely long waits but are not captured by the current metric. We need to understand the true scale of the problem. If we do not know about the extreme delays that our patients are enduring, we cannot take action.”
“The hospital recently launched a “home is best” transformation programme that aims to increase the number of patients who go home instead of into a community hospital bed. Our hospitals are trying all this, yet there is a crisis. It is important that we recognise that, and that the Government recognise it and step in on behalf of the hospitals. Our hospital in Bath is also working out ways to reduce the number of patients who need to go into the emergency departments in the first place, and has launched a same-day emergency care offer for frail patients. However, nationally, the lack of staffed beds has resulted in staggering numbers of patients waiting beyond 12 hours after the decision is made by the A&E doctor.”
“The hospital is one of the most challenged in the south-west for “non-criteria to reside”—in other words, medically fit for discharge—patients, and NHS England is reporting that the RUH has 24.3% of its beds occupied by patients who are medically fit, which is the third highest figure in the south-west. That is driven by gaps in the domiciliary care and social care markets. My local authority, Bath and North East Somerset Council, has been short of 1,600 hours per week, community teams are struggling to recruit and our local care group has a vacancy rate of more than 30%. The RUH is working with the council to develop its own in-house domiciliary care to try to plug the gaps, but the recruitment crisis remains acute. NHS England is assessing the trust and is trying to help to reduce the bed gap at the RUH.”
“There have been several cases in Bath in which residents waited many hours for an ambulance. Recently, an elderly man was forced to sleep on the floor of a local church as it took 12 hours for an ambulance to arrive—12 hours. A GP surgery ran out of oxygen for a patient due to the time it took for the ambulance to arrive. Ambulance handover delays are a significant patient-safety risk at the RUH, and up to 90% of the causes of delay are linked to the availability of beds in the hospital. The RUH has consistently been running with a bed occupancy of over 90% for the past year, which is significantly impacting the hospital’s ability to move patients out of the emergency department.”
“More and more people are calling ambulance services or attending A&E because they are having difficulties accessing other, more appropriate parts of our health system. National NHS performance figures illustrate that our healthcare service does not have the capacity to meet demand, and during May 2022, only 60% of patients were seen, admitted or discharged within four hours of their time of arrival. We should all be worried by those figures, which demonstrate that the health service is unable to meet the needs of patients with current levels of resource and capacity. I want to share the example of the Royal United Hospital in my Bath constituency. It demonstrates the severity of the problem and the way in which hospitals have to step in because the Government are not willing to accept that there is a real crisis.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered waiting times for ambulances and emergency department care. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Stringer, and I am pleased to see so many Members here to discuss the highly concerning issue of the unacceptably long waiting times patients in our constituencies endure to access emergency care. Our urgent and emergency care system provides a vital service supporting a significant number of patients with a huge variety of medical conditions, ranging from acute emergencies and trauma to mental health crises, the care of our homeless population and care of elderly patients. Emergency care should be there for all of us when we need it. Few of us plan to attend emergency departments, but we are all potential patients. Covid-19 has had a detrimental effect on our ambulance services.”
“Thank you, Mr Stringer. I think every one of us has such stories from the doorstep. Almost everybody knows of a loved one or a friend who has waited an unacceptably long time. That is why it is so important that we get the urgent review that Liberal Democrats have been calling for. We are calling for a formal inquiry. The Government need to fund thousands of extra beds to stop handover delays in A&E so that ambulances can get back on the road as soon as possible. Will the Minister comment on a formal inquiry into the crisis?”
“The Government need to start working with NHS staff to draw up a robust plan now to tackle the crisis in ambulance waiting times and emergency care, and start delivering. Thousands of lives depend on it.”
“Indeed. Not everything is always about money; it is also about proper management. At the heart of it all is transparency. We need to have the figures and to understand what the problems are. I echo the Royal College of Emergency Medicine: unless we have transparency, we cannot get to the bottom of the problem. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has already stated that A&E departments are not confident they will cope this winter. The Government simply cannot ignore this looming crisis on top of the existing challenges we face. They are running the NHS into the ground. With A&E wait times measured in hours instead of minutes, people are no longer confident that they can get urgent medical help when they need it.”
“It is not very helpful that we are entering into a party political ding-dong. There is a crisis, and we owe it to our constituents to face it. We are asking the Government, who are in charge, to do something about it.”
“Resolved , That this House has considered waiting times for ambulances and emergency department care.”
“I thank everybody who have taken part in today’s debate to highlight the deep crisis over ambulance and emergency care services. We owe it to all our constituents to ensure that the crisis is fixed, because it can be a matter of life and death. Last but not least, I want to thank the incredibly hard-working doctors, nurses, paramedics, ambulance drivers, reception staff and call handlers who work in our emergency care and ambulance services. They are doing an impossibly difficult job at a very difficult time. We cannot ignore the workforce crisis, and the stress and impact on the lives of the current workforce. We owe them our support here, and I want to assure all of them that all of us here will not go away until we see real progress and real improvement. Question put and agreed to.”
“Is it not absurd that a lot of tidal power projects are rejected on the basis of cost, yet nuclear is the most expensive way of producing energy?”
“I believe that Britain could be a true global leader in this field, and the Minister will find in me a passionate and true supporter of all efforts to help the development of floating offshore wind in this country. There are fantastic opportunities, and we need to help develop them. There are some barriers as well, but the opportunities are amazing, and Britain could truly be a leader and an exporter of renewable energy.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) on securing the debate. Energy security is as important as ever in the face of the climate emergency and the need to get to net zero, but also in the light of more recent events, which have seen energy prices and household energy bills soar. There is some good news: the less we depend on fossil fuels, the better for the climate and household bills. It would therefore be completely wrong of the Government to go back to more fossil fuel exploration. Instead, an even more ambitious plan for the roll-out of renewables is the right way forward. The opportunities are fantastic and plentiful. I have mentioned just one, which is floating offshore wind.”
“For example, the 2020 community energy groups across the UK have more than 3,000 volunteers and almost 500 full-time staff. It is estimated that a twentyfold increase would create almost 60,000 skilled jobs, and that is at the lower end of the forecast. Will the Government include in the upcoming energy security Bill an enabling mechanism, such as that proposed by the Local Electricity Bill, to protect individuals, families and the environment at such an essential time? As we have already heard, there is much support for such a measure. I hope the Minister will focus on answering that question.”
“My ask of the Minister is to respond positively on how we can remove the existing barriers for community energy. The measures necessary to tackle climate change will take a big effort and cause a lot of disruption. The Government must acknowledge that there will be disruption, but community energy is one way of making sure that people are fully behind it. In the past decade, community energy has seen little to no growth. The Environmental Audit Committee has noted that, between 2020 and 2021, community energy increased by a meagre 31 MW, less than 0.5% of total UK electricity generation. An enabling mechanism would not only protect families from soaring energy bill costs, but benefit the economy through job creation. It is clear that it would open a stream of jobs and economic wealth.”
“Investing in renewables instead would come at a fraction of the cost currently set aside for nuclear. There is huge potential for more community-scale renewable energy, which has been mentioned today, and I ask the Minister to respond on that point. We need more community energy and, as has been said, more than 300 MPs are behind it. The biggest advantage of community energy is in bringing people behind the need to get to net zero. We are going to face many disruptions in order to get to net zero by 2050, and bringing people on board will be the most important thing we can do. Community energy is the best place to drive the movement to get people behind net zero. We have already heard about the difficulties, but nothing is beyond us if we really have the political will to achieve it.”
“The Government have confirmed that each new nuclear power plant will add around £1 per month to energy bills during construction. There are just over 26 million households in England, Wales and Scotland, meaning a bill of £2.6 billion a year is set to land on households because of the Government’s failure to plan ahead and invest more in renewables years ago. This comes as the energy price cap has risen by just under £700 on average, with further increases expected in the autumn. The Government recently passed a new law that will allow them to add levies to energy bills to fund new nuclear plants. It is madness, as I keep saying. The Liberal Democrats attempted to exempt at least the most vulnerable from the additional levies, but the Government rejected that proposal.”
“Meanwhile, the Government have failed to invest in more renewables, particularly onshore wind, but as I have just mentioned, I believe that they should be seriously looking at offshore wind and floating offshore wind. They have instead committed to eight new nuclear power stations, and the Minister is aware of my well-known objection to that. The Government have not reversed the effective ban on onshore wind, and the new nuclear power stations will add £96 a year to people’s energy bills. We have already discussed how expensive nuclear-powered energy is compared with renewables. EDF previously estimated that the cost of funding the Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk will add up to £12 a year to household energy bills for every family in the country at its peak.”
“I do not know whether the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) has been to briefings on floating offshore wind, but it is fascinating to see the enormous amount of energy that such installations can produce. If we do not take the opportunity, the technology will be used by other countries and they will become the leaders in that technology instead. I say to the Minister that I am a passionate and true supporter of any Government efforts to support floating offshore wind. It is a new technology, but it is very encouraging and interesting. Home installations should have been a key part of the Government’s energy security strategy, but they were not. Instead, the energy efficiency of our homes is among the worst in Europe, and the Government are leaving people to suffer with high bills and heating costs.”
“I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention, because it goes to the core of the argument. There are already models, and they have been around for some time. The idea of having a baseload is old-fashioned thinking, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wantage (David Johnston) for mentioning community energy. We need much smaller devolved energy supply and production, rather than massive, centralised providers, and the idea of a baseload is becoming more and more obsolete. Indeed, if we had floating offshore wind, whereby the generation of electricity takes place far out in the sea rather than on the shallow seabed, there would be enough energy to meet Britain’s demands. I believe in going even further and exporting renewable energy. If we do not do it in Britain, other European countries will come forward.”
“It is simply not true that renewable energy projects will take until next decade to be developed. In fact, many of them are waiting; it is just that they cannot be connected to the grid. Can the right hon. Gentleman correct what he has just said about renewable energy projects?”
“This is about choices. We cannot forever get stuck in the past, as we have just heard. We need to look forward to the future. Investment in renewables is the only way I can see as the right way forward. Yes, that needs adaptation; yes, that needs our constituents to come along. However, it is a necessity. We cannot bury our heads in the sand.”
“Recent evidence from a Royal College of General Practitioners survey shows that opposition to such legislation has fallen from 77% to 46%. Here in Parliament, we are falling very far behind public and medical opinion. We continue to force people to suffer a protracted death against their wishes, to spend £10,000 to go to Dignitas at a rate of one a week, or to add to the horrific new suicide statistics from the ONS. Some terminally ill people will not choose palliative care but will opt for the choice of a safeguarded, doctor-assisted death, and that should be their right. I have gone on a journey to believing truly that prolonging an agonising life is not what I should stand for, and I speak as a Christian. Instead, we should allow for a compassionate death when that is what the dying person wishes for.”
“In too many cases, pain cannot be alleviated. We should not hide that truth. It was disappointing to learn in 2021, in a piece of research on end-of-life preferences by my local hospice, that assisted dying was not to be included. The reason given was that it is not legal. We cannot leave out the most pressing topic for end-of-life preference. Some people wish for assisted dying. Discounting it as a patient’s preference from the start is ideologically blinded and suggests that blanket opposition to assisted dying is supported by the hospice movement, for which I otherwise have the greatest respect. In a BMA survey, 4,500 doctors voted in support of assisted dying legislation, whereby they could assist patients who can voluntarily take life-ending prescriptions under very clear and defined legislation.”
“It is time to apply honesty and justice to the debate. Constituents of mine have campaigned for years for a safeguarded assisting dying law for mentally competent, terminally ill adults with a six-month prognosis. I do not accept that this is the thin end of a wedge. Whatever might otherwise be heard, it is a fact that palliative medicine and care has its limitations, even at its most excellent. Figures from the Office of Health Economics in 2019 show that every year, 6,400 terminally ill patients in hospices have horrendous deaths. One of my constituents wrote to me: “I watched my mother being tortured to death with care, she was in extreme pain and was given the maximum level of pain relief. This only works for a time and between doses she was in agony.” Those who suggest that palliative care can manage pain are ignoring what happens.”
“I want to thank the tireless campaigners, especially Pauline Carroll from our local Bath branch of Dignity in Dying, who has taken me on a journey over the past five years. Due to her courageous campaigning—she never let go—I gradually changed my mind over this difficult and complex issue, and Pauline is in the Public Gallery today. The Government have amended the Health and Care Act 2022 so as to fully fund palliative and hospice services in the future. That is very welcome, but it is not enough. Our current law needs to change. One approach should not exclude the other. It is disappointing that no time was given to debate Baroness Meacher’s Bill and that Conservative peers were whipped on 16 March to vote against Lord Forsyth’s proposed assisted dying amendment to the Health and Care Act.”
“T7. Since Brexit, many UK companies have stopped exporting to the EU altogether, whatever the Minister is trying to sell us. The situation has become even worse for many of my small businesses in Bath since the closure of the SME Brexit support fund. Will the Government consider introducing a new version of that fund?”
“The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has published a report, “Tip of the Iceberg” indicating that waiting times in accident and emergency and access to emergency care are a lot worse than officially reported. That is down to a reporting mechanism that only counts the time from DTA—decision to admit—made by a responsible clinician, which is often hours after a patient first arrives in A&E. The college found that in 2021, on average over 1,000 patients waited in A&E for 12 hours or more from time of arrival every single day. May we have a debate in Government time on this hugely concerning and important issue?”
“Response Rescue International, a charity that trains dogs to recover human remains following natural or manmade disasters, wants to provide services to the people of Ukraine. Since the UK left the EU, the charity is required to pay £75 per dog for them to be seen by a vet every time the dogs are called to another country to find human remains. The service could be seen as an emergency service, and given that they are going to travel to Ukraine, will the Secretary of State work with other Departments to see whether those charges could be waived?”
“I also refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I welcome the reforms that are being proposed today. However, a lot more needs to be done to protect renters. Homelessness is about to soar, due to the cost of living crisis, and LGBT+ people are disproportionately affected by homelessness and at heightened risk of violence, abuse and exploitation. Apart from the reforms announced today, what are the Government actually doing to protect especially the LGBT+ community from homelessness?”
“T2. Six days ago, the Government approved an application to draw gas in Dunsfold in Surrey, although the council had refused the application twice. Does the Minister agree that this decision by the Government to draw gas from a new gasfield in Surrey flies in the face of the commitment the UK Government made during COP26?”
“Is the hon. Member not making a mistake by confusing what we are here to discuss banning? We are here to discuss banning pseudo-practices. We are not aiming to ban NHS therapies and practices that are conducted by professional medical experts; we are looking at banning conversion therapy, which is pseudo-scientific, often takes place in private settings and is not controlled.”
“For the exclusion of any doubt, we are not talking about professional medical treatment and therapy.”
“A recent survey found that gender conversion practices, far from working, create lifelong, deeply traumatic consequences for survivors. Nearly half of respondents said that every aspect of their life, from their mental health to peer and family relationships, had considerably worsened. We all know that, all too often, the catastrophic mental ill health that is suffered leads to loss of life. Gender conversion therapy is purposefully harmful and repressive. It targets already vulnerable people, and does so overwhelmingly at a very young age. Three quarters of those who have undergone conversion therapy were under the age of 24. Some began as early as the age of 12. These so-called therapies or practices include verbal abuse, isolation, physical abuse and, perhaps most disturbingly, “corrective” rape.”
“At last the Government have proposed, and will bring forward, a conversion therapy Bill. I welcome that—it is progress. After all, I tabled a private Member’s Bill to ban conversion therapy in the last Parliament. However, the detail of the Government’s proposal is more than disappointing. The ban will protect people from therapies aimed at changing their sexual orientation, but therapies aimed at changing people’s gender identity will not be banned. If the Government recognise the harm that these cruel and medieval practices cause one group of people, why do they exclude the group that is the most harmed? Trans people are twice as likely as the rest of the LGBT+ community to be subjected to conversion practices.”
“I totally agree. What is damaging about all these practices is that they have an outcome before they even start. That is why they are so damaging.”
“The Equalities Minister called this country a global leader on LGBT rights, but it seems the Government have forgotten what the letter T stands for. How can we possibly call ourselves global leaders if we knowingly and purposefully fail to protect trans people from abhorrent practices? I plead with the Government to listen to what is overwhelmingly a consensus in this room—and outside—and make sure we ban conversion therapy in all its forms.”
“The Church of England has acknowledged that, stating that conversion practices have “no place in the modern world”. Nearly all countries that have banned gay conversion therapy have also banned gender conversion therapy. Canada, France and New Zealand, to name a few, have yet to encounter problems with freedom of speech or religious belief. It is baffling—I disagree that it is about getting votes—that the Conservative Government are not committed to banning trans-inclusive conversion therapy, even though their own voters are largely in favour of such a ban. Northern Ireland has moved a motion to ban conversion therapy in all forms. Scotland hopes to ban it by the end of 2023. The Government must follow suit.”
“Opposition to a trans-inclusive ban is entirely built on stoking fear and division, based on deliberate misinformation. By the Government’s own admission, NHS gender identity services will not stop people having exploratory conversations with their doctors. Legal services will not be affected by a ban. There is no evidence of any negative impact in the countries that have already introduced a ban. Let us be clear: we are talking about preventing the abuse of LGBT+ and gender non-conforming people—our fellow human beings. We need to prevent abuse. Furthermore, neither would religious freedom be affected by a change in the law. Religious freedom is the freedom to worship without discrimination. As a Christian, I have the right to practise my religion without discrimination. I do not have the right to cause harm.”
“I totally agree. We have to say this again and again: this is not about professional medical treatment and therapy. The conversion therapies that need to be banned are pseudoscientific practices, often conducted in private settings and, most crucially, they do not have an open outcome, but are aimed at changing what a person is. Legal advice recently published by the Good Law Project makes it clear that the Government risk getting embroiled in legal challenges by breaching article 14 of the European convention on human rights. The advice states that “the difference in treatment between sexual orientation and gender identity would need to be justified and proportionate.” So far, the only justification that the Government have provided is to say that the issue is complex. Why are we even having this debate?”
“We are having a good debate, but can the Minister confirm that conversion practices are those that are aimed at a certain outcome? What he is describing—an open conversation to explore a person’s gender identity—is of course not something that a ban should include, but all practices with a closed outcome should be banned, and that ban should include trans people.”
“Some 85,000 households in England live in park homes. In Bath, residents in Quarry Rock Gardens are worried about soaring costs. These residents face minimum protections from sky-high pitch fees and rogue site owners because pitch fees are linked to the retail price index, rather than the lower consumer price index. The Government have committed to reforming pitch fees so they increase with that index, but after four years they have still done nothing. Can we have a statement from the relevant Department on when these changes will come forward?”