Layla Moran
MP for Oxford West and Abingdon · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“I pay tribute to all the Members who have shared their story; I feel we have learned a bit more today about how the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips) became how she is.”
“I genuinely do not believe that palliative care would have been included in the early batch of MSFs if it were not for this Bill forcing the Government to do so.”
“My constituent asks: “how many more need to take their own lives in horrific ways because they simply cannot bear the pain, discomfort and hopelessness any more?” She wants the right to decide for herself when enough is enough. Then there is the constituent whose sister went abroad to access assisted dying.”
“No, I shall not. It is worth noting that the NHS has not been meeting its own standards on palliative care for decades. The then Minister for Care, the right hon. Member for Aberafan Maesteg (Stephen Kinnock), appeared before our Committee in the spring, and he mentioned the importance of workforce.”
“We are lucky in Oxfordshire that we have some of the best palliative care in the country. He described how her care was exemplary—she died without pain and was well looked after—but he felt that her wishes were not respected while his father’s were, and there were consequences to her not being able to access assisted dying, as her brother…”
“Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn), who is a fellow member of the Health and Social Care Committee. Although we wrote the reports together, I have come to a different conclusion, with great respect. It is, frankly, a stain on successive Governments that palliative care is in this state.”
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“I will declare an interest in that my own surgery—the Summertown health centre—is one of those practices. It is doing incredibly well, despite working out of a very old Victorian building. It is desperate for a new site, and it was deemed one of the top priorities for the ICB. I note that the Minister mentioned a figure of £102 million, but, frankly, that does not touch the sides. As in the case of the John Radcliffe, the Summertown health centre is now going out to seek private finance, which it will find a way to pay back slowly over time. The Exchequer would not even have to lay out this money in advance, and even with inflation, the amount it would get back is less than what the health centre has to pay to do this with private finance. I ask the Government to think about this innovatively. It is not the same as the PFI.”
“I have to say that that was quite a segue. We are focusing on the capital estate. We all know that there were problems with the Lansley reform. In fact, I welcome the fact that it is being unravelled, and I was pretty vocal about it at the time. The savings the John Radcliffe could have realised might have been spent on hospital at home services and other ways to divert people away from coming into A&E in the first place. Across the wider Oxford university hospitals NHS foundation trust, £100 million of backlog is deemed as high or significant risk. Pausing or delaying plans to rebuild hospitals is a false economy, and hospitals around the country, including the John Radcliffe, are overspending on maintenance as a result. That is not limited to our hospitals; we are also seeing it in GP practices, many of which date from well before 1948.”
“We understand that the Government are working across Departments, and this project would be as much of an advantage to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology as to the Department of Health and Social Care. Where are these pots of money, because they are important? I will end simply by saying that I completely agree with the thrust of the motion—and, indeed, with what the Government have themselves said—which is that if we invest in capital expenditure, we need to take an invest to save approach. We know that this matters to our constituents, and we know that they cannot get the services they so desperately need. If we are to achieve the three shifts, we should not be pitting them against each other. Investing in capital will help the three shifts to succeed, and we do will the Government and the NHS to succeed.”
“I am so sorry to hear about the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituent. In Lord Darzi’s report, there are some stark pictures of him sitting in substandard accommodation for the very sickest in our society. The Health and Social Care Committee is currently undertaking an inquiry into severe mental ill health, because we know that mental health is so often forgotten in the NHS. It is good that the mental health investment standard has been continued, but it is sad that the overall spend as a proportion of NHS spend is going down this year for the first time in the last few years. We very much hope that this is not a trend, but a one-off, and that it will continue to rise from next year. For the Warneford, we need to understand what new innovative funding pots we can put together.”
“Will my hon. Friend join me in commending the Bikeability Trust? In Oxford West and Abingdon, 61% of year 6 students take level 2 training, but 76% is considered an achievable target for 2025-26. Does he agree that without the Bikeability Trust, none of that would be possible?”
“Councillor Neil Fawcett has been instrumental in securing funding for a redesign, as a result of which the route will be safer and faster. Oxfordshire is led by the Liberal Democrats and we are greatly ambitious for cycling in our county. We want to increase the number of cycle trips from 600,000 a year to 1 million by 2031. My question to the Minister is: what other pots of money are there that we can bid for? Each one of these schemes is incredibly good value for money. They produce safer, faster and healthier schemes, which is what we all want for our constituents.”
“In part, that is facilitated by an incredibly popular segregated cycle lane that runs all along the road towards the school, but many parents will point out that the cycle lane is at the very end of the commute to school, and there are no segregated cycle lanes all the way up the Banbury Road and the Woodstock Road. There was a plan for the Woodstock Road and a plan to look at feasibility on the Banbury Road, but the Labour city council decided that it wanted instead to spend the money on what local people call the vanity bridge to nowhere, elsewhere in Oxford. That was a crying shame, because the return on investment of segregated cycle lanes is not to be underestimated. In Abingdon, we have our own problems. National cycle route 5 passes through the town centre, but cyclists need to dismount exactly halfway down the route.”
“I thank you for chairing the debate, Mrs Hobhouse, and congratulate my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), on securing it. I am the MP for the dreaming spires. If we think Oxford, we think Headington stone and copper roofs and bicycles everywhere; indeed, 20% of people in Oxford commute to work by bike. I am also proud to be the MP for the No. 1 school in the country for cycling to school, Cherwell school in north Oxford: 58% of the students cycle and only 11% get there by car.”
“We need a ceasefire now—again—because the situation on the ground is as bad as it has ever been, if not worse. I spoke to my friend whose family are in Gaza and he told me that last week their home was bombed multiple times while they were sheltering in the basement with no food or water. They are now barely surviving, surrounded by destruction, terrified and without aid for over a month. He said: “This is not self-defence. This is the destruction of families like mine.” If this Government do not support this escalation, where are the consequences? We do have leverage. Why have they not suspended all arms sales to the IDF—not because of a risk of it hitting civilians, but because we have principles and will show intent?”
“I have to say that I am none the wiser about what exactly has happened. If we are to ensure that this will not happen again—that these deadlines will be met—we need to know how we got into this position. It may well be the fault of the previous Government. Will this Government commit to a full review of exactly how we got here, so that we can ensure that the published deadlines are met this time?”
“This is a bold change indeed. The job of my Committee is to help the Secretary of State to do it, so let me start by asking him to come in front of the Committee as quickly as possible—certainly before Easter—because there is a lot of detail that we need to drill down into. On a more substantive point, the right hon. Member mentioned the financial reset that Sir Jim Mackey announced to integrated care boards just yesterday, which means that they need to cut their running costs by 50%. I am concerned that when my Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West ICB struggled with money, the first thing it cut were the place-based teams. If we are to deliver the neighbourhood NHS that the Secretary of State and I both want, those are not the teams to cut.”
“The NHS offered her group therapy for her anxiety, but she felt that she had to decline because the organisation insisted that she stayed silent. Her lawyer said that the organisation was trying to starve her out in negotiations over her exit. They took years. By the time they got to a settlement, she had racked up £70,000 in legal fees.”
“HR found that it could not assess the complaint because it was criminal in nature, but at the same time found it to be unfounded. That makes no sense. Around this time, she asked a question at an ITN women’s empowerment forum, in front of all staff, during the pandemic. She simply asked, “What support is there for women who report alleged sexual harassment in the workplace?” Within an hour, her email had been cut off. HR summoned her to an urgent meeting; her primary offence, it would seem, was asking for help. From that moment, she was suspended without pay. She had been completely cut off from almost all support networks for about a year. ITN told her that she was not allowed to tell anyone—except the police, to be fair—what was happening. Even her best friend had to sign an NDA to attend a meeting to support her.”
“He would hurl wild accusations at her and accuse her of affairs with colleagues. She ended up suffering from panic attacks as a result of the relationship. Before Christmas 2019, she finally had the courage to end it. When she returned to work in January, she had been demoted. Her hours were reduced and so was her pay. The first editor she told warned her to stay silent. She said: “You don’t want to be one of those women who always moan about being wronged.” She then confided in a more senior editor, and things got worse. She told her: “It’s not like he ever hit you. It’s not like you ever had to go to A&E with broken bones.” She went to work every day for the next year. It took ITN months to agree to an HR investigation into what happened. It agreed only on the condition that she would also be investigated.”
“I want to reveal another never-before-told story from ITN. It is never-before-revealed because it is covered by a non-disclosure agreement, which means that I will be using privilege to reveal the details. Before I begin, it is worth saying that the victim is not alone; I understand that there are seven out there from ITN—we have heard another one today—and that investigations have been done by ITN’s board, which is intent on change. This victim is clear that she does not want to cause ITN problems, but she wants MPs to understand the effect that this continues to have on her life and why we need to act quickly. This young woman was in her mid-20s when she landed her dream job at ITN. She quickly became trapped in what we understand to be a coercive, controlling sexual relationship with an older male editor.”
“I rise to speak to new clause 74, which appears in the name of the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh). I pay tribute to her and say that the Back Benches are very lucky to have her. May I also pay tribute to Mr B, whose story she told so movingly? The campaign to redress the power imbalance for those offered non-disclosure agreements in cases of sexual harassment, harassment, bullying and discrimination has been many years in the making. It transcends organisations and it transcends party. I pay tribute to Members past and present of all colours who have been part of this campaign for so long. I was pleased to hear from the Minister from the Dispatch Box that he hopes to continue to make progress, but I hope to urge him to go further faster, and for very good reason. It is long past time that this practice just stopped.”
“In the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, there is a provision—it was tabled as an amendment by Labour and taken on in the Lords by the then Conservative Government—that says that such non-disclosure agreements are not allowed, but it covers only higher education settings, because that was the scope of the Act. I am an Oxford MP. How does it make any sense at all that I might have a constituent who is protected from such non-disclosure agreements if they work for the university but not if they work for any of the university spin-outs?”
“It if was taken to court, it would fail. The Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 makes it clear that she should have been able to get that support. We are kidding ourselves if we think that NDAs are not still being used and issued. They are. That is why this Bill—whether now, in the Lords or wherever—needs to put a stop to it. Many years on, following an investigation into the treatment of these workers at ITN, the woman does believe that the organisation is trying to change, and she is grateful to the executives from within who are pushing for reform. The latest update is that ITN is willing to renegotiate her NDA. That is laudable, but she should never have been put under one in the first place, and those protections should be everywhere. We face a weird situation which we in the House have created.”
“Absolutely. This is exactly the kind of behaviour that we need to put a stop to. The young woman eventually reached a settlement, but it was extremely one-sided. She panicked, because the NDA gagged not just her but her partner, her best friends and her parents, but it did not gag the men or the senior executives involved in the harassment that she faced. It covered not just business matters—we are not seeking to stop confidentiality agreements on business matters—but everything painful that she had endured. Her mental health spiralled and she ended up in hospital. Every day that she was in a hospital bed, the lawyers sent her automatic reminders to sign her NDA. This was a woman at her most vulnerable. It is entirely wrong that she was put in that position. It is worth saying that almost none of that NDA is enforceable.”
“Please, let this be the Government who put the abuses of non-disclosure agreements where they belong—in the trash can—so that we finally afford the protections that we are about to give to all university workers to every single employee.”
“It would give the Government six months from the Bill’s enactment to sort it out, which should be plenty of time. Arguably, they should be able to tackle this with something in the Lords, which would give them a bit of extra time. I urge the Minister not to wait for some other Bill or some other time. I welcome the meaningful words that we have heard from the Dispatch Box. However, I also urge him to look back—I appreciate that that is not to this Government but another one—because we have heard this before. The campaign has transcended parties and transcended years—it has transcended Parliaments. We are making slow progress; meanwhile, victims continue to be hurt day after day. Every day that these NDAs—often made in perpetuity—endure, that hurt and trauma continues.”
“I thank the hon. Member very much; these people are indeed incredibly brave. What we are trying to show is that it happens to men and women, it is discrimination, it is sexual harassment, and it is ubiquitous—it is happening everywhere and it is happening now. We are not seeking to silence people. In fact, new clause 74 says that if a victim wants an NDA for whatever reason, they would be allowed one. The new clause simply seeks to redress the gap. How can it be right that, sometime soon, in some establishments, workers will be protected and that in others they will not? It is time for the Government to sort this out. The new clause does not say exactly how they should do that, but that the protections afforded to all workers anywhere should be the same as those afforded in universities.”
“I echo the hon. Gentleman’s thanks to Amanda Pritchard for her time at the head of NHS England. While I also welcome the appointment of Dr Penny Dash as its new chair, the hon. Gentleman is right to say this is a really important moment in the future of the national health service.”
“I am concerned, though, that we do not have much detail about how exactly technology will achieve that, and we will press the Department on that figure. Prevention is also incredibly important, and it is always in danger of being overlooked. I assure the Minister—I know she is responsible for prevention—that if the Government do not pursue it, we will press them to, as will the electorate, I am sure, because is a no-brainer.”
“She took tests, and exceeded the threshold in all of them, and was told that she would be put on a waiting list, with an expected wait of 16 years to 18 years—yes, years. She is 34 with young children, and will be waiting for an appointment until she is 51. That is clearly ridiculous. We welcome the three shifts, the 10-year plan and the long-term thinking, which hopefully will end stories like the one that I just told; I know Members from across the House will have similar stories. I was interested to hear the Secretary of State choose technology as his top pick when I pressed him to pick a favourite priority at our Committee hearing on 18 December. In recent correspondence with the Committee, which is now online, the Department credited technology with a 0.7% productivity contribution this year alone.”
“We are proving that estimates are not dull, although they have a terrible reputation for being so. Everything comes from the money, and if we do not follow the money, we do our constituents a disservice. The Government have announced an incredibly welcome £22.6 billion increase in day-to-day spend on health and social care, in addition to the further £3 billion in capital expenditure. It sounds like, and is, a huge amount of money. The only thing bigger than the uplift will be the disappointment of our constituents if the money is not spent wisely and does not lead to the change that they desperately want and need. I will start with an example. My constituent was referred to her GP for an NHS-funded assessment for autism spectrum disorder.”
“In our Committee hearing just this morning, we heard that all parts of the system want this. Acute care trusts recognise that they have the bulk of the investment, but they realise that unless they start pooling budgets and working in an integrated way, we will not achieve the productivity gains that we desperately need.”
“I share my hon. Friend’s frustration that we are not doing more faster. Indeed, the first inquiry that our Committee has launched is on social care and the cost of inaction, because there is a cost to doing nothing, and we need to quantify that as best we can. On the three shifts, the shift to the community is incredibly important, not least because successive Secretaries of State have said that they want that shift, yet the money has flowed in the opposite direction.”
“At face value, that is an increase of £10.9 billion on the estimate from July, but £9.2 billion is for staff pay increases. Let us be clear: staff deserve that pay rise. It is long overdue. Retention and mental health are important, and we must invest in our workforce, but that does leave just £1.7 billion.”
“We should be celebrating examples of where this works well, not shutting them down. In Oxford, the Hospital at Home programme, run by Oxford University hospital ambulatory team, does incredible work. I visited 91-years-young Mavis the other day, who was receiving top-notch ultrasounds in her home—ultrasounds of better quality than those that she would have got in the hospital. That saves hundreds of pounds for the NHS and means no long trip for her and her family. That is definitely something that we should do more of. Let me turn to the estimates, because they are why we are here. The supplementary estimates have been published. I will not hit anyone over the head with them—they are incredibly heavy. They are worth a read. They talk about a £198.5 billion day-to-day spending budget.”
“For example, in the document, £120 billion comes under the sub-heading, “NHS providers”, and there is absolutely no detail under that. Will the Minister commit to working with the Committee and the House of Commons scrutiny unit to provide Parliament with a meaningful breakdown, so we can have more wonderful debates just like these?”
“In these estimates, we see that there has already been a decrease in capital spend of £1 billion from the 2024-25 main estimate. It is explained away as a transfer to day-to-day spending, due to a reclassification of spending on technology and new hospitals as day-to-day spending. I do not know how others feel, but that does not sound quite right to me. I am concerned that the Government are falling into the same trap as previous Governments—perhaps understandably, because they have to pay for the day-to-day somehow. The Government gave an assurance to the Public Accounts Committee that they would stop making those sorts of changes. Is that still the case? Finally, I want to do more of this; I want to undertake more scrutiny of the estimates, but it is quite hard to do, because there is a lack of detail.”
“I will make progress, if I may, because the clock is ticking down. As for that £1.7 billion, once we add in national insurance contribution increases and inflationary costs, the NHS has had to ask for an additional £812 million on top, so it is already running a little behind. Next year, the increase is due to be £10.6 billion, but as the Committee heard in a hearing, the expected pressures are £11.7 billion. We can all do the maths. There is a problem. The way it will get solved, at least on paper, is through an enormous 4% productivity increase, combined with cost reduction. We need more detail about how exactly that will be done. I echo the point made by my fellow Committee member, the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales), about capital expenditure.”
“The Minister will have noted, on page 53 of the estimates, a £1 billion decrease in capital spending in the departmental accounts. Will that be explained, and can the Minister explain now how new hospitals constitute day-to-day spending?”
“We can do something, and if ever there was a time for us to ban the illegal settlement goods that fund those extremist settlers, is now not that time?”
“I pay tribute to the former Development Minister, my constituency neighbour the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), for her work in this area, and also for the wise words in her resignation letter. The Minister has rightly said that forced displacement is unacceptable. Indeed, I think she said that the actions of the illegal extremist settlers were unlawful. You may have seen the Oscars ceremony this week, Mr Speaker, which featured an incredible film called “No Other Land”, which highlights the forced displacements in Masafer Yatta, and was made by Israelis and Palestinians together. It won the Oscar. I bet they would trade every gong going for that film to have its desired effect, and for the violence to stop.”
“Following on from the previous question, the opportunities are not just for defence but for the NHS. In January, in the week of Trump’s inauguration, I went cross-party to visit Ukraine so that we could offer our support. While there I had the privilege of meeting veterans, many of whom had lost limbs and received world-leading prosthetics. The fact is that the Ukrainians are now world-leading in these matters. The 100-year partnership exists. What are we doing in the UK to supercharge not just defence but rehabilitation, which helps us and not just them?”
“I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), to her place. I look forward to working with her, as I do with other Ministers. As the Minister for Care will know, 20% of the burden on the NHS is due to mental health, yet only 10% of the budget is allocated towards it. The mental health investment standard has been a welcome maintenance under this Government. However, the Select Committee heard from Amanda Pritchard the other day that the standard is guaranteed for only the next two years. Does the Minister agree that the standard has had a positive effect on mental health community services, and would he commit to protecting it?”
“As the MP for the dreaming spires, may I thank the Government for their vote of confidence in my constituents’ ability to deliver the growth that this country, and arguably the world, needs? I take umbrage with one thing. The Chief Secretary talks about the Oxford plan. Given that the Chancellor gave her speech not in Oxford city or its environs but in Eynsham, will he name the growth commission not the Oxford commission but the Oxfordshire commission? Will he meet me and my many Liberal Democrat colleagues, so that we can work with him to maximise the potential of the plan?”
“Thames Water has had an increase in the number of pollution incidents, which went up 40% in six months last year. It has been issued with fines, but that has not changed anything. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need regulation with proper teeth, and that new clause 25 would do exactly that by putting water companies into special measures when they fail our constituents?”
“May I press the Secretary of State on that data point? It is not just the Liberal Democrats making these representations; the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, HealthWatch, the British Medical Association, Age UK and many others also want the data. This matters, because the situation causes moral injury to staff and compromises patient safety—and the problem is not just corridor care; it encroaches on to other wards. Will the Secretary of State commit to releasing that data before the NHS England board meeting on 4 February? In addition, what assessment has he made of the impact of this winter on less urgent care, and on elective waiting lists?”
“Following the theme raised by my hon. Friend and neighbour, the hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller), may I make a plea for Summertown health centre? They are my doctors, by the way, so I declare an interest. They operate in an old Victorian building and are desperate to move to new premises. That health centre was at the top of the priority list, but the ICB says that there is no money, and the doctors say that there is no pot that they can bid into in order to get this seen to. Will the Secretary of State meet me as well? Clearly, £102 million spread across 50 projects in the country is not going to be sufficient. Can we get creative about how we can get new premises built for Summertown health centre?”
“(Urgent Question) : To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Affairs if he will make a statement on the situation in northern Gaza.”
“Have we deployed everything to make this stop? When will we recognise Palestine? Why have we not stopped the arms trade to Israel? And when will the Government ban trading with illegal settlements? The frustration is palpable. Our grief is fathomless. People across the UK are looking on in horror, and the horror in Gaza must stop now.”
“A three-year-old, her mother and Mohamed’s mother are alone in a house with no one to help them get food. These were obviously not militants—they were sick. They are not legitimate targets of war. There is no excuse for this. Mohamed told me it feels like they are living in “The Hunger Games,” dodging drones and scavenging for the basics. Even if they wanted to leave, how can they? What part of international law makes any of this okay? Where is the accountability? Where is the justice? What does the Minister have to say to Mohamed, who spends his days saving lives here in the UK while his family are slaughtered overnight? And it is not just Mohamed. People in Gaza are trapped in a doom loop of hell—hospitals decimated, and ceasefires promised and never delivered. So I press the Government again: is this really everything the UK has got?”
“Over 450 days on, we all know the statistics—45,000 Palestinians killed, 100 hostages missing, 2.3 million people desperate—but I want to tell a single human story. I have previously spoken about my friend, consultant surgeon Mohamed, who operated on me when I had sepsis. His family are trapped in the Jabalia refugee camp. They are elderly and sick. One is a three-year-old girl. He has described how there are bodies strewn in the street. I am sorry to report that death did not come knocking this weekend. Rather, it was dropped by a precision drone as Mohamed’s brother and his son walked 10 metres to get aid. The son died of a brain injury, two 13-year-old girls and their mother have shrapnel wounds, and Mohamed’s elderly father, who was already ill, is in hospital.”
“Given that the Health and Social Care Committee’s first inquiry is “Adult social care reform: the cost of inaction”, we welcome any action. As the name of the inquiry suggests, we are concerned about the length of time taken, because every year without reform costs money, not only to the NHS, but to the wider economy and in people’s lives. We have Andrew Dilnot in front of us on Wednesday, and it is 14 years since his report, which has been put into legislation twice. I ask the Secretary of State to be specific: what will stop the next iteration of the Committee having Louise Casey in front of it in 15 years’ time? What will be different this time, so that we get that cross-party consensus and it sticks?”
“I received an email from Laura, a constituent in Abingdon. She lives in an area that has been flooded three times in the past year—in fact, there is a flood warning for the River Ock again today. She says that the flooding means she cannot sell her house—nor can any of her neighbours —as estate agents say that it must be five years dry before they will even consider it. As a result, my constituents stand to lose millions between them and some have lost jobs because they cannot move. What work is the Department doing with estate agents and the building industry to ensure that newly built houses are built well, and that houses that need to be sold can be sold?”
“Last Friday, I visited Sherwood Pharmacy in Abingdon. Ben, who owns it, told me that local pharmacies stand ready to help. In fact, they are more than keen to help, but there are two things that he needs from the Government. First, there needs to be a real push for GPs to refer people to pharmacies, in particular for vaccinations, so that we are not collecting patients in one already overstretched part of the system and they can do what they do best. Secondly, there needs to be a general plea to the public that they can go to their pharmacies for those things. I note that in her statement the Minister did not mention pharmacies once. Let us be honest, this question is not going to do it either. How do we ensure that the message—“Go to your pharmacy and get vaccinated, you can do it faster there”—gets out there this winter?”
“My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about international law. Does he agree that the judgment that we all need to look at is the ICJ advisory opinion on the occupation? The Government are working through the process of understanding what it means—including, potentially, in respect of banning illegal settlement goods—but what is taking them so long? Our reputation has suffered hugely as a result of such prevarication, particularly from the last Government, and it is now up to this Government to repair it.”