Charlotte Nichols
MP for Warrington North · Labour · United Kingdom
“Does the Minister accept that although people co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C represent only around 7% of those on infected blood support schemes, they make up roughly 14% of those receiving special category support, because of the disproportionate harm caused by early hepatitis C treatments?”
“I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman’s points, and those of the victims whose voices he is bringing to the fore. Does he agree that both the proposals by the Government and the amendment to the Victims and Courts Bill that was agreed to in the other place, which says that victims will have the right to access a transcript of the jud…”
“In the spirit of cross-party consensus, I commend both the hon. Member on securing this debate and the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) on her campaigning work in this area.”
“The violence against women and girls sector has not had the opportunity to come together to discuss it, and the Government’s framing and narrative has been to pit survivors and defendants against each other in a way that I think is deeply damaging.”
“I thought long and hard about speaking today. I will allow right hon. and hon. Members from the legal profession to make the legal arguments better than I can, and will allow Members who rightly have procedural or rights-based concerns for defendants, which I share, to raise them. I trust that those points will be satisfactorily covered.”
“Shamefully, the tariffs have not been uprated in line with inflation since 2012 and have no eligibility for non-contact sexual offences, which can cause significant and lasting harm.”
The complete record
Every one of 600 lines we hold for Charlotte Nichols, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 4 of 12.
“I beg to move, That this House has considered mindfulness in schools. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Gray. Hon. and right hon. Members present today will no doubt be aware of the tragic case of the 16-year-old schoolgirl, Brianna Ghey, who was murdered in my constituency a year ago this coming Sunday. What they may be less aware of, and this is something I hope to remedy today, is the campaign that was set up in the wake of one of Warrington’s darkest days by her mother, Esther Ghey. The Peace in Mind campaign, working with the Warrington Guardian and with the support of our community, has fundraised over £50,000 since September to bring mindfulness into schools in Warrington. Today, our ask is that the Government commit to bringing that into all schools.”
“Beth, a reception teacher trained through Mindfulness for learning, said: “Mindfulness has become part of the children’s daily routine and we teach children breathing techniques to support their regulation but I was not aware how the course would impact my own well-being. I now have an understanding of the importance of mindfulness and how it allows and teaches me to respond rather than react to different aspects of my day. Now having personally experienced mindfulness as a practice, it has had a positive influence on my teaching.””
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Indeed, he wrote a fantastic foreword to the report to which I drew the House’s attention. He is right about the whole-school approach, which I will come to later. I am sure that Mr Gray and I, and other hon. Members present, will be pleased to learn more about the sessions that the APPG on mindfulness is running. Warrington North is only a short drive from the Welsh border. This policy has already been introduced by the Welsh Government as part of the curriculum for wellbeing. Although that is a long-term strategy, early indications from Wales and the schools in Warrington have been positive in the short and medium term.”
“She was loved fiercely, and her death was unspeakably tragic. No parent should ever have to bury their child, but to have gone through what Esther has and to have the drive to seek positive change in the wake of that takes extraordinary courage and compassion. Esther is perhaps the most remarkable person I have ever met. She does not want the sympathy or pity of those here today, but a commitment to stand alongside her and our community in Warrington to deliver a lasting legacy for her daughter. We want to promote empathy, compassion and kindness throughout society, and I hope today’s debate brings us one step closer to achieving that, with a modest, evidence-based ask to put mindfulness on to the national curriculum for the benefit of pupils, staff and our country.”
“I want to put on the record my thanks to the community in Warrington who, during a cost of living crisis, have dug deep to support this campaign, working with the Mindfulness in Schools Project. I thank the Warrington Guardian and Tom Bedworth in particular; Warrington Wolves; the Warrington Wolves Charitable Foundation, Warrington Borough Council; the business community, including the EngineRooms, Sam Small Ink and Twinkle Time Melts; and all those who have fundraised, including on Wear Pink for Peace Day in November on what would have been Brianna’s 17th birthday. I thank the schools in Warrington, which have gone into this with open minds and hearts, and, in particular, Brianna’s school, Birchwood Community High School. Above all, I want to thank Esther. Brianna Ghey was sassy, beautiful, kind, courageous and authentically herself.”
“It is about giving teachers and school leaders the training and support they need through the postgraduate certificate in education curriculum and in continuing professional development, to be able take it and adapt it to best suit the needs of their school community, which is vital. While we believe the cost implications would be modest, the evidence supports our view that this would pay for itself over time by reducing some of the burden on mental health services, freeing up capacity for more acute cases and providing dividends on the associated costs of unmet mental health need over the long term. This is an investment worth making for the future.”
“When kids are in isolation, it’s a really useful tool for helping them to reflect and taking the heat out of situations, and guiding them to make better choices”. Research shows that three features are particularly important to effectiveness and sustainability: the quality and experience of the teacher’s mindfulness practice, how a programme is implemented, and the use of a whole-school approach. Mindfulness is not just about discrete lessons, but should be in the form of a mindfulness thread that runs throughout the day—the way we respond to each other, the way we move around and the way we build relationships, eat food, exercise, and so on. Sessions on mindfulness in the curriculum are a way to build and develop the skills needed to take it into the rest of the school day and the school’s ethos.”
“I thank the hon. Member, my next-door constituency neighbour, for that intervention, and I completely agree. That is why this practice should start in primary school. Developing those skills very early on in a person’s life can set them up to have those skills through their life, and I think we will see the benefits of these mindfulness-based interventions throughout people’s lives. This is a long-term plan and strategy. We will not necessarily see many of the benefits right away, but we know we are storing up positive outcomes for the future in a range of areas. A headteacher from one of my secondary schools told me that embedding a culture of mindfulness was “changing the way we deal with behaviour incidents, taking away reactivity and helping students and staff to calm down to the point we can better engage about what’s going on.”
“I want to ask a question about the idea of schools having flexibility. Of course, in general terms, I would welcome that, but is there not a worry that we would end up with a postcode lottery of provision in terms of the mental health support woven through schools? Areas such as Warrington would have fantastic things available for our young people, but children in towns in the surrounding area would still have issues that we could really be stepping in to address.”
“Sadly, most of us tend to lose that innate capacity as we get older and in the face of growing demands and worries, competing pressures and the daily grind. Introducing mindfulness practice in schools can provide an opportunity to value, preserve, nurture and sustain those life-affirming states of mind in children, while enabling adults to partly reclaim them. I hope we can continue this conversation beyond today and use the example of what we are doing in Warrington to improve mental health for all our young people. I again thank all those who have taken part. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered mindfulness in schools.”
“I thank all the Members who contributed, with four political parties represented in the debate. I particularly thank the hon. Members for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for their thoughtful contributions. The hon. Member for Strangford referred to adult burdens on children’s shoulders—perhaps the most apt way I have heard this issue summed up—in highlighting the need for children to be given greater tools to cope. Dealing with this issue is our responsibility as legislators. Many of us recall early childhood as a time when we were more fully there and present in mind and body in the moments of our lives. We had heightened senses, we were more open-minded, we were more accepting of new experiences and of others unlike ourselves, and we were more curious and more creative.”
“Last Friday marked a full year since the Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill published its report, setting out a series of important recommendations to improve the rights of people with mental health problems detained under the Mental Health Act 1983. In that time, there have been 51,312 detentions under the Act, according to NHS statistics published this morning. Despite repeated promises, we have still not had a response from the Government, who will say only that we will get an opportunity to debate any Bill when parliamentary time allows. Will the Leader of the House please allow parliamentary time for that vital legislation as an urgent priority, to protect some of our most vulnerable constituents?”
“Q8. I have been contacted by desperate constituents who have rung every single pharmacy within a 50-mile radius of Warrington and still have not been able to access their medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. This has been going on for months, and it is not just a Warrington issue: pharmacists are calling it the worst shortage ever, with only 11% of people able to access their full dose this month. ADHD UK has called the Government’s response “pathetic”. It is right, isn’t it?”
“Following the recent state visit from the Korean President, when he identified nuclear as one of the key sectors for future collaboration in the UK-Korea trade deal, and the publication—albeit two years later than promised—of the civil nuclear road map last week, could the Minister please detail what conversations are taking place with the Department for Business and Trade to maximise inward investment opportunities for the nuclear supply chain in Warrington North and across the UK?”
“As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on nuclear energy, I warmly welcome today’s publication of the long-awaited civil nuclear road map, in particular the exploration of alternative routes to market for SMRs and AMRs outside the Great British Nuclear scheme. On the delivery of large-scale projects, I am curious to know why the road map states on page 20 that the Government will need to wait for the Sizewell C final investment decision before they can set out timelines and processes for a new large-scale project in the UK. That formal work and engagement in the Minister’s team need not wait on the work of another team over which he does not have control or oversight. In the spirit of speeding up delivery, might he begin this work now in readiness for maximising the time we have left before 2050 to get this done?”
“Thankfully, for everyone’s sake, I think it safe to say that we are both far too busy for the foreseeable future, but perhaps there is another way in which the kind of love that we both have, and our wider community has, for Jewishness, and our pride in being part of the Jewish story, can be brought to as wide an audience as possible so we can all share in it together—and what better way to start than with a dedicated Jewish history month?”
“Indeed, what has become a running joke with my friend Jonny Newton—occurring on so many occasions that I worry that we are willing it into reality—is the idea of starting a podcast called “Spicy Talmud”, in which we would explore the volume-collecting centuries of rabbinic discussion on not just every single worthy topic one could possibly conceive of, but the more esoteric questions and the sometimes bizarre stories that are recounted about whistling frogs, weasels bringing chametz from house to house, snakes going where they shouldn’t, and wine-drinking she-dogs.”
“While small in number, British Jews have certainly made an impact on wrestling here in the UK and overseas. In the hope that this will be the kind of debate that we will see much more in the future, I will not go through all the APPGs and committees in which I take part through a Jewish lens, although that would demonstrate the number of areas in the Jewish contribution to British life—of which there are so many, beyond those that are established or widely understood—that a Jewish history month could explore.”
“Examples are WWE’s head of external affairs, TNA’s PR man, All Elite Wrestling’s press lead—although he is in the United States—the global Jewish wrestling superstar MJF, and the ring announcer Justin Roberts. Israel’s best-known wrestling promoter, Gery Roif, came to Britain and visited the House recently. There are others here at home, such as Emily Read, co-founder of the all-women’s promotion Pro-Wrestling: Eve, and Adam Cailler, who writes about wrestling for the Daily Star following his stint at the Jewish Telegraph . There is also the wrestling photographer Oli Sandler, and Danny Stone, the secretariat to both the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism and the APPG on wrestling, is well known across the House both for his expertise in antisemitism and in wrestling.”
“He even once wrestled at a Jewish Lads’ and Girls’ Brigade camp in Essex, an event organised by, among others, Neil Martin and Robert Rams, two Jewish wrestling fans. Dar was followed in the main event of the second ever JLGB wrestling extravaganza by Simon Miller, who hosts the shows of the UK independent promotion Progress, but has also wrestled across the country. Other British wrestlers and former wrestlers with Jewish links include “The Chutzpah” Lior Ben-David, Aviv Maayan and Max “Voltage” Olesker, of the comedy duo Max & Ivan—of course, there are numerous British comedians who are Jewish or have Jewish roots. British Jews are also proudly involved in other areas of the wrestling world.”
“As a British Jew and, of course, a member of the all-party parliamentary groups relevant to our community, I am also a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on wrestling. Thanks to the historian Bradley Craig, I know of “Jewish Flash” Al Lipman from Aldgate, who was an immensely popular lightweight wrestling star in the 1940s. In the wake of the war, there was a major show in Manchester in aid of Jewish charities, in which the “good guy”, who was Jewish, defeated the “bad guy”, who was portraying a Nazi. More recently, we have seen the Jewish global wrestling star Noam Dar, who hails from Ayr in Scotland, wrestles for World Wrestling Entertainment—performing for millions across the world—and has won the NXT heritage cup.”
“Within the Jewish community in the UK are represented a mixture of different denominations, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, practices, histories and languages—and, of course, two of my favourite features of that Jewish diversity: the food and the old adage of “two Jews, three opinions”. With all this to teach and share, our community, tiny in size relative to the population of the UK and the globe, cannot be expected to undertake our endeavours to bring greater awareness alone. I thought it might be illustrative for the House if, in demonstrating that every part of British history and culture is also Jewish history and culture, I brought together two seemingly unrelated parts of my parliamentary work to highlight the Jewish contribution.”
“A point that I have made on many occasions is that all too often, public understanding of the Jewish community and the issues that matter to us will be limited to antisemitism and the UK’s relationship with Israel, and knowledge of Jewish history will largely be limited to the holocaust. That is not for a second to diminish the importance of those three topics, but to make the case for the fact that Jewish history, Jewish culture and tradition and the Jewish contribution to Britain constitute a much richer tapestry, and we can all benefit from a much deeper understanding of it.”
“I welcome the additional funding for the CST as a result of the latest increases in antisemitic incidents, but there is much more that the Government could do here. There is also more that we can do with schools around education about the Jewish community. With the Jewish community as small as we are, it cannot be left to us to educate others about Jewish life and our common humanity to build that understanding. I hope and pray that we will see peace in Israel and Gaza speedily, but ensuring that our vibrant and multicultural society is one in which all our constituents can feel safe is something that we must be proactive about. Our interventions and focus as Parliament in this area cannot be led by events overseas.”
“While he was filming me—he later posted the video online—he made repeated references to me being part of a Jewish and Masonic conspiracy to commit genocide against Catholics and Muslims and shouted at me that I was a murderer. Thankfully, my team intervened and the police were nearby, so things did not escalate to where they so easily could have. Nevertheless, it left me shaken on that day and has led me to feel less safe when out and about, and to take additional measures for my physical safety. Ultimately, hatred is only defeated by solidarity. We have some incredible local initiatives to build relationships between communities, which are more important now than ever, but constraints on local government finance mean that some of the more targeted support that can make the most difference is under-resourced.”
“The hon. Member for West Bromwich East made specific reference to antisemitism online, which it is vital to mention. Twitter, or X, in particular, has mainstreamed antisemitism. The number of times I have reported objectively antisemitic tweets, with posters and names that specifically reference nazi ideology, only to get an email back saying the tweets have not broken any of the website’s rules since Elon Musk’s takeover is, frankly, staggering. More must be done to hold tech companies accountable for the hate that is peddled on their platforms. Antisemitism online is bad enough; it not only has an insidious impact on the individuals to whom it is directed, but poisons the overall atmosphere of those sites. However, the online sphere does not stay online. Recently, I was accosted by a man on the street.”
“The war in Ukraine has also led to an uptick in the conspiratorial filth I have received and seen online, in part due to the Jewish faith of Volodymyr Zelensky, but also the offensive denazification pretext for invasion by Russia. I had wrongly thought that this sort of conspiratorial nonsense was on the wane after covid and the George Soros and 5G conspiracies, but they have now been replaced by nonsense about Rothschilds, satanists and Putin propaganda. I pay tribute to CST, which is such an invaluable resource to our community and to me personally, providing practical and moral support when things are at their most difficult. I also pay tribute to Warrington Borough Council, which has always acted speedily in clearing up the incidents of antisemitic graffiti we have reported, including the swastikas recently daubed on local playparks.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards) for bringing forward this important debate at such a critical time. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who is a member of the same synagogue as me, and with whom I have enjoyed mixing Hanukkah cocktails in the past. As a proudly Jewish parliamentarian, this is an issue that has significance both to my constituents, of all faiths and none, and to me personally. The devastating attack on 7 October had a far-reaching impact on the Jewish community in the UK, not least because its scale means that most of us are only one degree of separation from someone killed, taken hostage or otherwise impacted, as well as the huge surge in antisemitism that has so shamefully followed the attack.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely correct that there have been some unintended consequences from that legislation, which were warned about. The very people that it sought to stop from coming on to campus have in fact been protected on campus. That is something we need to look at again. Hon. and right hon. Members have picked up on a number of points in this debate, which I hope will help us to ensure that, as we tear antisemitism out of our society by its roots, we plant something better and more hopeful in its place. This is a good place to start.”
“There has been no progress since October, despite the best efforts of the school and myself to raise it with the relevant officials. Will the Leader of the House please intervene and ensure that the Prime Minister’s promise is upheld?”
“Back in February, the Prime Minister made a personal commitment to me on the Floor of the House that support would be made available for the bereaved classmates of Brianna Ghey. It was agreed in June between No. 10, the Treasury, the Department for Education and Birchwood Community High School that it would take the form of a package of funding for the school to cover the cost of mental health professionals working with students and staff. It is now December, the trial in the national media spotlight is causing enormous welfare pressures in the school community, and the funding has still not been received because the DFE is saying that, despite the funding being approved, it cannot work out whose budget it should be taken from.”
“The Leader of the House has assured the House time and again that it is the intention of the House of Commons Commission and herself to bring forward measures on risk-based exclusions, which we were meant to debate before the summer recess. It is now November. I am sure the right hon. Lady is bored of being asked this question, but not as bored as I am of having to keep asking it. With yet more recent reports alleging serious misconduct while measures to address them appear to be kicked into the long grass, when will time be found to discuss how to ensure Parliament is a safe workplace and to restore our reputation with the public?”
“As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on nuclear energy, I hear that one of the biggest barriers to nuclear is not the investment that the Secretary of State talks about but planning and people. What will she do on that? I have not heard anything so far in what has been proposed to stop things such as judicial reviews going in to stop nuclear power stations being built.”
“If we are to maximise the potential of this Session, there are, as I have said, plenty of areas in which we can co-operate on a cross-party basis to do so, even if the King’s Speech itself missed the opportunity to set out a robust and ambitious framework for that purpose. With another year of more of the same, my constituents and I will be left wondering why this Government are so determined to cling to power to deliver so little, when Labour is ready and waiting to give Britain its future back.”
“As a member of the Business and Trade Committee, frustrated, like many of my fellow members, by a lack of parliamentary scrutiny on trade, I would like to ask whether the Government have ensured that Parliament will have had the opportunity to debate the CPTPP trade agreement, and to vote on a substantive motion on the terms of our accession, before the Bill comes to the House. I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to the Gracious Speech. I hope, perhaps naively, that its thinness will be corrected in the autumn statement with funded measures to help my constituents with the cost of living and the construction of a new hospital in Warrington, and to support the greening and growing of our economy locally and nationally as a priority. Let us not waste the opportunity to make progress in the time that we have left.”
“But the focus in the King’s Speech on oil and gas when new legislation is not actually needed to achieve the Government’s stated aims, in an attempt to use energy as a wedge issue, is beneath the Government when there is so much more we could be doing to accelerate new nuclear, renewables and hydrogen, which has not been prioritised in the same way in the parliamentary time that this will consume. I am somewhat bemused by the prominence given to the Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill in the King’s Speech, given that CPTPP membership is projected to add just 0.06% to Britain’s long-term GDP—welcome, of course, though any boost to the economy is.”
“Again, those measures had cross-party support, as well as widespread support from the animal welfare charity sector. I have had thousands upon thousands of items of constituency correspondence about animal welfare. I implore the Government: help us to help you make some progress, and bring more measures forward. For the sake of brevity, and because the points have been made so cogently by colleagues on both sides of the House—including my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband); the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), who, to his credit, was not just reading from the CCHQ brief; and my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson)—I will simply point to how much willingness there is to co-operate on making the UK a clean energy superpower.”
“The Department for Work and Pensions loses 70% of cases that it rejects on appeal, and in about 91% of those cases the claimant has won without any new evidence being provided. Getting the process right would mean that those who need help were not subjected to a dehumanising and often arbitrary process to secure the help to which they are entitled, and that valuable civil service time was not spent fighting clearly legitimate claimants. Surely that is something that all of us can agree should be a priority. Despite reassurances that the measures in the dropped Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill would be returning, only one element of it was included as the sole animal welfare measure in the planned Bills announced for this Session, with other manifesto commitments left outstanding.”
“One of my constituents emailed me recently to say that he had not been able to receive PIP in the years since his diagnosis, despite the additional costs associated with his disability—which is exactly what PIP is meant to help people with. He wrote: “I have to use crutches everywhere I go. My wife is an unpaid carer. I work from home and although I earn a wage, I feel like the application process is blaming me for having this disease. The condition can result in one day a change in my physical appearance, speech and completing simple day to day activities. Then the next day I can do the normal things and routines that people take for granted. MS is unpredictable hourly and at a moment’s notice”. His experience is sadly not unique.”
“If the Government are worried about a row with some of the crank elements within their own party, they can be assured that Labour Members will help to ensure that a Bill passes on to the statute book, thus securing the protection of some of the most vulnerable members of the LGBT community. There was also nothing in the King’s Speech about a review leading to reform of personal independence payments, despite the fact that, 10 years since its introduction, the flaws in the scheme are well known and have a real impact on people who need support. People with multiple sclerosis and many other conditions are routinely failed by PIP assessments because their symptoms fluctuate from day to day.”
“After more than six years of work and engagement and cross-party support for change, not only is mental health reform not a priority for the remainder of this Parliament, but the lack of its inclusion in the King’s Speech means that it is now highly unlikely that the legislation will be passed before a general election. Too many in this place, and in Government, seem to view mental health as something abstract that happens to other people. It is not good enough. Another stark omission—I have had hundreds of emails from constituents about this, and it has broad cross-party support—is a ban on the abhorrent practice of so-called conversion therapy.”
“It will be helpful if I set out the background. The Government announced an independent review of the Mental Health Act in 2017. The review completed its findings in 2018, and the Government published their response in the form of a White Paper in 2021. In 2022, they followed up the White Paper with a draft Mental Health Bill, on which pre-legislative scrutiny began last year. The Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill published a report on its findings in January 2023. It is easy to understand why all those mental health charities such as Mind, patient advocacy groups and people with lived experience of our broken mental health system view the Bill’s exclusion from the King’s Speech as such a kick in the teeth.”
“I hear of young people languishing on child and adolescent mental health services waiting lists for years, only to drop back down to the bottom of the list—the adult list—when they turn 18. I hear of suicidal people finding themselves criminalised during their attempts to end their own lives, and of people who are told that they are not suicidal enough to access any support. I hear of specialist treatment for conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder being unavailable, or only accessible privately at huge cost. And I hear of the shameful ongoing detention of autistic people and those with learning disabilities, who would be better cared for and supported in the community. Harm is perpetuated every day that the outdated and unfit Mental Health Act 1983 remains on the statute book without reform.”
“Of course I hope we will see a change of Government at that election, but my constituents cannot wait for a change of Government. I remain as willing as I have always been to work across parties on the issues that affect them now to help them now, but trying to make meaningful change on the issues on which we do have cross-party consensus does not seem to be on the Government’s agenda. The starkest example of that is the mental health Bill that was so shamefully missing from the King’s speech. Mental health is one of the issues about which I am contacted most frequently, and it comes up at every single weekly surgery and event that I hold in Warrington North, whether it involves carers, scouts, sports clubs, veterans’ groups, schools or faith groups. I have heard so many harrowing stories about how so many are being let down.”
“I hope we can address those issues when they come before the House for debate to ensure that we get it right. The independent regulator for football is also long overdue, and warmly welcomed. So the King’s Speech is not all bad. In fact, my largest criticism is its thinness. Even if we choose to ignore—as the Prime Minister conveniently does—the previous 12 years of Tory Government, with all the chaos of the last year in the House and in Whitehall, with the succession of different Prime Ministers, Secretaries of State and other Ministers cycling in and out of Departments, we have seen a year of inertia on some of the biggest issues facing our communities and our country. This King’s Speech was an opportunity for the Government to show real ambition and purpose in the time that we have left before an election.”
“The King’s Speech was interesting as much for what was in it as what was not. I welcome the announcement of measures to ensure that violent sex offenders serve their full sentence behind bars, for example. In fact, that was my ask in my first Prime Minister’s question, three Prime Ministers and four Home Secretaries ago, in March 2020. I hope the Government will focus on delivering the prison places we need for that commitment to be worth the paper it is written on, given our current context. The announcement on leasehold reform is also something I have been calling for since I was elected. It will be warmly welcomed by many of my constituents who are affected, although we see that the proposals will not include new flats and it is unclear what they mean for retirement properties and park homes.”
“I thank the Minister for giving way. She referred earlier to the politicisation of energy. Unfortunately, the Secretary of State inadvertently misled the House in her own opening remarks with the comments she made about Warrington Council’s exposure in the administration of Together Energy. The £37 million bill she quoted is entirely wrong, something I have had confirmed as one of Warrington’s MPs. Will the Minister take the opportunity to correct the record on behalf of the Secretary of State?”
“We know how vital rail infrastructure is for economic growth, connectivity and inward investment. Eighty-five per cent of the projects announced in Network North were previously promised, committed to or subject to approval. If those projects have not been delivered in the 13 years that this rabble have had in government, why should my constituents trust that this is not a case of the north, yet again, having to choose and getting neither, while London gets HS1, HS2, Crossrail 1, Crossrail 2 and a fully integrated and Department for Transport-subsidised public transport system?”
“Q4. This morning, I hosted the MS Society and people living with multiple sclerosis to hear about their experiences accessing personal independence payment. Ten years on from its introduction, people with MS and other fluctuating conditions are still too often being denied the support they deserve to manage the extra costs of their condition and to retain their independence for longer. Some 22,524 people with MS have signed a petition calling for a full review of PIP for fluctuating conditions, which is on its way to Downing Street right now. Will the Prime Minister listen to their call?”
“Mr Speaker, “No stone can remain unturned in finding a political solution.” Those are not my words, but those of the Israeli and Arab mothers’ collective Woman Wage Peace, echoed in recent days by survivors from Kibbutz Be’eri, the family of those murdered at Netiv Ha’Asara, organisations such as B’Tselem, Omdim Ben Yachad, and thousands of peace activists and ordinary Israelis who are desperately praying for the cycle of violence to end and a lasting peace to be secured. What will the Government be doing to heed that call and mobilise international actors to find the political solution, however far away it feels right now, so that there may be a way out of the nightmare that Hamas has unleashed for all in Israel, Palestine and the wider region for good?”