Helen Morgan
MP for North Shropshire · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“West Mercia police have changed the hours of police community support officers, introducing an 8 pm finish in order to save money. Unsurprisingly, that has led to an increase in antisocial behaviour in my constituency after 8 pm.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Jane Austen’s Mr Knightley said: “Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very positive curse”. But it seems to me that Royal Mail very much treats letters as a matter of indifference, and that is causing a huge problems for my constituents, such as those who have missed NHS letters, as has been discussed, and the farm…”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It set a dangerous precedent for future deals, as we have seen with the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership. Farmers have felt increasingly under threat.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Three minutes is not a long time to represent over 1,000 North Shropshire farmers, many of whom have been in touch with me in the wake of the shambles of the second window of SFI 2026. John, who farms in Whitchurch, was distraught when he contacted me after he was unable to get on to the latest iteration of the scheme.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Hardworking farmers cannot afford to take huge chunks of time out of the day to sit and watch a computer screen that won’t load.” This total disregard for, and failure to understand, agricultural life and business did not start with this Government.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Another family farming in Weston Lullingfields watched the website repeatedly crash as the funding was scooped up, leaving them with nothing. What is most frustrating to farmers is that everybody could see this disaster coming from a good country mile away.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“In ophthalmology, private providers do thousands of cataract operations very efficiently, but the less exciting and more critical work of preventing people from going blind, which is done in NHS hospitals, is under threat because so many people want to work in easy and profitable areas. I am concerned that that will occur in more areas of the NHS if the Bill allows more privatisation. Although I do not have an ideological problem with the NHS contracting out to private providers—that has worked well to bring down elective waiting lists, for example—the provisions to protect the mix are important. I am not sure that amendment 53 really moves us forward; it just requires the Secretary of State to consider who benefits from the change in mix.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Roger. I have concerns similar to those of the shadow Minister about clause 10. Proposed new section 12E allows Ministers to vary the proportion of activity by provider, and I am interested in the rationale behind that. The powers to retain the provider mix were put in place because of concerns that the NHS would be privatised by the back door, so the requirement to maintain the mix is there for a reason. As we heard earlier when discussing ophthalmology, there are risks to using private provision for certain NHS activities, as there can be unintended consequences—a bit like the deregulation of buses.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman outlines an unintended consequence of the NHS contracting out to private providers. There are ways to get the pricing of those services right, but the clause could introduce that unintended consequence. Why is this proposal included in the Bill, and what does the Minister see it being used for? Is there a risk that a future Government might use it to bring much more privatisation into the NHS? The general public consensus is that that would be a bad thing. What safeguards can she put in place to ensure that does not happen?”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“How can we be sure that that will actually happen on the ground, and that ICBs, hospital trusts and other health trusts will have the opportunity to flex their local muscle and ensure that services are best shaped for the local population? The NHS Alliance has called for an operationally independent regulatory function in DHSC to oversee NHS organisations, or for an independent panel to make appointments. Will the Minister consider such practical changes to ensure that political capture is not an unintended consequence of the Bill?”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If we imagine for a moment that an incoming Government decided that they did not approve of diversity on an NHS board, for example, and replaced an executive with their own candidate, that would be a horrifying situation. I think we would all agree on that. It would be useful to include safeguards now and set a precedent that such action would not be acceptable under this Bill. Notwithstanding the fact that a future Government could come along and change that, they would have to be transparent about their reasons for doing so. The former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Ilford North, claimed that he was taking powers back into DHSC in order to give them away to the system, but this Bill has a lot on taking those powers and very little on giving them to the system.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have discussed the reality that current Parliaments cannot bind future ones, and I take that point on board. However, current Parliaments do set precedents and establish the legal frameworks within which future Governments initially operate until they change the law. With the potential for more extreme Governments, there is a risk of discrimination and political considerations entering what should be clinical decision making—for example, decisions on whether to place a trust into special measures or what services are offered, such as sexual health, IVF, outreach to migrant communities and so on. We are concerned not about the current Secretary of State, or indeed the shadow Secretary of State, but about the risk of those sweeping powers being placed in the hands of an extreme Government.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“NHS leaders argued that this would mitigate the risk of direct political control of the service and pointed out that the 10 regional strategic health authorities had played a useful role in running the service efficiently before the creation of NHSE. That proposal was rejected by Ministers, and it is not entirely clear why. I am interested to hear the Minister’s view on that. It is now being reported that a fresh attempt is being made to argue that regional teams should be hosted by an NHS organisation—probably an ICB—to protect their employment terms and, as staff would remain public rather than civil servants, provide some brake on political control. Can the Minister shed any light on all this? Does she recognise the importance of maintaining operational freedom in NHS decision making?”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I mentioned in Committee last Thursday that the Liberal Democrats are worried about the risk in the Bill of political capture and the Secretary of State’s ability to meddle in day-to-day operations. As I am sure the Minister is aware, speaking at the NHS ConfedExpo this month, Sir Jim Mackey, the chief executive officer of NHS England, warned that the Bill may give Ministers too much control and that there has to be operational freedom; otherwise we will grind to a halt. I want to probe the process by which we got to this point. Originally, there was discussion about whether the seven NHS regional teams should become independent arm’s length bodies to mitigate such a risk.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I could not agree more with the Minister that when there is an obvious failure, either in a local system or in a trust, we would hope that the Secretary of State will intervene. She will know from our experience in Shropshire that, when a system is failing or underperforming, that intervention is welcome. But the Bill gives the Secretary of State power to intervene even when things are going well, which is quite an extension of power. Will the Minister comment on that?”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Schools in North Shropshire received an average of £6,460 a head last year, compared with a national average of around £7,910. Outcomes at GCSE and key stage 4 are consistently lower than the national average. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss what resources can be put in place to improve outcomes for children in North Shropshire?”
House of Commons22 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), to pause the Pathways clinical trial while concerns raised by the MHRA were thoroughly addressed. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether the MHRA has confirmed that the concerns that led to the withdrawal of the trial have been substantially addressed, and how many children are expected to take part in the trial now that its parameters have been altered?”
House of Commons22 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We agree that treatment should first be based on talking therapies, so that patients are given the space and support that they need, but it is crucial that young people can start those therapies as a matter of urgency, not after years of delay. Decisions about these young patients’ futures should be made in an informed way, with expert clinicians and based on the best possible evidence, which the NHS must build up safely and effectively. We support prioritising clinical evidence, so that patients’ interests are put at the heart of decision making in all areas of healthcare. Guidance and decisions around puberty blockers must be led by experts and clinical evidence, and not influenced by ideological opinion. That is why we supported the decision of the former Secretary of State, the right hon.”
House of Commons22 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. The Liberal Democrats have long highlighted the need for better access to specialist healthcare for children and young people struggling with gender identity. The closure of the Tavistock clinic and its inadequate rating by the Care Quality Commission demonstrated that urgent change was needed. Young people struggling with gender identity face serious challenges. They have been badly let down for years by low care standards and extremely long waiting lists. On top of that, they have to contend with a toxic public debate, which comes at a huge cost to their wellbeing at a particularly vulnerable stage in their life. The average three-year wait for a young person to see a specialist can be extremely harmful at such a vulnerable age.”
House of Commons22 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Tackling health inequalities is the priority of everybody in this Room, and we need to ensure that we have an efficient structure in place to ensure that it happens.”
House of Commons18 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have had eight Health Secretaries in the past 10 years. After all that swapping and changing, how can the Minister ensure a degree of continuity when the new Secretary of State takes over? One benefit of quangos is continuity over a long time, divorced from the political turmoil of Westminster. We must be clear about how distractions will be avoided in the new structure. Finally, we heard in evidence on Tuesday that the new structure feels like a centralisation of power in Whitehall, when what is needed is more power devolved down to local level so that local services can be shaped to reflect the demographics that they serve and to address the important point of health inequality. Will the Minister explain why she is confident that measures to ensure local accountability and local shaping of services will be able to go ahead?”
House of Commons18 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We found reorganisation hugely distracting; it took away from our ability to do our day jobs well. Then, within a couple of years, a lot of the equivalent roles were re-hired and we were back to square one. It is critical that the Government avoid that scenario in this big reorganisation of the NHS. I hope that the Minister can provide reassurance that it has been well thought through and that we will not find ourselves, two or three years down the line, with similar numbers of people replicating the roles that exist currently, following a huge distraction that resulted in no improvement in patient outcome or experience. My questions are fairly limited. Does the Minister know, at this point, what the impact the reorganisation has had on the system and how much it has cost in secondary impacts?”
House of Commons18 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“At this stage, as we start to consider the legislation, it would be helpful to have clarity on who will be in charge of the NHS and how the layers below will be organised. We have also heard that hours of staff time, leadership focus and money have been directed away from frontline services. In the oral evidence session, Sarah Woolnough of the King’s Fund and Jon Restell of the Managers in Partnership union suggested that that has been distracting and that, in any body, a significant reorganisation has an opportunity cost. In my previous life, I was an accountant at Centrica plc—one of those back-office checkers everybody wants to get rid of, but who turns out to be quite important in providing the information that enables the business to run smoothly.”
House of Commons18 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It has taken a long time even for the Treasury to agree on the funding of the redundancy bill. We have found out that redundancy costs of £800 million will be taken out of the future operating costs of the NHS. I hope that the Minister will describe how that will be delivered to ensure that the costs do not detract from patient care on the frontline. There is still some uncertainty about the new structures within the DHSC and NHSE reorganisation. We have heard that the previously announced plan for three top-level roles—a permanent secretary, a chief medical officer and an NHS chief executive officer—might be changed, and that there is a proposal to merge the permanent secretary and NHS CEO roles.”
House of Commons18 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That may not seem like a huge risk considering who the current Secretary of State and shadow Secretary of State are, but given the febrile political atmosphere that we are working in, it seems a poor time to give a Secretary of State sweeping operational powers over the detailed functioning of the NHS, with few checks and balances. I will speak about the most concerning elements and make the argument in greater detail when we debate cause 11. As the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham said, the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Ilford North, said that top-down reorganisation of the NHS was the last thing he wanted to do, and yet that is where we find ourselves today. It feels as if the plan has been pulled together very quickly, and that it has been complex to turn into a piece of workable legislation.”
House of Commons18 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Liberal Democrats broadly support the abolition of NHS England. As constituency MPs and users of the NHS, we see a huge amount of duplication and unnecessary bureaucracy as our local health organisations try to navigate the processes of securing capital investment, for example. Reducing duplication between the Department and NHS England is clearly welcome if done well, but we have concerns about the way in which that is being undertaken. We think that this centralising process, under which the Secretary of State takes on more powers, risks political capture.”
House of Commons18 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When I was speaking to people, I found some fantastic examples of different healthwatch organisations across the country, but that is not at all consistent and they are often too far removed from what is actually happening in terms of day-to-day services to have a significant impact on improving patient experience.”
House of Commons16 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They all have considerable teams of people who are doing that—speaking to different members of society and conducting usually frequent events to get input and hear what people are looking for from their health and care services. When they are looking to design particular services, whether mental health services or children’s services, they go much deeper into that and speak to specific groups, often involving the providers as well. Those mechanisms are already embedded within ICBs, but we need to continue to ensure that they do those as well as they can.”
House of Commons16 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They need to get way better at collecting patient experience, they need to understand it from different groups, wards and medical teams, and they need to be playing that back. Ideally, that should be part of everyone’s appraisals: “Here’s the sort of feedback that we’ve had. Here’s what we’ve heard. Here’s how we’re acting on that.” We need to put that in the places where healthcare is delivered, and that is in those provider organisations. The ICBs have a different role, which is to commission healthcare services in order to improve health and ensure high-quality care, and it is their responsibility to speak to communities.”
House of Commons16 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q I should have declared that I am a member of the patient safety APPG. Let me turn to similar concerns about Healthwatch and its independence. If it is absorbed within ICBs locally or within the Department of Health at a national level, do you have concerns that those organisations will essentially be marking their own homework rather than listening to impartially collected evidence about patient experience? Dr Dash : I will talk first about providers and then about the commissioners, the payers, the ICBs. We absolutely should expect all providers—GP practices, community trusts, hospital trusts—to see patient experience as a crucial part of their role and not to outsource it to someone else; it has to be a crucial part of what they do.”
House of Commons16 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The effectiveness comes back to whether you believe this is a good thing. One of the things we have to do is secure that the benefits of having the patient voice in there, along with the clinical voice and the voice of the manager, at the same time, so that it is not a case of saying, “Oh, now we’ll go and consult the patients on the font size of the report,” but is authentic. That puts a lot of work on to the ICBs and on to those of us who believe passionately in engaging with the patient voice, but there is a risk because of that pressure. Done well, it will enable strategic commissioning and ensure the quality remains, but they are starting, if maybe not from scratch, from a new place.”
House of Commons16 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This function has been slightly outside and independent, playing back into decisions; we have to ensure that the level of independence remains somehow in how this is constructed, but that the variability is not just transferred from local healthwatches to how it is done within or across ICBs. Again, the implementation will need to be done well. That leads into the question about local authorities and the connection with them, making sure the democratic voice is brought in and equally the local voice. The legislation does not stop an ICB doing this well. Therefore, without the legislation, part of what we can be doing collectively is trying to make sure that what was good about healthwatches is preserved and is understood by ICBs. There are only 25 of them, so it should be a manageable task for the rest of us.”
House of Commons16 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q I am a member of the all-party parliamentary group on patient safety and I am also a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Can I ask about Healthwatch? We heard this morning that ICBs will be taking on a chunk of the current operations of local healthwatches, but that they will not have any additional budget to enable them to do that. In fact, we know that their budgets have been significantly reduced. Could you elaborate on how you think that will work, and will it be as effective as the current system? Sir Ciarán Devane: The ICBs have a capitation fee of £19.40, which they have to do everything out of. This is an additional duty placed on them. They will have to work out how to do it if there is no extra money coming, but it will be pressured. I hear the argument that local healthwatches were variable.”
House of Commons16 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am really concerned that that will become even more problematic because they cannot work together, given that we are not a combined mayoral authority, that we will not have a mayor sitting on our ICB and that our ICB merged footprint does not fit with our local authority geography. How can the health and wellbeing boards work between the two organisations to deliver good social care?”
House of Commons16 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q I am a vice-president of the LGA, and I am also on the all-party parliamentary patient safety group, just to declare that interest up front. I will use the example of my own local authority, Shropshire, which is a unitary authority. It is extremely financially challenged and operates with an ICB in a similar situation. The hand-off that Sally described between continuing healthcare and provision of social care is really problematic because neither organisation really wants to pay for the care for the people who need it because they do not have the funds. It is a really tense relationship between the two.”
House of Commons16 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A couple of weeks ago at my constituency surgery, I met my first victim of FirstPort. He and his wife live in a sheltered accommodation flat on the third floor, and the lift has been out of use for months. They are paying exorbitant management fees, and recently his wife had to negotiate three flights of stairs to get to an appointment while on bottled oxygen. This is not just a rip-off, but an accident waiting to happen. Will the Minister meet me and other concerned MPs to sort out what we can do about FirstPort?”
House of Commons15 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It contains no specific, measurable, time-bound target to reduce the backlogs in endometriosis care, nor does the NHS 10-year plan include endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome or fibroids in its prevention agenda. Can the Secretary of State explain why?”
House of Commons9 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), recognised an appalling culture of medical misogyny and basic, everyday sexism within the NHS. As such, it was extremely disappointing to see that the new women’s health strategy was inferior to the men’s health strategy. The men’s health strategy received 60% more funding for new initiatives and has a named academic network, a formal research mandate aligned with the National Institute for Health and Care Research, and a commitment to publish a one-year accountability report with named, responsible organisations and formal timeframes for every action. It also commits specific funding to trials and pathfinders. As it stands, the women’s health strategy has none of those things.”
House of Commons9 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A damning report by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has estimated that more than 15,800 deaths were associated with long waits in emergency departments in 2025—I think we all agree that figure is an outrage—but the Government still have not published reliable data on long waits and corridor care despite promising to do so by the end of May. Will the Secretary of State tell the House what the Government are trying to hide? Will they adopt Liberal Democrat calls to end corridor care within a year by freeing up beds throughout hospitals and in social care to end the blight of excess deaths in overcrowded accident and emergency departments?”
House of Commons9 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I found a really rare thing in Shopshire last week: a new entrant to the dairy sector. However, like lots of small dairy farmers, it is under immense pressure from much bigger companies, whether that is Bute Energy, which is trying to destroy a big chunk of its grassland by planting pylons and an access road though it, or the big supermarkets buying its products at a loss. Can we have a debate in Government time on support for the dairy sector in the light of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report’s recommendation that the Groceries Code Adjudicator and the supply code of practice be strengthened?”
House of Commons4 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The replacement of council representation with mayors is extremely problematic for the many areas that do not have a mayor, and it removes the local accountability needed to ensure true community representation. Like so much Labour policy, such changes risk benefiting concentrated urban areas, while letting down rural communities such as those I represent.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Meanwhile, the removal of the integrated care partnership and the extension of ICBs to cover multiple local authorities raises unanswered questions about the future of social care planning. In Shropshire, the council already spends around 80% of its budget on social care provision. That has a monumental impact on all services, as constant savings have to be found. Removing the pooling of the better care fund among local authorities and ICBs will discourage integrated working between these bodies on social care. Given existing complications over the sharing of costs and social care provision, the chaos of that reorganisation may only exacerbate confusion. It is also astounding that the Bill plans to remove the duty of GP representation on ICBs, along with local authorities and NHS trusts.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Instead of the Government’s advertised aim of creating a more community-based NHS, the Bill centralises power in Whitehall, giving sweeping Henry VIII-style powers to the Secretary of State. Such powers carry a real risk that political considerations could influence what should be operational decisions about how the NHS provides for patients in future. That is particularly concerning in the current febrile political climate, and the Government must ensure that protections are in place for what may happen in the future. The Government have made 50% cuts to ICBs, but the Bill gives them new legal responsibilities, different structures and centrally directed spending objectives. It is indicative of a lack of planning that could plunge ICBs into chaos.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A real NHS reform Bill would have changes to social care, general practice and prevention at its heart. Instead, this Bill passes responsibilities around Whitehall, centralising more power with the Secretary of State, while chaos reigns following 50% cuts to ICB budgets. Early in his term, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) promised that another top-down reorganisation of the NHS was the last thing he wanted to do. Yet the abolition of NHS England is exactly that—focusing on reorganisation at the top, while failing to deliver real improvements for patients and staff. It is true that NHS England has allowed Ministers to shirk responsibility and accountability, but its abolition has been poorly planned, leaving both ICBs and specialised commissioning in chaos.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They promised to treat mental health with parity, but although mental health accounts for 20% of the disease burden, its share of NHS budgets is falling to just 8.4%. The Government promised to protect women’s health, but the women’s health strategy published this year was significantly weaker than the men’s health strategy, which received 60% more funding for new research. Healthy life expectancy in the UK is stagnating, and adult social care is under ever more pressure, putting immense stress on the budgets of councils and other local authorities. The reality in rural North Shropshire is that people struggle to get GP appointments, 12-hour waits in A&E have become normal and finding an NHS dentist is becoming impossible. The social care crisis has left Shropshire council’s finances in a dire situation.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I start by declaring an interest as a member of the all-party group on patient safety and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, and also by welcoming the new Secretary of State to his place. I very much look forward to working constructively with him during the passage of the Bill. We all know that our NHS is in desperate need of transformation. Hospitals are in chaos, social care is overloaded and getting a GP appointment is a huge challenge for many. Labour has promised to put patients and communities at the heart of the NHS, but I fear that the Bill does not fulfil that promise. The Government promised to sort out social care, but two years later they are still only part-way through a three-year review.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This Health Bill could have been a moment for real change. Liberal Democrats are clear about what real modernisation of the NHS would look like. Our vision for a reformed, community-based NHS is one where proper care and restored investment in public health ultimately cut NHS waste and empower people to live healthier and more independent lives. This Bill focuses on shuffling responsibility around Whitehall and gives the Secretary of State the role of chief micromanager. The Government continue to procrastinate over bringing in real change to fix social care, empower patients and save our NHS. In Committee and on Report, Liberal Democrats will use every lever at our disposal to deliver the transformation the NHS so desperately needs.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Liberal Democrat plans will give people control, rooting services in communities, listening to patients and making it much easier to see a GP. We will give patients a right to see a GP within seven days, reverse surgery closures and ensure proper personalised management of chronic conditions and frailty, with guaranteed access to a named GP for those patients. We will also protect the mental health investment standard so that we can rebuild community mental health services—something that this Government have failed to do— empowering individuals with poor mental health by intervening early and allowing them to access care in their community. Our maternity rescue plan will ensure that Britain is the safest country in the world in which to have a baby, offering one-to-one midwifery care and empowering women at this most important moment.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The nation’s health is stagnating, with an ever-widening gap in healthy life expectancy between the country’s most and least deprived areas and growing pressure on adult social care. Fixing social care is fundamental to our vision for the NHS. It is the key to providing a better quality of life for the frail and vulnerable, freeing up hospitals and building independence for an ageing population. It also empowers our constituents to live as independently as possible in their homes and near to their families and communities. We cannot fix the NHS and move care to the community while ignoring social care—yet the Bill ignores it and, as I have outlined, the changes to ICB commissioning will undermine the structures that are supposed to integrate social care with the NHS.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We would introduce a health charter to set out guiding principles for data sharing across the NHS, ensuring that patients are in charge of their own data. The Bill’s references to carers are welcome, as is the Secretary of State’s duty to promote the involvement of carers alongside patients in decision-making around care and commissioning. However, the Bill goes nowhere near tackling the social care crisis and demonstrates a pitiful lack of ambition on one of the biggest challenges we face. As I mentioned, the chaos caused by the restructuring of ICBs will only worsen the challenges that local authorities face in providing care for an increasingly ageing population. We want to transform the NHS so that patients are empowered to live more healthily, for longer and in dignity.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Liberal Democrats welcome the move to create a single patient record; that part of the Bill could prove to be the most transformational for patient experience and, most importantly, for patient outcomes. People are tired of endless NHS admin and of having to reconfirm their medical histories over and over to different medical professionals. Patient harm has often occurred where clinicians have not had a patient’s full medical history, and different parts of the NHS having access to the same patient information is clearly necessary. However, that must come alongside essential new privacy protections and safeguards for patients, particularly given the understandable concerns surrounding Palantir’s involvement with the federated data platform.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In Shropshire more than 200 babies are thought to have died due to maternity failures; in the reviews that followed, the one thing that came up time and again was that grieving parents were not listened to. Patients and their families must have a voice. The new system will give no incentive to investigate such issues, which are invisible in the main performance metrics of the NHS. To see the value of Healthwatch, we need only look at the Cabinet Office King’s Speech briefing for the Bill, which refers to a Healthwatch report from May 2025 on missing medical records in order to make the case for the single patient record. I urge the Government to protect both national Healthwatch and local healthwatch organisations, and the independent whistleblowing routes that empower and advocate for patients.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“More than half of patients who experienced poor care in 2024 did not take any action, with many citing fears that giving negative feedback directly to the NHS might affect their ongoing treatment. That is why it is crucial that we have an independent patient voice, rather than leaving the Department or the ICB to mark its own homework. We need only look at the devastating consequences of the failings uncovered during the Mid Staffordshire scandal, and the long list of maternity failings since, to see how important it is to have Healthwatch exposing challenges in the health service and listening to patient feedback, and how the CQC can fail in that operation.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that I agree with his point. ICBs are already overstretched and underfunded. In North Shropshire, both Shawbury medical practice and Prescott surgery in Baschurch are in desperate need of expansion. Community infrastructure levy money is available and land is earmarked for a new site, but progress is being held up by the ICB’s inability to agree notional rent. That situation is replicated across the country, and there is no sign of such problems being solved by the Government’s changes. The plan to abolish Healthwatch will ultimately strip patients of their voice. There has been a statutory independent patient voice in the health and care system for more than 50 years.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It also really affects how farmers—there are over 1,000 farms in North Shropshire—do their business. Theirs are often the worst-connected properties, but farmers need to be online to deal with the regulatory environment within which they operate, and they might need to use GPS to work their farm machinery. All that is a problem if the digital connectivity is poor.”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need the Government to put in place a regulatory environment for the businesses that connect us digitally to ensure that rural places get the service they need. At the moment, they are being held back by the lack of availability. I will give the House an example. I spoke to a business owner last week—they were actually talking to me about cash and getting to the bank, which I will come to later—who cannot accept payment cards at their premises because they are without a decent signal and any network. They have to give their bank details to their customers, who then go home and make a bank transfer—hopefully. That business is taking on all that risk because it cannot operate a simple swipe-and-pay system. The lack of digital connectivity has that kind of impact on businesses in my area.”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗