Alistair Strathern
MP for Hitchin · Labour · United Kingdom
“I think the Conservatives are being slightly cheeky in skirting the fact that the plans we inherited from them would have seen a huge cliff-edge increase in business rates. The many financial pressures that we have had to juggle since coming into government have meant that it has been challenging to balance things.”
“I am grateful for the protestations from the Front Bench. Those jobs were also crucial in starting to form my politics. In both settings, I was incredibly lucky to work with some fantastic colleagues.”
“I am very proud to have supported the Government’s jobs guarantee, and of the wider work that we are doing to ensure that employers in my community and right across the country are practically and financially incentivised to bring young people into the world of work and supported to train them up, so that those young people can benefit fr…”
“That is why, many years down the line, I am proud to be part of a Labour Government who are delivering a record expansion of workplace rights through the Employment Rights Act 2025, and why the fundamental vision of protecting workers and ensuring a minimum social contract for those working hard for their families and doing right by their…”
“Maybe it is because, much as they like to complain about the implications of our policies, they begrudgingly recognise that in the incredibly difficult circumstances that we inherited, both those choices may well have been right. I look forward to a Conservative Member proving me wrong.”
“It reflected how they felt in their communities, and how they felt they were treated at school. Putting that right requires a continued focus on curriculum reform and place-based investment, but I would like the Government to go further in embracing the recommendations of the recent review on white working-class underachievement at school…”
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“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) for securing this important debate. His contribution highlighted why he will continue to be an important voice as we go forwards as a Parliament in doing everything we can to keep young people safe online. For a long time now, Parliament has regulated to keep young people safe from a whole host of harms, which are often tangible and physical. The precautionary principle has been front and centre of our efforts—almost to a fault sometimes, people might argue—to keep young people safe from harms that they simply should not be exposed to. When we look at online harm, however, it is clear that the precautionary principle has not always been there. There is a range of reasons for that.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. Like him, I have been a regular users of the Thameslink services in his constituency and mine, and, like many of my constituents, I have been consistently let down. My constituents’ two most common bugbears are the lack of drivers, which means that Thameslink cannot consistently put on the services it advertises—that seems the bare minimum—and the fact that when services go wrong, the emergency routes home via taxis and buses, which are so important in rural communities such as ours, are an afterthought. Does he agree that securing sufficient drivers for the line and getting back to putting passengers at the heart of our rail operations will be fundamental to delivering the rail services that my communities and his desperately need?”
“The extra money prioritised in the Budget—£1 billion for the high needs block and £750 million for adaptations—is crucial, but much wider work is needed. We need clear accountability frameworks for local authorities and schools that hold them much more accountable for SEND and inclusion. Whatever the school structure, driving up standards should never come at the expense of an inclusive approach to admissions and exclusions.”
“In my local area, those painful failures are absolutely present at the local authority level too, whether in Hertfordshire county council’s shocking failure to deliver EHCP plans, laid bare by Ofsted in recent years, or in Central Bedfordshire council’s planning failures when it comes to specialist places, which is causing chaos for some of my local schools. From Ivel Valley school, whose redevelopment is now in doubt, to local schools that found out that their inclusion centre was being paused when developers did not turn up when they were meant to, it is clear that councils need to do much, much better with the tools already in their grasp. As a former teacher and local authority lead, I know that national change is needed too.”
“There is nothing more heartbreaking than speaking to people in my constituency who have been let down by the national failures of the SEND system: the young person who has been out of school for far too long, with all the impact that has on their mental health and development, just because there is no school suitable for them in our local area; the family who have often had to step back from work to fight for the bare minimum legal entitlement of support that their young person needs to thrive at school; or the far too many of our schools that, despite going above and beyond, know they are not being set up to succeed when it comes to supporting far too many pupils with additional needs. When she described the system as “lose, lose, lose”, the last Conservative Education Secretary could not have been more right.”
“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Jenny Riddell-Carpenter) for securing this important debate and for powerfully setting out so many of the failures that families in my constituency will be all too familiar with.”
“Absolutely. It is really welcome that this has been a priority, right at the heart of the Government’s early decision making on education, and we need the pace to continue. It is clear that much further work will be needed on workforce planning. It is fantastic that we finally have a Government who are taking an interest in this issue and commissioning a survey to understand where the workforce shortages are, but it will be crucial for them to put in money to support the resolution of the challenges, especially in edge-of-London constituencies like mine, where all too often the resource is dragged into other authorities as a result of London weighting. We need to make sure that health partners are playing an ambitious role, too. Deprioritising health budgets is a false economy that only leads to increased pressures on education budgets.”
“It is shameful that in such a volatile world, for far too long, conversations around defence spending have involved a lot of hot air and not much hard action. Colleagues from across the House will today have to recognise that the Prime Minister has changed that, with a clear, funded and needed plan for investing in our defence. Supply chains are so important to security, so he will recognise, as I do, that what matters is not just what we spend, but where we spend it. How will he make sure that our whole Government are united in the effort to build up our domestic supply chain capacity, when it comes to key defence assets?”
“Would he also agree that it is important to ensure that we think how, through the curriculum review, we can best empower and set up children, young people and their parents to protect themselves from harm where they are exposed to it, even with the stronger regulations that we are looking to put in place?”
“I thank the parents who have brought forward this petition—they are often way ahead of us as legislators when it comes to issues affecting children’s safety. My hon. and learned Friend is doing a very good job of setting out some possible risks that the Online Safety Act will not fully be able to mitigate some of the challenges that we are seeing. Considering robust measures on the age of access to social media is timely and important in thinking about the best way of protecting young people from possible exposure to online harm. On top of that, though, we must recognise that some exposure is always likely to be there.”
“As a former teacher and local authority children’s lead, I got to see at first hand the transformative impact that breakfast clubs can have in driving up attendance, attainment and young people’s wellbeing, so I am delighted that not one, not two, but three local schools will benefit from the Government’s early adopters scheme. As excited as I am for primary-age pupils at Meppershall, Shefford lower and Etonbury academy in Stotfold, I want to make sure that even more can benefit. How will the Government make sure that we learn the lessons of the pilots as quickly as possible, so that every pupil in my constituency and across the country who is eligible for the commitment can benefit from it?”
“Local authority resources are a big driver of some challenges in the SEND system, but it is clear to anyone working in it that a systemic under-prioritisation of children’s health, all too often by local NHS trusts, is a big contributing factor. Young people right across my constituency waiting for assessment and lacking support are paying the price. As part of our 10-year plan to reform the NHS, how will we ensure that children’s health is front and centre again, with much more support for people with additional needs?”
“The last Government’s deal with Drax was not just shocking value for taxpayers, leaving us all on the hook for subsidising sky-high profits during a cost of living crisis, but bad news for the environment, with real concerns about the sustainability of Drax’s supply chain. As the Government rightly take a measured approach to ensuring that we protect not just bill payers but workers as we seize the benefits of the green transition, what assurances can the Minister give my constituents that this will be a far better deal for our country?”
“Six times in the past 12 months, Hitchin has had to endure repeated fires in industrial estates often triggered by lithium-ion batteries. It is clear that we need much tougher regulations to ensure the safety of those sites and, given the inherent risk that their businesses now pose, consideration of whether a time-limited licensing scheme would better enable local authorities to ensure that their location remains appropriate with evolving land use. Will the Minister meet me to ensure that we can make progress on this important issue?”
“From speaking to employers and to Anna Morrison, it is clear that there is more we can do, from making sure that we improve functional skills, to ensure that employers have confidence in them and more young people can access them, to making sure that as we expand the huge opportunity that foundation apprenticeships can provide, we also support more employers and particularly more SMEs to offer them, so that they can truly be a stepping-stone for more young people into apprenticeships. We must also ensure that we build on the greater awareness that young people now have of apprenticeships and turn that into a greater number of apprenticeship starts. Heartbreakingly, that number declined under the last Government. Young people deserve a lot better and I look forward to working with the Minister to make sure they get it.”
“First, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology came to visit Cadent, to see the incredible pride that its apprenticeships took in the skills they were learning at their training centre in Hitchin. Secondly, the Secretary of State for Education came to see the fantastic charity Amazing Apprenticeships, founded by Hitchin resident Anna Morrison CBE, which agitates for better action and ambition around apprenticeships, and supports more young people to access them, not just locally but across the country. When I speak to those apprentices, it is clear that they have huge pride in their work and in the opportunities available to them. What is also clear is the greater optimism they now have for their own futures as a result of their apprenticeships. That is an optimism that I want more people in my constituency to have.”
“We will not have the construction skills needed to get Britain building again, from key infrastructure to affordable housing, without action on apprenticeships; our workforce will not have the skills they need to seize the benefits of the green transition, from retrofitting to green manufacturing, without action on apprenticeships; and, crucially for me, we will not live up to our aspiration to be less agnostic about the type of growth, the type of jobs and who benefits from them for the first time in a long time in this country without action on apprenticeships. I am lucky to have some fantastic businesses and training providers in my constituency, and to have had not one, but two Secretaries of State visit them with me.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I welcome the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes). He has not just secured this debate, but shown leadership on this issue long before he became an MP. Apprenticeships matter to me, and not just because I have seen at first hand the impact they can have on young people’s lives. I also recognise that they are crucial for delivering on this Government’s agenda.”
“My hon. Friend is giving a moving account of the structural factors that underpin the rise in personal trauma that has led to more children in the care system. Those placed in the formal care system get access to therapeutic support directly, whereas those placed with kinship carers do not have the same level of support, often because of anomalies in how they are treated. Does my hon. Friend agree that now is a good time to review the level of therapeutic support available to those in kinship care, who might have experienced exactly the same personal trauma as those in the more formal care system?”
“The UK has a fantastic £26 billion clean tech sector, leading the way in innovation and carbon reduction for everything from clean power to sustainable agriculture. However, all too often, red tape and bureaucracy are locking in dependency on fossil fuels and foreign oil and gas. How can we work across Government to cut back on this unnecessary red tape, and ensure that our schemes support the leading tech and innovation that our best-of-British producers are bringing forward?”
“The Government’s upcoming review of parental leave entitlement is really important as the UK currently has among the worst paternity leave in Europe. Recent research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlighted not just the growth benefit of greater paternity leave entitlements but the benefit to workforce involvement, so will the Minister meet me and campaigners from the Dad Shift to ensure we are making the most of the opportunity to get people back into work?”
“In spite of the broken state of SEND provision in my constituency and across the country, I have had the real privilege of meeting some schools that are going above and beyond to support pupils with additional need, but not all schools, whether it in their approach to admissions, provision or exclusions, are being held to the same standards. As well as this Government’s welcome investment in SEND reforms, how will our changes to accountability ensure that every school is held to the highest possible standards on inclusion?”
“I thank the Government for their strong and fast response, which I know will be a big reassurance for lots of the farming communities impacted. May I ask the Minister to provide a bit more detail about the support we are giving not just to those who are directly impacted now, but to those who are understandably very deeply concerned about what this may mean for their businesses over the coming months?”
“My hon. Friend is doing a compelling job of setting out the damning state of the welfare system we inherited when we took charge. Does she agree that investment in the NHS, so that people finally have the healthcare support they need, is fundamental to making sure they can get back to work, contribute as they would like and build a secure future for themselves and their family?”
“The tragic reality for many women who suffer domestic abuse and then have to go through family court proceedings on top of it is that the presumption of parental contact provides another opportunity for perpetrators of domestic abuse to prolong it. The Government are rightly reviewing this. Will Ministers ensure that we make the most of this opportunity to better protect women who suffer domestic abuse through the family court system?”
“Fundamentally, we need to make sure that we are meeting needs much earlier, so that fewer children need these assessments in the first place. I know that the Minister shares that ambition and I look forward to working with her to make it a reality.”
“We need to ensure that we have robust improvement plans for local authorities so that all are achieving the best outcomes and not allowing that national challenge to be an excuse to tolerate failure. We also need to build out the workforce strategy; I welcome the recent news from the Minister of research commissioned to make sure that we have a good understanding of the drivers of the problem, and of investment in more educational psychologists. We need to make sure that we are thinking through the workforce requirements for EHCPs. It is not always apparent where an educational psychologist is needed and that can delay delivery in those cases where they are not. We need to also ensure that health partners are fully prioritised here; health partners have not always played their part, and that must end.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) on securing this important debate. When a child lacks, for a single day, the support that they need to thrive at school, that is a day’s potential that will forever be wasted. The sad reality for too many children in my constituency is that too many days’ potential is being wasted. This Government recognise the need to move urgently on this issue, and the investment of £1 billion into the high-needs block in the Budget and the £750 million for school adaptations must be welcomed, but it is clear, looking at ECHP performance, that specific and focused work is needed. Across the country, just 50% of ECHPs were delivered within the statutory timeframe last year, so this is far from an isolated problem.”
“Ensuring that we learn from the successes and challenges facing other jurisdictions will be important, as will ensuring that we have the right level of deposits, the right infrastructure in place, and the right support for smaller retailers to take part in the scheme.”
“By working together—and trying to knock heads together—between councils, the Environment Agency and other authorities with a remit, we are looking to make progress, but there is clearly also a case for national action to ensure that the Environment Agency has the powers it needs to address that problem at source, and that we have wider measures on the recycling of lithium-ion batteries to reduce the risk of their ending up as contaminants in metal recycling in the first place. I will continue to press the Minister on that, but I know from my conversations with her that she is alive to the risks in that space. I hope that, over the course of this Parliament, we can deliver real change on that, too. In the meantime, I am incredibly proud to support this important measure.”
“However, it would be remiss of me not to address a wider recycling issue in my community that I have raised several times with the Minister: metal recycling. Five times in the last year, people in Hitchin have woken up to plumes of smoke and possible contamination in the air, as time and again local metal recycling plants have caught fire, often triggered by lithium-ion batteries making their way into the waste source.”
“We know that where similar schemes have been introduced across the world there have been real benefits. There have been dramatic increases in returns—90% and above is quite typical for such plastic return schemes, but the current rate for our kerbside collection scheme is just 70%. We can ensure that we are doing more to improve circularity and the collection of virgin plastic so that we have the high-quality supply stream for recyclability that the industry is crying out for—that is why the Food & Drink Federation supports the measure. And we can ensure that we tackle littering, to address the issues that are blighting too many of our communities. Given the need to act at pace, which was so lacking under the previous Government, I absolutely understand why we are focusing on important quick wins.”
“We owe it to them to ensure that as a Government we do our bit, too. Back in 2018, the previous Government confirmed that they were looking at the idea of such a measure, so it is a matter of great regret that we have waited so many years for one and that the Opposition have provided little support for it today. That lost time should not just be cause for embarrassment, as we have seen so many other countries stealing a run on the measure and introducing a scheme that has been shown to work in jurisdiction after jurisdiction. That failure is literally littered all across our countryside. The paths that make my community so special and our rivers, lakes, oceans and beaches that we are all so proud of as a country are littered with plastic pollution that could have been tackled had the measure been brought forward earlier.”
“I welcome the regulations, which are as important as they are long overdue. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for the zeal she has brought to her role in ensuring that after several years of dither and delay, we finally have a Bill to bring this important measure forward. For far too long, we as a society have not grappled with the blights of plastic pollution and litter. With over 75% of the litter across our high streets made up of the type of drink bottles we are talking about, the measure will be an important way of tackling issues that we know our communities care about. Fantastic local groups such as Plastic Free Hitchin and Shefford, litter picking associations and other community groups in my constituency play their part, doing everything they can to keep my community and the countryside clear of litter.”
“I take some heart from the Conservatives’ lack of enthusiasm to leap in and speak bombastically about their newfound opposition to the measures, which I hope is a sign that there may be space in the coming months to work more collaboratively to ensure that we support the measures to be as effective as possible. I am incredibly grateful to the Minister for lending me her ear on the important issue of metal recycling in Hitchin, and for the leadership that she has shown on this legislation, which will make a real difference for my community and those across the country. It is about time that we lead on making it a reality.”
“Absolutely. It will be important to establish close collaboration to ensure that the scheme is as effective as possible. There is a reason the Food & Drink Federation supports the measures: without them, it will not have the supply of high-quality recycled plastics needed to hit the targets that it is so keen to hit and is often already committed to. Without the legislation, those targets become almost impossible. I will conclude my remarks by building on those of my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner), who highlighted the historical importance of good cross-party consensus and the importance of climate and nature issues. For a long time, this measure had cross-party support, and it is deeply regrettable that that does not seem to be the case today.”
“Right across my constituency, there is plenty of support for this Government’s ambition to do far better when it comes to transitioning to clean, green renewable energy. However, there is also a lot of frustration when my constituents see new houses going up, because we are not making use of rooftops and making sure that homes have the highest energy efficiency standards. Can we have a statement from the Housing Minister about how we can make sure that we are far more ambitious than the last Government in the requirements on developers?”
“The dire state that the last Government left the NHS in was all too apparent, tragically, to many of my constituents who needed it last winter. My 85-year-old constituent admitted with breathing difficulties had to wait over 30 hours in a chair because there were no beds available, and they were far from alone in that indignity and prolonged suffering. They should not have to tolerate it, and I certainly will not as their MP. I welcome this Government’s action and leadership on ending the doctors’ strike and investing in more appointments, but what more will the Secretary of State do to ensure that, next winter, many more of my constituents are not suffering from the same challenges?”
“Members are concerned that the implementation of the Online Safety Act, as it is currently envisaged and as some of Ofcom’s recent publications show, may fall short of doing justice to the importance of the issues. Whether it is considering what more we can do to protect young people from imagery and content relating to suicide and self-harm on social media, ensuring that we do not tolerate technical infeasibility as an excuse for tech companies not to act on the most egregious forms of harm, or having well-intentioned and important conversations about the right age of consent, to which many Members have alluded today, there is clearly a lot more that we can do collectively.”
“Friend the Member for Sunderland Central rightly set out some of the very real and justified concerns that children’s charities and advocates have about unfettered and complete access, but as many other Members have set out, that should not be the case. It should not be beyond us to reason and think through how, in exactly the same way that parents provide oversight over every other aspect of a young person’s life, they can have access to the best and most sensible ways to do so on this platform, too. As the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) pointed out, thinking about the age at which young people can meaningfully and rightfully consent to opting out of parental oversight has to be part of that process. It is fair to say that a few hon.”
“Friend the Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) pointed out, thinking about ways in which we can compel earlier notification to Ofcom and to social media companies and online platforms that can have that data in order to remove that risk at source is surely a common-sense way of ensuring that that risk to getting justice and getting closure can be closed off. Moreover, the petitioner and many others rightly point out and ask us to reflect on the fact that if we are really interested in child safeguarding and keeping young people safe, it simply cannot be only after a tragedy, after bereavement, that the opportunity for parental oversight and involvement takes place. My hon.”
“Collectively, we should not be letting social media companies off the hook for not doing everything in their power to give the families access to the data where no right-minded individual could see any reason not to and where no right-minded individual or agency is likely to seek recourse against them for doing so. So many Members have rightly pointed out that that feels like an excuse, not a reason, to fail to disclose data. We should not tolerate that excuse from companies that we come into contact with in our work as representatives. However, as has rightly been pointed out, it is important that we do not just look at this issue in the context of the existing legislation. We know that there are very real risks after bereavement that the data could be deleted. As my hon.”
“I know that, following the petition, there has been some important progress from the Online Safety Act to give some powers to coroners and to Ofcom to ensure that in certain circumstances they can support parents’ ability to access that data, but as colleagues have pointed out, there are clear areas in which it does not go far enough. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) set out, it is pretty clear that at the moment some ambiguity in the legal position is being used as an excuse by social media companies not to act. We should not tolerate that; we should do all we can, hopefully as a Government, to clarify the position.”
“As an MP now, I am always struck by the fact that, heartbreakingly, whenever I do an assembly, even in a lower school or a primary school, almost without fail there will be one young person, and often several, who will raise their hand and talk to me about an example where they have been made to feel unsafe or at risk online and ask what I, as their MP, am going to do about it. I know that urgency to act is felt by so many colleagues across party boundaries, both in this Hall today and across the House. The petition focuses on particular aspects where we could do more to ensure that parents have both the right ability to provide oversight for children on social media and access to really important data after bereavement.”
“Although there have been some steps forward, which are to be welcomed and which I will touch on shortly, the petition highlights several areas in which it is clear that we need to consider going further to ensure that we are all living up to our duty to do everything we can to protect young people right across society. Both as a teacher and as a children’s social lead, I got to see at first hand some of the very real ways in which young people can be exposed to harm by our failure to act on the issue of social media and online harm over the past decade.”
“Just as we are inspired by you, we are inspired by the many families here with you today as part of the Bereaved Families for Online Safety support group, which has been doing so much important campaign work on the issue. It is pretty clear to all of us who have spoken today that for far too long we have tolerated a belief that online harm is too tricky and too practically infeasible to regulate in the same way that we would regulate every other form of harm to which a young person could be exposed, often in contexts in which as legislators we have historically been more comfortable getting involved. We cannot tolerate that state of affairs any longer.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg, and to debate such a powerful and moving topic. I want to start, as more or less everyone in this room has done, by paying tribute to Ellen for her tireless campaigning work. I cannot come close to comprehending the pain that the death of Jools must have caused you, even before it was exacerbated and extended by the lack of closure when social media companies refused to give you access to data that could help to explain what happened to him and when collectively, as a society, we showed ourselves impotent to compel them to do so. Your ability to turn that pain and that love into such a powerful petition and call for action, which motivated so many parents in my Hitchin constituency to sign up to it too, is a true inspiration to so many of us in the room.”
“Some aspects of how Ofcom has said it will take these matters forward are to be welcomed, but I absolutely agree with the underlying sentiment of the hon. Lady’s comment. Currently, what has been set out does not go anywhere near far enough. As representatives of our communities and of the families who want to do everything possible to keep young people safe from online harm, it is our responsibility to ensure that we are holding Ofcom accountable for being far more ambitious about how it can most creatively and robustly deploy the powers that we are giving it to keep young people safe.”
“It is potentially understandable, but not excusable, that as legislators we are sometimes more comfortable imposing restrictions or acting in areas where we have more direct lived experience, as in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill or the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. Those are tangible things that we are comfortable and used to voting and making laws on, whereas online harm can sometimes feel a bit more nebulous and a bit tougher. However, that is no excuse not to act. The failure to act is written across the tragedies experienced by so many families across the country and so many campaigners in the room today. We must do better, and we have to make sure that this is the Parliament in which we do.”
“I concur wholeheartedly. My hon. Friend has been a tireless campaigner on this issue, both in our debate today and throughout the time I have known her—a very short time, but an impressive one none the less. As she rightly points out, the children’s code is a real opportunity to do right by the intentions of the legislation and by the collective ambition that we are discussing today. From my hon. Friend to the children’s commissioner, campaigners on the issue are pretty united about the opportunity that a more ambitious code could deliver for safeguarding young people. For far too long, we have allowed young people to be exposed to a level of harm online that we would not tolerate in any other aspect of life.”