Marie Goldman
MP for Chelmsford · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“I remember doing a practice run and there was a line in the reading I had to do that said, “The old man’s past it,” but I said “past” the way that we would in Devon. I was told by a teacher, “That was very good, but you need to tone that down a little bit,” and I did.”
“I fit in, and I am accepted—in fact, I do not just fit in; I stand out in a good way.” We should definitely be looking more at that. Hon. Members mentioned other studies, including a University of Edinburgh study that suggests that individuals with regional accents find themselves code switching to be taken seriously. Other hon.”
“It is hard to be inspired if we only see people who look and sound like something completely different from us. If we are seeing something that is familiar to us, it is more inspirational and gives us more courage to take part, so I commend those broadcasters for giving that a platform. The hon.”
“Essex has a fairly well-known accent, thanks to programmes such as “The Only Way Is Essex” and “Gavin and Stacey”, which obviously celebrates other parts of the country as well.”
“I want to highlight a particular statistic mentioned in that about university students. The report found that, across all stages of life, individuals are concerned about how their accent affects their ability to succeed.”
“The hon. Member reminds me that my aunt sadly lost her partner a few months ago. He was three days off his 90th birthday, and he was a true Cornishman. He had lived in Cornwall his entire life—in a very small area of Cornwall, in fact. He was incredibly well known, and I had the privilege of being able to love spending time with him.”
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“Most of all, they told me about the worry that the EHCP rug would be pulled from underneath them, with nothing left to catch them. That is what I am particularly worried about. I am sorry that the Minister is not in her place at the moment, but if she were, I would say to her that parents need the support to be there. Any new system has to be properly tested. It also has to be trusted by parents, and that trust simply is not there at the moment. I say to the Government: tread very carefully, because parents are really worried, and they will be very cross indeed if they do not get the support they absolutely need. Governments do not have a very good reputation for getting things right: think of the many disabled children affected by the Primodos scandal, or the terrible birth defects suffered because of sodium valproate.”
“I thank the families who were at the rally outside Parliament today for their continuous fight, which is a battle that has been going on for many years. It was wonderful to see so many of them keeping up the fight and making sure that MPs are hearing their stories. That is why so many hon. Members are in the room today. I could tell Members about the stories that those families told me just today. One parent has been waiting 91 weeks to get an EHCP. Another parent told me about the rigid attendance rules that punish children who are unable to attend school because of their special educational needs. One grandmother was in tears because she was worried that she would not be able to get the support that her granddaughter needed.”
“Like any parent of a disabled child, Mary is incredibly worried about their future and what support will be in place to look after them when she is no longer able to. Victims and their families are exhausted. They have campaigned for many years to draw political attention to such matters, but it seems that successive Governments are not listening. Indeed, the Government have yet to respond to the Hughes report on the sodium valproate and pelvic mesh scandals that was published more than 18 months ago. Will the Leader of the House ask the Health Secretary to make a statement to this House to provide an update urgently?”
“I am sure that the whole House agrees with the importance of remembering the victims, including British citizens, their families and those who continue to be affected physically and mentally by the attack and its aftermath. This week, I again met victims and family members who have been subjected to ongoing injustice in our health system, in particular women and their children who were affected by shocking failures of medical devices or by the prescription of drugs that had devastating and life-changing consequences. While pregnant, my constituent Mary was prescribed the anti-epilepsy medication, sodium valproate. Very sadly, Mary joined so many other parents whose children were consequently born with significant birth defects.”
“I welcome the new Leader of the House to his place. I join him and the shadow Leader of the House in thank the previous Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), for her sterling efforts, especially with so many people bobbing to ask questions every Thursday morning. I look forward to working with the Leader of the House in the various Committees on which we serve. I hope that he will follow the Government’s mantra to go further and faster, especially in modernisation. Today is a big day for news. In particular, I echo the words condemning the appalling attack on the office of the hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson)—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]—for whom I have a huge amount of respect. I also join other colleagues in recognising that today is the 24th anniversary of 9/11.”
“Recognising that Parliament will break for conference recess in less than two weeks, will the Leader of the House grant a full debate in Government time before then to show the strength of support for the recognition of the state of Palestine in this House?”
“Across the House, we have begged the Government to do more to help end the conflict, to save the lives of the hostages and Gaza’s civilians. Indeed, it is something that constituents write to me and undoubtedly all Members about on a daily basis, yet action has been excruciatingly slow. In July, the Prime Minister set a deadline for further action. He said that “the UK will recognise the state of Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly in September unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire and commit to a long-term, sustainable peace”. That deadline is fast approaching: the UN General Assembly convenes in less than a week. The House should surely have the right to debate and vote on this important step.”
“Yesterday at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister told the leader of my party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), that the situation in Gaza was “horrifying” and “a man-made famine”. We agree. More than 60,000 Palestinians are estimated to have been killed in the conflict. Just yesterday, five adults and a child were reported to have died of malnutrition, as a direct consequence of the Israeli Government’s man-made famine and illegal restrictions on aid entering the strip. It has been the deadliest war ever for journalists, with at least 192 killed by Israeli forces, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and 20 Israeli hostages are still thought to be alive and brutally held by Hamas terrorists.”
“As the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists noted, the public health grant must be adequately funded to address the underlying causes of sickness, especially those that acutely affect women. In Chelmsford, my city council has emphasised how important that is, helping to meet one of the statutory duties of ICBs, which is health and wellbeing, especially in the context of reduced staffing, the abolition of NHS England, and ICBs being asked to reduce their costs by 50%. I urge the Government to commit to expanding the number of women’s health hubs in the east of England in particular.”
“I regularly receive casework from constituents experiencing long delays in referrals following GP appointments. That is shown in the data, with gynaecology waiting times a particularly bad example. For example, in June Chelmsford’s Mid and South Essex integrated care board had the highest gynaecology treatment waiting list of any ICB in the east of England at 15,768, with almost half of women waiting for longer than 18 weeks for treatment—well below the Government’s 92% target. Indeed, one of my constituents wrote to tell me that she would face a 78-week wait for a gynaecology appointment, not 18 weeks. We all recognise that the longer someone needs healthcare, the more complex, financially costly and serious the consequences can be, and we need the Government urgently to bring down referral waiting lists.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse, and I thank the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) for letting me speak. As a fellow east of England MP, I thank him for securing this important debate, and I hope he agrees with me that health is central to living standards. As vice-chair of the East of England all-party group, I note that my predecessors published a report on levelling-up in the region in 2022. The report found that women in the region can expect to spend 19 years of their lives in less than good health, compared with 16 years for men. According to an international Global Burden of Disease study, 42% of ill health in the east of England can be linked to preventable factors linked to socioeconomic deprivation and other health inequalities.”
“As has already been referenced, in 2019 the Transport Committee published a report in which it made a clear recommendation that a new civil offence of obstructive pavement parking, enforced by local authorities, should be created. Given that the House yesterday debated a Bill to give more powers to local authorities, I hope the Minister will introduce that power as well.”
“Organisations such as the South Essex Parking Partnership have the resources to issue fixed penalty notices, but they do not currently have the power to do so, as they can issue FPNs only where there is a specific parking restriction, such as double yellow lines or residents-only parking. The use of traffic regulation orders to bring in restrictions in specific areas is slow, cumbersome and costly—something I know at first hand having previously been an Essex county councillor, as it took two years to bring in junction protection or double yellow lines to prevent parents from parking on corners when picking up their children from school.”
“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this important debate on something that is a problem across the country. Indeed, a Chelmsford resident recently wrote to me about taking her nan for a walk, when they were forced to walk in the road due to cars obstructing the pavement. That is entirely unacceptable for anyone, let alone an elderly resident. Parking on a pavement and blocking it is already an offence under the Road Traffic Act 1988, but only the police have the power to issue tickets, and they are rightly prioritising more serious crime.”
“I choose Essex because I represent the constituency of Chelmsford in the very heart of Essex, because I used to be an Essex county councillor and because Essex is in the first wave of reorganisation. Essex will not benefit from the scrapping of first past the post, so my constituents will not benefit from their votes truly being represented. There is a proposal to replace Essex county council plus the district councils with either three, four or five unitaries. If we include the other existing unitaries plus Essex county council, we are talking about 15 councils in total. Replacing them with possibly three unitaries would be the exact opposite of devolution; it would take power away from the people and make the councillors elected to represent the people further away from them.”
“Is the best way to fix the crisis in special educational needs or in adult social care, or to truly deliver all the housing we need a different form of local government? Why are these really important issues not part of the mix? Why do we not have a plan to fix them first—before we reorganise local government and trap ourselves in a corner? I am in favour of devolution: it is right to have power closer to the people it affects. I want local communities to be empowered, but this Bill does not deliver that. In fact, although it devolves powers relating to transport and skills—and other things in the Bill are good, too—the local government reorganisation that goes with those measures means that this legislation does the exact opposite of delivering devolution. Let us take Essex as an example.”
“I also used to be a councillor, like many Members across the Chamber. I was deputy leader of Chelmsford city council for five years and an opposition member at Essex county council. I have seen at first hand the work of local councils and I know that they do it in very difficult circumstances—circumstances that have got harder and harder, with dwindling funds and increased demands on council services. Despite the very best efforts of council leaders across the country and council officers, who are often the unsung heroes local government, there are crises in housing, in special educational needs and in adult social care. We do not seem to have a plan to fix any of them, yet we seem to be rushing ahead with local government reorganisation and devolution, which to me seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse.”
“Absolutely. My problem with this Bill is that it feels rushed. More people want to contribute to the discussion. Constituents want to be represented and to have local government reorganised in a way that they have been able to contribute to. That would truly be democracy. What we are seeing right now is rushed and is not a proper representation of democracy. The three-unitary model is not the only proposed model. That is being proposed by the county council, but the model that has the most support from the local district councils—nine of them—is the five-unitary model. I certainly support that, because if we have to go ahead with local government reorganisation, surely it should be with the model that keeps power closest to people.”
“Can the Government provide some clarity? Finally, why is first past the post being scrapped for mayoral elections, but not for local government or general elections? That seems rather inconsistent.”
“There is no model of local government reorganisation or devolution in Greater Essex—even keeping the existing structure, frankly—that would be financially sustainable without central Government stepping in and providing funds to cover Thurrock’s debt. The maths simply do not work. I am looking directly at the Minister, because we need a solution. There will be much more unity in Essex on how to move forward if we can work out how to deal with Thurrock’s debt. It cannot be that other local residents, such as my constituents in Chelmsford, are asked to shoulder the blame for something that they did not bring about in the first place. I turn to Essex county council elections, which were cancelled last May. We have absolutely no idea whether they will go ahead next May; it would seem a bit strange if they did, but equally we want democracy.”
“However, according to real-world data, if the five-unitary model is chosen, local government reorganisation is expected to save only £105 million across the whole of Essex after five years. If the three-unitary model is chosen, we will end up with £49 million less than that. This is a huge undertaking, with a lot of resources going in for very little, and we still do not have a plan for special educational needs, adult social care and all the things I mentioned earlier. The really important point is that Greater Essex contains Thurrock, which has a very, very big debt problem: about £800 million of unsecured debt.”
“I think we are in danger of getting into the weeds on exactly how local government would be reorganised. We talk about the size of the unitary authorities that would be created. The three-unitary model in Essex would instantly create three of the top five biggest unitary authorities in the country; after growth, they would be three of the top four biggest unitary authorities. It would create enormous councils with considerably less connection with the local communities they served. That is the opposite of devolution, and I worry a lot about the loss of identity that it could lead to. A lot of the talk is about savings. The Deputy Prime Minister talked a bit about savings from reorganisation, but there is very little evidence to support that using real-world data. Past models produced by consultancies have not used real-world data.”
“The cancellation could severely hamper the building of an estimated 55,000 new homes in the area. With Labour pledging to build 1.5 million new homes by the end of this Parliament, this issue cuts across party lines. While I appreciate the financial constraints under which the Treasury is operating, it is notable that the two major road schemes that were cancelled in the recent announcement were both in the east of England, yet this region is a net contributor to the UK economy and has huge growth potential. Will the Leader of the House ask the Secretaries of State for Transport and for Housing, Communities and Local Government to meet me and a cross-party group of MPs so that we can discuss how we might still find ways to move forward with this vital project that will help the Government to deliver on their promises?”
“Turning to a slightly more serious matter, last week the Secretary of State for Transport announced that the Government have cancelled the A12 widening scheme between Chelmsford and Colchester. That is incredibly disappointing news and a real blow to my Chelmsford constituents, Essex residents and the east of England as a whole. The A12 is a crucial link for communities across Essex, which supports logistics to the major international ports and airports in the region. It is also dangerously congested. The scheme would have addressed both of those problems and improved the journeys of the approximately 90,000 vehicles that travel on the road every day. More critically, the cancellation’s impact on house building could be profound. Local plans, including that of Chelmsford city council, are reliant on the A12 widening scheme going ahead.”
“If you will indulge me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I join the shadow Leader of the House and the Leader of the House in thanking you, the other Deputy Speakers and Mr Speaker, as well as the Clerks of the House and the House staff, for all the amazing work that they do to support us in our jobs. It is not an exaggeration to say that we would not be able to do it without all of them and all of you. I also join the shadow Leader of the House in thanking the Leader of the House for the responses that she gives to business questions, which I see every single week. It has been a pleasure to get to know both of them on the various Committees and boards that we serve on, and I thank them for that.”
“941.] Will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for Education to make a statement explaining exactly how their voices are being not just heard, but understood as part of the SEND reform process, and will she join me in condemning the outrageous practice of issuing legal threats to parents who are simply trying to do their best for their children?”
“Let us be very clear: SEND children and their families have a legal right to support, and I am sure that the whole House would agree that attempting to prevent or limit the provision of such assistance, particularly through intimidatory tactics, is completely unacceptable. We all know that the SEND system is fundamentally broken and that reform is needed. That is why the Liberal Democrats set out our five principles for SEND reform in England yesterday. Principle No. 1 is ensuring that children’s and families’ voices are at the heart of the reform process. Indeed, the Prime Minister said yesterday that he wants “to work with parents and teachers to get this right.” —[ Official Report , 9 July 2025; Vol. 770, c.”
“Yesterday, LBC published a month-long investigative story on special educational needs and disabilities. Shockingly, it revealed that families have been sent legal cease and desist letters in attempts by some schools and local authorities to deter parents from seeking education, health and care plans for their children with SEND. The report uncovered that some parents and the independent SEND advocates assisting them have been threatened with legal action and with being reported to the police simply for daring to ask questions about the SEND provision to which their children are entitled but that is not being delivered.”
“The Minister for Care has said that critical negotiations are taking place between the Department of Health and the Treasury, so will the Leader of the House encourage her Treasury colleagues to prioritise that, to allow the Department to renegotiate the dental contract as soon as possible, as Liberal Democrats have been calling for? Will she also ensure that a statement is made to the House to provide an update on the progress of the renegotiation?”
“Several of my Chelmsford constituents have contacted me about the lack of local NHS dentistry services. One constituent told me an all too familiar story: waiting list for NHS patients are either too long or closed, so he has had to rely on private dentistry for routine check-ups. Now, he cannot afford crucial dental care because it would cost hundreds of pounds that he does not have. That is a concern not only for patients but for dentists. One Chelmsford dentist recently wrote to me detailing the need for the Government to urgently fix the failed contract that he works under, to ensure that providers are funded to carry out NHS services and take on more patients. As with all healthcare, we know that the longer it takes to treat a problem, the more serious and expensive it can become.”
“Will the Leader of the House ask Ministers to bring forward a statement about any work they are doing to create a more joined-up approach between England and Wales to protect farmers in these border counties? While she is doing so, can we have a statement on whether the Government will create a funded vaccination programme to protect livestock and livelihoods in the whole of the UK?”
“The outbreak of bluetongue and the subsequent announcement by the Welsh Government imposing a hard border for livestock between England and Wales leaves the livelihoods of many border farmers at risk. Their land often straddles the border, and farmers rely on moving livestock daily between both countries. According to the Farmers Union of Wales, by introducing mandatory checks the Welsh Government are creating a “wholly impractical” policy. I am reliably informed by my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) that a large majority of ewes are on one side of the border, while the tups are on the other, which will make breeding rather tricky.”
“That is to speed up a process that the Kernaghan review found to be unduly cumbersome and impacted by political considerations.”
“That would worry me, as I do not find it hard to imagine a scenario in which a complainant is—how shall I put this?—encouraged to withdraw their complaint, perhaps following promises of improved behaviour, but then feels the need, and has the courage, to raise the issue again. That amendment would prevent them from being able to come forward again. Amendments (b), (c) and (d) appear to be a rather blatant attempt to stack the membership of the assurance board, so that it can be politically manipulated. Amendment (e) trashes the recommendation from the Kernaghan review that the ICGS assurance board should be able to approve ICGS procedures. The Kernaghan review clearly recommends that the assurance board should be able to create and make changes to ICGS procedures.”
“If it is thought that there are attempts to manipulate the system, or to wriggle out of tight spots for political gain, we will have no chance of regaining the trust that has been eroded, particularly over recent years. That is why I am so disappointed to see the amendments that have been tabled. After so many years of trust being eroded, we need to find a way to win that trust back, and that is what this scheme does. Let me go through the amendments to explain what I mean. Amendment (a) would, among other things, remove the right to make collective complaints, making it harder for complainants with the same issue to support each other in coming forward. It would also prevent the ICGS from accepting a person’s complaint if it was substantially the same as a complaint they had previously withdrawn.”
“I am pleased to support this motion, which, as the Leader of the House says, has come about as a result of the Kernaghan review, an independent review of the ICGS published just last year. The review’s recommendations included the creation of an ICGS policy framework, and the formalisation of the ICGS assurance group into an assurance board with responsibility for the creation of and future changes to an ICGS processes document. The motion is designed to implement those recommendations, and I am happy to support it. The public are understandably fed up with what many perceive as accepted poor behaviour from those elected to represent them. The ICGS is designed to help restore trust by ensuring that poor behaviour is dealt with swiftly and appropriately, but that cannot happen if MPs are constantly marking their own homework.”
“Indeed. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, because I completely agree. Unfortunately, what he suggests is what some of these amendments are designed to do, and that is why I cannot support them. They are an attack on, and a blatant attempt to manipulate, the system, and that is totally wrong. In short, I fully support this motion and do not support any of the amendments. I encourage Members from all parts of the House to do the same.”
“Indeed, the chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council said that in real terms, the increase in funding “will cover little more than annual inflationary pay increases for officers and staff.” He added that “the amount falls far short of what is required to…maintain our existing workforce.” If we want to keep crime off our streets and retain the experienced officers who do such vital work to keep us safe, surely we must give them the funding to match. Yesterday’s spending review did not do that. Will the Leader of the House therefore raise those issues with both the Treasury and the Home Office?”
“May I echo the thoughts and sympathies that have been sent to all those involved in the Air India crash that is being reported? I know that many British citizens will be affected, and our thoughts are with them. I recently joined Essex police on a ride-along in my Chelmsford constituency to witness at first hand its vital work in our local communities to keep us all safe. Worryingly, Essex police has regularly raised with me that the national funding formula, known as the police allocation formula, is outdated and unfair. The funding that Essex police receives falls far short of the proportion of policing carried out by the force in a national context. Yesterday’s spending review did nothing to change that or to remove concerns about police funding overall.”
“Many of my Chelmsford constituents are civil servants who travel into London most days of the week to perform their jobs. Last month, a Centre for Economics and Business Research report revealed that the UK may need 92,000 more public workers by 2030 to maintain the same level of output, due to falls in productivity in the sector. However, the Cabinet Office has refused to comment on reports in recent days that the Government plan to cut the number of civil servants by 10% by the end of the decade, which will have an impact on my Chelmsford constituents. Will the Minister confirm today whether a 10% cut to civil service headcount is planned and if any of that will take the form of compulsory redundancy?”
“In March it was reported in the media that the Government will produce a White Paper on special educational needs to address the crisis in schools for children with special educational needs and disabilities. We are hearing rumours that this White Paper may be delayed until the autumn, or possibly until next year. Children with special educational needs are still without support, parents are still battling with local authorities, schools are still struggling to cope, and councils are still left staring at the prospect of a £5 billion deficit next year from SEND being added to their budgets. Will the Leader of the House implore the Government to, at the very least, provide a timescale for publishing the White Paper?”
“The Liberal Democrats warmly welcome reports that eligibility for free school meals is being extended to all children in England whose parents receive universal credit. This is a Lib Dem policy on which we have campaigned for a long time, and it is a positive first step to help to lift children out of poverty. Of course, there is much more to do. Among other much needed changes, we would point to the importance of fully funding the policy for schools and auto-enrolling eligible children to ensure that they get the support they need. I will also highlight, once again, something that is raised in business questions nearly every week: special educational needs.”
“I warmly welcome this today’s announcement, which has been a Liberal Democrat policy for a very long time. It is so important to have proper nutrition for children so that they get the best possible start in life. In response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) about funding, the Minister said that this will come out in due course, but that it will be fully funded. Fully funded can mean that those funds come from various different places. Will the Minister rule out those funds coming from existing school budgets, and will he also rule out placing any other financial burden on to already overstretched school budgets?”
“T9. My constituent’s child was the victim of a serious sexual offence several years ago. By the time the case comes to trial next year, it will have been nearly half a decade since the assault took place. Does the Lord Chancellor think that that is an appropriate length of time for a child to have to wait to seek justice? What words of comfort can she give to my constituent?”
“While I agree with the premise of the question from the shadow Leader of the House, I must say that it is a bit rich given the Conservatives’ appalling record of doing exactly the same thing when they were in government. However, that does not let the current Government off the hook. Will the Leader of the House please confirm that the Government will comply with the ministerial code, or shall we expect to do this little dance every week? Surely this time would be better spent making a statement to the House.”
“It is incredibly disappointing to find ourselves here to discuss this issue yet again, but this time on the vital matter of national security and defence. There was a remarkably similar urgent question before recess, and it was disappointing then, as it is now, to hear the Leader of the House attempt to justify not bringing major announcements to the Floor of the House first by citing the number of statements the Government have already given to Parliament. The ministerial code is clear: the Government do not get to pick and choose which significant statements they do or do not make to the House; whenever possible, they should be doing it every single time.”
“The Minister, in her response to my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), referred to imaginings, but I do not think it is an imagining to suggest that the Secretary of State, in her response to the STRB, said that some efficiency savings would have to be found in schools to meet the additional costs. Earlier this week, I had a roundtable with headteachers from my constituency and beyond. The Minister also talked just now about “fantasising about the future”. Is she really telling me that those headteachers were fantasising about the future when they told me that they were already having to make cuts to staffing numbers for next September? One headteacher told me that just one or two more things need to go wrong and that they are on the brink of collapse. Is the Minister saying that they are fantasising about the future?”
“Yesterday it was revealed by the charities Tommy’s and Sands that, tragically, delays in improvements to NHS maternity care are costing the lives of hundreds of babies a year. This follows the Care Quality Commission’s findings that 65% of maternity units are not sufficiently safe, putting women and babies under threat. Will the Leader of the House grant Government time to debate the crisis unfolding in our maternity units, the failure to implement the immediate and essential actions in the Ockenden review, and the Government’s decision to end the ringfencing of £100 million for vital improvements to maternity care?”
“The unacceptable level of customer service has been the subject of cross-party criticism in this House many times over the years. This year, the Public Accounts Committee agreed that the situation has indeed got worse. It found that 44,000 HMRC customers were cut off while waiting more than 70 minutes to reach an adviser—more than six times the figure for the whole of the 2022-23 financial year. I am sure the whole House will agree that spending time on the phone while waiting to resolve tax issues is not something that many of us or our constituents particularly enjoy doing, and it does not do anything to help productivity. Businesses need to spend their time selling their goods and services and generating tax receipts for the Treasury, not languishing on the end of a phone.”
“I echo the Leader of the House’s words about the intolerable and increasingly unsurvivable situation in Gaza. I urge the Government to do everything in their power to help remedy the situation. My Chelmsford constituent, who is self-employed, regularly has to deal with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. He recently wrote to me about the unacceptable waiting times on HMRC’s customer service helpline. In his experience, this issue has been going on for years but has recently grown considerably worse. He tells me that he sometimes has to wait for up to 40 minutes before giving up and hanging up. It is all very well having services online, but if they are not fully accessible, people will still need an HMRC helpline that is responsive. Sadly, that is not the case.”