← LEADERSHIP TERMINAL

UK PARLIAMENT · SITTING

Josh Babarinde

MP for Eastbourne · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Fly-tippers tend to vanish just as the mess gets traced back to them—much like Nigel Farage earlier this week. Closer to home, I led a community walkabout with the Friends of Outer Devonshire, alongside residents such as Emma Boyes and Kay Skinner, to look at fly-tipping hotspots in Eastbourne.

WASTE CRIME ACTION PLAN · 2026-07-09 · READ IN HANSARD

Civil compensation is disregarded from pension credit entitlement calculations, but military compensation is not. I know that the new Minister for Veterans is sympathetic to addressing this injustice, so I wonder whether he would meet me and the family of Pauline Cole—a veteran who was fighting to address this matter—in order to put it ri…

TOPICAL QUESTIONS · 2026-07-06 · READ IN HANSARD

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing this debate. Beachy Head in my constituency is, regrettably, one of the most visited suicide spots in the world. Every year, brave coastguards such as Mark Francis in Eastbourne recover bodies from those cliffs and intervene at the cliff edge.

COASTGUARD VOLUNTEERS: REMUNERATION AND HMRC GUIDANCE · 2026-07-01 · READ IN HANSARD

Disgracefully, there are some in this House who believe that it is for the England football team to prevent domestic abuse, whereas we all know that it is for perpetrators to stop their abuse.

SUPPORT FOR VICTIMS OF ABUSE · 2026-06-30 · READ IN HANSARD

Q12. As an Eastbourne boy born and bred, I can tell the Deputy Prime Minister that Eastbourne pier is an iconic part of our heritage, an iconic part of our local economy, and an iconic part of me; I literally have it tattooed on me, and I can show the Deputy Prime Minister afterwards.

ENGAGEMENTS · 2026-06-17 · READ IN HANSARD

Domestic abuse survivors who work in retail roles are at particular risk in that their perpetrators often know exactly where they are, which till they might be working at and what their shift patterns are. The perpetrators can continue to perpetrate abuse even while their victim or survivor is at work. Does my hon.

ABUSE OF CUSTOMER-FACING WORKERS · 2026-06-17 · READ IN HANSARD

The complete record

Every one of 490 lines we hold for Josh Babarinde, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 4 of 10.

  1. I therefore urge the Minister to announce a timeline for a new statutory duty of candour now. I urge that it is not watered down under any circumstances, and it must be accompanied with parity of legal representation for bereaved families during inquests and inquiries into disasters or state-related deaths. This Parliament must be the one that says, “No more lies, no more hiding and no more protecting institutions over protecting people.”

    DUTY OF CANDOUR FOR PUBLIC AUTHORITIES AND LEGAL REPRESENTATION FOR BEREAVED FAMILIES · 2025-09-03 · READ IN HANSARD

  2. The point my hon. Friend makes is testament to the importance of parity of legal representation. To continue, how many lives must be lost before we accept that the public deserve honesty from those in power? When will we get to the truth proactively, not just when institutions are dragged to the witness box? That must change. I pay tribute again to the tireless campaigners—the bereaved families of the Hillsborough disaster and the Grenfell tragedy, those wronged in the Post Office scandal and more—who have refused to accept institutional silence and deceit. However, it should not be up to victims or their grieving families to fight for decades to get answers; it should be the duty of the state to give them those answers—early, clearly and completely. The Government must act without further delay.

    DUTY OF CANDOUR FOR PUBLIC AUTHORITIES AND LEGAL REPRESENTATION FOR BEREAVED FAMILIES · 2025-09-03 · READ IN HANSARD

  3. While we wait for that action, I invite the Minister to join me in congratulating Langney primary academy in my patch, led by the amazing Mr Ben Bowles—an awesome local headteacher—on being part of the school streets scheme that has taken measures to safeguard schoolchildren from dangerous pavement parking at pick-up and drop-off time. I hope the Minister will congratulate them on the great work they are doing.

    PAVEMENT PARKING · 2025-09-03 · READ IN HANSARD

  4. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this debate. Whether it is on Seaside, Melbourne Road, Linden Close, Sydney Road, Heather Close or outside Oakwood, St Thomas a Becket or West Rise schools, it is unacceptable that pedestrians, especially those with disabilities, are all too often blocked from using our pavements and pushed on to the road, and residents with wheelchairs, scooters or prams are blocked from using drop kerbs. On behalf of them and the Eastbourne access group, when will the Government share with us their national plan to empower local authorities to crack down on this problem once and for all?

    PAVEMENT PARKING · 2025-09-03 · READ IN HANSARD

  5. As an Eastbourne boy born and bred, I am a proud Englishman. In Winston Churchill’s St George’s day speech in 1933, he said that his England was one where no one would think of persecuting a man on account of his religion or his race. Does the Home Secretary agree with Winston Churchill that our country and our flag represent unity and tolerance? Does she agree with me that those who attempt to divide our communities in the name of our flag are no patriots of Churchill’s England, no patriots of today’s England and no patriots of our great country?

    BORDERS AND ASYLUM · 2025-09-01 · READ IN HANSARD

  6. Parking at Eastbourne district general hospital, where I was born, is woefully inadequate. The car park is often full, so patients have to park way away up the Rodmill hill, and car park services are crumbling. More than that, lower-banded NHS staff now face a near doubling of car parking charges to cover the cost. Given that the Government have delayed investment in our new hospital and, therefore, in a new car park until the 2040s, what support will they provide in the meantime to upgrade our DGH car parking facilities without our NHS heroes being expected to foot the bill?

    NHS HOSPITALS: PARKING · 2025-07-22 · READ IN HANSARD

  7. That must include proper consultation, which will be key to rebuilding public trust. I would therefore welcome more details from the Minister about how local communities, campaigners, and impacted miners and their families will be involved throughout the inquiry. Inquiries can be a powerful tool for uncovering the truth about injustice, but they will only reach their full potential when there is a duty of candour that requires public officials and authorities to co-operate fully. As such, although the Government have committed to bringing such a duty of candour into force, will the Minister take this opportunity to provide a clear timeline for introducing a Hillsborough law to Parliament?

    ORGREAVE INQUIRY · 2025-07-22 · READ IN HANSARD

  8. I came into the Chamber for this statement to hear and speak about the Orgreave inquiry, so it was pretty shocking to hear the shadow Minister use it as an opportunity to yet again play politics with child sexual abuse and exploitation. As a survivor myself, I find that particularly appalling. The Liberal Democrats welcome the announcement of a statutory inquiry into the events that took place between police and miners at Orgreave on 18 June 1984. For years, those caught up in the harrowing events of that day have had to carry the painful trauma of that unresolved injustice—not just the injuries sustained, but the police charges that were subsequently dropped. Over 40 years on, we must come together to ensure that this inquiry reaches its full potential and uncovers the answers that those impacted deeply deserve.

    ORGREAVE INQUIRY · 2025-07-22 · READ IN HANSARD

  9. It is an honour to have been elected to represent the town that made me the person I am—the town whose teachers believed in me, whose scout leaders challenged me and whose local businesses took a punt on me by giving me my first job. I hope to be able to represent our town for many, many years to come. As we draw to the end of our time before the summer recess, I would like to extend a very open invitation to Eastbourne to any hon. Member who has not yet booked their summer holiday. Eastbourne is officially the sunniest town in the UK. It has more hours of sunlight than anywhere else in the country—to the disdain of the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths). I hope that Members will come and sample some of the best of Eastbourne delights.

    SIR DAVID AMESS SUMMER ADJOURNMENT · 2025-07-22 · READ IN HANSARD

  10. We need Southern Water to get a grip of the foul stench its water treatment works have been emitting across our town in recent months, blighting the lives of residents in Langney Point and beyond. We need a fix to this problem now, not next year, as Southern Water has said. Frankly, the CEO should be denied his outrageous pay rise while this issue remains and until local residents have been properly compensated. Beyond our shores, in response to the appalling situation in Israel and Gaza and on the west bank, the Government must continue to push for the release of all hostages, urge for aid to be let unobstructed into Gaza, ban arms sales to the Israeli Government, recognise a state of Palestine, and further sanction the Israeli Government when they infringe international law, and that includes sanctions on Netanyahu himself.

    SIR DAVID AMESS SUMMER ADJOURNMENT · 2025-07-22 · READ IN HANSARD

  11. However, one year in, after taking up more than 11,000 cases for residents, and more than 200 mentions of Eastbourne in the Chamber later, there is still much more to do. We need to fix our temporary accommodation catastrophe, which has been triggered by a housing shortage that can be addressed only if we build more housing and properly regulate temporary accommodation. We have a particular shortage of three-bedroom homes in Eastbourne, which is causing a huge challenge. As many other Members have said of their constituencies, we need to address the SEND crisis in our town, because families such as the Wilcocks and hundreds of others are left without the educational provision that they need.

    SIR DAVID AMESS SUMMER ADJOURNMENT · 2025-07-22 · READ IN HANSARD

  12. Working with incredible campaigners from across our town and beyond, we have: secured the reopening of Eastbourne district general hospital for births after months of closure; won our campaign for a direct train from Eastbourne to London Bridge and back; successfully led a national campaign to reform the law on domestic abuse; worked with campaigners to save Linden Court day centre for people with learning disabilities from closure; worked with local residents to protect the Sovereign Centre, where I learned to swim, from losing its pools; worked with Government and others to lock in £20 million in neighbourhood funding, which we thought we might lose after the election, to regenerate our town; and much, much more.

    SIR DAVID AMESS SUMMER ADJOURNMENT · 2025-07-22 · READ IN HANSARD

  13. It is an honour to speak in this debate, named after the late Sir David Amess, to whom I wish to pay tribute. I also use this opportunity to pay tribute to the late Ian Gow, one of my predecessors as a hard-working Member of Parliament for Eastbourne, who was appallingly assassinated in 1990, and whose shield is on the door above the entrance to this Chamber. I thank all those involved in keeping MPs and our teams safe today, with special mention to PC Will Bayley, who has helped my team and me to manage some concerning threats to us. It has been an action-packed first year as Eastbourne’s Member of Parliament.

    SIR DAVID AMESS SUMMER ADJOURNMENT · 2025-07-22 · READ IN HANSARD

  14. I certainly owe the hon. Member one, but that is not quite as bad as when I was mistaken for another mixed race Member when I once forgot my pass and was granted a pass of somebody else—who may or may not be the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty). I did not settle the bill left with the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), but I look forward to continuing to exchange stories about mistaken identity in the WhatsApp group—the DEI crew—that we have created. Currently, I think it is 11-5 to me in being mistaken more times than the hon. Member for Huntingdon, but I am sure that there will be many more adventures and shenanigans on that front as time goes on. I will if I may return to my point in my last 30 seconds. I say to hon. Members that Eastbourne is open for business.

    SIR DAVID AMESS SUMMER ADJOURNMENT · 2025-07-22 · READ IN HANSARD

  15. T4. Eastbourne’s posties are legends, including Manuel, who covers my patch. Upstream issues in the Royal Mail, however, mean that constituents like Michaele are not receiving letters for medical appointments until after the appointment time has passed. Will the Minister meet me to discuss these appalling delays, and the urgent action that must be taken to ensure that our residents get their post on time?

    TOPICAL QUESTIONS · 2025-07-17 · READ IN HANSARD

  16. Eastbourne’s streets are being blighted by severely overgrown grass verges that attract litter, antisocial behaviour and crime. Will the Minister join me in urging Conservative-run East Sussex county council to urgently get a grip on verge maintenance in Eastbourne in order to help make our grass great again?

    TOPICAL QUESTIONS · 2025-07-14 · READ IN HANSARD

  17. Before adopting any new proposals, will the Minister publish an impact assessment of the measures on victims in magistrates courts, and will she rule out any measures that will delay justice, safety or freedom for survivors of domestic abuse?

    TRIAL BY JURY: PROPOSED RESTRICTIONS · 2025-07-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  18. In his urgent question, the shadow Secretary of State for Justice said that “the public knows best”. For once, I agree with him, which is why the public threw out the last Conservative Government after they crashed our criminal justice system. Yesterday, I made the case for safeguarding the guarantors of our justice system—our jury trials. However, today, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I want to raise our concerns that reclassifying certain offences and drawing on magistrates to run the new intermediate courts risks putting unbearable strain on the magistrates courts, jeopardising their ability to deliver swift justice, especially for survivors of domestic abuse crimes.

    TRIAL BY JURY: PROPOSED RESTRICTIONS · 2025-07-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  19. The Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone was right when he said, “Justice delayed is justice denied”. He would look on the inheritance that this Government received from the Conservative Government as a matter for great shame. While creative solutions are required to tackle the backlog, the jury trial—which we hear may be at risk for some—is a critical safeguard on state power, and is key to a liberal and free society. Ahead of the Leveson report, which is coming out very soon, can the Government tell us how they will increase the overall capacity of the courts system to dispense justice, as opposed to potentially undermining justice altogether?

    CROWN COURT BACKLOG · 2025-07-08 · READ IN HANSARD

  20. I have a constituent who is a survivor of violent economic abuse, which has involved her abuser occupying one of her properties without consent and vandalising it with mounds of human excrement, rendering it unrentable at huge financial costs. The photographs are disgusting. Delays in civil court proceedings have forced my constituent to live with this for nearly three years. What steps can the Government take both to support survivors who are living in this kind of hell and to speed up the legal proceedings that are currently preventing my constituent from being free once again?

    VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM · 2025-07-08 · READ IN HANSARD

  21. For example, Women’s Aid has spoken powerfully about the need to reassess the provision, as has Refuge, with which we have been working closely. We support community-based alternatives to custody, such as investment in mental health and addiction services and a properly funded Probation Service, but not the dangerous shortcut that this draft order represents. The answer to overcrowding cannot be to cut corners on risk assessments or public protection. We cannot sacrifice justice at the altar of expediency, which is why the Liberal Democrats will oppose the draft order.

    DRAFT CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT 2003 (SUITABILITY FOR FIXED TERM RECALL) ORDER 2025 · 2025-06-30 · READ IN HANSARD

  22. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in the Lords has rightly raised the alarm that victims could be placed in serious danger, raising concerns that the re-release of some violent or sexual offenders who might slip through the net puts “their victims at high risks of serious harm or death”. When the Government have a very noble mission to create safer streets, surely that cannot be permitted. We believe in a criminal justice system that rehabilitates, not one that bounces from crisis to crisis. Rehabilitation should aim to reduce reoffending, not to accelerate the release of individuals who have contravened licence conditions without due assessment. It is not just Liberal Democrats who are saying that.

    DRAFT CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT 2003 (SUITABILITY FOR FIXED TERM RECALL) ORDER 2025 · 2025-06-30 · READ IN HANSARD

  23. That is not justice; that is bureaucracy displacing public safety. Victims, survivors and our communities at large deserve case-by-case recall processes. The order also fails to provide adequate protection for victims, particularly survivors of domestic abuse, which the Minister knows is completely intolerable to me. Despite exemptions for some of the most serious offenders, at MAPPA levels 2 and 3, too many high-risk individuals could slip through the cracks, as has been the case under the SDS40 early release scheme, which I have highlighted time and again in the main Chamber.

    DRAFT CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT 2003 (SUITABILITY FOR FIXED TERM RECALL) ORDER 2025 · 2025-06-30 · READ IN HANSARD

  24. It is great to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. Liberal Democrats recognise the acute pressure on our prison system. We recognise, see and feel, as do many victims and survivors across our country, that the last Government allowed our prisons to reach breaking point. Victims and survivors are paying the price for the way in which our criminal justice system has been crashed, but the draft order is a blunt, reactive tool that could undermine justice, due process and public safety, all for the sake of short-term expediency. By imposing an almost one-size-fits-all 28-day fixed-term recall for most individuals serving determinate sentences under four years, the policy strips away vital safeguards. The Parole Board’s ability to assess individual cases is effectively bypassed and replaced by administrative convenience.

    DRAFT CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT 2003 (SUITABILITY FOR FIXED TERM RECALL) ORDER 2025 · 2025-06-30 · READ IN HANSARD

  25. During our last session of Defence questions, I asked the Secretary of State to join me in wishing a happy forthcoming birthday to Eastbourne’s last surviving war veteran, Eric Deach, who was shortly to turn 100. Unfortunately, tomorrow I shall be a pallbearer at his funeral; he did not make it. Will the Secretary of State, ahead of that funeral, join me in paying one final tribute to Eric for his service and everything he did to fight for our country?

    TOPICAL QUESTIONS · 2025-06-30 · READ IN HANSARD

  26. I decided to go into politics because I believed that luck played too great a role in shaping people’s course and their quality of life, but unfortunately the system that has been announced today leaves the fate of many disabled people down to luck—to whether they applied before November 2026, or after. I hope that the Secretary of State will reverse her decision and drop the Bill tomorrow, but in case she will not, may I ask her to commit to engaging with Kathy, a disabled person in my constituency who runs a Facebook group of 44,000 people advising on PIP and disability-related matters, to ensure that their voices are at the centre of the plans?

    WELFARE REFORM · 2025-06-30 · READ IN HANSARD

  27. The Rapid Transition Alliance tells us that we can improve the quality of our roads if we support more people to use rail as a form of public transport. That is one reason why I am campaigning to restore the direct train between Eastbourne and London Bridge that was discontinued during the pandemic. Will the Minister back my campaign, with a view to helping to improve our roads and improve economic growth for Eastbourne too?

    ROAD NETWORK: CONDITION · 2025-06-26 · READ IN HANSARD

  28. Project Gigabit’s stated aim is to ensure that no one is left behind, but that is not true for the residents of Mulberry Close on my home estate in Eastbourne, who have not been connected to full fibre despite bearing the brunt of invasive works on their doorstep. Will the Minister meet me, residents of Mulberry Close and local internet providers to ensure that those residents are connected and not left behind?

    HIGH-SPEED INTERNET · 2025-06-25 · READ IN HANSARD

  29. While investment in creating new prison places has been announced, the spending review features no reference to extra funding for women’s centres—an alternative to custody—despite David Gauke recommending that in his independent review and charities such as Working Chance telling us that women’s centres are often at least 10 times more effective at reducing reoffending and are more cost-effective than the prison system. Although we welcome the £700 million committed to the Probation Service, it is critical, as per the demands of Women’s Aid, that some of that cash goes towards mandatory training for probation officers as far as recognising domestic abuse and protecting survivors of domestic abuse is concerned.

    CRIMINAL JUSTICE · 2025-06-25 · READ IN HANSARD

  30. There is no mention in the spending review specifically of investing in our crumbling courts, which cause so much inefficiency and cost our system, victims and justice. As the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) mentioned earlier in the debate, the Magistrates’ Association has been particularly concerned about the lack of mention of funding for legal advisers in magistrates courts. The lack thereof is resulting in one in 10 sittings being cancelled.

    CRIMINAL JUSTICE · 2025-06-25 · READ IN HANSARD

  31. He came back when he came out of that institution, except he came missing a finger as a result of some of the things going on in that place. Again, some of our institutions are out of control. As a victim, I have experienced what it is like to wait for years to have a case heard through an adversarial criminal justice system that seeks to beat down victims, as opposed to supporting them to rise up. That needs to change. Giving credit where it is due, I welcome the investment that this Government are making in our criminal justice systems through the spending review, but that investment is not a silver bullet, and it might not go far enough to right the wrongs of the past: it must be accompanied by reform.

    CRIMINAL JUSTICE · 2025-06-25 · READ IN HANSARD

  32. I spent my career supporting young ex-offenders out of crime and out of gangs in the east end—very far from Eastbourne in many different ways. I remember working with a particular young person. I said to him ahead of his first day of work with us to come in wearing some smart trousers, and he did not know what I meant. He said, “Josh, do you mean court trousers?” What a sad state of affairs it is when a young person in our country has grown up more accustomed to the criminal justice system than to our education system. I am afraid that is a legacy of the last Government. I remember working with another young person who went into a young offenders’ institution that was notorious for its issues with violence. He was working with us as a phone repair technician before he went in.

    CRIMINAL JUSTICE · 2025-06-25 · READ IN HANSARD

  33. Our probation services were left high and dry, with an electronic tagging contract that left offenders with violent convictions unmonitored for far too long. Our courts were left dealing with staggeringly high backlogs, with tens of thousands of open cases and victims waiting months and even years for justice. As has been mentioned by hon. Members, reoffending is through the roof, with 80% of people in our prisons being reoffenders. That is a symbol of more crime, more victims and more misery and harm. That carries an enormous price tag, with reoffending costing society more than £18 billion a year. The consequences of that dire set of circumstances have been plain for us all to see; I saw them myself when I worked in this space before being elected to this House.

    CRIMINAL JUSTICE · 2025-06-25 · READ IN HANSARD

  34. I thank the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), working with the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth), for making the pitch to the Backbench Business Committee to secure this debate. I join him in thanking the incredible staff who work across our criminal justice system. If I may, I will add that charities such as the incredible abandofbrothers in Eastbourne work with young ex-offenders across my hometown to tackle crime. As has been documented in this Chamber today, the last Government left our criminal justice system in a state. Our prisons were left in crisis and overcrowded, with increases in violence and self-harm incidents at their highest since records began.

    CRIMINAL JUSTICE · 2025-06-25 · READ IN HANSARD

  35. While this investment will go some way towards reducing backlogs, increasing prison capacity and improving our probation services, vital challenges are still unmet. As I have said just this week—in fact, it may have been yesterday—directly to the Minister, Liberal Democrats stand ready to work constructively with the Government. We will scrutinise their measures, but also give credit where it is due in order to help achieve more justice for victims, survivors, and our communities.

    CRIMINAL JUSTICE · 2025-06-25 · READ IN HANSARD

  36. That is the true means of being able to make our criminal justice system more efficient. When it comes to victims and survivors, commitments around reversing the damaging impact of the national insurance increases for employers were missing from the spending review. Victims’ charities have written to me to say that the increase in those taxes, as well as cuts to police and crime commissioner core budgets, are tantamount to a 7% real-terms cut in their budgets. This means that victims’ services—services not dissimilar from the independent sexual violence adviser services that I once accessed at SurvivorsUK—will be compromised. I urge the Government to look again at this issue. The status quo of more reoffending at an exponentially high cost to the taxpayer is both immoral and unsustainable.

    CRIMINAL JUSTICE · 2025-06-25 · READ IN HANSARD

  37. I agree with the point that my hon. Friend makes. This is about much more than just the spend: it is about the efficiency of the spend. Taxpayers deserve far better than what they are getting at the moment from the Serco contract, under which, as I said earlier, many offenders are being left without the proper, robust monitoring that victims, survivors and our communities need and deserve. Let me come on to reoffending. The Gauke review offered many recommendations to unlock supply in our prisons, but it was fairly light on what can be done to stem the demand going into our prisons. Preventing crime and reoffending was the Cinderella of his review. It may be out of scope in some respects, but it is critical that our criminal justice system is reformed in a holistic way.

    CRIMINAL JUSTICE · 2025-06-25 · READ IN HANSARD

  38. Two of my constituents are currently in Tehran, but they say that fuel shortages, long queues and poor internet access, as well as closed airspace, have made it almost impossible for them to leave Iran. They urgently need clear guidance, they need a way to formally register their presence, and they need consular support, which they are struggling to access. Will the Minister urgently meet me to ensure that my constituents get the assistance they need from the Government to come home safely to Eastbourne?

    MIDDLE EAST: BRITISH NATIONALS · 2025-06-24 · READ IN HANSARD

  39. He was incontinent & developed painful bedsores. He repeatedly asked for help to end his life. I entered his room to see that he had stuffed yards of his top sheet into his mouth in an attempt to suffocate. It was the most distressing sight and one I will never forget. I live with this image and cannot share it with our children. This could have been avoided with an assisted dying law.”

    TERMINALLY ILL ADULTS (END OF LIFE) BILL · 2025-06-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  40. The Mother of the House, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), is absolutely right to stress the importance of giving a voice to the voiceless. That is a role that many Members in this House take deeply seriously, including proponents of this Bill. No one is more voiceless in this debate than those terminally ill adults who suffered painful, traumatic and undignified deaths under the current system, as well as their families. Nothing that I could say makes the case for this Bill—not just the principle, but this Bill—more powerfully than this letter from my constituent, which is adapted to protect her anonymity: “Following a diagnosis of an aggressive tumour, my partner’s final days were agony. He struggled to breathe and swallow and lost his ability to speak.

    TERMINALLY ILL ADULTS (END OF LIFE) BILL · 2025-06-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  41. The hon. Member will be aware that the Bill creates a criminal offence that would punish those who would coerce a relative in such a way. [Hon. Members: “Self-coerce.”] There are folks who talk about the concept of self-coercion, but others would frame such a decision as a choice. Self-coercion is a choice. My constituent said, “This could have been avoided with an assisted dying law. My partner was from a jurisdiction where such a law exists. A relative used that law. They were able to gather their family, say a proper goodbye and die in peace and with dignity before losing all physical and mental capacity.”

    TERMINALLY ILL ADULTS (END OF LIFE) BILL · 2025-06-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  42. I will not, to give others the chance to speak after me. My constituent went on to say, “The procedure to enable this was protracted and had several safeguards which would prevent much of the concerns we hear about by those opposed. I urge you to support this bill”— the Bill, and not just the principle. I will do so because the status quo is completely unacceptable and must be reformed.

    TERMINALLY ILL ADULTS (END OF LIFE) BILL · 2025-06-20 · READ IN HANSARD

  43. As a survivor of child sexual abuse myself, I stand in solidarity with the many victims and survivors the system has failed over many, many years. I can say that the horror, the trauma and the guilt never leave you, and I so hope that every survivor who is identified receives the mental health and other support that they deserve to help rebuild their lives. Survivors have witnessed very many promises, the 20 recommendations and the call of “never again” time and again. What will the Home Secretary do, and how will she reassure them that this will not be another one of those examples? Can I just say that I am really let down and disgusted that the Leader of the Opposition began her remarks with a party political assault on her opponents? Victims and survivors deserve more than a smug “I told you so” diatribe.

    CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION: CASEY REPORT · 2025-06-16 · READ IN HANSARD

  44. I ask the Government: what steps are being taken to address and rectify the issues, not only with the funding but with the administration of our NHS, caused by some of these things that create such grief and hardship for residents like Andy? What steps are the Government taking to ensure that local hospitals like mine are equipped to treat a broad range of long-term conditions? Most importantly, for Andy, can I get a categoric reassurance from the Government that his case will be looked into and resolved as a matter of urgency, so that neither he nor anyone else in his position has to experience this gross injustice on top of the hardship of living with a long-term condition?

    LONG-TERM MEDICAL CONDITIONS · 2025-06-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  45. We have seen in the likes of my town and across the country, following years of underfunding by the last Government, centres like the Eastbourne district general hospital losing core services to other towns and cities nearby, forcing residents to trek even further to get the treatment they need. The life of my constituent, Andy, has been hugely impacted by this woeful state of affairs—a broken system and broken administration within it. Both his personal and professional lives have been significantly compromised. He can, of course, take his case to the ombudsman, which he plans to do, but that process can take months if not years to conclude, and he needs answers now.

    LONG-TERM MEDICAL CONDITIONS · 2025-06-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  46. If that was not bad enough, Andy was subsequently informed that the services and expertise needed to treat his condition, which he had been referred to Eastbourne for, were not available locally, so one has to ask why that transfer happened in the first place. But the wider question, which goes to the point made by the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, is why towns like Eastbourne are denied such important services locally. It cannot be right that people living with long-term conditions sometimes have to travel dozens or in some cases hundreds of miles to access the care that they deserve and rightly expect.

    LONG-TERM MEDICAL CONDITIONS · 2025-06-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  47. By 2022, he had been transferred from the care of London hospitals to medical facilities closer to home in my constituency of Eastbourne. Following an initial appointment there in April 2022, he was told that there would be a follow-up six months later. Outrageously, due to human error, the follow-up was not held until November 2024, a staggering two and a half years after his initial appointment. I hear of cases like that again and again, disproportionately from patients experiencing long-term health conditions. It seems there is no parity of esteem between people suffering from these kinds of conditions and people suffering from shorter-term, more emergency-based conditions.

    LONG-TERM MEDICAL CONDITIONS · 2025-06-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  48. It is a delight to speak under your chairship, Mr Efford. I thank the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) for securing this important debate. Many of those living with long-term conditions are people who live happy and enriched lives. They are supported not only by wonders in medical advancements, but by the communities of people—friends, family or incredible NHS and care staff—who support them week in, week out, day in, day out. But for some, the consequences when those support networks fail can be catastrophic. I would like to use this opportunity to raise awareness of the plight of my constituent, Andy. Andy has been living with a benign brain tumour and functional neurological disorder for nearly a decade. In that time he has been treated in various medical settings.

    LONG-TERM MEDICAL CONDITIONS · 2025-06-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  49. Eastbourne businesses Qualisea, Gianni’s and Gr/eat are up in arms, as I am, that East Sussex county council’s shambolic management of the Victoria Place pedestrianisation means that works will now fall in the summer, their busiest trading period. What provision will Ministers make to ensure that businesses hit by such disruption can be properly compensated?

    TOPICAL QUESTIONS · 2025-06-12 · READ IN HANSARD

  50. Short of heeding my town’s calls to unlock that investment sooner, will the Chancellor at least confirm to local families such as Mark’s and to my NHS trust that her NHS capital expenditure will specifically be able to fund the 98% unmet cost of our maintenance backlog in Eastbourne to help more patients get the care and dignity they deserve?

    SPENDING REVIEW 2025 · 2025-06-11 · READ IN HANSARD