UK PARLIAMENT · SITTING

Claire Young

MP for Thornbury and Yate · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

“In the year to March 2026, only 75.7% of first-class mail arrived the next working day, against the target of 93%. Ofcom opened an investigation into that failure on 1 June. Nearly five months later, we are still waiting for the outcome.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

“The law allows Ofcom to fine postal services up to 10% of turnover, but its largest penalty is a small fraction of that, and every penny goes to the Treasury. Nothing reaches my constituent who missed a hospital appointment because the letter arrived a day after the actual appointment. Where is their opportunity for recourse?”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

“If a constituent makes a complaint to Royal Mail and they are not happy with the outcome, they cannot go to Ofcom and make a complaint about the individual case. We have been told that Ofcom will not look into local cases and will look only at the picture across the country as a whole.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) for securing this timely debate. I want to focus on Ofcom’s role as the regulator of postal services.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

“Either Ofcom’s postal powers and its approach must be fundamentally reset or its responsibility for postal regulation should move to a dedicated independent regulator that will take it seriously. Surely, that is what Ministers must now be considering.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

“Secondly, will the Government commit to a review of Ofcom’s postal powers, including whether those powers would be better held by an independent postal regulator? Too much time has been spent bringing Royal Mail’s failures to Ministers’ attention. They have heard enough. Will they now act?”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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“The Government’s decision to cut personal independence payments by changing the eligibility criteria is a double whammy for carers, who risk losing their carer’s allowance if the person they care for no longer qualifies for PIP. Given that it is Carers Week, will the Leader of the House raise this issue with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and make time for a debate so that we can discuss the far-reaching impact of these changes?”
House of Commons12 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One of the reasons for the historical deficit in south Gloucestershire is the lack of specialist places locally, which has resulted in high numbers of expensive out-of-area placements. Those are bad for children, who would be better off being educated in their local community, so that they did not face excessive travel or need a residential place, and they are bad for the school budget.”
House of Commons12 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A great deal of work has been done by the council and schools working in SEND clusters, but the deficit has continued to increase. The agreement was signed pre-covid—we all know about the impact that the pandemic had on demand for additional support—and as a result the targets in the agreement are completely unachievable. Safety-valve agreements have not worked. Will the Government write off those historical deficits and find a new fairer funding formula? I support the Government’s focus on inclusion, early intervention and preventive support to make that possible for more children. However, we need to recognise that there are children and young people already in the system who did not get that support, and schools need the funding to support them now.”
House of Commons12 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Schools in my constituency are among the lowest-funded in the country, and there is a lack of resource for early intervention work before children get to the point of needing SEND support or an EHCP, which means that more children will need a higher level of intervention later. It is a vicious circle. The lack of money to act early means that more money must be transferred from the schools block to the high-needs block, reducing still further the funding for early intervention. South Gloucestershire is one of the local authorities that entered into a safety-valve agreement with the previous Government. It faces a cliff edge when that agreement ends next April, and as yet there is no certainty about what comes next.”
House of Commons12 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To give one example, a headteacher locally told me that more than 60% of their allocation goes on the high number of children with EHCPs they have on roll, leaving less than 40% to support all the other children on the record of need. School funding does not recognise that there can be great disparities between communities and schools, even in the same local authority area. Some acquire a reputation for being good at supporting those with additional needs and suffer financial consequences, and some communities in an authority have greater need than others. The formula for distributing SEND funding and more general schools funding does not reflect that, and it means that schools in different parts of the country with similar cohorts are treated very differently.”
House of Commons12 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is one approach, but we need to ensure that it does not take away from the high-needs approach. The point is that we have to fund both early intervention and the high-level needs that have resulted from the lack of early intervention. The previous Government declined to fund an additional 200 special school placements when they signed the safety-valve agreement. When I met the Minister for School Standards, she did so too, saying that the focus is on providing places in the mainstream. Increased inclusion is a sound ongoing policy, but pupils cannot make the switch overnight. We need a fairer distribution of capital funding as well as revenue funding. Another issue with SEND funding is the notional £6,000.”
House of Commons12 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need a national body for SEND to end the postcode lottery, and to fund the very high-need cases that cost over £25,000 a year, and schools need funding to be distributed in a way that reflects their needs, not some overall and potentially flawed perception by their local authority.”
House of Commons12 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Absolutely. South Gloucestershire is in an even worse position, and I am sure all the authorities in the f40 group would agree. Yesterday, I raised with the Prime Minister one of the impacts that lack of support for SEND has on families. He did not take up my request for a meeting, but I hope he will consider meeting me to discuss this aspect of the issue, and meeting charities that represent parents who are in this situation. Of course, the lack of support for children with special educational needs has many other impacts; I simply do not have time to go into all of them today. We need overall SEND funding to reflect the level of need. We need more funding during the transition to greater inclusion, to reflect the fact that we will be supporting people with a high level of need, as well as funding early intervention.”
House of Commons12 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thousands of self-employed people and business owners were excluded from Government support because of the arbitrary eligibility criteria. They paid their taxes but were left unsupported during the crisis. Does the hon. Member agree that it is disappointing that those people are still struggling five years on?”
House of Commons12 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q9. I have spoken to parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities who are not getting the support they need in school, but if, as a result, their child is out of school, they are left facing prosecution, fines or even prison time. Punishing parents for the failings of a broken system is outrageous, so will the Prime Minister end this by backing Lords amendment 349A to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and will he meet me to discuss this further?”
House of Commons11 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Happy birthday, Mr Speaker. Oldbury in my constituency is one of the sites under consideration for SMRs, and I have been told many times that it has many factors going for it, including GB Nuclear’s ownership of it, the nuclear expertise in higher education locally, its existing nuclear history and the potential for co-ordination with the Berkeley site. Given that the old nuclear power station has already been decommissioned, the local community wants to know what the future looks like. Will the Secretary of State confirm that Oldbury is still in the running and will he give a timeline for the decision?”
House of Commons10 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“T3. In the light of some worrying small-site applications on previously undeveloped green-belt land in my constituency, and of concerns from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, will the Minister undertake to monitor and assess the initial impact of the new grey-belt provisions and look at refining the wording, to avoid salami-slicing of the green belt?”
House of Commons9 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“While the Government buried their heads in the sand, countless pensioners suffered, such as my constituent who, despite having a terminal disease, had to cut back on heating and food, and spent the winter “freezing cold”. Can the Minister explain why no impact assessments were conducted last year before winter fuel payments were stripped from millions of pensioners?”
House of Commons9 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Net zero standards cut bills as well as carbon emissions, so does my hon. Friend share my incredulity that a Government who have been forced to U-turn on winter fuel payments are refusing to back new clause 2, which would cut bills for people of all ages?”
House of Commons9 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Schools in England have a responsibility to identify and support students with special educational needs arising from specific learning difficulties, and that includes dyscalculia. But there is no requirement for teachers to learn about it; it is poorly understood and awareness is very low among both professionals and parents. Given that maths is so important to our lives and that dyscalculia is about having difficulty with understanding number-based information, I make a plea that it should be taken more seriously.”
House of Commons5 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“He finds relative and absolute risk almost impossible to understand.” Most of us will not have to lead the country through a pandemic, thank goodness, but we do need to make decisions about our own lives. When it comes to school education, I can understand the sentiment of those who wanted to extend maths, but doing another two years of what has already not been working does not make any sense. I would rather see a focus on rebalancing the curriculum to 16, and ensuring that we have specialist maths teachers to deliver that and inspire our young people today. I often speak on the subject of special educational needs, so before I finish, I will briefly say something about dyscalculia.”
House of Commons5 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If we do not understand numbers, how can we make truly informed decisions about medical treatment? Do we really understand what a one-in-a-thousand risk of a side effect is? What does it mean if a contraceptive is 95% effective? What does it mean, in absolute numbers, for a treatment to carry a 10% increased risk of a type of cancer if the original risk was extremely low, and how does that compare with the risks of not having the treatment? I think it became evident during the pandemic that people—including some at the highest levels of Government, apparently—did not understand the concept of exponential growth. We heard from Lord Vallance in the covid inquiry that the Prime Minister at the time had been “bamboozled” by graphs. He apparently wrote in his diary: “Watching the PM get his head round stats is awful.”
House of Commons5 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will illustrate that with an example from a few years ago, when the BBC reported: “Teenagers whose parents smoke are four times more likely to take it up themselves, experts have warned.” There was an absolute bombardment of people saying that that was rubbish because their parents smoked and they did not, but let us look at the figures. What the article said was that “4.9% of teenagers whose parents smoke have taken it up too. By contrast, only 1.2% of teenagers whose parents do not smoke begin to do so.” It was absolutely right to say “four times more likely” but, even with parents who smoke, the vast majority—more than 95%—will not go on to smoke themselves. Those misunderstandings reoccur across many examples of scientific and medical stories in our mainstream press.”
House of Commons5 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is true that basic numeracy is important, even in a world where we are more likely to wave our cards at a machine than to pay with cash, and where, contrary to teachers’ expectations in the 1980s, most of us do carry calculators around with us. From working out how long it is until the train or bus, or measuring whether that flat-pack furniture will fit in our living rooms before we buy it, to scaling up a cake recipe, there are plenty of ways in which basic arithmetic matters, but I think the importance of mathematics to every one of us goes way beyond that. In a world where we are bombarded with information and misinformation daily, mathematics is vital to the critical thinking that stops us getting scammed and helps us to make truly informed decisions on matters such as healthcare and our personal finances.”
House of Commons5 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Having said that I love maths for its own sake, though, I want to make the case that mathematics does not just contribute to our country in the headline-grabbing ways highlighted by my hon. Friend, such as AI innovation, although those are obviously very important. I believe that having a mathematically literate population can contribute to our society in myriad smaller ways, too, by ensuring that we can all think critically about what we are told, and make better decisions about our own lives. There is a somewhat old-fashioned idea that, as long as people can work out their change when shopping, that is all the maths they need.”
House of Commons5 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) for securing this debate. Like him, I have a deep affection for maths. In fact, I would probably go further and say that I am a maths nerd. And, like him, I believe that it still influences my thinking now, including here in Parliament. I love maths for its own sake. I was inspired as a child by watching shows such as Johnny Ball’s “Think of a Number”, I was only too happy to get a scientific calculator for my 11th birthday—I am not sure many 11-year-olds would be—and I went on to study maths at university, so I could not pass up the opportunity to contribute to this debate.”
House of Commons5 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My constituent Olivia is fighting for Archie’s law—new legislation to improve the quality of care for critically ill infants and children—after tragically losing her baby boy Archie. I have raised the matter with the Secretary of State, but the responses so far have failed to specifically address Archie’s law, and I have waited for the latest since February. Will the Leader of the House raise the matter with the Health Secretary, and ensure that Archie’s law gets a fair hearing?”
House of Commons5 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Vulnerable children spend many weeks each year—during the holidays—not at school. My own Liberal Democrat-Labour partnership local authority provides funding in the form of vouchers during the school holidays. Will the Government take this opportunity to end holiday hunger and provide funding for food during the holidays?”
House of Commons5 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Chief Secretary says that west of England funding will increase services between Bristol city centre and Brabazon. I have been pressing Ministers to extend the funding for half-hourly trains at Yate, which is due to end next year. That is vital to provide a service to the new Charfield station, which is due to open in 2027. Both places are, of course, in the city region. Will this funding support or even improve those services, or is this more about the city than the region?”
House of Commons4 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“He says: “Once again, it is the least fortunate and needy of us who will bear the cost.” Another constituent wrote: “When my wife was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2019, we were given a couple of booklets and told to prepare for the inevitable.” He went on to explain that for a couple of years, including during the covid lockdown, they saw no one apart from the occasional surgery visit, until a crisis in 2023 led to the community mental health team being involved. For a while, his wife got a fair amount of support, but when the mental health team deemed her stabilised, that support was withdrawn, leading to another crisis in January 2024. He is very worried that the whole cycle will play out again and again.”
House of Commons3 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Richard will clean and dress her, and then she will go back on the stairlift, back into the wheelchair and back into the lounge, where the whole palaver will repeat after five minutes, as she has forgotten that she has already been to the toilet and cannot be convinced otherwise. That is just one small part of a day, and it sounds relentless. Owing to a recent back injury, Richard has had to employ a carer for two mornings a week to help. He wants to care for his wife as long as he can, but one day he may have to move her to a nursing home, and that worries him. He reckons it will cost approximately £1,800 per week and rising due to the increase in national insurance, and he is now worried that in pandering to populism on immigration, the Government may make it even harder to recruit carers.”
House of Commons3 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The daily routine starts with getting his wife out of bed; transporting her to the bathroom; helping her with the toilet; getting her into the shower and then getting in the shower to shower her; helping her clean her teeth; getting her back to the bedroom to dry her hair and dress her; taking her downstairs via their self-funded stairlift; getting her into a wheelchair to transport her to the dining table for breakfast; and then taking her back to the lounge. She may sleep for a little bit, but sooner or later there will be a call for help to go to the toilet, so it is back into the wheelchair, back on the stairlift and back on the toilet.”
House of Commons3 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Everyone deserves high-quality care when they need it—that is particularly the case for those with dementia, who often have some of the most complex needs—but the sad reality is that social care services in this country are in crisis. The disease has a huge impact not only on the patients, but on their family and friends as they struggle to care for them. Richard wrote to me about his experience of being a full-time carer for his wife of 55 years. She has ataxia, compounded by dementia. She is losing her ability to walk or talk, write or use the phone, or follow simple instructions, and Richard has to be with her 24/7 to ensure her safety.”
House of Commons3 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“However, voluntary initiatives are not enough to provide the support that dementia patients and their carers need. The cross-party commission on social care is welcome, but unpaid carers such as my constituents cannot wait three years—they need a fair deal now. That means respite breaks, so that they do not get to breaking point and can carry on caring for their loved ones, as they want to. It means ongoing support from health services, regular check-ins and not being abandoned when the immediate crisis is over, and it means having the confidence that when they do need to turn to paid carers, those carers will be available, they will have dementia training, and cost will not be a barrier to using them.”
House of Commons3 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Absolutely. It is a very frightening situation for people to find themselves in. For carers who have to do all that I have described Richard having to do, having to battle their way to find the services available just adds to the problems. My constituent says that mental health services are the Cinderella of the NHS. There is a lack of staff and resources, and such services need more financial support so that they do not abandon people the minute they think they can get away with it. A number of Members have highlighted the importance of voluntary initiatives, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those in my constituency, including Time 4 Carers, the memory cafés in Yate and Thornbury, and the Charfield memory group.”
House of Commons3 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Liberal Democrats want to see the contracts for difference scheme used to benefit renewable energy production and reduce the UK’s dependence on fossil fuels in the hands of authoritarian regimes. Investing in renewable energy will cut bills, lower emissions and improve our energy security. We have been calling on the Government to keep the cap on the dedicated biomass plants and end support for all new biomass plants. We want to ensure that 90% of the UK’s electricity is generated from renewables by 2030, with biomass not a part of that because the wood often does not come from renewable sources and in many cases the emissions are worse than coal. We therefore oppose the draft regulations and urge the Government to think again.”
House of Commons2 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is despite the fact that the draft regulations would enable Ministers to extend the subsidies to burn trees for four years from 2027, when the current subsidies run out, to 2031. Liberal Democrats strongly believe that biomass is not a form of renewable energy and should not be subject to any exemptions or Government support. It is an incredibly inefficient method of producing electricity, and there are far better methods we should be investing in. We note the concerning comments in the Climate Change Committee’s seventh carbon budget recommendations, which confirmed that there is “no role for large-scale unabated biomass generation at high load-factors in the pathway beyond the expiry of existing contracts in 2027.” Yet the Government are choosing to go ahead with just that.”
House of Commons2 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Key investments in our energy infrastructure will be squeezed if we persist in chopping down North American forests and shipping them across the Atlantic in diesel freighters. There are far better and smarter ways to power our homes. We have already heard about the comments from the Public Accounts Committee, and this month the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee agreed that this is not value for money. It also expressed deep concerns about the true purpose of the draft regulations and stated that Parliament needs to see key documents about them, including legal evidence, the National Energy System Operator report and the Ofgem audit. Rather than reflect on those grave issues, the Government chose to announce on the first day of recess that they would convene a Delegated Legislation Committee on the first day back.”
House of Commons2 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. In 2009, the then Climate Secretary, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband), announced his plan to ramp up the use of wood-burning power stations while also ensuring sustainability. Fast forward to today and the right hon. Member—now the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero—is attempting to paper over his legacy by forcing through an extension of subsidies until 2031. That is being done despite broad cross-party opposition to the move, as the previous Government took the decision to refuse the extension. There are alternatives. Since that so-called ramping up 15 years ago, six times more trees than in the entire New Forest have been cut down. Disapproval is so strong that it undermines trust in the Government’s entire package of net zero policies.”
House of Commons2 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One of the consequences for my constituents of losing services like the 84/85, the T2 and the 622 is that they are cut off from health services. Does my hon. Friend agree that such access should be a priority for investment, and that a focus on the increase in passenger numbers when judging investment choices disadvantages rural areas?”
House of Commons2 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister has admitted that not all schools will be fully funded, but blames that on the choices that schools have made about their staff. Does she accept that schools cannot fully control the profile of their staff, and that in some cases—I make this point in a letter to the Minister—schools choose to pay people in higher bands because of the increasingly high needs that they are expected to support? Will she meet me to discuss how she will protect schools with particularly high staffing budgets from having to make excessive cuts?”
House of Commons22 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Businesses in Thornbury and Yate are crying out for change on business rates, from the Play Shed, which has seen its relief cut from 75% to 40%, to the company told it would have to wait at least a year to get a revaluation after it subdivided some units. Will the Leader of the House ensure that the Government bring to this House a statement setting out how they will review business rates?”
House of Commons22 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Pregnant women are entitled to free NHS dental care, yet this right is rendered meaningless when no NHS appointments are available.” Another constituent wrote to me: a cancer patient who needed major dental treatment ahead of intense radiotherapy. Bristol dental hospital advised them they would need lifelong follow-up care, but during covid that treatment was stopped and they were discharged back to their NHS dentist. Soon after—surprise, surprise—the practice ceased to provide NHS dentistry and they could not find another, so they were forced to pay for their essential treatment.”
House of Commons22 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The area covered by the NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire integrated care board is the worst of all worlds, with fewer dentists, adjusted for population size, and lower dental activity delivery rates alongside higher numbers of A&E visits with dental problems. I want to highlight two cases that show the impact that is having on vulnerable people. One constituent wrote: “Despite contacting more than a dozen dental practices in and around South Gloucestershire and Bristol, I have been told by every single surgery that no NHS appointments are available. However, I have been offered private appointments if I am willing to pay…The situation is even more distressing as my wife is currently pregnant and requires urgent dental care, which is crucial for her health and that of our unborn child.”
House of Commons22 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for introducing this debate. Thornbury and Yate is a dental desert. According to a recent newspaper report, not a single dentist in Thornbury and Yate is taking on new NHS patients for the third year in a row, leaving people having to travel long distances for care, or forced to pay for private treatment. I am sure, as a fellow south-west MP, the Minister will be as concerned as I am to hear that in September 2024 the NHS dental activity delivery rate was lowest in the south-west, at 61.6%, compared to the highest in London, at 94.7%. Not surprisingly, in the south-west, around one in every 460 people had to be taken to A&E with a dental problem in 2023-24. That was substantially higher than in London, where the figure was only one in every 860 people.”
House of Commons22 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do. We also need solutions for people like my constituent in the meantime; they have already had to pay £1,400 for treatment and they face another £2,000-worth of work to be able to eat normally. That is a stiff fee when you are reliant on personal independence payment and your spouse’s pension. My constituent feels that they have nowhere to turn. To sum up, patients like my constituents deserve access to an NHS dentist. We need an emergency scheme to guarantee access to free NHS dental check-ups for those already eligible: children; new mothers; those who, like my constituent’s wife, are pregnant; and those on low incomes. We need a dental rescue package that brings dentists back into the NHS from the private sector by fixing the dental contract and using flexible commissioning to meet patients’ needs in the meantime.”
House of Commons22 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome last week’s written statement confirming that the cases of many of the Triples—the Afghan commandos who served shoulder to shoulder with UK special forces—will be reviewed. What guarantees can the Minister offer that those individuals will be protected, wherever they are, and that their evidence will be heard by the public inquiry relating to Afghanistan?”
House of Commons19 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One of my constituents waited more than eight hours in a mental health crisis for 111 to get back to them, in which time their mental health deteriorated. Previously, they accessed a dedicated local support line, which gave them prompt access to professional support. Does the hon. Member agree that prompt access to support in a crisis is vital to reducing the need for the greater degrees of intervention covered by this Bill?”
House of Commons19 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Transport Secretary recently refused to commit to keeping the £3 cap on bus fares outside London beyond the end of this year, leaving many in rural areas worried about how much more they will end up having to pay to get to work. Residents across my constituency have already seen vital routes scrapped or scaled back, holding back economic growth. Can the Transport Secretary explain what support will be made available to not only keep rural fares down but restore lost services?”
House of Commons15 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Flooding is an increasing concern across the country. Only last month, I met agencies involved in tackling flooding on the railway at Old Sodbury, which impacts on the surrounding farmland and caused homes in Yate to be flooded during Storm Bert—yet the Government have made no funding commitment for flood protection beyond next April. Will the Leader of the House ask the Flooding Minister to bring to the House plans for longer-term flood protection funding?”
House of Commons15 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In many ways, the school’s intake is comparable to a school the staff visited in London, yet that school gets much higher per pupil funding simply because of the local authority it is in. That shows in the services that the London school is able to provide, from having specialist art and music teachers to having two teachers per class. Our children in Thornbury and Yate deserve more than what the funding currently provides. The disparity is undermining the work that our local schools do and leaving them worse off. We need a fairer national funding formula that supports disadvantaged and rural schools, not just those in more affluent and urban areas, and recognises the wide variation within local authority boundaries.”
House of Commons6 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Even within my constituency there is huge variation in the demographics of school intakes. I recently wrote to the Minister about the case of one primary school in my constituency that I visited. It provides a good example of the pressures caused by the unfairness in the existing funding system. Staff at the school told me that it has developed a reputation for being particularly supportive of children with SEND, and thus has an unusually high proportion of children who require extra support. On top of that, it is being asked to support increasingly high levels of medical needs, which its already overstretched staff are not trained to meet. It also has a high number of children with English as a second language, and a third of its pupils qualify for pupil premium funding.”
House of Commons6 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) for securing the debate. Investing in education is investing in our future, so we need to get it right. The national funding formula creates huge discrepancies in how children are supported in different authorities. My local authority, South Gloucestershire, has long been at or near the bottom of the funding league table, and that lack of investment is having a real impact on children. Thornbury and Yate is largely rural, but most of the rest of South Gloucestershire is urban. Generally, with all sorts of Government funding, when taken as a whole, it has suffered through not being rural enough for rural support but not having the concentrations of deprivation seen in some urban areas.”
House of Commons6 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Earlier this year, I had a meeting with the Minister and South Gloucestershire’s council leadership in the hope that this Government would take a more sensible approach, but the focus seems to be on providing spaces in mainstream settings. We support that as a goal, with extra funding for early intervention to make it possible, while recognising that there are children who need support now and did not get that early intervention. We also need funding for them. I ask the Minister to think again about what works now, because otherwise another generation of our children will miss out. Without a solution to the ending of the safety valve agreement, the whole system could collapse, leading to longer waits, reduced provision and more children out of school.”
House of Commons6 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“South Gloucestershire is one of the authorities with a safety valve agreement, which is intended to help councils to manage large deficits in their high needs budgets. It was signed pre-covid, with targets that are unachievable thanks to the impact of the pandemic. Next year, when the agreement ends, the council faces a cliff edge in funding. It, and other councils in that position, face impossible choices between balancing budgets and supporting vulnerable children. Furthermore, in the case of South Gloucestershire, the previous Conservative Government failed to provide the requested £30 million of funding to provide an additional 200 special school placements locally. As well as being better for the children, that would have reduced costs.”
House of Commons6 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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