Helena Dollimore

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234 held · 227 searchable for Helena Dollimore. The searchable lines are below in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 3 of 5.

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1. “Her constituency, like mine, has a thriving creative industry, which is one of the fastest-growing parts of our economy. Improving those links with Europe would really open that up, as well as the opportunities for tourism. My constituency neighbour the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle also mentioned the huge tourism opportunity. He and I share the home of 1066, and we have a massive opportunity coming up next year to increase tourism with the return of the Bayeux tapestry to our region. With all the attention that that will grab, why not use it as an opportunity to encourage more tourists from Europe and France to come and visit the home of the Bayeux tapestry and the home of 1066, and hear about that history and that heritage? There is a massive tourism opportunity here more broadly.”

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2. “Friend the Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) is really ambitious for the potential of international rail. Why stop at Ashford; why not go further? That was welcome to hear, as was his emphasis on how this could open up opportunities for his child and for young people in his constituency. The point about opening up opportunities for young people and broadening horizons, increasing the relationship with our closest European neighbours, is absolutely key. It is a point that my hon. Friend the Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) also made. As we hear our Labour Government talking ambitiously—rightly so —about a youth mobility scheme with the EU, what better time is there to restore this international rail link? My hon. Friend also talked strongly about our arts and creative industries on the south coast.”

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3. “We heard some helpful remarks from my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan), who pointed out that Eurostar is recovering financially and has massive expansion plans in London. Why does it want to put all its eggs in the London basket, particularly when St Pancras is unsustainably overcrowded at the moment? Again, Eurostar’s excuses simply do not add up; they are all about defending a monopoly. My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson) made a powerful case about the role of the regulator. Together, a group of us went to the regulator to physically hand in the letter from our constituents urging them to pull their finger out and end this monopoly. I join my hon. Friend in calling for that. My hon.”

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4. “and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) about how, when we discuss the issue and look at Eurostar’s decision, we must not forget that Eurostar ran down the service at Ashford International before the pandemic. He cited some helpful data on the number of trains stopping at Ashford International before the pandemic, and how it had gone down year on year. If, like me, Members are fans of the TV series “Race Across the World”, they will know that in the first season one of the teams goes to Ashford—I think in 2019—and find, having got there at 5 pm, that the last service has already left. Again, that re-emphasises the point that while Eurostar cites covid as an excuse, if we look at the evidence and data, it does not stack up. It is just an excuse to continue a monopoly.”

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5. “Today we have heard huge support from across the House for restoring international rail services to Ashford. I thank the Minister for the Labour Government’s firm commitment to restoring international trains to Ashford International, which is music to the ears of the constituents we represent. I also congratulate him on speaking from the Dispatch Box in a Westminster Hall debate for the first time, and on doing it so ably. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Sojan Joseph), with whom I have worked closely on this campaign, about the huge impact that the loss of international trains has had on his constituents and local businesses, as well as the huge impact of bringing those trains back. His area has felt it perhaps most acutely, and we know its importance to his constituents. We also heard from my hon.”

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6. “T2. The Queensway Gateway roadworks have unleashed chaos on my constituents in Hastings and the surrounding area. The project was originally planned to last one month, but has dragged on for more than a year because of the failure of East Sussex county council to plan for the relocation of a major water main. Does the Minister share my concerns about the mismanagement of this taxpayer-funded project, and agree that serious questions must now be answered by the Conservative council?”

   House of Commons11 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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7. “T6. I recently visited the ghost terminal at Ashford International train station, where five years ago Eurostar, shamefully, ceased to have its services stop. A report last month found that bringing back those international trains to Ashford could benefit our local economy in Sussex and Kent by over £2.5 billion, which would mean more jobs and more visitors for my constituents in Hastings and Rye. Will the Chancellor join me in calling on the train operators and the rail regulator to grasp that opportunity for growth?”

   House of Commons9 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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8. “I gently remind the right hon. Member that since this Labour Government came to power, interest rates have been cut five times—a vote of confidence in our Chancellor, fixing the foundations of our economy. That saves the average family on an average tracker mortgage in my constituency over £100 a month. Will he remind me what happened to interest rates when his party was in power?”

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9. “I really welcome the water commission. The EFRA Committee has had each of the water bosses in, one by one, and each struggled to explain why their industry prioritises bonuses over fixing broken pipes. I therefore really welcome the action that the Government have taken to ban bonuses, starting with the bonus for the Southern Water boss, Lawrence Gosden. We were, however, disgusted to hear last week that he plans to take a doubling in his salary, an additional £690,000, after overseeing major water outages, flooding in Hastings town centre and massive sewage dumping. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is a slap in the face to my constituents, and that Lawrence Gosden should think very seriously about whether he takes that salary increase?”

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10. “It is for the experts to decide whether that is practical, but will the Leader of the House support my campaign to make sure that my area is truly part of this national moment and feels the benefits of it?”

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11. “The return of the Bayeux tapestry to this country for the first time in almost 1,000 years is a triumph for Britain. The tapestry quite literally wove Hastings and 1066 Country into our national history, but while we are often at the centre of historical events, we have not always felt the benefits, and our area is in the bottom 10 places in the whole country for social mobility. This will be the exhibition of a generation, and our area must be a part of it. Children in my constituency must not be priced out by the cost of a ticket or train fare. What better way to ensure that that does not happen than to have the tapestry visit 1066 Country.”

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12. “We welcome the efforts recently made by the Government and Ofwat to tackle some of the problems of governance, bonuses and financial mismanagement, including the recent announcement of a ban on bonuses for overseeing failure thanks to the new powers introduced in the recent Water (Special Measures) Act 2025. However, we urge the Government to go further. We need a system that puts people before profits, protects our rivers and seas and earns the trust of the public. Let us not waste this opportunity—let us build a water sector that is transparent, accountable and fit for the future.”

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13. “We welcome the Government’s commitment to introduce a better single social tariff to protect those households and urge them to move quickly in introducing it. This week, we took evidence from Sir Jon Cunliffe, and impressed on him the importance of seeking fundamental reform of a sector that is failing. This is a time not for tinkering around the edges, but for bold action to meet the expectations of people across this country. This report should serve as a wake-up call and a stark reminder of the challenges in our water sector. It is the first step in a long-term inquiry, but our message is clear: the water sector must change.”

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14. “The rise in pollution incidents shows that regulators need better resources and powers to properly monitor the environment and enforce environmental protections. The price review process is not working either. Our Committee found that it must be reformed or replaced to better serve the interests of customers and the environment. It has failed to support the necessary investment in the sector and to maintain or improve the resilience of assets, and has allowed money to be siphoned off into bonuses and dividends instead of spent fixing broken infrastructure. The sector and the regulators have woken up too late to the need for investment in that broken infrastructure, and customers are now bearing the brunt of a huge increase in bills that should have been spread over a longer period. It is the most vulnerable households that will suffer.”

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15. “Regardless of the approach taken, other factors may need to be considered, such as the power to vet owners—a power that Ofwat does not currently hold. The commission should conduct a serious analysis of whether alternatives could bring about a culture that is better focused on public service, transparency and accountability. We know that there is also a need for other changes. The report calls for tighter regulation of financial practices, including limits on debt gearing levels, better oversight over complex business structures and greater scrutiny of dividend policies. We also want to see changes in the regulatory environment, which is too complex and too ineffective. Regulators such as Ofwat have been found asleep at the wheel during the crisis, too often focused on processes instead of outcomes.”

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16. “We were also disturbed by how much of our water industry—a whopping 70%—is in foreign ownership, often that of countries regarded as hostile to the UK. Is it really in the UK’s national interest to have water, a critical piece of infrastructure, in the hands of our adversaries? Major changes are needed to bring about a fundamental shift in leadership. The sector is deaf to the crisis it faces. Vetting or vetoing of owners could be a first step. We also believe that the commission and the Government should be open-minded about different ownership models. As well as publicly and privately owned businesses, options include not-for-profit enterprises, community interest companies, co-operatives and hybrid approaches.”

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17. “They were always quick to justify the need for bonus cheques to deliver good performance, but had no answers for us about why their bonuses were 150%, while the lowest-paid frontline workers out repairing pipes and leaky mains got just 3% or 5%. Bonuses going up while sewage pollution incidents increase—the Committee is not sure how that meets the definition of performance-related pay. At the heart of the issue is a perception that the water companies are prioritising profits over people and the planet. We found that the current structure of these companies is dominated by private equity and opaque financial arrangements that have been used to take debt to unsustainable levels. Some companies have clearly been bought by irresponsible owners who have prioritised shareholder returns over long-term investment and environmental stewardship.”

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18. “In the Hastings water outage, Southern Water initially refused to cough up any compensation. After I grilled him about it in Committee, the chief executive agreed to reverse the decision and pay compensation. Our Committee has taken the learnings from such incidents to recommend that we have a clear set of guidelines to say what people can reasonably expect from the water companies during a major water outage—such as providing portaloos, showering facilities or food provision as the crisis goes on. One water boss after another justified taking an eye-watering bonus while presiding over serious failure.”

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19. “Some companies, including Thames, are now struggling to stay afloat, thanks to the previously high levels of dividends extracted from the companies. That should never have been allowed to happen. We heard about serious failings during major incidents in which the public were abandoned. In Brixham, during a cryptosporidium outbreak, while residents lay in hospital from drinking the water, the boss of South West Water, Susan Davy, was missing in action. She could not explain why she refused interviews with the media during the crisis. We grilled the boss of Southern Water, Lawrence Gosden, about major incidents in my own constituency, when residents in Hastings and Rye were left without water for up to eight days. Proper provisions were not made during that time for residents, and communication was seriously lacking.”

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20. “The seas, rivers and waterways of a whole country have been desecrated. In my own constituency, in Hastings, Rye and the villages, we have been at the sharp end of this crisis, suffering at the hands of Southern Water. In our inquiry, we tried to take the public’s questions to the water bosses, to channel that anger into seeking answers about how we solve the crisis and about how we got here. We hauled in the water bosses one by one, and heard story after story of corporate failure, environmental degradation and a lack of accountability. The boss of Thames Water explained why it put 98 critical infrastructure projects back, instead spending that money on dividends rather than fixing broken pipes.”

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21. “It is intended to feed into the work of the Independent Water Commission. Over the past six months, we have been wading into the water industry and its many problems. Before I come to our findings, I want to thank my fellow Committee members, the Committee staff and the Chair for their hard work in getting this report over the line. Most of all, I thank the campaigners across the country who have helped to expose what is happening in our water industry. The story of what has happened in the water sector in this country reads a bit like the film “Erin Brockovich”—individuals who care about the state of their sea or their local river, going out to test the water only to find shocking levels of sewage pollution. A shocking number of them have then ended up having to go to court to find out the truth of what is happening.”

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22. “Thank you, Ms Lewell. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for me to make a statement on behalf of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee about our second report of this Parliament. The report is entitled “Priorities for water sector reform”, and it is intended to be the first in a long-term inquiry into reforming our water sector. We will continue to return to this subject throughout the Parliament, as we know how important it is. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has made reform of the water sector one of his five core priorities. Sir Jon Cunliffe was appointed by him to lead an independent review of the sector and to make recommendations. Unusually, therefore, our report does not make recommendations to the Government but to Sir Jon himself.”

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23. “I thank the hon. Member for that important question. On the Committee, we heard about the failures of United Utilities in her constituency and other places that it is meant to serve properly. We found that, at the moment, we have a very complex regulatory regime that does not serve anyone well. There is a lot of confusion about who is responsible for what, in the sector and among consumers. People do not know where to go when things go wrong—that is not clearly enough understood. We feel that there could be a much simpler, clearer regulatory regime, which needs more powers and also more resources to do the job properly.”

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24. “Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for his work on the Committee, and for his questioning of the boss of Welsh Water about many of these issues. He is right that at the moment all the indicators are going in the wrong direction on debt gearing and on the structures these companies use, all while sewage dumping incidents are, too often, increasing. In the report, we have called for limits on debt gearing levels, better oversight of the complex business structures that even the water bosses in front of our Committee did not seem to understand and were not able to explain, and greater scrutiny of dividend policies.”

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25. “Absolutely; I thank my hon. Friend for that point. He and I are both Labour and Co-operative Members of Parliament. We believe in the strong potential of that model. The Committee report urges the commission to look very closely at the potential benefits of community interest companies, co-operative models or other approaches. My hon. Friend is right that that could be a good way of looking at the change we need in the water industry.”

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26. “The Queensway Gateway roadworks are causing chaos for my constituents. East Sussex county council and Southern Water have not answered my question of why the moving of a major water main was not planned for before these works began. The need to do so is delaying those roadworks indefinitely. As the Leader of the House knows, I raised this matter with her six months ago. With works still dragging on and causing chaos, will she join me in calling on Conservative-run East Sussex county council and Southern Water to get a grip and explain who is responsible for this chaos?”

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27. “I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for raising the important issue of teaching children to swim. Like me, he represents a coastal community. Two years ago in Hastings and Rye, the Silverdale primary school pool closed. Many children and parents miss that facility, and hundreds of parents have joined me in supporting the campaign to get the school pool at Silverdale back open. Does he agree that we need an increase in school swimming lessons and facilities, not their rolling back?”

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28. “As the Minister has said, the situation is intolerable with one in five Gazans facing starvation; the use of aid as a weapon of war by Israel is inexcusable. The continued firing of rockets by Hamas and detention of hostages are also inexcusable, and it all must end. I welcome the UK, with our international allies, calling an urgent briefing on the situation at the UN Security Council. There, the UN humanitarian chief was clear in his warning about the dire consequences of the situation continuing. What steps are this Labour Government taking to get more aid in, get the hostages out and bring about the ceasefire and two-state solution that we all in this House desperately want to see?”

    House of Commons14 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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29. “Last month, I held a public meeting in my constituency with over 100 parents, carers and pupils to discuss our concerns about the quality of secondary education in my constituency. It is an absolute scandal that over 60% of young people leave school without a pass—level 4 or higher—in maths and English GCSE, a trend that has got worse under the Conservative party. Will the Minister commit to driving up standards in my local schools as a priority for this Labour Government?”

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30. “As we build new homes, it is important that we make sure that existing homes are as safe as they can be. I recently met representatives of a leading fire safety business in my constituency, who told me of the unacceptably long delays that it faces from the Building Safety Regulator. Will the Minister meet me and my local business to discuss those delays, and how we can tackle them?”

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31. “I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and for the record investment of this Labour Government in fixing potholes. I particularly welcome the £21 million for East Sussex to fix our roads. Does she share my frustration at the fact that Conservative-run East Sussex county council has told me that it will have a lower highways budget this year than last year, even with that record injection from the Labour Government? We need to track how it is spending that money. I welcome the Government’s commitment to making councils publish reports on how the extra pothole money is spent. I hope it will include a geographical breakdown, so I can make sure that Hastings, Rye and the villages are getting their fair share.”

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32. “Again, it is a shame that no Conservative Members are here, but I will be writing to the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), urging her not to take any more donations until that is done. When she became the Conservative leader, she said very clearly that her party would apologise for the mistakes that it had made; perhaps apologising to the people of my constituency is a good place to start.”

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33. “It is a shame that no Conservative Members are here to hear this, because they might like to hear that the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who sits on the Conservative Front Bench, recently accepted a £70,000 donation from Ms Chernukhin, who is clearly not struggling for money these days. In just the time since Owens has been closed, she has donated more than £150,000 to the Conservative party. Ms Chernukhin should donate the money she received from the taxpayer back to the people of Hastings—used well, it could go a very long way to fixing our broken paving stones and bus shelters. Lubov Chernukhin: we want our money back. Until that money is repaid in full to our community, the Conservative party should not take a penny in donations from her.”

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34. “Did Ms Chernukhin, a millionaire owner, really need a top-up from the taxpayer to fund such a venture? Was that truly the best use of the money given to Hastings to improve our town? None of that makes any sense to my constituents. It gets worse. Owens closed shortly after opening, and the deserted, boarded-up building now dominates our town centre in Hastings. The staff were laid off with no notice, and many people who supplied the business and helped with the building work have said that they have not been paid for their work. The closure of Owens, which is now covered in wooden boarding, leaves a stain on our community. Owens has now been closed for 18 months. What has Ms Chernukhin been doing in that time? The answer is: donating vast sums of money to the Conservative party.”

    House of Commons10 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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35. “I have called this debate about Owens in Hastings, the short-lived family fun factory whose boarded-up front is a familiar and depressing sight to anyone who has walked through our town centre. We are certainly not the only town to have experienced boarded-up shopfronts, which have become all too common on high streets around the country. The reason I am here speaking about this at 10 pm is that Owens has come to symbolise for our community much more than a mere eyesore. Under the Conservative Government’s levelling-up plans, Owens received £150,000 of taxpayers’ money. At the grand opening of Owens, it was revealed that the owner behind it was Lubov Chernukhin, a millionaire who has donated more than £2.4 million to the Conservative party.”

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36. “These will give local leaders the power to take action on properties that have been left vacant for over a year, granting local businesses and community groups the right to rent empty commercial lots at market price. Lastly, I put on record my thanks to the journalists involved in exposing this scandal. It is only because of the work of journalists at local publications such as the Hastings Independent Press, as well as at The Guardian, that we know what has gone on. Never again should taxpayers’ money be wasted in this way. For that reason, I am also referring the case of Owens to the National Audit Office, and I ask it to investigate. The lessons from Owens must be learned.”

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37. “Under this Labour Government, we have a brilliant opportunity to breathe life back into our high streets, sort out our empty units and get our local economy moving. I am really grateful to the Minister for the Labour Government’s confirmation that Hastings will be one of the 75 towns awarded £20 million in funding toward those aims over the next decade. The Government have rightly said that that money should be spent on the priorities of our community, whether that is broken pavements, broken bus shelters, or opening up important community venues such as St Mary in the Castle. I will be publicly asking my constituents how they think that money should be spent, and putting on pressure for us to spend it properly. The Labour Government are also giving our communities important new powers, such as high street rental auctions.”

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38. “Genecon, a consultancy, was paid by the town deal board to examine the business case for each project, but no research, analysis or figures have ever been shared. Did Genecon ever do that due diligence? All projects were signed off by the then levelling up Department; what checks and due diligence were done by officials and Ministers on those projects to ensure that our taxpayers’ money was being spent wisely? It seems that in the case of so many levelling-up projects, proper processes were not followed. Anyone who speaks to any charity applying today for public money will be told about all the paperwork those charities rightly have to go through. Why was the bar set so low for a venture such as Owens? Moving forward, it is vital that the same mistakes are not made.”

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39. “The plans for spending that money were meant to have been scrutinised by a board that was representative of the local community, but when I have spoken to local businessmen and women who sat on that board, they have told me that they were given very little information about the projects and pressured into signing them off. One asked repeatedly to see the full business cases, but was told that they could not because of commercial sensitivities. Why did the previous Government design such a process for spending taxpayers’ money with so little transparency for us, the taxpayer? Local businesses also cannot understand why the decision was taken to subsidise a commercial venture when they themselves have had to work so hard to get their businesses off the ground, with no help from the taxpayer.”

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40. “That company was previously owned by her husband, Vladimir Chernukhin, a former deputy Finance Minister in Putin’s Russia and former chairman of a Russian bank. In a 2018 court case, Lubov herself confirmed that Mr Chernukhin had maintained “excellent” relationships with “prominent members of the Russian establishment”. Is that really the company that the Conservative party wants to keep, and is that really a suitable donor? There are also serious questions to answer about what due diligence was done under the last Government before taxpayers’ money was handed out in this way. The money was part of the town deal fund under the last Government.”

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41. “I thank the hon. Gentleman for his passion about his area and about improving it. It is so true that where money is spent properly, in conjunction and collaboration with the priorities of local people, we see people really feeling a difference in their community. That is why when I speak to my constituents, it is so frustrating for them. We all know that we could have spent £150,000 so much better, which is where that frustration comes from. We are left with a boarded-up, huge building in the centre of town that we have to walk past, and we are reminded of that failure every time. The Guardian has also reported that Lubov Chernukhin’s involvement in Owens was at least part funded by a £1.5 million loan from a British Virgin Islands company, Sunny Gulch Village Ltd.”

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42. “My constituents in Hastings, Rye and the villages are fed up with the constant failures of Southern Water: dumping sewage in our sea, flooding, and leaving us without water for days—all while taking huge bonuses. We on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee have been hauling in the water bosses one by one and hearing about their failures. The boss of Southern Water finally agreed to give my constituents millions in compensation for a major water outage. Will the Prime Minister tell me how the Labour Government are cracking down on the bad behaviour of the water industry?”

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43. “For all the talk of levelling up from the Conservatives, I gently remind them of my Hasting and Rye constituents’ experience of levelling up: £150,000 of taxpayers’ money was given to a Conservative donor to improve Hastings town centre, and all we have left as a result is a boarded-up shop. I really welcome the Minister’s commitment of £20 million for Hastings, which will be spent in a responsible way, based on the priorities of my constituents, whether that is broken pavements, broken bus shelters or buying back important community assets, from pubs to closed concert venues—I know there is a lot of concern in Hastings about St Mary in the Castle. Can he explain how residents of Hastings can feed into the process for how the money is spent?”

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44. “Many Members wish to speak, so I will sum up by saying that it is clear that far more attention needs to be given to women’s health. I am looking forward to hearing the stories from other Members’ constituencies and how this Labour Government will be working to ensure that women get the support and treatment that they have the right to.”

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45. “She was mentioned by a number of women who got in touch with me who said she was a champion of women’s healthcare; as a result, a huge waiting list of women were waiting for appointments with her because word of mouth had spread about how she prioritised this issue. Maternity services, of course, are not the only area in which shocking scandals have been exposed regarding women’s health. We will hear today from Members who have been campaigning for justice for the women who were victims of the mesh and sodium valproate scandals. We have also heard a number of shocking stories from women, as part of their submissions, about an inability to access basic contraception, about long waits to access the healthcare that they have the right to access and about challenges in women’s mental health services.”

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46. “The report made many important recommendations and I hope that the Government will look closely at them. I pay tribute to those in that all-party group in the previous Parliament for the work that went into that report and to the women who shared their stories, and to all the women that have shared their stories as part of the House of Commons call for evidence. We have looked through all of them, and I know that many Members will be sharing stories about their own constituents’ experiences. It is also worth pointing out that some examples of brilliant women’s healthcare have been shared as well. I want to particularly mention Dr Warner from the Rye medical centre in my constituency.”

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47. “We have heard harrowing evidence in the numerous reviews commissioned into maternity services at a number of hospital trusts of the same mistakes being made over and over again and lessons not being learned, with tragic consequences of women and babies losing their lives or experiencing traumatic births. That has to change. The landmark report of the all-party parliamentary group on birth trauma in the previous Parliament set out for the first time the shocking impact that traumatic births have had on women and their families and what needs to change to prevent that. Often, those tragic cases were a result of an unhealthy obsession in maternity units with not intervening. I must point out to the House how damaging that obsession has been for many women.”

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48. “When I said that I’d been clear that I thought it was related to endometriosis the whole time, she dismissed me and said ‘we don’t deal with menstrual issues in A&E’. I left in tears and pain and have since avoided A&E despite experiencing acute pain”. Another area of great importance in this debate is maternity services. I recently had the chance to visit my local maternity unit at the Conquest hospital in Hastings and see the fantastic care that local midwives are giving women. Midwives are working really hard and have our full support. We need to ensure that we are doing everything we can to tackle the retention crisis in midwifery and encourage more young people to enter the profession.”

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49. “She and many others have rightly highlighted the shocking delays for women in accessing hormone replacement therapy treatment— a medicine that plays a critical role in alleviating the symptoms of the menopause, helping millions of women in the UK manage what is a natural life transition. One of my constituents, Kate, wrote to me to describe her struggle to access adequate treatment for the pain that she has been suffering and how she was not taken seriously by medical professionals. She says: “At one point, I was experiencing such a high level of pain…that I was sent by the GP to A&E with suspected appendicitis. After tests confirmed what I’d said all along”— that it was endometriosis— “I was ‘confronted’ by a doctor…who demanded to know why I was there, and what I thought they should do to help me.”

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50. “It is clear that far more attention and focus needs to be given to women’s menstrual cycles and treatment for conditions related to them, including the menopause. Why is it that in over a decade of being at school in this country, I learned all about many obscure topics like oxbow lakes, but never about the menopause, which affects 51% of our population? Everyone will be affected by it, whether they experience it as a woman or their mother, daughter or wife does. We are rightly seeing more focus given to the menopause thanks to the work of many campaigners. I want to give particular mention to my hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for her championing of the cause.”

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