Andrew Cooper
MP for Mid Cheshire · Labour · United Kingdom
“My hon. Friend is aware of the unique case involving my constituent Rachel Gallagher, a former MOD civil servant who was released from her role under civil service nationality rules.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I completely agree with the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) raised about Capita’s unacceptable performance.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In one particular case, my constituent and I contacted Capita separately, and I additionally raised the matter with Ministers in the Cabinet Office.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“By making accessibility one of GBR’s core priorities, this Labour Government are finally putting the improvement of accessibility at the heart of the rail network. How will stations such as Northwich railway station be able to access accessibility improvement funding to deliver the accessible station that my constituents deserve?”
House of Commons16 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Without significant intervention, 100,000 social homes could be lost over the coming decade, further reducing the supply of affordable housing. It is against that backdrop that the interim findings of the Renew inquiry are so important—I declare my interest as chair of the Westminster group for the inquiry.”
House of Commons15 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to present a petition on behalf of residents of Mid Cheshire pertaining to unadopted estates in my constituency. Around 4,700 households—equivalent to more than 12% of all properties across Northwich, Middlewich and Winsford—are on new build estates where basic infrastructure such as roads, drains and sewers remain unadopted by pub…”
House of Commons15 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Friend agree that if the proposal is to go forward, we need to look seriously at either a half-hourly service from Northwich or wider infrastructure improvements, so that we can improve journey times for the whole line?”
House of Commons18 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) on securing the debate and pay tribute to him for the strong case he made on behalf of his residents in Cheadle. If I was in his position, I would make broadly the same arguments. However, I am the Member of Parliament for Mid Cheshire, and I have to speak for my constituents, and unfortunately there is no way to deliver a station at Cheadle that does not have a detrimental effect on the mid-Cheshire line and add to the journey time from Northwich, which is already an hour. Transport for Greater Manchester’s modelling proposed dropping the services from Plumley, Ashley and Mobberley down to every two hours, rather than every hour, which would effectively kill rail travel to those communities. Does my hon.”
House of Commons18 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Courts and Tribunals Bill seeks to increase the transparency of court proceedings in several important respects, but conducting empirical research into how real juries make decisions will remain illegal in England and Wales. Researchers have had to rely on mock juries in their research, which has shown a link between the attitudes of jurors and verdict decisions, in particular in rape trials. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that we must break down barriers to jury research so that we can develop appropriate reforms to address this problem?”
House of Commons17 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This International Women’s Day I commend the work in my constituency of the Her-Place charitable trust, which supports women’s wellbeing and creates spaces to facilitate conversations about health and other challenges. Her-Place says that many women, especially in deprived areas, visit their GP with poor mental health, but are given medication without any meaningful discussion about what is happening in their lives. With Healthwatch England reporting that many women feel unheard and that those in deprived areas facing 20 fewer healthy years, how will the Government back community-based wraparound services to close those gaps?”
House of Commons11 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In Europe today, it is possible to have a prescription issued in Tallinn, Estonia, and have it fulfilled in Lisbon, Portugal, but in my constituency, my local hospital cannot even send a prescription to a local pharmacy. May I urge my right hon. Friend to look carefully at what works in Europe, avoid reinventing the wheel and seriously consider interoperability with the EU’s identification framework?”
House of Commons10 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I intend to support the Bill’s Second Reading, because it contains important reforms to our criminal justice system, and it is essential that we deal with the crisis that has failed victims for too long, but I also intend to continue engaging with Ministers, and I look forward to my concerns being addressed as the Bill progresses.”
House of Commons10 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Bill’s proposal to try by judge alone eliminates all community involvement for that class of defendant, treating them differently from those facing charges of both lesser and greater severity. The 2022 University of Manchester study “Racial Bias and the Bench” found that over half of respondents had witnessed one or more judges acting in a racially biased way towards a defendant in their judicial rulings, summing up, sentencing, bail, comments or directions. I have listened carefully to Ministers’ arguments, but I am nevertheless concerned that significant risks remain.”
House of Commons10 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Although Sir Brian Leveson intended for the three-year threshold in the presumption on whether a case should be allocated to the bench division, judicial discretion would be maintained for exceptional circumstances. It is not difficult to imagine cases in which the broader public interest is best served by a jury trial. One wonders how the Colston four would have fared in a judge-only trial. The last word on where such cases should be tried should sit with a judge who has considered all the arguments and nuances. Leveson recommended that the bench division consist not only of a judge but of two magistrates, in order to retain community involvement in the judgment, as well as to address the diversity gap in the judiciary.”
House of Commons10 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A raft of measures in the Bill will do that, alongside important reforms such as the removal of the presumption of contact. I intend to focus specifically on the proposals for the Crown court bench division. Parliament has taken a view on where the line should be drawn between offences disposed of by magistrates and offences that require a full Crown court trial with a jury, owing to a different level of severity and jeopardy for the defendant. Elsewhere in our system, it is not unprecedented for serious matters to be decided by a judge alone, such as in the family court. The question is whether the Government have struck the correct balance in their proposals, and whether there are sufficient safeguards for defendants. I have two points to make in that respect.”
House of Commons10 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A foundational principle of our constitution is that everyone is bound by and entitled to the benefit of the law, but the long-running crisis in our justice system has stretched that principle to breaking point. Other right hon. and hon. Members have covered in depth the disastrous decisions by the previous Government that have got us to this point. I would only add that on my visit to Chester Crown court last month, they told me about a recent trial that had to finish at 3 pm each day because they could not get the light bulbs in the court replaced. The Government have invested significantly in court infrastructure, legal aid and uncapping sitting days, but it is clear that investment alone will not be enough to deal with this crisis. We also need to reform the system and make it fit for how criminal justice operates today.”
House of Commons10 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This will be a worrying time not only for households, but for the energy- intensive businesses in my constituency. Last year, we lost soda ash production from Northwich after 150 years, in part due to the high energy costs. What support does my right hon. Friend intend to provide businesses both to get through this crisis and into the future, so that we can ensure they stay viable and competitive?”
House of Commons5 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Many of us, on both sides of the House, are sympathetic to both new clauses. We heard very clearly in evidence sessions that the Computer Misuse Act, as it is today, has a chilling effect on the operation of the cyber-security industry in this country and on whether such companies want to locate here as opposed to other countries. I absolutely hear what the Minister says about the Home Office developing proposals. I wonder whether he can set out a timescale for when those proposals are likely to be brought forward—whether he expects that to be in this parliamentary Session or the next one. The issue is clearly holding back the cyber-security industry in this country, and we would all like to see it resolved.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Lady makes a passionate case and spoke movingly about the debate in her own family and how to protect her children. I recognise that. I have two young children and I think carefully about what they look at online. I worry about when they get older and how we will deal with that. The hon. Lady talks about age-gating as the principle on which she wants to work, but I am concerned. We know that the algorithms are addictive and that they reinforce people’s worst prejudices. What evidence is there that that stops at 16? Is she not concerned that simply focusing on age-gating will diminish the pressure on social media companies to open up the algorithms so that we can have a look at how they affect society more generally?”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“T8. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee has just published a report on social housing conditions, warning that just under 430,000 social homes are non-decent. Additional research shows that in the north, more than 100,000 social homes will reach end of life over the next 10 years. I am chairing the Westminster group of the Renew inquiry, which is looking at how housing-led regeneration in the north can improve housing conditions and support the delivery of new homes and growth. Will the Minister meet me and representatives of the Northern Housing Consortium to discuss this important issue?”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thirdly, I assisted an individual whose referral to adult services was not made before community paediatrics stopped prescribing as he transitioned from childhood to adulthood. Due to excessive waiting lists, this person has been without ADHD medication since March 2025, which is indicative of a system that is not working properly. Will the Minister address the systemic barriers to the ADHD pathway?”
House of Commons20 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“First, on barriers and gatekeeping, I have received so many cases of schools refusing or postponing referrals, adults reporting GPs minimising symptoms, and community paediatrics increasingly rejecting referrals even when evidence is clear or a private diagnosis exists. Such gatekeeping practices do not protect services; they merely protect delay and lead to wider mental health problems in the long term. Secondly, on the right to choose, I am sure we all have cases in our mailbags where constituents have been forced to obtain a private diagnosis because of waiting list delays, only to find that the NHS rejects the assessment, will not provide the medication they need or will not play fair on the shared care agreement. That is wholly improper.”
House of Commons20 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) on securing this debate. He knows my links to his constituency, and I am certain that his moving tribute to Matt will be appreciated by Matt’s family, his Labour family and everybody that knew and loved him. ADHD affects people of all ages, backgrounds and communities, yet too many are stuck on waiting lists for years, during which time their needs go unmet and their wellbeing deteriorates. In the limited time I have, I want to make three points.”
House of Commons20 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, particularly the action on mobile phones in schools. Harmful interactions can take place in online games and on instant messaging platforms, and we need to be alive to the risk of driving use to less well-regulated spaces and into virtual private networks. I am also concerned that opaque feed algorithms, which reinforce our worst prejudices and recommend harmful content, can have mental health impacts on adults as well as children. Can she assure me that her review will look at this broader issue, and will she ensure that young people’s voices are at the heart of the consultation?”
House of Commons20 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Preparedness must mean more than storing equipment or writing contingency documents; it must mean designing a compassionate, comprehensive safety net that recognises the full spectrum of working lives in the UK and ensures that the mistakes of the past are not repeated.”
House of Commons15 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That means ensuring that any future emergency financial support schemes are properly stress-tested in advance against real-world employment patterns so that they reflect the diversity of modern working lives before they are ever deployed. No one contributing to the economy should face a crisis without a lifeline. Mental health impacts must be treated as a central component of emergency planning, not an afterthought. Just as importantly, the voices of those previously excluded should be included in future policy discussions so that lived experience shapes the solutions of tomorrow.”
House of Commons15 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Each of those lives lost is a reminder that policy decisions are not abstract; they reach deeply into homes, families and futures. We must not only recognise and acknowledge the impact that exclusion had on those individuals but show renewed determination to ensure that such gaps never re-emerge. The pandemic has taught us something essential: economic resilience is public health resilience. There can be no effective emergency response if large groups of people are left without support. A society is only as strong as its most vulnerable moment. As the UK continues to develop its preparedness planning for future pandemics and national emergencies, it is vital that support systems are designed with the flexibility to meet people where they actually are, not where policy assumes them to be.”
House of Commons15 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They were contributing members of society who paid taxes, built businesses and supported local economies, yet at the moment they needed help most, many found none. That includes constituents in Mid Cheshire, many of whom contacted me ahead of the debate. They had done everything asked of them—they had built livelihoods and paid their taxes—but still found themselves excluded from support when the pandemic hit. People saw their livelihoods disappear overnight. Some were forced to drain life savings, sell belongings or take on unsustainable debt just to survive. They felt unheard, unseen and unvalued by the systems meant to protect them. Tragically, for some, the emotional and financial devastation became unbearable.”
House of Commons15 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Manuela Perteghella) for securing this really important debate. When the covid-19 pandemic unfolded, it tested every part of our society. It pushed our health system, our communities and our economy to the brink. In that moment of crisis, emergency financial support was rightly created at unprecedented speed. Those measures protected millions, but despite the scale of that effort, far too many people were left behind. The ExcludedUK campaign emerged because an estimated 3.8 million individuals fell through the gaps in pandemic financial support. Those were freelancers, newly self-employed people, small business owners, PAYE short-term contractors and others whose circumstances simply did not fit the rigid eligibility rules.”
House of Commons15 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What specific steps will the Government take to ensure that any future emergency financial support schemes are designed with the flexibility, fairness and real-world applicability needed to prevent millions from ever again being excluded in their moment of greatest need?”
House of Commons15 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Chancellor of the Exchequer has done exactly the right thing by setting up the covid corruption commissioner. During the pandemic, there were those who saw it not as a moment of national emergency in which we should all get together, but as an opportunity to line their own pockets. The Chancellor is doing exactly the right thing by trying to root out those people and make sure that they suffer the consequences. We cannot change what happened, but we can choose what happens next. Let us learn the lessons from past schemes that left too many people excluded, and move forward by building systems that protect everyone. Let us ensure that in any future crisis, we never again leave millions to face hardship alone.”
House of Commons15 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Like the hon. Gentleman, a constituent contacted me ahead of this debate and told me that, although many motorists act responsibly, there is an increasing problem with drivers behaving more aggressively and passing horses at unsafe distances. Given that horses can react unpredictably when they think their lives are at risk, that puts everybody’s lives at risk. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that teaching equestrian safety as part of driver training would be an important way of tackling this issue?”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If they intend to withdraw it, will she write to me with details of the status of any undertakings and assurances made by HS2 to my councils and constituents as part of the petitioning process, which would not be delivered for more than a quarter of a century and by an organisation that may, by then, no longer exist?”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Our region, from our big cities to our small towns, is ambitious for our future. We are hungry to play our part in our country’s economic recovery and have been impatient for the Government to see our potential after so many years of undelivered promises. Today’s announcement to invest in NPR shows that this Government will meet that ambition head-on. The previous Government issued an instruction to the HS2 Phase 2b hybrid Bill Committee to remove the Mid Cheshire sections of the route from the Bill. Can my right hon. Friend confirm whether this Government intend to retain or withdraw this instruction?”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Sixty-six years ago this week, the last regular passenger train called at Middlewich railway station, drawing to a close 92 years of passenger rail travel from the town. A number of students from Middlewich high school have written to me to ask whether the Government would consider reopening the station, and Enterprise Cheshire and Warrington undertook considerable work under the Restoring Your Railway scheme. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss the merits of bringing back railway services to the largest town in Cheshire without a station, and restore that vital connection to Manchester, Crewe and beyond?”
House of Commons8 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Minister commit to publishing a timetable for when each consultation and each measure is likely to come in, so that we can give reassurance to families that we are going to do this?”
House of Commons8 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I commend the Minister for bringing forward the first road safety strategy in more than a decade, alongside specific and measurable targets for cutting the number of deaths on our roads. Evidently, one of the experiences we share across the House is the first time we meet the family of a child who has been killed on our roads. In my case, it was a child from Middlewich who was just cycling to school when he was hit by a young driver racing another car. What will stay with me—as it will stay with his friends, the school and our community for ever—is not just the sense of utter devastation, but the sense of determination from the parents that it cannot be allowed to happen to another family. The strategy sets out a broad range of measures that the Government want to bring in.”
House of Commons8 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am absolutely staggered to hear the shadow Secretary of State talk about standard software testing practices as though someone is doing wrong by trying to penetrate systems and find flaws in them. Is not the whole point of software testing to find the flaws in a system and get them fixed, rather than parading them in front of the House of Commons as though they are some sort of failure?”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Whether it is state-sponsored cyber-attacks, hacktivism, identity theft or ransomware attacks, those threats can have a widespread and significant impact on people’s lives, on the wider economy, and on our safety and security. Many Members from across the House have noted the cyber-attack on Jaguar Land Rover —which led to that company posting a loss of £485 million last year and, as I think we heard earlier, to a £2 billion impact on the wider economy—and the Co-op infiltration, which cost that retailer at least £206 million. However, this is not a new issue, and virtually no area of the economy has not experienced attempts to penetrate its systems and cause disruption or steal data.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington), who made a fantastic speech. I do not think mine will be of quite the same quality, but I will do my best. Having spent my career prior to entering this place as a software developer, it is perhaps not so much a pleasure as a blast of nostalgia to be speaking on this Bill today. The Bill provides for an important and long-overdue update to the NIS regulations, and provides the means to keep those regulations up to date more quickly as new threats emerge. That was a massive gap in our capability left behind by the rather haphazard and cavalier manner of our departure from the EU, and it is absolutely right that we resolve it as soon as we can. It is a cliché to say that the nature of the threats we face has changed.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We just need to think about what the priority of an individual sectoral regulator will be, because it will not necessarily be cyber-security. We have to get the balance right, and we need to listen to the sectoral expertise on that. In conclusion, this Bill is an important and long-overdue update to the UK’s cyber-security framework. I look forward to working with the Government to get the scope and scale of these regulations right and to ensure that all the systems that we rely on every day are secure in the face of current and emerging threats.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The other area of the Bill that I want to talk about relates to the regulators. The Minister set out in his opening remarks why he believes a sectoral approach is appropriate, and there is merit to that argument. Sectoral regulators have deep, long-standing institutional knowledge and they understand how the processes work in their sector. However, as I touched on earlier, the consequences of failure are enormous, with real-world impacts on people’s everyday lives. We should not expect an overarching cyber regulator to have the domain-specific knowledge of the water sector or the air traffic control sector, and nor should we expect every sectoral regulator to carry the expertise of how modern scalable data centres that detect faults automatically and automatically failover to different regions or different jurisdictions work.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I offer a note of caution about this part of the Bill, and it relates to the threshold at which the regulations apply. For managed service providers, we need to ensure that we are providing appropriate levels of cyber-security without blocking new entrants to the market. That applies to critical suppliers, too. The risk is that we end up boosting the hegemony of the big outsourcers and IT suppliers, rather than being able to support new domestic entrants. There is a risk of vendor lock-in, as we have heard several times today. Equally, the threshold on data centres appears to have been set so high that only larger ones will be in scope. I hope that the Minister will keep both of those points under review as the Bill progresses and think about how we can strengthen this provision to strike the right balance.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That situation changed for a whole pile of reasons, such as the need to support more public access, the requirement to facilitate more home working, huge increases in the speed of domestic and business broadband, the need to provide failover, redundancy and scaling, the shift away from big capital investment towards infrastructure as a service, and wanting to benefit from more rapid roll-out of features and applications that require significant server infrastructure behind them, such as we have seen more recently with AI. Systems have been moving virtually wholesale to those that are managed remotely and sandboxed to multiple organisations, and towards virtual servers or services in data centres, rather than on-premise tin. Bringing these two areas into scope is obvious, and it is long overdue.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I confess that I am not an expert on the IT of Gloucester city council, but I am sure the Minister has heard his intervention, and may wish to respond in his summing up. I welcome the measures in the Bill to bring managed service providers and data centre infrastructure into scope. When I began my career working on hotel reservation systems, legacy on-premise infrastructure was the standard operating practice. Some organisations would develop their own line of business systems and some would buy in, but virtually all would be hosted on their own servers, often with clever names such as Spartacus, Xena or Buffy the Vampire Slayer—names that I worked with over the years.”
House of Commons6 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“T2. I recently met a group of care workers from Northwich who are here through the health and social care visa, and who are undertaking vital work with great commitment and some personal sacrifice. They spoke passionately about the unfairness of applying the proposed changes to requirements for settled status retrospectively. What assessment has the Home Secretary made of the policy's compliance with the judgment in the case of R (HSMP Forum Ltd) v . Secretary of State for the Home Department in 2008, in respect of ensuring that changes made to immigration rules should not disadvantage those who had already made life-changing decisions based on the existing framework?”
House of Commons5 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Can she possibility provide us with an indication of when councils will get some certainty over what the future holds for the statutory override, so that we can see those dedicated schools grant deficits cleared?”
House of Commons17 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for her statement and welcome her commitment to restoring fairness to the heart of the local government financial settlement, giving our councils the long-term certainty they have been crying out for. The Conservatives were a disaster for local government. In both Cheshire authorities, 70p in every pound is now spent on looking after vulnerable adults and children, leaving the remainder to fund every other essential service. That is to say nothing of the ballooning dedicated schools grant deficit. The Conservatives left our communities struggling with deteriorating infrastructure and under-resourced essential services. Can she say more about what this settlement means for my constituents in Northwich, Winsford and Middlewich?”
House of Commons17 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Helping people to deal with the trauma of homelessness and the underlying reasons they became homeless in the first place is the best way of preventing recurrence, and we have seen that with Housing First programmes elsewhere. I was wondering whether the Minister will commit to monitoring the success of the supported housing element of the strategy and whether she will look to expand it in future if it proves successful.”
House of Commons11 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for her commitment on this issue and on the child poverty strategy, which is not unrelated to this work. I welcome the strategy she has announced today as a good first step in the right direction. The focus on prevention and the duty to collaborate are particularly important, as is the new money for supported housing. The lack of a Homes England plan for supported housing has been a real gap, and we have seen supported housing units close as housing associations have struggled to balance what they have to do on compliance, responsive repairs and new developments with wanting to offer supported units.”
House of Commons11 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q4. Thousands of families are moving into new estates only to discover that basic infrastructure—roads, drains and sewers—remain in limbo, unadopted by public authorities. In Mid Cheshire alone, 4,700 households—more than 12% of all properties in the constituency—face that uncertainty, with no guarantee on maintenance, safety and future costs, often years after developers have walked away. Can the Prime Minister say what steps he will take to make adoption timely and enforceable, so that homeowners are not left carrying the burden of unfinished infrastructure?”
House of Commons10 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my right hon. Friend for her leadership and all her hard work in getting us to this point. The extent to which child poverty increased under the last Government, and the fact that it shifted so heavily towards children in working families, ought to be a source of shame for the Conservatives—if only they were here to hear it. On behalf of the 2,430 children in Mid Cheshire who will benefit from the lifting of the two-child cap, may I thank her for having the courage to pull that lever and make a huge and immediate difference to them and their future? Some 174,000 children are living in temporary accommodation. Can she say more about how the forthcoming homelessness strategy will ensure that no child is accommodated in a bed and breakfast for longer than six weeks?”
House of Commons8 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Recent efforts to secure UK participation in the EU’s Security Action for Europe initiative, which aims to strengthen defence capacity across the continent in response to escalating Russian threats, appear to have come to an end without agreement. While it is right that the UK only enters agreements that clearly support our national interest and represent value for money, we must continue to play a leading role in European security. Will the Minister outline how the Government intend to build momentum for renewed UK-EU co-operation in this area?”
House of Commons4 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May I welcome the additional £21.7 million per year announced today for the Cheshire and Warrington combined authority? I know my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), who is on the Front Bench, has campaigned for that for many, many years. Our region has massive untapped potential in life sciences, chemical manufacturing and digital. For too long we have watched while our friends in the Liverpool city region and Greater Manchester have been able to build a transport network and a skills strategy fit for the 21st century. Does the Minister agree that this is the difference that a Labour Government make?”
House of Commons4 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Perhaps I have misunderstood, but I am sure that the Minister has clarified that the standardised pay across the sector should be a floor, not a ceiling. Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that that is his understanding too?”
House of Commons1 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“But we have also seen cases where that support has been absent, where performance has declined and communities have had little influence over improvement. The current system has grown fragmented and inconsistent. Structures alone do not guarantee success. What matters is the quality of teaching, the leadership and the support a child receives at home. The reforms will restore coherence and ensure that every school is part of a system focused on outcomes, not organisational labels. It is time to move beyond debates about governance and put standards at the heart of the conversation. Other measures tackle barriers to learning head-on. Free breakfast clubs in every state-funded primary school will ensure no child starts the day hungry. Limiting branded items in school uniforms will ease cost of living pressures and promote inclusion.”
House of Commons1 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗