Lizzi Collinge
MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale · Labour · United Kingdom
“The Minister speaks eloquently about the threat that the Iranian regime poses to the freedom of religion and safety of Jewish people and others in Britain. As I am sure he is aware, people in Iran do not enjoy freedom of religion or belief, such as Iranian Christians, some of whom I have met in Morecambe and Lunesdale.”
“These are very serious allegations. It is right that they are investigated independently, and I think all of us urge NESO to have full candour. Grid stability is really important, and the recent heatwave shows the challenges that climate change brings and the importance of our clean energy transition.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. Despite countless studies showing gaping disparities in everything from employment to life expectancy, coastal towns are neglected in discussions about geographical inequality. There are a few reasons for that.”
“As adults, we cannot just go up to someone in the playground, like my daughter does, and say, “Will you be my friend?” Communities do not happen by accident. They need the social infrastructure such as parks, libraries, youth clubs and naval clubs.”
“There are areas of transience, but people have been there for generations. People know each other, and that social infrastructure is important. I am really concerned about the impact of short-term lets, such as Airbnb and others, on social cohesion. In my constituency, we are getting Eden Project Morecambe.”
“A couple of years ago, I went to Spain at the end of a severe heatwave, and what I saw devastated me. There were fields and fields of blackened crops. Now farmers in my constituency are increasingly experiencing drought, flooding, extreme heat, and a change in the seasons due to climate change.”
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“Failed regulation contributed to the historic problems at Morecambe Bay—and that was under a Labour Government. Structural changes to our care system and wider society under successive Conservative Governments have impacted care. Due to austerity, we had a £37 billion capital investment shortfall in the 2020s compared with our peer countries. We know that increased poverty affects maternal and neonatal mortality, and as a nation we have become more poorly over the past 15 years. It is now on us and the Government to fix the problem.”
“I absolutely agree. There is work to do to prioritise the actions that have come out of all those inquiries, because trying to do too much will lead to it all being done badly. There must be a real focus on what will make the difference to women’s safety and experience. Countless national and local maternity reports have revealed persistent issues with care, a failure to listen to expectant mothers, staffing pressures, a lack of transparency and institutional cultures that have encouraged cover-up. That is against the background of increased medical complexity in pregnancy and birth, wider aspects of public health having worsened, and the racism and misogyny that still permeates our society. These failures are a long time in the making.”
“My constituents are horrified by the civilian toll of US-Israeli and Iranian military attacks, including the threats to basic civilian infrastructure. They are also very concerned about the long-term domestic impact of the closure of the strait of Hormuz, for example on food prices. First, can the Prime Minister reassure my constituents that UK bases will never be used to target civilians or civilian infrastructure? Secondly, can he reassure them that the Government are planning for all possible domestic impacts?”
“The more that we move away from technology that is reliant on gas and oil, whether it is at home, in transport or in industry, the less we are subject to geopolitical storms, such as the invasion of Ukraine or the current crisis in the middle east.”
“First, gas and oil prices are inherently volatile and often under the control of malign international actors. Oil and gas prices are set internationally, and gas and oil from the North sea are traded internationally, so unless the Opposition are suggesting that we nationalise the North sea and seize its products, their suggestion that it would somehow help with pricing is absolute nonsense. The more that we rely on gas and oil, the longer that gas will set the price of electricity. Of course, oil sets the price of all sorts of things, from transport to food and energy. Gas setting the price of electricity is bad, because it makes electricity cost more. Conversely, the higher the level of wind, solar, nuclear and storage, the less gas will set the price of electricity, and the cheaper that electricity can become.”
“We know that we will be using North sea oil and gas for some time to come. I welcome the Chancellor’s announcement about short-term and medium-term measures to address the crisis in the middle east and the inevitable impact on our energy costs, as well as her quick action on heating oil. The motion is, however, about not just the immediate crisis but a long-term strategic approach to energy security. The position of the Conservatives and Reform on increasing our reliance on oil and gas is based on false assumptions, not on the facts of the situation that we find ourselves in. This could be an ideological discussion—clearly, they are trying to turn it into another nonsense culture war—but does not need to be, because it is easy to overturn the Opposition argument with evidence and a number of facts.”
“Ukraine’s previous reliance on gas had left it exposed to Putin using energy in this way, and its message was clear: the only way to get energy security and keep the lights on domestically is with home-grown clean energy, with distributed generation and storage, providing protection against Putin’s attacks and the wider geopolitical instability that we have seen. The economic case for clean energy has been very clearly made. The arguments made by the Opposition in favour of continuing our reliance on oil and gas are nonsense. Let us not forget—”
“Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), the skills of North sea gas and oil workers are absolutely vital in building and operating that new infrastructure. They have fantastic skills, and they need to be part of the clean energy transition. Last week, I met a Ukrainian delegation as part of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. It described in very brutal and frank terms how Putin has used energy as a weapon of war and the severe impact that has had on the people of Ukraine.”
“The hon. Lady is absolutely correct. The central premise of the motion simply does not stand up to any scrutiny. Secondly, the Opposition want to talk about levies to pay for the cost of new clean energy infrastructure, but they conveniently forget that all energy infrastructure needs to be renewed and replaced. Wind, solar and nuclear are cheaper than new gas and oil infrastructure. We also need to improve our grid, and that has to be paid for somehow. Whichever way we cut it, we need to build that infrastructure and pay for it, but the Conservatives and Reform simply do not have an answer on how they would do that. To be really clear, and to build on the point made by my right hon.”
“We are improving our quality of life, with cleaner air—we are not killing tens of thousands of people with dirty air every year—warmer homes and good clean energy jobs.”
“I would like to finish. Finally, climate change in and of itself is a huge threat to our economic security, our physical health, the entirety of our wellbeing and the ability to feed ourselves. The Opposition say, “If we transition to clean energy, it will not make much of an impact”, but actually it will, because we are being global leaders. Every half a degree that we prevent in heating will save hundreds of thousands of lives every year. We must do something; we cannot sit on our hands and do nothing, as the Opposition would like us to do. This Government are meeting the challenge of climate change, not with hair shirts or by trying to do without, but by building a better world.”
“My hon. Friend is making some really good points. There are certain industries that do need gas, so does he agree that we need to shepherd that limited resource carefully, and that the transition in other areas of energy will support us to keep that gas and oil where we cannot replace it?”
“I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. About 10 days ago, we saw alleged attacks by both US and Iranian forces on water desalination plants in the middle east, which is in direct contravention of international law. Civilians in the middle east are reliant on desalinated water for survival, and targeting it is absolutely unacceptable. Can the Secretary of State confirm that UK forces operating in the middle east continue to operate fully under international law, and that we condemn operations that target civilian infrastructure?”
“I thank the Minister for his statement and the swift response to the need of my rural constituents who are reliant on heating oil and LPG. This crisis has shown that our strategic approach of getting off the reliance on global fossil fuel markets is absolutely the right one, but it has also exposed the under-regulation of the heating oil market domestically, so can the Minister tell me what this Labour Government will do to tackle that under-regulation?”
“People across Morecambe and Lunesdale are suffering from late Royal Mail deliveries. In fact, one constituent was told by a frustrated, overworked postie that second class letters were being delivered once a week, at most. What steps is the Minister taking to address that problem?”
“Progress has been made; I really welcome the 10-year health plan, particularly the shift from hospital community care, which will ensure people are seen closer to home. However, I urge the Minister to consider the points I have made today about recognising the true scale of the real and unavoidable costs of serving dispersed rural communities.”
“Hospitals in coastal and rural areas often have persistent issues with staff retention. Professional development opportunities are often focused on the big cities, so services such as major trauma, where people need to go to do their training, are more likely to be there. For patients living in rural areas, the cost of and lack of access to transport place huge burdens on their time and finances. I do a lot of work with Lancaster Bus Users’ Group and Sedbergh and District Public Transport Users. We all know the challenges facing rural bus services. One of my constituents was waiting in A&E with her sick child, but they had to leave the hospital before they were seen, because they simply could not afford a nighttime taxi journey.”
“It is not safe or practical for one hospital to try to do the whole job, yet the funding arrangements do not fully recognise those costs and tend to treat them as inefficiency, rather than as an inherent part of delivering over that geography. Although funding rightly takes into account deprivation, deprivation can look different in different areas of the country. In my constituency, we have a mix of wealthy and low-income households in the same larger geographical area, and that often determines the funding. Pockets of deprivation get diluted and sometimes miss out on vital funding pots or targeted interventions that would really help. At the same time, my population is older, with higher rates of dementia, which is caused not only by ageing, but by poor cardiovascular health and inequalities.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) for securing this important debate. I represent a semi-urban, semi-coastal, semi-rural constituency, and I know that delivering healthcare across a wide and dispersed population brings very real and practical challenges. I want to speak briefly about three things: hospital trust funding, staff recruitment and transport. Unfortunately, our funding formulas do not fully recognise the additional costs of providing services over a larger geographical area. Major cities can rely on one large hospital with everything in one place, covering a range of specialities. My local trust serves a similar population size, but it goes from the south of Lancaster all the way to Barrow, around the beautiful Morecambe bay.”
“We know that the volatility of oil and gas prices has driven the high cost of living over the last decade. We also know that renewables cut the wholesale costs of electricity because they reduce the amount of time for which electricity prices are driven by gas. Does the Chancellor agree that, given the inevitable impact of the events in the middle east, our drive for clean energy is the right thing to do both for bills and for economic stability, and that those who are advocating continual reliance on oil and gas, and not investing in clean energy, are actually committed to higher bills and to our continued reliance on foreign instability?”
“I believe that Alexis Jay told the Home Affairs Committee that this mandatory reporting was one of the most important recommendations. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is really important that we deliver on the recommendation in full, and do not allow any leeway when there is reasonable evidence that abuse may be occurring, which would allow people to get away with not reporting that suspicion?”
“Of Gaza’s 176 primary healthcare centres, only a third remain even partially functional. Health services are overwhelmed. Thousands of critically ill patients cannot be evacuated, and 20,000 patients are waiting for treatment abroad, but Rafah is still not fully open. Options are severely constrained. These evacuations are not just a matter of immediate care; they of course relieve the crushing ongoing pressure on the healthcare system. As my hon. Friends have laid out, there are functioning hospitals in the west bank and East Jerusalem, but access to them has been barred, which seems cruel.”
“Basic painkillers have become a luxury, and more than half the people in Gaza do not have access to their regular medication. Lab tests are at risk of complete standstill. Oncology surgery, operating rooms, intensive care—all have been hit very badly. Ongoing restrictions on the free passage of medical equipment by the Israeli Government have meant that the quantity of medicine reaching Gaza’s hospitals is simply not enough. It is not only about the supply. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud laid out, Gaza’s medical workforce has been devastated. More than 1,700 medical workers have been killed, 3,000 have been wounded and more than 500 have been abducted or detained. Twenty-two hospitals have been put out of service, and 211 ambulances have been damaged.”
“We have to ensure that Gaza has the infrastructure and sustainability long term to cope with future crises. Years of blockade have left Gaza with a staggering list of challenges: shortages of medical equipment and medication, the destruction of hospitals, the killing of staff and an absence of patient evacuations. Bombs and bullets are not the only things that have been killing Gazans: lack of access to medical care has already killed thousands. At the start of the war in 2023, there were 1,244 kidney patients in Gaza. Now, that number is just 622. Thirty of those patients are documented to have died in Israeli military attacks, but hundreds have died simply for the lack of dialysis. The shortages of medicines are still acute.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for bringing forward this important debate. It has been 137 days since the ceasefire started in Gaza, and although attention has drifted in the media, the humanitarian crisis rages on. The health sector is at absolute breaking point. Medicines are scarce. Hospitals lie in ruins, and wards have been reduced to rubble. Temporary relief will not be enough. What is required is a sustained and effective humanitarian response and the rebuilding of Gazan healthcare. Not only must we put pressure on the Israeli Government to fully open the border, allow the aid in and allow transfers of care, but the international community has to go further.”
“We need to strengthen local medical education, infrastructure and training. That can only come with a free and democratic Palestinian state. Palestinians deserve to live in peace and health—as do all their neighbours. The situation in Gaza shows that health is more than a technical issue and about more than getting medicines: it is political, structural and absolutely central to any hope of lasting peace.”
“That is absolutely fantastic. We and the rest of the international community must put pressure on Israel. We must demand the immediate release of detained medical personnel, along with a guarantee that they will be protected to do their work. We must insist that the Rafah crossing is opened to allow in essential lifesaving equipment, and we must insist on lifting the forthcoming ban on organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières. Restoring and rebuilding healthcare systems will be a core part of overall reconstruction efforts, but we must look further into the future. The blockade and systematic underfunding have meant that even in times of relative peace, Gazan healthcare was very fragile. Reconstruction cannot mean rebuilding the fragility that existed before.”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The deregistering of international organisations is abhorrent. They are absolutely vital to this response, and I will touch on that point later. Despite these unsurmountable barriers, healthcare workers have absolutely persevered. They have rebuilt health centres. Open-heart surgery has resumed at Al-Quds hospital. Childbirth services have restarted. I cannot be the only woman in the room who would have died in childbirth without medical intervention. It is horrendous to think of all those Palestinian women giving birth without medical support and of the impact on child and maternal mortality. International humanitarian organisations have been absolutely indispensable. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency carried out a 10-day vaccination campaign, which reached a third of Gazan children.”
“One of my constituents contacted me because their spouse is bedbound and cannot get dental care at home, so he gets no routine care. He recently waited three months for an emergency extraction—something he could have had on the same day if he was not disabled. What work is going on to help my constituents access the care they need?”
“The question before us is not whether we want to prevent tragedies; everybody in this Chamber wants to do so. This is about whether aligning the licensing regimes would reduce deaths and serious harms, whether any benefits would justify the additional burdens placed on applicants and police forces, and whether there would be any unintended consequences. I know that police forces are already under pressure on the licensing of firearms.”
“There have already been important steps in this area to try to prevent harm, including a greater focus on screening for any signs of potential future violence, and police interviewing partners or household members, where reasonable, to spot signs of domestic abuse or other red flags. I will touch on suicide prevention. We know from studies of suicide prevention that restricting the means of suicide can save lives. That is why we have controls on the sale of paracetamol, and why we have blister packs for medication. Interrupting the suicidal impulse before harm can be caused is really important. Shotgun deaths are a very small proportion of total deaths by suicide but people who attempt suicide by shotgun normally die. Making it harder to obtain a gun could possibly prevent impulsive acts or accidents.”
“There are practical difficulties to having different legal tests for different weapons, and it can feel inconsistent to the public, particularly to those who are not used to being around guns and the legal use of firearms. It can be difficult for the police to apply different tests. Of course, those who have been bereaved by gun violence, those who have been harmed by guns, those who work in domestic abuse settings, and those who have experienced domestic abuse in which firearms were a part will rightly ask what we are going to do to help prevent future tragedies. Given how deadly they are, we of course need tight controls on weapons; I think that everyone here agrees with that.”
“A number of my rural constituents have reached out to share how these potential changes would affect their community. I am glad that the Government are committed to listening to what is said about the role that shooting plays in the rural economy and in rural culture. My constituents have reminded me just how strict the safeguards that are already in place are—background checks, medical markers, police interviews and renewals every five years are not trivial hurdles. Of course, there are substantial differences between the ways that shotguns and rifles are used. Shotguns are generally less concealable, more associated with game and pest control, and less commonly used in organised criminality than other firearms. However, at the same time we have to look at the logic of the system.”
“The current framework has worked well for the vast majority of licence holders, but we have seen tragedies with legally held firearms, such as in Plymouth in 2021 and Woodmancote in 2020. The Government therefore launched a consultation on whether the existing distinctions still made sense. I came here today because I am genuinely undecided. I do not know the best way forward, so it has been interesting to hear the debate, particularly the details of coroners’ reports and of what underpinned the tragedies that we have seen with legally held firearms. I grew up in a very small Cumbrian village of about 300 people. I may have shot a few tin cans in my time, so I understand that the vast majority of gun owners are responsible, and I understand how important shooting is to rural life.”
“The process for obtaining a shotgun licence is simpler than that for other firearms. Police must be satisfied that the applicant can be trusted with a firearm, has a good reason to own one and will not endanger public safety. At the moment, shotgun licences are generally granted unless there is a good reason to refuse one, whereas rifles, which are more powerful, require a higher level of proof. They require applicants to demonstrate a good reason for the use of each firearm. The consultation that the Government introduced asked whether those tests should be joined together under a single framework to make application rules for shotguns the same as those for rifles.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. I thank the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) for his excellent introduction. I came here today because I want to listen to the arguments and help inform my thinking about gun licensing. This debate is about one very narrow aspect of shotgun licensing and, while my instinct is always towards stricter gun control, my starting point has to be that any change to the law must make people safer in a meaningful way. It should not add complexity or bureaucracy unless there is a clear and proportionate safety benefit. I am proud that Britain has strong gun control. Public safety has long underpinned our approach to gun control, and that is reflected in our relatively low levels of firearms offences. Shotguns have legitimate uses, both for sport and animal control.”
“I urge the Minister to ensure that any way forward be informed by the evidence and by the practical realities on the ground.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes a very interesting point. We already have backlogs for firearms licensing. Some people rely on firearms for their living. If there are changes to the licensing laws, those need to come with proper resourcing to make sure that they are actually enforceable. As we have heard in this debate, it does not really matter what is on the page; it matters what happens in reality—as with any law that we pass. That needs to be thought about very carefully. We need to make sure that these rules would meaningfully increase safety, not just ramp up bureaucracy, and that they are evidence-led, proportionate and targeted at genuine risk. I will continue to listen; this debate has been absolutely fascinating. I will also listen to my constituents, the police, and experts in lots of different areas.”
“I appreciate the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but does he accept that there have been instances where firearms have been lawfully obtained by people without a previous criminal record who have nevertheless used them to commit harm, particularly to themselves or someone very close to them?”
“Like so many others, Nicola trusted her doctor and followed proper medical advice. She was badly let down. She has explained to me just how immense the impact has been on her and her children and, of course, what a difference compensation would make to her kids’ lives.”
“Those harms include major physical birth defects, developmental delays, learning disabilities and a significantly increased risk of autism. Many of the children affected will need lifelong care. For years, despite those risks being known, women and prescribers were not given clear or adequate information about them. Even after the effects were more widely known, prescriptions continued without proper safeguards in place. At least 7,000 children have been affected by this medicine since it came on to the market in 1973, but the real number is quite likely very much higher because of the lack of awareness around foetal valproate spectrum disorder. My constituent Nicola was one of the many women affected. Her children were profoundly harmed by exposure during pregnancy.”
“It is a pleasure to serve here today under your chairship, Ms Allin-Khan. I thank the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) for securing this important debate. I am going to focus on sodium valproate, which was prescribed for decades without proper warnings about the effect on unborn children. As a result, those children were harmed and, despite multiple Government-commissioned reports, families are still waiting for accountability and redress. Two years on from the Hughes report, that delay can no longer be justified. Sodium valproate is a medicine used to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder. It is a very effective medicine for many but, if taken while pregnant, it can cause serious harm.”
“We should do what we should have done years ago, and give justice and support to the families who have already paid a heavy price for our failings.”
“Their children were affected by sodium valproate, and they have been tireless campaigners for compensation for affected families—I have known them for many years now. They have been invaluable in raising awareness about foetal valproate spectrum disorder. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith), who has worked with In-FACT for many years on this and has been a staunch advocate for their campaign. Despite all their hard work, progress from the Government’s side seems to have stalled yet again, and families are left waiting. We know that things go wrong in medicine, and that all drugs have side effects, but when a harm that is caused was preventable, and when the state fails to act on warnings, the Government must step up.”
“Through the Hughes report, we have an even more comprehensive examination of what needs to be done to support those families, but they are no closer to getting even a formal response to that. That constant delay increases the cost, delays support and builds up ill-will with affected families, who have already spent their lives fighting for their kids. I urge the Government to provide an interim payment for those families. We know that that is possible; Dr Hughes has outlined how to do it in this case, and we have seen it in the infected blood scandal. The main question for the Minister is this: when will we get a full response to the Hughes report? When will we actually see some action? Like so many of my colleagues, I pay tribute to Emma and Janet from the Independent Fetal Anti-convulsant Trust, who are here today.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This scandal follows a pattern that we have seen far too many times before: early warnings ignored, information withheld or downplayed, measures to protect people not effectively enacted, and public bodies closing ranks rather than being open and honest when things go wrong. I have done a lot of work on maternity safety, and I have seen those patterns again and again; the parallels are really clear. Had concerns been properly addressed at the outset, so much harm could have been avoided, and so many more children would not have been born with lifelong, preventable conditions. Their families have been waiting for far too long. There were initial recommendations for redress six years ago in the Cumberlege review, but the previous Government failed to act.”
“There have been some real successes in London under Mayor Sadiq Khan, where crime is at its lowest level since comparative records began. This shows that it can work.”
“Through funding from the police and crime commissioner, we are putting in place a street warden to help reassure residents further. A key part of making our streets and town centres safe will be tackling the antisocial behaviour that people suffer, from vandalism to noise, and drug use to harassment. Those are the everyday issues that really upset people, quite rightly. To combat that, the Labour Government are bringing in respect orders, and local authorities are getting powers to issue higher fines and to seize those damned bikes and get them off the road. We are also cracking down on shoplifting and violence against retail staff. It is horrendous that people are going to work in fear of being assaulted. However, it is not all doom and gloom.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I want my constituency, where beauty surrounds and health abounds, to be a place where everyone feels safe on the high street. There is still work to be done, but I am committed to doing that work alongside our local partners. Central to that is the Government’s plan to put 13,000 additional police officers, PCSOs and special constables into neighbourhood roles by 2029. Those officers will be embedded in our communities, building relationships, preventing crime and responding quickly when crime occurs. Locally, there are some fantastic initiatives such as Safe Morecambe, which brings together the police, the business improvement district, the local authority, the community safety partnership and my office.”
“Visible policing, backed by good community relations and street-level intelligence, can work. It reassures communities and deters crime. That is the approach we need in Morecambe and Lunesdale and across the country—neighbourhood policing, targeted funding and practical local initiatives, such as Safe Morecambe, together with national action, such as the creation of a specific offence for an assault on a retail worker. We owe it to all our constituents and communities to make sure they feel safe in our town centres.”