Lizzi Collinge
MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale · Labour · United Kingdom
“I have taken up 11 constituency cases about the civil service pension this year alone, and only three have been resolved. I was pleased to hear the Minister’s strong statement, because my constituents are fed up of being told by Capita that things are improving when they are simply not.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“T7. Between 2023 and 2025, we saw an 82% drop in net migration. This week, the Chancellor will lay out his Budget and there will be lots of chatter about headroom, tax take and fiscal rules.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As a member of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, I have looked in detail at both Jackdaw and Rosebank. It is important that we in this House do not confuse the two. My main concern has always been the impact on carbon emissions of any gas taken from Jackdaw.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“T9. As the Minister knows, I work with a lot of dying people and their families, so good palliative care is important to me, as it is to my constituents. Recently, this House turned down an opportunity to expand end-of-life care, with some opponents citing the state of palliative care as the reason for voting against assisted dying.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I want to take a moment to talk about the business community across Morecambe and Lunesdale, and in particular Morecambe BID’s work in the town. I meet local businesses every week, and without doubt they are a key part of what makes a community thrive. We have loads of local businesses who are wedded to the community.”
House of Commons16 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“But I also remember the joy: not only meeting my husband, but the wider friendships we built, the flatmates above the pub—Stephie, Jay, Jade and Chris—and the late-night chats—definitely not lock-ins; we never did that.”
House of Commons16 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“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?”
House of Commons16 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons11 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons3 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons2 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I urge the Minister to ensure that any way forward be informed by the evidence and by the practical realities on the ground.”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I would welcome the hon. Gentleman sending me those statistics, but they go against all the other pieces of evidence I have seen, particularly for serious crime. Obviously there are spikes in particular crimes. Phone theft, for example, has been a real problem in London, as it has been elsewhere because they are now very high-value items. Online crime, as I discussed with one of my hon. Friends earlier, is becoming more prolific—people are being scammed and defrauded. The nature of crime has changed. I am very happy to look at all the evidence. All the evidence I have seen shows that serious crime in London is going down, and that is the result of co-ordinated policing efforts and public health measures because, in some respects, crime is a public health problem.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“She said to me, “I could afford those children when I had them. I would never have had these children had I not been able to afford them.” She worked days, her husband worked nights, and she was on the minimum wage. They were struggling to prevent their children from finding out just how difficult a financial situation they were in. I was able to tell that lady that in a few months’ time, thanks to the Labour Government, she would receive a pay rise, because we were putting the minimum wage up—yet another measure that we are taking to tackle child poverty.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Some will say that poverty is caused by fecklessness or laziness, ignoring the 70% of children affected by this limit who live in working households; ignoring the fact that 15% of those affected by the cap are mothers with really young babies—mothers who we would normally not expect to work; ignoring the significant number of people affected who are in ill health or have caring responsibilities; and ignoring the fact that the cost of living crisis, which was brought upon us by the Conservatives and by reliance on foreign gas, means that people who could afford their children when they had them are now struggling to put food on the table. About six months after the election, I knocked on a door in Morecambe, and it was opened by a lady who was really distressed. Once I got talking to her, it turned out that she had five kids.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Today, though, we are talking about ending the two-child limit on universal credit. This measure alone will lift nearly half a million children out of poverty, and in my constituency of Morecambe and Lunesdale about 1,900 kids will benefit. It is not just the right thing to do, in and of itself; the evidence shows that tackling poverty in childhood is more cost-effective than mopping up the damage later—the damage of poverty that was outlined so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). The fact is that poverty kills. It is as simple as that.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When the Labour Government came to office, 4.5 million children were living in poverty, and I believe that that is a moral stain on our nation. It has been a central mission of this Labour Government to tackle child poverty in all its forms. They are taking a range of measures, like introducing breakfast clubs. We have had some fantastic pilots of those in my constituency, and we have heard from schools that provide them that attendance is improving as a result. That is yet another impact of tackling childhood shortages. The Government are also extending free school meals to more children, while family hubs will help families who are struggling to get the support they need, and of course, there is more childcare support for working parents, who are too often kept out of work by the high costs of childcare.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I love a drink—do not get me wrong—but I cannot help but think that, if Reform Members were around 100 years ago, they would have been standing with my drunkard ancestor, rather than with the little girl with her hand out for the housekeeping money. Do we condemn hundreds of thousands of children to poverty because there are a few feckless parents?”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They are also willing to ignore the evidence that dealing with poverty in childhood is much more cost-effective than mopping up later. It prevents huge costs later down the line in terms of education, health or indeed the criminal justice system. I am not saying that there are no feckless parents. Of course there are feckless parents, and there have always been feckless parents. I remember my great-grandma telling the story of having to go to the pub on a Friday night to try to get the housekeeping money off her drunkard father. She used to tell it as a funny story with a smile on her face, but it was not funny then and it is not funny now. I was really quite shocked at Reform saying that it would keep the two-child limit on universal credit and instead put that money into reducing the cost of beer.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is entirely right. Parents, in my experience, will do anything to protect their children from the harsh realities of life. It is parents who go without food. It is parents who have to go to the food bank. I remember the first time I met the people running the food bank in Morecambe, in 2017. I walked up to them and said, “One day, I will put you out of business.” And they said, “Thank you”, because their strategic aim is not to exist. Food banks should not exist. Some of the people who oppose the lifting of this limit are also willing to ignore the fact that the policy itself did not work on its own terms. It did not limit the number of children born, but merely condemned them to living in poverty.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My local Citizens Advice has done a brilliant report saying that scrapping the two-child limit is the fastest and most cost-effective intervention to tackle child poverty.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We would not have had the NHS, because why should people not just pay for doctors themselves? As we know, Reform Members would be very happy to get rid of the NHS and bring in a private insurance system. None of us earned those things through our own merit; we inherited them from people who recognised that everyone deserves a good chance in life and the chance to thrive and succeed, whether by starting their own business, getting an education or doing whatever it is that will make their life a good life. That is the obligation we have to our children. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and others have shown that scrapping the two-child benefit limit could drive the single largest fall in child poverty in a single Parliament.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It infects people’s prospects in education, health and employment across their whole life. Rather than tackling that, discussions about welfare inevitably descend into conversations about merit: who deserves help and who does not. These are children we are talking about—children entirely reliant on adults for their existence and their support, and entirely reliant on Governments such as ours to make sure they are looked after if, from no fault of their own, their parents do not have enough money for the necessities of life. If this Victorian attitude to the deserving and undeserving poor had won the day previously, we would not have had any of the public services that we now take for granted. We would not have had free education, because why should parents not just pay for education themselves?”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that fecklessness is not limited to any one socioeconomic group. It is interesting how people born into great wealth consider their position to be due only to their very hard work, yet they consider it to be other people’s own fault if they are born into poverty. That is really quite shocking. More than 1 million children live in households unable to afford even the most basic necessities of life. There are parents choosing between heating and eating, children doing their homework on the floor in housing that is too crowded to provide a space to study, whole families staying in one room because that is all they can afford to heat, and kids wheezing due to damp. What compounds this heartbreak is that childhood poverty festers and grows.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Today, we are saying that there are no second-class children in Britain and that under a Labour Government child poverty is not an inevitability. It is a choice and we choose to end it.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗