Katie Lam
MP for Weald of Kent · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I spent a day last week with the palliative care team at William Harvey hospital in Ashford, which serves a large chunk of my constituency, and I was amazed by how much time they spent gathering and sharing information.”
“Tomorrow, the Conservatives were going to ask for Parliament to sit for one more working day, so that the new Prime Minister could come here and set out his agenda for the country, which we could then scrutinise on behalf of all the people we represent.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to echo your tribute to a predecessor of mine, Ann Widdecombe. She was an exceptionally effective Member of Parliament, has been a really tough act to follow, and is very fondly remembered in the Weald.”
“Shabir Ahmed has committed some of the most despicable crimes imaginable. As the ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang, he was responsible for grooming, trafficking and raping children as young as 12 years old. He was jailed in 2012 for 30 counts of child rape.”
“How can he possibly be allowed to walk the streets again? When the law produces an outcome that is clearly so wrong, the law must be changed. The Government must now change this law to make sure that we can remove Ahmed.”
“Twiggy Roberts, who is a veteran himself and runs HX Motors in my constituency, training other veterans to maintain and customise Land Rovers, says that he hears a lot from veterans of his generation about their frustrations as they try to gain access to the mental health services that they need and deserve, especially when dealing with p…”
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Every one of 602 lines we hold for Katie Lam, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 3 of 13.
“Enabling local health services such as pharmacies to provide care is particularly important in the countryside, where it will never be possible to sustain a large hospital in a rural area. I very much welcome the Government’s rhetorical direction on Pharmacy First and on reforming the NHS workforce, but will the Minister tell us what this Government intend to do to face down groups such as the BMA, which stand in the way of the reforms that we need to provide high-quality care to the British public?”
“For example, on Pharmacy First, a scheme that allows people to be treated for simple conditions at their local pharmacy, the BMA said that patients are “being seen by less-skilled people to further enable the steady downgrade of patient expectations”. It has since retracted those comments, but that the sentiment exists within the BMA at all is deeply troubling. On physician associates—a group of healthcare professionals who can carry out certain assessments and tests to reduce the workload of doctors—the BMA has launched legal action over whether they can even be called “medical professionals”. Fortunately, it lost the case, but again, its overwhelming hostility towards the reforms that our healthcare system needs in rural areas is concerning.”
“Clearly we need to move the healthcare service towards a model that reduces the workload on doctors, trains more of our workforce here and rewards our best-performing practitioners. That would be better for doctors and patients alike, and would be particularly welcomed in rural areas, where it is often much more practical to have a pharmacy in a village than a full GP surgery. In principle, the Health Secretary’s public statements on this issue represent a step in the right direction, but since coming to power, this Government have conceded to medical unions such as the British Medical Association, which takes an altogether different line.”
“The current make-up of the workforce and workload cannot meet those challenges, so I was heartened by this Government’s plans, introduced earlier this year, to prioritise British medical graduates over foreign-trained doctors, though there is still much work to be done on ensuring that our medical training system rewards our most talented graduates. I have also been heartened by some of the Health Secretary’s rhetoric on Pharmacy First, and the need to reduce the workload on doctors, so that the public can access basic services without contributing to the NHS waiting list. It is a superb initiative, and was launched by my right hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) under the previous Conservative Government.”
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) for securing this debate on such an important topic. Any Member who represents a rural constituency can attest to the practical challenges that our healthcare system faces in the countryside. It can often be difficult to sustain genuinely local GP services, and that forces people to travel long distances to access care. Where services do exist, they are often unable to provide the full suite of care owing to resource shortages or manpower deficiencies. Hospitals, of course, are even further away.”
“Q11. The Government’s proposed terms of reference for the inquiry into rape and grooming gangs are fatally flawed, as victims and survivors have pointed out. They will not address the role that race and religion played in motivating these crimes or lead to prosecutions for those involved in the cover-up. They will not even investigate all cases—only a select few. The consultation on these terms ends this Friday. Will the Prime Minister assure us that if enough people call for change, including through groominggangjustice.uk, the final terms of reference will reflect those concerns?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I believe the Prime Minister has inadvertently misled the House. I seek your guidance on how to get him to correct the record for claiming that I said something that I did not.”
“The Chancellor stands there and says that living standards are up and the economy is growing, but people can see the reality in their everyday lives: unemployment up month on month and energy bills higher than when Labour came to power. The latest figures in fact show that per person, our economy is shrinking, yet she stands there and says she has “the right economic plan for our country”. Does she have any idea how that sounds to people out there who are working harder than ever, with less and less left over at the end of every month?”
“We have been saying for months that to give away the Chagos islands and pay for the privilege is complete and utter madness. Having rammed this through, we are now told that the Government are taking a “pause for thought”. Can the Minister explain why the Government signed off this disastrous and disastrously expensive handover agreement without having thought about it first?”
“We must see the documents that pertain to the appointment of Peter Mandelson. Given that any member of the public could have told the Government that Mandelson was dodgy, it seems amazing that the Prime Minister requested that this vetting happen in the first place. This is not a question of process; it is a matter of judgment. Does the Chief Secretary believe that these documents will reveal why the Prime Minister’s judgment is consistently so poor?”
“That is a disgraceful way to treat millions of people across the country who are doing everything they are supposed to do and are being punished for it.”
“Many of those families see their money taken by the Government and wasted, or spent on those who choose not to work. A recent study suggested that once the cap is lifted, a family with three children in which both parents work would need to earn £71,000 to match the income of a three-child family in which neither parent works. How can it be right that one couple can wake up early every day, go to work and perhaps even take extra hours at their job, and end up with the same amount of money as their neighbours who do not work at all? It is their money that will pay for those who do not work. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor know that, but they are choosing to lift the two-child cap anyway.”
“I will speak in support of amendments 1 and 2, tabled by my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately). One of the most basic principles of any successful society is that those who work hard are able to reap the rewards, yet under this Government, millions of families are being squeezed by high tax rates, rising prices and increasing energy bills. They are not working any less hard, but many of them are ending up with less money at the end of the month, every month. That is less money to spend on day-to-day essentials, and less money to save for a house, a holiday, a birthday present or a school trip for their children. Those are the real-life consequences of this Government’s decisions.”
“Whatever the defence industrial strategy aims to do, its aims will not be met if we cannot find and recruit people willing to use the equipment and technology that are created. People will be far less likely to risk their lives to keep our country safe and free if they cannot rely on the Government to stand by them both during and after their service. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact on the military and the defence industry of the Government’s decision to allow our veterans who served in Northern Ireland to be dragged vindictively through the courts?”
“For decades, victims, survivors, campaigners, whistleblowers and journalists have fought to force the British state to reveal the whole truth about the rape and grooming scandal. The data held by Courtsdesk could be invaluable in uncovering the truth. The Minister tells us that we can rely on the Government’s own data instead, but just 4.2% of magistrates court cases are listed accurately by the courts themselves, so for every 25 cases listed, 24 are wrong. How can the Minister ask victims, survivors and any of us who care about the truth to rely on that, especially in the context of the most disgusting cover-up in our nation’s history?”
“When the violence against women and girls strategy was announced, I asked the Safeguarding Minister whether she had considered the impact that mass migration is having on the safety of women and girls and why it was not mentioned. I was not sure from her response then what the answer is. Can she please explain whether the Government will address that issue specifically as the strategy is implemented? If not, why not?”
“Last week, The Times reported that companies and company directors who have previously abused the work visa system have been allowed to continue sponsoring visas, despite the Government’s promise of a clampdown. One social care business has been able to sponsor 116 visas, despite being caught hiring illegally. As the Home Secretary just said herself, being able to work here illegally is one of the greatest pull factors, so what message does she think this sends to companies that break the rules?”
“The Minister’s statement is insulting. The first, but not the last, time that Peter Mandelson resigned in disgrace from a Labour Government—on that occasion, it was Tony Blair’s Cabinet —I was seven years old. Is the Minister seriously telling us that our Prime Minister needs tweaks to process to know not to hire somebody who has been a nationally notorious crook for over 25 years?”
“Imagine a British IT firm is set to hire a computer programmer for £60,000 a year. On top of that, an employer must pay £8,250 in national insurance. That totals £68,250. To hire someone on the same salary, their Indian competitor would only need to pay about £1,470 to the Indian employee provident fund, to which mandatory contributions are capped at 15,000 rupees a month—about £120. That totals £61,470. Under the Government’s deal, it would, therefore, be at least 10% cheaper to hire an Indian worker than a British one. That is absurd.”
“The Indian Government are highly unusual in their approach to trade agreements. Unlike most other countries, India has a long-standing policy of using trade deals to try to secure favourable treatment in the immigration system. This deal, unfortunately, is no different. Under the terms of the agreement, Indian companies will be able to transfer their workers to this country far more easily and, once they are here, those workers will be able to avoid national insurance for up to three years, needing only to pay into the Indian social security system—payments that are, unsurprisingly, much lower than here in the UK. This national insurance holiday will make it much cheaper to hire Indian workers, especially in fields such as IT and engineering, than domestic talent.”
“Most other countries are perfectly happy to strike trade deals without forcing us to undercut our own workforce. This Government should have expected India to do the same.”
“In exchange for a deal with India, this Government have chosen to sell out skilled British workers who have worked hard to get where they are by allowing Indian firms to undercut them. We will see highly skilled British workers in cutting-edge fields, such as engineering, priced out by Indian workers. Given the relative markets and educational systems in the UK and India, we should not expect that always to be a like-for-like swap in terms of talent. We have already seen this model take hold in the United States. There, Indian consultancy firms lease their workers to American companies, who are then able to pay an Indian worker far less than they would need to pay an American. The result has been a massive expansion in the number of lower-cost Indian workers at the expense of American workers.”
“That is an important point because, as I am about to talk about, we have double contribution conventions with other countries, but not with other countries with economies like India’s where so many people—well north of a billion people—would be happy to do these jobs for much lower salaries than our workers at home would expect. As I say, it is true that we have double contribution conventions with other countries. These aim to simplify intracompany transfers for international businesses. However, these agreements are usually struck with countries that have compatible economies, similar educational outcomes and comparable social security systems, such as Japan or Canada. India stands alone as by far the largest and least wealthy country on the list.”
“But it does, of course, now fall to this Government to address them. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us whether the Government have any plans to exempt defence firms from existing ESG regulations or to make changes to those regulations for all companies. I hope she will also be able to offer us some insight into whether the Government have engaged with the FCA about the classification of defence firms for ESG purposes ahead of the consultation deadline on 31 March.”
“As recently as 2013, this country’s defence industry was second in the world in the export of military equipment when measured by total value of new orders. Today, partly thanks to the growth of the regulatory burden on defence firms, we have fallen to seventh. That is bad for our own military, which must now choose between importing its equipment from abroad or paying over the odds for equipment produced in this country, and it is bad for our interests overseas. After all, militaries around the world will always need new equipment. I would much rather they were able to buy British than from competitors in Russia or China. It is clearly true that the problems the British defence industry now faces did not begin under this Government, or even under the previous Government.”
“The status quo is bad for our armed forces and bad for the British taxpayer. The answer, of course, is to reject this dichotomy entirely. We should unleash the natural strength of the British defence industry, including by scrapping those ESG requirements that make life more difficult for British defence firms. It would be remiss of me not to mention that, as heavy manufacturing firms, British defence companies are also likely to be disproportionately damaged by the energy policy that the Government are pursuing, which has produced the highest industrial energy prices in the developed world. We know that our defence industry has the capability to be one of the best, if not the best, in the world.”
“While ESG requirements continue to stifle the British defence industry, we are forced into choosing one of two options, neither of them good. We could pay over the odds for equipment produced in this country. The compliance costs created by ESG rules and the disincentives to private investment created by the ESG ratings regime could force many defence firms to put up their prices, meaning higher costs for the British taxpayer, should we wish to rely on military equipment produced here. This situation also makes our kit more expensive and therefore less desirable to our allies; having fewer customers will drive up prices even further. Alternatively, we will have to rely on equipment from overseas, leaving us dependent on other countries. Neither of those outcomes is acceptable.”
“Just last year, some of the country’s largest investors, including the National Employment Savings Trust, which is the workplace pension scheme set up by the Government, reiterated their determination to refuse to invest in defence stocks, in the name of “ethics”. What exactly is ethical about shunning those companies that dedicate themselves to equipping our defence forces and protecting our freedom? As the FCA moves to standardise rules for ESG ratings providers, we still have no clear indication about how it intends to treat defence companies for the purpose of ESG ratings. In pursuit of secondary aims, we are making life more difficult for British defence companies and, in turn, for the armed forces that we expect to keep us safe. One way or another, our armed forces will need to procure the equipment they need to do their jobs.”
“If they wish to sell their equipment to the British Government, they must comply with the rules set out under the Ministry of Defence’s climate change and sustainability strategic approach. That includes the publication of a carbon reduction plan and compliance with rules designed to minimise environmental impact. If the firms wish to be publicly listed, they must wrangle the Financial Conduct Authority’s rules on ESG ratings. Generally, defence companies are not considered to be an ethical investment, meaning that they are often scored badly for the purposes of ESG ratings, as my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor and several other hon. Members have already said. Given that the FCA has consistently pushed funds to focus on ESG-compliant investments, that is clearly a significant cause for concern.”
“Where women want to jobs that have historically been filled by men—where they can do them; many roles in the armed forces have physical requirements that cannot be compromised—there should be no barrier to them doing so. I applaud those women, as I applaud the men who are willing to risk their lives for our freedom. However, to abandon our defence of the skies in the name of diversity quotas is completely and utterly mad. The RAF has since apologised for its decision, but I mention it today because it is crucial in the context of this debate. It shows the climate in which British companies that want to supply equipment to our military must operate. As has already been said by many hon. Members, in order to trade in the UK, defence companies must comply with the general ESG regulations set out under the Companies Act 2006.”
“However, for that to mean anything, defending our nation must take priority over other aims. Yet far too often we have seen our armed forces and the companies that supply them being forced to put social value requirements ahead of their existential duty to keep us safe. As crazy as that sounds, it is no exaggeration or hypothetical concern. In 2022, the Royal Air Force paused recruitment of white men to try to raise its proportion of women and ethnic minorities. The RAF quite literally and explicitly would rather have hired nobody to defend this country from the air than hire a white guy. That is lunacy. Cruel or unpleasant behaviour towards women is repulsive and clearly should have no place in our armed forces, their suppliers, or indeed any workforce.”
“It is a pleasure, Ms McVey, to serve with you in the Chair this afternoon, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin) for securing this important debate. It is often said—including by my hon. Friend in his opening speech today—that we are living in an ever more dangerous world. In fact, it is the most dangerous world in my lifetime or that of my hon. Friend, although he never tires of reminding me that he is a year younger than me. The Government’s own 2025 strategic defence review stated: “The threats we now face are more serious and less predictable than at any time since the Cold War”. Clearly, therefore, we should do everything in our power to ensure that our armed forces are well-staffed and well-equipped. The defence of the realm is the first duty of any Government.”
“It is right that the health service prioritises British-trained doctors. It is also right that, across every area of the public sector, we reward talent, effort and merit.”
“I hope the Government will change their mind and amid their other good changes accept the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), to which I have added my name, to ensure that training places are, in future, allocated on the basis of merit. If the Bill aims to provide certainty to British-trained doctors that they will be able to build a career in this country, which is a noble aim, it should also recognise that the current system of randomly allocating training places is one of the biggest causes of uncertainty in our system. It would be far better for doctors and patients to have a system that instead prized excellence, providing a clear basis on which medical trainees could be allocated and creating a system that rewarded the most talented graduate doctors.”
“He is clearly an outstanding student and will make an incredible doctor. In any sane system, he would have been placed immediately and been able to choose his location and specialism to keep him incentivised and happy within the NHS and to make the most of his obviously considerable talents. Instead, because of the mismanagement of places and the lottery system, he was not placed at all in the first round of allocations. He was not placed in the second, the third or even the fourth round. With fewer than four weeks to go, he still had no placement and no sense of where he would spend the next few years of his life, including whether he might be able to live close to his partner, who was also a doctor and graduating with him. That is an insane way to treat our most brilliant graduates.”
“Yet we must be honest about the fact that relying on overseas recruits instead of training more medical professionals in this country is not always a like-for-like swap. Both medical trainees and patients would benefit from a system that trains more doctors here and ensures that those British-trained doctors are given a reasonable chance at moving quickly into an NHS training post. The system should also reward ability and allocate training posts based on merit. The current system of random allocation not only fails to reward our most talented medical graduates but creates profound uncertainty for those at the start of their careers. Last summer, one of my constituents qualified as a doctor. He graduated with one of the very highest marks in the year—he was in the top three—from one of the most competitive medical schools in the country.”
“However, the NHS’s focus on overseas recruitment meant that those British-trained doctors were also forced to compete with another 25,257 overseas trainees. It is clearly absurd that the British Government should restrict the number of training places offered, while also increasing demand for those places through a policy of overseas recruitment, having spent hundreds of thousands of pounds to train each medical student in this country. That is particularly true when we know that doctors trained overseas are two-and-a-half times more likely to be referred to the GMC by their employer than doctors trained here. Many overseas recruits are hard-working and well-meaning, and many are excellent at the work that they do.”
“It is welcome to see this legislation before us, which rightly gives priority to British-trained doctors for NHS training posts, particularly at the early stages of their career. Those who decide to practise medicine in this country should have reasonable confidence that, if they wish to do so, they can build a career here. The Bill goes some way towards addressing the current situation in which British-trained doctors are being squeezed out of the system in favour of overseas recruits, despite the Government’s control of both the supply of new British graduates and the number of training places. In 2025, 15,723 British-trained doctors were set to compete for 12,833 NHS training posts. This is already a competitive environment.”
“The NHS has a deeply unusual set-up when it comes to its workforce. The Government set the rules for who can qualify as a medical professional, decide how many medical training places to offer and control the flow of medical graduates into the NHS. They decide how much to charge medical students and under what conditions and since the NHS is by far the country’s primary employer of medical professionals, the Government also have effective control over the pay and conditions of those who qualify, and are responsible for deciding where medical trainees go and when. As a result, the health service workforce is not subject to the same labour market conditions as other organisations. The Government control both the supply of and the demand for its own workforce.”
“Tens of thousands of people across Kent and Sussex were without running water last week. While the response of South East Water was shambolic, the Staplehurst emergency help team got a bottled water supplier, set up a collection station and delivered water to vulnerable people. Using only volunteers, they supported local people, businesses, farms and care homes with 20,000 bottles of water. Does the Prime Minister think, as I do, that South East Water should be ashamed to be schooled in crisis response by the volunteers of the Staplehurst emergency help team? Has he, like many of my constituents and many of our colleagues, lost confidence in South East Water’s chief executive?”
“This Government’s handover of the Chagos islands is nothing short of a disgrace. British taxpayers are being asked to stump up billions of pounds to pay for the privilege of giving away something we own—a strategically vital territory—to a close ally of the Chinese Communist party. And why? All because of an entirely advisory opinion issued by politicised judges in the International Court of Justice. People across the country are rightly asking why on earth any British Government would agree to a deal that diminishes our strategic capabilities and costs us billions in the process, particularly when the Government are already putting the squeeze on people’s finances in so many ways. The Government’s arguments for doing so were already thin, and they become even thinner when we consider the amendments before us today.”
“If the Government ever want the British people to believe that they are motivated by anything other than deep shame about our history, they would do well to accept the amendments before us today or—far better—to scrap this deal entirely. The British people are owed a Government who stand up for their interests today, not punish them for the imagined sins of our ancestors.”
“However, the Government’s position on the amendments lays bare the truth: they simply do not agree. Instead, they believe that it is their responsibility to go around the world flagellating themselves and righting imagined wrongs on behalf of and at the expense of the British taxpayer. To their minds, this country is indelibly stained by the actions of those who came before us. The Chagos surrender is one such example, but it is not the only one, and I fear it will not be the last. To attempt to right the wrongs, real or imagined, of the distant past by squeezing the taxpayers of today is divisive madness.”
“Of course, when Britain has done something seriously wrong, we should be honest about that, but in the case of the Chagos islands, there was no original British sin. Mauritius never had sovereignty over the Chagos islands, and practically no Mauritians have ever lived there. The islands have been under British sovereignty since 1814, before which they were occupied by the French. Before that, they were uninhabited. This is no decolonisation; it is a surrender. Our history is complex. It contains cruelties, yes, but also enormous contributions to human health, wealth and flourishing around the world. The darkest moments in our history were hardly unique, yet many of the most virtuous moments in that history were truly exceptional. I believe that we should be proud of the contributions that our country has made to the world.”
“We have already heard that the Government will not support Lords amendments 2 and 3, but if, as the Government claim, the costs of the deal are proportionate, why not support Lords amendments 5 and 6, which would provide much-needed transparency about why taxpayers are being asked to stump up so much for the privilege of handing away territory? We hear no such support for those amendments, so the Chagos handover cannot really be about our security, the Chagossians or self-determination. So what is it about? The truth is that this so-called deal is motivated entirely by ideology. We have heard from the Government’s Attorney General that “almost every aspect” of the British empire was “deeply racist”, echoing the language used by the Mauritians at the International Court of Justice.”
“The question that we are voting on today is the deal that the Government have agreed to. It is an appalling deal, and it should be opposed. The Government’s arguments for putting the deal forward become even thinner when we look at the amendments and how the Government have responded to them both here and in the other place. If, as the Government claim, the deal will make us safer, why not support Lords amendment 1, which would ensure that payments are made to the Mauritian Government only if our armed forces retain access to the Diego Garcia base?”
“Then there are rules on labelling and marketing, on mandatory written contracts on milk sales to regulate pricing, and on manure spreading and waste management. If farmers want to adapt their buildings or extend them, they need to navigate the labyrinth of our planning system. Then and only then are they allowed to sell their milk, butter or cheese, and the price in the shops will need to reflect all the costs I have just mentioned if they want to keep the farm running.”
“They must test for certain bacteria and must be prepared for unannounced inspections by the Food Standards Agency. If farmers want to sell milk, they must comply with the Drinking Milk (England) Regulations 2008, which define the appropriate fat content for different sorts of milk and sets out specific rules on pasteurisation. If they want to turn the milk into cheese, they must comply with certain compositional standards, including rules on protected designations for specific regional varieties. If they want to turn the milk into butter, they must comply with the Spreadable Fats (Marketing Standards) and the Milk Products (Protection of Designations) (England) Regulations 2008, including rules on additives and fat percentage.”
“If they want to turn some of their milk into cheese or butter, they must also get a separate approval as a food business establishment. Cows must be kept according to regulations set out under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and the Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) Regulations 2007, which include rules on space, housing and veterinary care. The herd must be regularly tested by the Animal and Plant Health Agency for tuberculosis and brucellosis. They must be specifically protected to minimise contact with badgers, with the construction of specific fences and feeding facilities. Farmers must also create and implement a hazard analysis and critical contact point plan identifying all potential contamination hazards and setting out plans to minimise them.”
“If the Government increase the supply of money, say, or keep interest rates too low, people will be more likely to spend, reducing the relative value of the pound in their pocket and, again, causing prices to rise. If we talk to anybody involved in producing food in this country, we will hear a lot about the second cause. Costs are rising and prices are rising with them. As I mentioned, that is due partly to energy costs, but also partly to the vast sums food producers must spend to comply with the regulations they need to navigate if they ever want to sell their products. Let us take dairy farms as just one example. What hurdles must a dairy farmer in Kent, in my constituency, clear if they want to sell milk, cheese or butter? To even begin the process, all dairy farmers must register with the Food Standards Agency as a dairy producer.”