Kevin McKenna
MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey · Labour · United Kingdom
“I congratulate the Minister and his counterparts in the Gibraltarian Government on getting this treaty over the line. Along with many Members across this House, I went on a visit to Gibraltar a few weeks ago, as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme.”
“I am a strong proponent of unitaries, given that the root-cause of many of the problems in my constituency is the fact that we have districts and the county council. There is no perfect solution for anywhere, and everywhere is special, but Kent has a lot of elements that are particularly special.”
“Will the Secretary of State outline what we will do to accelerate devolution powers to Kent and my constituency—particularly to ensure that we are creative so that we do not just follow the medieval boundaries but maybe bring in some emergency development corporations so that we can bridge the gap?”
“Can the Minister confirm that there will be no diminishment in or deterioration of the capability and operational abilities of our forces and our base in Gibraltar? Are there things that this treaty enables us to do that will enhance our military capacity in Gibraltar?”
“I am so grateful that the Bill is finally approaching this stage in its journey towards becoming law. I think of my younger self, in the 1980s—a gay man in a religious household. Family relationships were put under so much strain because of religious pressure not to come out as gay and not to be honest.”
“For example, people who are asexual come under insidious and forcible pressure to have sex. Some of that pressure comes from assumptions in the medical community that all human beings should aspire to have an active sex life, but this is part of normal human variation; some people just do not have that desire and are coming under pressure…”
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“It is not just that they are going to the old turf accountants or the bookies on the high street; there are many new, innovative ways in which people are accessing gambling. Although I welcome innovation, I do not welcome innovation where it causes harm. We also need to look at how much gambling is happening online on people’s phones, and possibly at the interactions between the psychological mechanisms behind gambling and social media, because they have a lot in common. This room is full of politicians, and politicians may well doomscroll occasionally on social media—it is not unheard of. Lots of people in this room will know the feeling of scrolling through feeds on various social media platforms that I will not mention, at this point, and getting addicted.”
“Something that stood out to me was when I met a young person in his early 20s who is now a real advocate, particularly for the impacts of gambling on communities that face high levels of deprivation and poverty. He started gambling when he was seven and had a serious gambling addiction by the time he went to secondary school, which had massive impacts on his schooling, his education and his relationships as he was trying to learn how to handle his finances in life. We all know that people should not be gambling when they are seven, and as parliamentarians we all know that the law says they should not be gambling when they are seven—but it is happening. That is partly because the nature of gambling in our society is changing, including the way people access it.”
“We also have Rosie here today, who lost her son a few years ago to gambling. When people have lost those who are dear to them, it is so brave that they are standing up and saying, “This has to stop, because it is needless.” Gambling is a normal human activity—but perfectly normal human activities such as eating, drinking and, frankly, having sex are things that we look at through a public health lens, because there are health consequences, and gambling needs to be treated in the same way. With children and young people, it helps to look at the two broad ways in which they experience harms. People can experience harms from gambling directly. The number of people who engage with gambling at a very young age is shocking.”
“She cannot be here today, because she is having surgery, but apparently she is watching the debate through one puffy eye. My heart goes out to Lesley and to everyone who has lost loved ones due to gambling. We lose something like 500 people a year in this country directly to gambling, through suicide. The impacts are massive. What I really want to explore today, in relation to children and young people, is how we should look at gambling as a public health issue, and one that is of rising concern because of changes in the way people gamble. People are gambling with all sorts of new technologies, and the country is gambling with lives. The charity Gambling With Lives is here: it has supported me, other MPs and our constituents who have lost people, and I want to say a massive thank you for its support.”
“I have talked to my constituents and to various people who have been campaigning against the harms caused by gambling, and we feel that there has been a gap when it comes to looking at the impact: a lot of attention has been paid to adults who are gambling, but there are also real impacts on children. I pay tribute to hon. Members who have been taking a strong stand on gambling. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) has been campaigning very hard on the impacts, and the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) has been working tirelessly over the years. It is a cross-party concern, so it is really good to see lots of people here. I want to say thank you to my constituent Lesley, who lost her son to gambling several years ago.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of gambling harms on children and young people. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell, and to see so many people in the Chamber today for this important debate. I am very aware that the topic of gambling and the harms that it causes to children and young people is important to many Members of this House and many of our constituents. There have already been quite a number of debates on gambling in this Parliament, and I know that Select Committees have looked at it as well.”
“That is why the fact that some of those things are moving away from seaside areas, where they can be controlled and people are used to regulating them, is a really important issue. I am not asking for us to ban them; I am asking for us to regulate, and to treat gambling harms as a public health emergency, which is what I believe they are developing into, because the tech is moving so fast. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Brent East has taken her place.”
“That needs to be the lens through which the Government look at gambling, particularly when we consider children, who, of course, are different participants in society, economically. They are in a more vulnerable position, and they are our future. I entirely endorse that intervention, which leads me on to some key things. I know that many of my hon. Friends want to speak and have some key points to make, but I need to reiterate that, at a fundamental level, this is not about banning gambling; it is about managing the harms caused by gambling. I represent a seaside constituency that has a dog track and seaside slot arcades. Those are things that we can manage, and they are in places we would expect to see such things. However, we know that, as gambling starts to move into new areas, that brings in new risks.”
“My hon. Friend is very knowledgeable about this subject, and he is bang on about all those actions. It is exactly that: gambling has to be treated as a public health issue. I would endorse all those actions. The key thing is that we look to regulate alcohol, junk food and all such items because we know that they cause risk and cost us all money; if they are increasing demand on the NHS, they are costing us money. Who is paying for that? At the moment, it is not the gambling firms, which are externalising the costs of their business on the rest of us, and causing harm in society. I really endorse what my hon. Friend said; we need to treat gambling as a risk, in the same way that we treat smoking, air pollution and drinking, and we need to manage it.”
“While it is grabbing children while they are young—sometimes leading to the worst outcomes of all, with children killing themselves young—it is also affecting them as they move into adulthood and employment. Unfortunately, because once someone has this addiction it is very hard to move beyond it, even with a lot of intervention, many of those people then die in their adulthood; but the harm started earlier. I would really like to hear from the Minister on that.”
“I really welcome the changes to the gambling levy, and I particularly welcome the fact that it is targeted at children in poverty; the money is being used to offset the harm, socially, that is directly caused by gambling. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) said, we also need to regulate gambling advertising, so how are the Government ensuring that gambling advertising regulations keep pace with the change in modern digital technologies, especially social media and pop-up ads? What steps are the Government taking to protect children and young people from gambling-related harm through the course of their whole lives?”
“I entirely agree with my hon. Friend; this is all very much interconnected. She used the terminology “grooming”; those psychology-based behaviours really are a form of grooming and manipulation. I also think it would help to start thinking about the effect of secondary gambling on people, in the same way that we think about secondary smoking. Passive smoking became a very big concern; I do not want to call it “passive gambling”, but the secondary effects of gambling need to be taken as seriously as its direct effects. What are the Government doing in terms of regulating gambling as a public health issue? That is a key question for the Minister.”
“It is really important—the only thing I would add is that we have to move fast. As someone from a health background, who has been involved in many health studies, I know that they can move too slowly. We are on rapidly shifting ground, so there are we need to take. While his Department does sterling work on this, I reiterate my feeling that, as always, health should be the principal lens through which we look at this issue. I thank the Chair, and everyone who has contributed to the debate. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the impact of gambling harms on children and young people.”
“I thank every Member who has contributed to this debate. It has been very powerful, and I have valued the detail that people have added; many are key bits of evidence that build up to show the threat that gambling represents to children and young people in this country. I particularly commend my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) and the work that the APPG on gambling reform does. That work was important in preparing my understanding of the problem before this debate, as was the great work done by the Health and Social Care Committee. It was good to hear some members of that Committee contributing today. This debate has shown how profoundly this issue has affected people and how rapidly it is changing. I thank the Minister for his reply, particularly his commitment to research.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, and commend our incredible servicemen and women who have defended our interests here. I am increasingly worried, as are many other Members, about the shadow fleets and the way in which they are operating in the world. Given that there are two international ports in my constituency, I should like the Secretary of State to reassure my constituents by telling me how the United Kingdom will protect the workers, sailors and companies operating out of the Sheerness and Ridham docks at sea in future.”
“I am horrified to report to you and to the House that last night in Swale borough council there were violent scenes, as people wearing balaclavas in the public gallery violently intimidated councillors. They were threatening them and pelting them with eggs and missiles from the gallery. This is an attack on democracy itself, it is an attack on free speech, and it is an attack on my constituents. The building was so badly vandalised afterwards, with toilets flooded and lifts destroyed, that it cannot be used today and is not open. My constituents cannot access council services because of these actions. Our democracy is based on the ability to disagree with each other strongly but never violently. What can be done here in the House of Commons for councillors and MPs across the country who are facing growing levels of violent intimidation?”
“It is the multidisciplinary team that delivers healthcare, not individual doctors or individual nurses, so can I recommend that the Secretary of State keeps focusing on that collective improvement to the NHS, as I know he has been doing? I implore everyone in the BMA who is listening: let’s just put this to bed now. It is time for everyone to have a healthy Christmas.”
“I have worked so many Christmases and new years as a nurse in the NHS, and I know the weary dread with which so many colleagues are facing this threat of strike action, particularly against the background of a spike in respiratory illnesses. It will be devastating. In a good year without strikes, it would be bad enough. I really commend the Secretary of State for the work he has done to address what have been long-running sores in the experience of resident doctors. Some of this is genuinely transformational, and what I know a lot of clinical colleagues have been after for so long. But healthcare is a collective activity.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond, and I commend the hon. and gallant Member for securing this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson) and I were the two who went along to that meeting—it is disappointing that our names were not added to that letter. I would like to contribute to the debate, because this is a serious issue in my constituency, but I will save that for later; I will just say that it was us, and we are very glad to have this debate.”
“It needs to be stopped before there are human fatalities. Also, the destruction of wildlife by catapults needs to be stopped immediately. I ask Ministers to update us on the plans to review this issue and to bring experts together. Like all the hon. Members attending this debate, I would very much like to be part of that.”
“I recognise—this is important to remember—that there are legitimate uses of a catapult beyond the pages of The Beano . Anglers use catapults to fire bait into the water. Also, I had not been aware of this before, but I now know that there is competitive catapult shooting, which is absolutely fine. It is a good and laudable activity that fits very much with what was being discussed earlier in relation to the need for good options for young children to improve their motor skills and camaraderie. These are all good things. Catapults being an offensive weapon would not stop that happening, but we need to have discussions, with anglers and professional and amateur catapultists around the table, to make sure that there are no unintended consequences from any changes in the law. This is a real problem in our towns and rural areas.”
“We really need to get to grips with this issue, so the mysterious meeting that my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson) and I apparently had with Ministers was really an attempt to bring the issue to the Government’s table and to make sure that its seriousness was properly assessed. Some may have seen that in the south-east of England, the BBC has done some really good investigative journalism on this issue. There have been fantastic if quite harrowing reports, with some really disturbing pictures. A lot of that had not really come to the Government’s table up to that point, so I commend the BBC team for that investigation. I am really glad that, during that discussion, Ministers told my hon. Friend and I that they would like to convene some experts around the table to look at what the best options are.”
“Also, there is a real feeling that the police do not quite have the powers needed. I have spoken to the National Farmers Union and to ASB Help to work out some options and ways forward. I strongly congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Spelthorne on bringing another option to the table. One option that I have been looking at with the NFU is simply scheduling catapults as an offensive weapon. Other options include some sort of licensing scheme, which seems rather complicated, although it might be something we need to move towards if we cannot make this work in any other way. I have talked to police on the ground, particularly those in the fantastic neighbourhood policing team that has just started in Sittingbourne, and they think that catapults being an offensive weapon will help enormously.”
“Such a shot going at high velocity through an animal, or God forbid, a human skull could easily be fatal. We have to be very aware that this is not just an issue of maiming animals and property damage; at some point, this could easily become a human fatality. It is something that we really have to attend to. From speaking to the police, I know that they have come up with similar solutions. Some police are more assertive at being able to seize catapults from children they think are offending. Where this has hit the blocks is if the person is carrying a catapult in one pocket and a shot in another. The shot can be ball bearings or even pebbles. Once they have dropped them on the ground, there is no indication that they were carrying the catapult with any form of ammunition.”
“Indeed, when we were mustering for the Remembrance parade on Remembrance Sunday this year, on the night before, we could see that a whole load of empty flats above the high street had been smashed with catapults. So it is an urban issue as well. Some of what is driving the problem is shops that are recklessly selling catapults on the high street in town as an easy inducement for local kids to take them up, with no checks or controls over them. As I am sure hon. Members are aware, catapults can be fun. They are seen as a child’s toy, but they are not a child’s toy when what is being shot out of them are enormous, weighty ball bearings. I have held some of the ones that our local farmers have handed to me; they are bigger than the end of my thumb.”
“It remains a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. Again, I congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) on bringing forward the debate. Further down the Thames from the idyllic picture that he has portrayed of his constituency of Spelthorne, my constituency sits at the mouth of the Thames, and we have all the same problems. This is very much an issue of rural crime and animals being brutally injured and maimed. It is causing a large amount of fear, aggravation and disgust for a lot of people living in the villages around Sittingbourne and Sheerness. It is also a problem in the towns. The issue actually first came to my attention in Sittingbourne, where our local church hall was smashed up with catapults. We have had shops smashed with catapults, as well as other churches.”
“On Raspberry Hill Lane in my constituency near the village of Iwade, there is one of these mega illegal dumps. It has started metastasising, sprouting accessory dumps nearby, all in an attempt to evade the police and the Environment Agency. It is not just putting pressure on and destroying the countryside, but putting strains on legitimate waste processing businesses in my constituency such as Sweeep, Countrystyle, MVV and DS Smith, which are key to recycling the waste that we produce. Will the Minister tell my constituents how we are not only increasing the capacity of the Environment Agency and the police to handle this problem with extra resources, but boosting the capability of those agencies—particularly with the skills and the cross-agency working that is needed—to get to the bottom of this serious organised crime?”
“I am grateful to serve under your chairship, Sir John. The stories that my hon. and learned Friend is recounting completely match those that I get in my inbox and hear in my surgeries—these stories are repeated across the county. My constituency has a higher than the national, regional and county average of people with learning disability needs, and we are just not getting the support we need. I want to flag two things. The SEND team at the council is extremely unresponsive to parents and schools and, indeed, to me and my office—I am sure that is true for colleagues, too. There is also a pattern of schools saying they can care for a child but being turned down. That is happening over and over again, and people are being forced to travel many miles across the county in a way that is simply not possible for children with this level of need.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. The hon. Gentleman speaks with great passion, which is very much informed by his local circumstances in Hampshire. I can share my local circumstances in Kent, where the current two-tier system just does not work for my constituents. We have some great councillors in Swale and some good councillors in Kent, but over decades the system has not worked because the needs of people in certain parts of Kent are so different from the needs of people in my constituency, which is a much poorer, more industrial and more deprived area. We have been overlooked. I am afraid that the people in Tunbridge Wells, which is a great town, do not get the needs of people in Sheerness. This change will be a massive improvement for people in my neck of the woods, and that is why I support it.”
“It is obvious. My area has a very different socioeconomic status from that of the rest of Kent—frankly, a lot of the coastal parts of Kent are very different from the centre of Kent. The authority will not be as large as Kent county council, which currently is responsible for the biggest challenges—special educational needs and disabilities, adult social care and children’s social care. Those are a lot of the things that matter most to my constituents. Having more like with like areas in a unitary authority, the likely outcome of this reorganisation where I am, will be a massive improvement and will allow other parts of Kent to focus on their special needs.”
“I would just like to give a counter. We have heard some very interesting evidence, but my own local authority has the misfortune to operate under the committee system, which was largely brought about in a deal that created a rainbow coalition with the Greens and some other local parties. Honestly, it is a dismal failure. Contrary to the evidence that has been presented, it has made the council more siloed, and fewer councillors feel that they can engage well with the council. Frankly, it is the whim of every individual committee chair as to how they operate, often constraining meetings to an extremely short duration. That has reduced the amount of scrutiny and gummed up the business of the council. I would like to present that as evidence from someone who actually lives within a council that has a committee system.”
“I would like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on that, and I would also quickly remind her that I have three more neighbourhoods in the bottom 10% of the country—just to add that to the list.”
“Since the announcement of £20 million for the east of Sheppey, my constituents have been fizzing with excitement. I am getting loads of responses to my online surveys, and the coffee morning I held on Saturday—the first of many I will hold—was very well attended. People had really great ideas, but they had two main things to feed back. First, they want local people to be at the heart of this initiative. The citizens of Eastchurch, Warden, Leysdown and Shellness all want to be part of it, but they want to make sure it is centred on them, not on outside voices. Secondly, they want the funding to be a catalyst for further change and investment in the area.”
“Take Folkestone, for example, and the work around the Harbour Arm there, or Margate, or 20 years ago, Whitstable. With growth strategies that, first, ask how you make a place liveable and attractive, you find that you crowd in other forms of growth, which may be within the eight industrial sectors. I am very in favour of local growth plans, because they help to encourage local communities to ask what sort of growth they want and to be pro it. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and if you ask people what sort of growth they want, you get an answer about what growth they want. If you ask people what other sorts of development they want, often you get an anti-development answer.”
“You’re likely not going to succeed, but there are industries that you can develop.” That might have been agritech, agricultural tourism or food supply chains, depending on where they were in the country. Your point about encouraging local communities to think about the role of hospitality and retail in driving quite visible growth is really powerful. There is something about the distribution of the value of growth that we would encourage local communities to consider. I happen to know your patch quite well—I am from Maidstone, so it is a world I know. If you look at the areas around the Kent coast, for example, which have done well over the last few years, the characteristic of the growth strategy has been to use hospitality, leisure and experience as a way of driving other forms of growth.”
“Quite often, when we ask local communities what they want, we are talking to them about whether they do or do not want housing, but encouraging local communities to think about what sort of growth they want is really valuable. I think you are right about the tendency that exists. Often, if you ask local political leaders what sort of growth they want, they will start talking about wanting to be a fintech hub. In an old life, when I was at a devolved organisation that used London mayoral money to drive economic development, I quite often used to get asked by people around the country how they could create a fintech hub in Devon, Dorset or wherever. I used to say, “You’re probably not going to.”
“If you look at the north-east plan, I do not see high streets mentioned once—I have only scan read it; someone may be able to point me in the right direction—and in the west midlands plan, I see priority high streets mentioned. Priority high streets are where they are planning to invest and create jobs, so they recognise the need to invest in high streets in the areas where they are creating jobs. I am not sure where that leaves the others. If you look at it purely from a retail point of view, there has to be a fear that the focus on high-tech, highly skilled jobs and on creating in the local economy will create pockets of success, but it will also create pockets of neglect as well, if we are not careful. Allen Simpson: I agree with that. The element of a local growth plan that I think is really positive is the word “growth”.”
“I have looked at the north-east and the west midlands one—that is where we are based—and largely those growth plans are aligned to the national growth areas. I understand that: the mayors, the areas and the regions want to create jobs that are skilled and well paid, and that grow the local economy by focusing on industries of growth. You could argue that retail, and high street retail especially, has seen itself decline over the years as customer behaviour has changed, so I understand where the direction is, but there has to be a fear. If I was a shop owner now looking out, I would be saying, “Okay, I hear where you’re going to spend money. How does that work for me? How does that make a difference for me in my high street in Coleshill in the west midlands, near where I live?”—or in Solihull, or anywhere else in the UK that they might be?”
“Again, they may not be seen as major strategic-level elements of a growth plan, but actually they are fundamental, particularly for local communities. What are your takes on that? Andrew Goodacre: Looking at it from a wider view, we are largely supportive of devolution and what is in the White Paper. If I put the retail lens on it, though, especially independent retail, which are the businesses that we represent, they will always ask, “What is in it for us?” There is a fear among those businesses that if you look at the national growth strategy, neither retail nor hospitality really feature in there as one of the eight key areas for investment and growth. I have not seen all the local growth plans.”
“Q Thank you for coming. I am very interested in the provisions around local growth plans and particularly how they affect your sectors. In the area I represent, Sittingbourne and Sheppey, there has been a feeling that we have been lacking, from the existing local authorities at both tiers, a real focus on growth locally. For instance, on the Isle of Sheppey, they are pulling together a local growth group and a local growth board. That is really important for the sense of place for areas that feel that they have already been overlooked. I am concerned that, in a big devolved settlement, that may still be a problem. I am also curious how that affects areas like the retail and hospitality sectors.”
“One of the concerns that has been raised locally is that, by replicating the electoral and political structure of Kent and having Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone, which are very different types of towns, predominate the political nature of the mayoralty, we will just replicate the same problem and our needs in terms of economic development, and therefore social support and social economics, will be overridden. Effectively, we can be categorised as a little bit of the red wall in the south-east of England. One of the dangers to me is that we—”
“Q My question is in a similar vein, building on a lot of the conversation so far. My constituency is an outlier in the south-east of England and in the county of Kent, which is likely to become a devolved authority. Sittingbourne and Sheerness are two properly industrial towns. They really stand out for the amount of manufacturing and manual jobs in the area, compared with the service industries that predominate in the rest of the county and the south-east, and that has a lot of effects. Over the years, a misunderstanding, or ignoring, within the county of Kent of the industrial nature of my towns has strengthened the inequality and the depth of deprivation in certain parts of my constituency.”
“Secondly, we need to look at structuring a combined authority that builds in an understanding of those different geographies from the outset, and does not necessarily create a superior tier of authority. Zoë Billingham: May I add one more point? It is about interventions at the neighbourhood level. A welcome focus of the Bill is that, as you raised, there can be as much inequality within combined authorities as between combined authorities. Sometimes the intervention needs to be at the neighbourhood level, so that should also be introduced as a focus of the combined authority. The basis on which they intervene and where is also a useful way to address disparities within regions.”
“There are different ways of structuring a combined authority, its functions and its leadership that recognise the different constituent elements in an area. If I have one concern at the moment, it is that because we are asking people to reorganise their district councils and create a combined authority at the same time, it is very hard to find the headroom for that creative thinking about, “How are the internal dynamics of this going to work in the future?” That is two things. First, we need flexibility on unitarisation, so that you do not disappear into an area that does not understand your needs. That is replicated in cathedral cities and all sorts of places right across the country.”
“Professor Denham: I recognise a lot of what you say, because I live in Hampshire. We have Southampton, Portsmouth and the island, which was mentioned earlier and is completely different. There are two things that are crucially important. First, the unitarisation approach must be sensitive to those local geographies. Simply forcing people into a 500,000 unit because, mathematically, that is what came out of a PwC report two years ago would be counterproductive if that meant you lost the focus on those areas. That is a part of it: we need sufficient flexibility in the unitarisation approach. The second thing is to try to build in from the beginning the idea that not every combined authority needs to replicate the structures that evolved initially in Manchester and the west midlands around a centralised authority.”
“Sorry, Ms Vaz—there is. What do you think we can do when setting up mayoral authorities to prevent aberrant areas—I say that in a very positive way—within a broader, more homogenous mayoral district from being neglected? Zoë Billingham: We have some similar dynamics in the north, where certain combined authorities comprise some areas of low and modest incomes and some areas of great wealth, so some parallels can be drawn. Setting and influencing early mayoral priorities is really key. While in the north-east there are some areas of great wealth, Kim McGuinness’s priority is child poverty, and she has made that very clear. Obviously, that speaks directly to the areas of the north-east that suffer most from high levels of deprivation and child poverty. The initial setting of the mayoral agenda is absolutely essential in that.”
“My constituency is a lot closer to here than the constituency of my hon. Friend—it is just a bit further down the Thames. We have a strong tourist economy, but due to the housing pressures across the country these days, the housing and accommodation on the Isle of Sheppey hides a masked community living in holiday accommodation all year round, particularly in caravans. That is not picked up in the Government data at either a national or local level. I am interested to hear from my hon. Friend whether that is a problem for him as well; in my community, it means that we have high levels of deprivation that simply are not being accounted for in the current Government spending plans or formulae. I welcome the Government’s revision to the spending formulae, which will help my constituency, but we could go further.”
“With the case of one of the killers of James Bulger, Jon Venables, coming to the Parole Board again, the need for the voices of victims’ families to be heard in the justice system is coming right to the fore. My constituent Sue, who is in the Gallery today, is being supported by the James Bulger foundation. Her son died needlessly; he was not supported by the people with him, who could have offered him aid and got him medical help. Will the Minister meet me and Sue to hear the tragic details of this case and discuss the options for changing the law to ensure that victims’ families are properly represented in the justice system?”
“Given the welcome news in today’s new 10-year plan for health that the NHS app will be upgraded and be central to the way that patients take control of their own healthcare, can the Leader of the House please advise me how I can best use parliamentary time to challenge the scourge of mobile notspots in my constituency, particularly in villages like Iwade?”
“How will the Secretary of State ensure that with this new funding formula, he and his team at the centre will keep a tight grip on what happens at ICB and other levels closer to the ground to ensure that that funding gets to the areas with the most need?”