Dr Danny Chambers
MP for Winchester · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“The Government invested more than £560 million in AMR programmes between 2020 and 2024, so it is reasonable that Parliament should receive an annual assessment of AMR-related deaths to ensure that that significant public investment is delivering results, represents value for money and is targeted where it can have the greatest impact.”
“Surveillance has already identified significant variations by age, deprivation and geography. Understanding where deaths are occurring, and in who, would help direct resources to the communities and services that are most affected.”
“I thank the Minister for her comments. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 32 Review on deaths related to antimicrobial resistant infection “Within six months of the passage of this Act, the Secretary of State must conduct and publish a review into the number of yearly deaths in the UK which…”
“This is not simply a matter of people dying from infections that could not be treated; nearly all the advances in modern medicine over the last 50, 60 or 70 years would be null and void.”
“We very much welcome the Government’s initiative to give children free bus travel throughout the summer—it is a great idea. The only problem is that in Winchester and its surrounding area, Hampshire county council keeps cutting funding for bus services.”
“I thank the Minister for her comments. We understand that the Government take this matter very seriously, but we are working on estimated numbers of deaths for something that will eventually be killing more people than covid. We really need some tangible figures, so I will press the new clause to a Division.”
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Every one of 601 lines we hold for Dr Danny Chambers, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 5 of 13.
“That obvious bottleneck was going to filter through. No mechanism was put in place to ensure that the NHS would have the capacity to train those extra medical students when they finished their F1 and F2. In Winchester I speak to many resident doctors, and even to their parents. Those resident doctors have gone through university, sometimes getting themselves in a fair amount of student loan debt, and are working hard on their F1 and F2. The stress of not knowing whether they will get a training placement is overwhelming, frustrating and for us, as a society, ridiculous because we are short of doctors. How have we ended up in a situation where we are training students and resident doctors, but cannot give them the further training places to continue?”
“It is really difficult to plan a career, especially such a difficult and challenging career, when working with that level of uncertainty. I lived with medical students when I was a student at Liverpool University and have followed their careers since. The challenges that the hon. Member set out have been reflected in their lives and careers. I support the Government’s ambition to increase medical school placements. That is important. We have a recognised workforce shortage in the NHS, so that is an obvious thing to do, but we must ensure that we do not carry on falling into the same trap. The previous Government, under Boris Johnson, said that they would increase medical school placements—and they did, but without providing the infrastructure for training resident doctors who want to go on to specialised training.”
“The emotional burden of caring for people who could be dying is difficult in itself, but resident doctors work in a system that adds extra pressures and conditions that can add stress alongside that. We cannot pay enough tribute to them for even surviving in those areas. One of the best books highlighting the plight of resident doctors that I have read is Adam Kay’s “This is Going to Hurt”. It did a lot to help the public to understand just how difficult it is for a doctor to not know where their training place is going to be. It is where they are going to be forced to live and work for several years—a place where they may not have any friends or family; they might be taken away from family and spouses. They might have dependants and children.”
“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) for another insightful speech; this time I will avoid comparing the anatomy of human and dog ear canals—we have covered that already. We always rightly start these speeches by paying tribute to NHS staff, doctors, nurses and everyone involved in patient care, especially given the pressures on them as a result of sheer patient numbers and working in systems that can make the job even more stressful and pressurised than it already is. They are caring for severely injured or very ill people at the toughest moments of their lives.”
“Last week in my Winchester office, I held a meeting for parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities, and some were in tears when discussing the fight they have had to get the care to which they are entitled. Can we assure parents that any reforms made to the SEND system—which are much needed—will not cause the absolutely crippling mental health anguish, stress and anxiety that the current system has been causing?”
“The NHS is not only one of our most important public services but one of the largest areas of public spending. Therefore, it is deeply concerning that Palantir’s contract for the federated data platform is so heavily redacted that it makes scrutiny almost impossible.”
“It is a company that is deeply embedded within the political ecosystem of Donald Trump, a convicted felon whose Administration has repeatedly undermined the international rule of law. It is a company that has worked hand in glove with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose behaviour is morally and legally outrageous and whose agents have operated like masked vigilantes in the deportation of individuals. We are all aware of the tragedies that that rogue Trump organisation has left in its wake. Why are we allowing a Trump-aligned company to sit at the heart of Britain’s most precious public service? Why are we comfortable placing NHS data in the hands of a company whose values are so clearly at odds with those of the British public? This is not a technical decision—this is a political choice.”
“Doctors and the public have made it clear that they do not trust this company. Fewer than half of NHS trusts have begun using this technology, in large part because of the concern from patients and clinicians. If, as the Health Secretary says, the federated data platform is “absolutely critical to the future of the NHS”, placing it in the hands of a company that staff and patients do not trust risks undermining that future from the outset. This is the central issue: we hold doctors and nurses to the highest ethical standards, and rightly so. We expect them to protect confidentiality, to act with integrity and to put patients first. So why are we asking them to use a system they do not trust and stake their professional reputations on it? Palantir is not a neutral contractor.”
“It is an honour to serve under your chairpersonship, Dame Siobhain. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for his tenacity and expertise in this subject. He has done a huge amount of research, and made an absolutely excellent speech. At a moment of rising global instability, it is extraordinary that we are prepared to trust the health of our citizens and the functioning of our NHS to a US corporation that does not share our values or interests. Outsourcing the storage, handling and analysis of NHS data to a foreign company, rather than securing the national and economic benefits of this work being done by a British or UK-led organisation, is yet another example of our unnecessary reliance on others to keep our vital infrastructure running.”
“That is an important point. Amnesty International, whose representatives I believe are present, and others including voices within the NHS have been raising serious concerns about the potential misuse or inappropriate sharing of sensitive data. The Government must come clean about how the contract was awarded in the first place and what steps they will be taking to bring it to an end. We should be building NHS data processing capacity here in the United Kingdom, strengthening our resilience, backing our own expertise and building sovereignty in a more dangerous world. Instead, we are exporting control of one of our most valuable national assets. I ask the Government today to use the break clause, stand with NHS staff, protect patient trust and keep Donald Trump and his allies out of our NHS.”
“The charity St John’s Winchester runs a brilliant community space for people with dementia; I have attended it myself and sung songs with them, including Motown. It is also one of the oldest charities in the UK and provides almshouses for vulnerable people. It has been running for 900 years and has survived the plague and the civil war, which was particularly ferocious in Winchester. It has specifically cited the increase in employment costs as a reason why it has had to deregister from the Care Quality Commission. What are the Government doing to support charities that provide social care and healthcare? We know that if these charities struggle, the costs will go on to councils and the NHS.”
“Given that this is not the first women’s health strategy to be brought to this place—the previous Government brought one through in 2022—and the fact that many women we speak to do not feel that there has been any meaningful change, a lot of people are saying that we cannot just keep announcing strategies while women are waiting for basic care. Given the failure of the last Government to deliver meaningful change, can we have reassurances that this will not simply be another strategy announcement and that women will feel a difference in the care that they receive?”
“Maternal mortality has increased by over 20% in the past 15 years, and there have recently been some high-profile media discussions about women and babies being let down, sometimes with devastating consequences. That is why the Liberal Democrats have been calling for one-to-one midwifery care and specialist doctors on every unit. I welcome the Government’s specific commitment on treatments for morning sickness. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (James MacCleary) has campaigned on that issue for a long time, and it is right that we end the postcode lottery for these medicines. The condition can be debilitating for some people, and it is not fair that women have different experiences simply because of where they live.”
“The Liberal Democrats welcome the strategy, and its specific recognition of the socioeconomic and racial disparities in women’s healthcare, which it is important to put front and centre. We also appreciate the specific recognition of endometriosis and similar conditions. My partner, Emma, suffers from endometriosis, and on many occasions I have seen her unable to stand up or barely get off the sofa, having been told for years that her symptoms are completely normal and that there is nothing wrong with her. Given that at least one in 10 women suffer from endometriosis and there are over 500,000 people on gynaecology waiting lists, clearly her experience is not unique. The picture around maternity safety is deeply troubling.”
“Before the last general election, Ministers from the former Government offered to meet EDS UK, and then the election was called so the meeting never happened. Will the Minister commit to meeting EDS UK and patients, including Dr Reinhold, to better understand what would be helpful to improve their outcomes?”
“Patients need national leadership, so we urge the Government to address the policy gap by working towards joined-up, multidisciplinary care across primary and secondary services, as well as supporting and promoting the existing training for staff, to ensure that those with EDS can access the care that they deserve. EDS and HSD must be integrated into NHS service specifications and long-term condition strategies as a matter of urgency. The Liberal Democrats want everyone with a chronic illness, including EDS, to have a named GP. That would improve their quality of care and allow better join-up between the range of services that they can access. We must champion the work of the Overlapping Illness Alliance and EDS UK to raise awareness of these often hidden conditions so that those in need of support are able to access it.”
“Emma’s open access toolkit on EDS—for anyone who is interested, it is worth googling—ought to be promoted enthusiastically by the Government as a means of promoting greater awareness on the part of all medical professionals, as well as better understanding and sensitivity on the part of everyone, so that we can ensure that all those with EDS and other hidden disabilities remain welcomed and cared for in education, the workplace and their day-to-day lives. Dr Reinhold explains that we need a co-ordinated, holistic approach to multisystem conditions such as EDS, rather than the current disjointed care that facilitates diagnosis falling into gaps between specialists, who do not always have the collective training to spot connections between apparently unrelated symptoms.”
“One patient who Dr Reinhold told me about—I think it was through that window conversation—was a woman who was in her 70s when she finally got the diagnosis that she had been looking for over many years to explain her symptoms. This is a genetic condition that she had had since birth, but it took 70 years to ensure that she got the answers that she deserved and appropriate support for her many symptoms.”
“That led to her development of the EDS toolkit, written in conjunction with the Royal College of General Practitioners and funded by EDS UK. That toolkit is incredible and has been shared all over the world. I first heard about it when I was knocking on doors and she popped her head out of her upstairs window to say hello. We spoke about the toolkit for about 20 minutes—me on the street and her up in her bedroom. She had been a GP in Winchester for many years and then she became seriously unwell with EDS, which was why she was at home. That was at the age of just 42. Like so many others, she had to stop working; eventually, she had no option but to take ill health retirement, so the NHS lost another GP far too soon.”
“For many, a huge part of the burden of living with EDS comes from the lack of awareness of the condition. Unlike the situation for more visible disabilities, employers, schools and even friends and family are too often unaware of the debilitating and changing nature of this condition. Negotiating accommodations or seeking disability benefits for a condition that is little understood and largely invisible presents a huge challenge. People with EDS and those around them need clear guidance on the nature of the condition. A constituent of mine in Winchester, Dr Emma Reinhold, worked as a GP in the local community, where she became increasingly aware of EDS, with its commonly associated conditions, and how they were overlooked.”
“It means waiting decades for an overarching diagnosis for multiple complaints and being stuck in a system that incorrectly believes that EDS is a very rare condition rather than a realistic possibility. I was interested to hear my friend the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) acknowledge that he probably has treated patients with this disease, having not recognised it, which is something that we are all guilty of sometimes with rarer diseases. Diagnosis is only the first step. Care is too often fragmented or non-existent, and patients struggle to get a GP appointment in the usual 8 am scramble. As a result of fragmented care, those with EDS are left to manage their own symptoms, unable to access a holistic and collaborative point of care.”
“On that note, I commend the hard work of EDS UK in supporting and providing training for clinicians and healthcare professionals and campaigning for standardised guidance, improved NHS services and clinical pathways to meet the needs of EDS patients. The lack of national policy has left a postcode lottery for EDS patients across the country. This is another NHS area suffering the frustratingly long diagnostic delays and lack of joined-up, multidisciplinary care that we see for certain conditions. That means that people are battling with the unexplained symptoms and pain of EDS all through childhood, and that those patients have often been told repeatedly that their tests are normal and their symptoms must be psychosomatic.”
“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I thank the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) for securing this important debate. Many people have to come watch in the Public Gallery, and I do not underestimate how much effort that will have taken some of them. We really do appreciate them being here today. We have heard from everyone the frustration of having a relatively rare disease with non-specific clinical signs, meaning that so many patients have been waiting years and years, in awful situations, even to get a diagnosis. What we are equally upset about is that once they have a diagnosis, the support is not available to ensure that they live the most fulfilled life possible or even, in many cases, get the most basic care that they require.”
“I will bring up one more time the state of our roads, particularly in Hampshire. I was a horse vet before I was elected, so there is probably not a single road I have not driven down. Thankfully I had a 4x4, because I genuinely needed that for the roads, not just the farm tracks. Where I live in Shawford, they are not just potholes, but craters; it is like driving on the surface of the moon. Hampshire county council, run by the Conservatives, is saying that it has no money to fix the potholes. I know that council budgets are not the remit of central Government, but potholes have become such a problem. Is there the opportunity to have a debate or a review, so that we can have some emergency funding to fix these roads? It is not fair that our constituents need to pay for financial mismanagement.”
“I can reiterate that point; my partner Emma has severe endometriosis. She is regularly crippled—barely able to get off the sofa and in absolute agony. She has been told for years that this is normal and that there is nothing wrong. She had to fight repeatedly to get the diagnostic surgery that she needed, which confirmed that she has endometriosis. It is a very common story, and it is completely outrageous that people are told that crippling pain, meaning that they cannot get off the sofa, is just a normal cycle.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that one immediate action the Government could take to reverse some of the damage that the Conservatives have done to our armed forces is on the Conservative decision to shut down Winchester’s Army training regiment, which trains 20% of our troops. No replacement for that facility will open in the next few years. That decision needs to be reversed.”
“Ensuring that there is awareness of the lack of protection that these filters provide and of smoking as a whole is imperative if we are to ensure that people can make informed decisions about their health and wellbeing. I am very pleased to support this Bill as it goes through Parliament; it is momentous and significant. We really appreciate the Government’s accepting the Liberal Democrat Lords amendments, which will slightly improve how the Bill will be delivered. We are very pleased that this will be a strong and impactful Bill. We hope that it will deliver meaningful change on public health for generations to come and that we will have a smokefree generation growing up.”
“As the mental health spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, I am acutely aware of the benefits of the Lords amendments that support those with long-term mental health conditions, who have higher rates of smoking than the general public. We know that going cold turkey is simply unrealistic and can even be dangerous. The exemption on vape vending machines in secure mental health hospitals ensures that people are supported professionally in quitting in a sustainable and maintained way that will not further damage their mental health. I welcome the Lords amendments on regulating filters, which have cross-party support. Not only are filters an environmental issue, but they provide a false perception of safety to smokers.”
“I am very pleased that the Government accepted so many amendments in the Lords. Some of the amendments that the Liberal Democrats are really keen on are regarding fixed penalty notices and require all the money from those fines to go to local public health initiatives, as directed by local authorities. We know that public health is so important, yet funding for such organisations is usually extremely limited, given the pressures on local authorities. Without the Lords amendments on fixed penalty notices, the money would go straight back to the Exchequer. We fundamentally believe that if we are serious about making a meaningful difference to people’s lives, that money must be used in local smoking-cessation initiatives.”
“I also welcome the hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson) to her position as Minister for Public Health. I had the privilege to serve on the Bill Committee, as other hon. Members did—indeed, I see some familiar faces in the Chamber. One of the things that struck me most was when the chief medical officer gave his evidence: he said that the Bill was not only the most significant piece of public health legislation in 30 years, but probably the single of piece of legislation that will most help to address inequality. Inequality is multifactorial, but one of the main factors in the difference in life expectancy between certain wealthier areas and certain more deprived areas is the rate of smoking. This Bill will have a huge impact, especially on the communities for which we are really trying to improve life expectancy.”
“The hon. Gentleman raises legitimate points about the pressures facing small businesses at the moment, but does he not agree that there must be better ways of supporting small businesses than facilitating children to get cancer?”
“A world without effective antibiotics is not an abstract future; it is becoming a very real possibility. It is one that we should not be willing to accept.”
“When we cut overseas development assistance and scale back support for global health systems—for example, through the Fleming Fund—we are not actually saving money; we are directly increasing the risk to ourselves. Such funding helps to build up resilient health systems, supports disease surveillance, and reduces the spread of infection before it reaches our shores and our NHS. Prevention is not soft policy; it is hard economics. If we wait for a crisis, we have already failed. By the time a new pandemic or an antimicrobial-resistant superbug arrives in the UK, the cost will be measured not only in budgets, but in lives. This House faces a simple question: do we act early on climate, on global health and on prevention, or do we wait and pay the economic price later?”
“It means that antibiotics stop working, routine operations such as hip replacements become high-risk procedures, and minor infections become life threatening. We are talking about returning to a world where a simple cut could kill. It is predicted that 39 million people will have died by 2050 as a direct result of antimicrobial resistance. We can add to that picture climate change, which is driving infection, increasing antibiotic use and accelerating resistance, creating a perfect storm. With falling vaccine uptake, climate change denial and growing global instability, it is often the scientists who are doing the hard work to keep us safe, yet too often their warnings are ignored. That has real-life consequences.”
“We have seen that very recently in the Caribbean, which has had record-breaking storm seasons. However, this is not just a distant humanitarian issue; it is about our safety here in the UK. Disease does not respect national borders, and a threat anywhere is a threat here as well. When health systems abroad are overwhelmed, outbreaks spread faster, surveillance systems weaken, and the risk of global transmission rises. That is how local crises become global crises. Layered on top of all that is one of the greatest threats that we face in global public health: antimicrobial resistance. Antimicrobial resistance is a slow pandemic that is already under way. It gets relatively little media attention, but it is having a huge and direct effect on day-to-day medicine in the UK.”
“Climate shocks, floods, droughts and extreme heat do not happen in isolation; they disrupt sanitation, displace populations and overwhelm what are often very fragile health systems. That is exactly the type of environment in which infectious diseases thrive, and we are already seeing this. As the climate shifts, we see vectors such as midges and mosquitoes moving into different parts of the world and carrying diseases into new regions. Diseases that were once considered tropical are now being seen in other parts of the world as a direct result. In the UK, we now have a disease of livestock called bluetongue, which is spread by midges that were not previously found in northern Europe. We know that the poorest countries are hardest hit by climate change, despite contributing to it the least.”
“At a time when misinformation about climate change is louder than ever, these discussions are not just important but essential if we are serious about protecting our environment and our future. I thank my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy), for securing the debate, for putting this issue in context, and for showing that climate change is also about health and national security. I will focus on something that we too often overlook: the direct link between climate change and global health. In veterinary science, we use the term “one health” to reflect the idea that human, animal and environmental health are completely interlinked and inseparable. Climate change does not just warm the planet; it accelerates the spread of disease across all animals, humans and plants.”
“I really would urge the Minister to agree to meet me and my Liberal Democrat colleagues to discuss the proposals we have come up with. They are backed by organisations such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. They are powerful yet nuanced enough to have a genuine impact in this area, and they could be implemented immediately.”
“We know what happens: the risks are downplayed by lobbyists and the big companies, and the debate ends up shaped by misinformation and industry lobbying—and it is happening again. These new technologies, which sit at the heart of people’s emotional lives, are still subject to remarkably little scrutiny. One day we may look back on the unregulated social media landscape and AI chatbots in the same way that we now look back at smoking. We will say that we knew the risks and we knew that action had to be taken, but we waited too long and people suffered, even died—and it was preventable. These are not abstract concerns. Poorly regulated social media and AI are some of the most pressing emerging public health threats.”
“It would also mean that children under 16 would not be allowed to use WhatsApp, so they would be kicked out of the family WhatsApp group, and we know how many families rely on the WhatsApp group to run their lives. We need intelligent, proactive regulation that is fit for purpose. It is not just a matter of announcing policies that chase headlines and taking quick political positions to get a hit in the media. This is such an entrenched problem, and we need cross-party support to tackle it in a meaningful way. I think we all agree that scrolling is the new smoking. Like smoking, we already know the dangers. With smoking, we knew for decades. We knew that it was harmful and addictive, and specifically harmful for children.”
“To be clear, those proposals, if applied today, would effectively result in a social media ban, because current social media platforms would not be suitable for children under 16 years old. However, there is nothing to stop technology companies creating online spaces that do not have dangerous, addictive algorithms, that do not have inappropriate contact, and that do not allow strangers to contact children. They could create useful spaces where children can connect and help each other with their homework. One reason that we do not support the Conservatives’ headline-grabbing proposal of a complete ban on social media is that it would remove the ability for children to use Wikipedia to do homework.”
“Friends the Members for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins) and for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) have spent months engaging with experts, charities and other organisations to come up with robust, evidence-based positions that would help us to tackle this issue. What we propose for the platforms with addictive algorithms that allow children to make contact with strangers, or for strangers to make contact with them to show inappropriate content, is to have an age rating like we see with films and video games. If we ban specific platforms, other ones pop up and we end up in a sort of regulatory whack-a-mole where we cannot keep on top of it all. If we take a principles-based approach that is based on the harm that can be caused, it can be applied to current and future platforms.”
“Friend the Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire spoke about children using chatbots to get around the safeguards of online gambling companies. That is hugely dangerous. Then we come back to the general social media that people have been talking about. When I speak to people in Winchester, I hear that parents want action on social media, teachers want action on social media, and even many young people, especially teenagers, say that they think social media is dangerous and damaging. Many of them actually want us to take action on it as well. The Liberal Democrats have been working hard for the past few months to develop a position on this. My hon.”
“Part of this wild west is AI chatbots, which I have spoken about on several occasions in this House. It surprised me to learn that a third of adults have relied on an AI chatbot for mental health advice or support, or for advice on a life choice. It is also concerning that one in four teenagers has done the same thing. That is not helped by the fact that over a million people are on NHS waiting lists waiting for mental health treatment. Those people are looking for other options. Although these chatbots could be useful if designed in the right way, the concern is that they are unregulated. The medical advice that they are giving is unsafe and can be dangerous. We know that some people with eating disorders are getting advice on low calorie diets and how to access weight-loss drugs, which are completely inappropriate for them. My hon.”
“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) for securing this debate. His introduction was eloquent and his knowledge of the subject very evident. I will be honest with the House: when I first saw the title of this debate, I was not quite sure what to focus on or where to start. Everyone here has raised different issues. Do we start with addictive algorithms, underage children being able to access pornographic content, non-consensual image editing, financial scams or medical misinformation? My hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) pointed to the harassment of people being filmed without their consent on the street. This is an absolute wild west and we have not even mentioned electoral interference by foreign powers.”
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to work with Hampshire County Council to ensure that the school bus service from Kings Worthy to Henry Beaufort School is continued. And the petitioners remain, etc.] [P003170]”
“The petition states: “The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to work with Hampshire County Council to ensure that the school bus service from Kings Worthy to Henry Beaufort School is continued.” Following is the full text of the petition: [The petition of residents of the constituency of Winchester, Declares that the school bus from Kings Worthy to Henry Beaufort School is due to be withdrawn in April 2026; further declares that this would force children as young as eleven to walk over an hour on dangerous roads to get to school, which would be particularly dangerous in the winter months, or cost parents who will have to start work later or pay for expensive taxis; and further declares that the plans would mean more congestion, worse air quality and higher costs for parents.”
“Today I present a petition on behalf of over 500 of my constituents who call on the Government to urgently review the removal of school transport for children attending Henry Beaufort school in Winchester. Under the current changes, children as young as 11 are expected to walk up to three miles—that takes over an hour—on dangerous roads to get to school. I have walked the route with parents, and it is unacceptable.”
“There is widespread concern about the Government sticking to the decision made in 2016 to shut Army Training Regiment Winchester, which trains 20% of our troops. Has an impact assessment been carried out, and have the Government spoken with commanders at Pirbright and Winchester to ensure that they can not only maintain training capacity but increase it if necessary?”
“We appreciate the Minister’s statement and the fact that the Government have moved so quickly to provide support. I have received many messages from people in the Meon valley who use heating oil and other types of energy as their main sources of heating. They understand that we cannot control international events, but they are worried that companies are profiteering, with the average price going up from £300 to £640 a tank, or from 63p to £1.40 a litre. Are the Government working at pace to ensure that Ofgem and other regulatory authorities, which do not currently regulate heating oil, will prevent companies from taking advantage of the international situation and making money off older people in particular?”