April 2026

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Government have already taken steps to shore up the provision of mental health services within the national health service, and I am joined today on the Front Bench by colleagues from the Department of Health and Social Care. I know they are listening closely and will be absorbing the findings that Sir Adrian Fulford has made in phase 1 of his inquiry. I will be working with all Ministers across Government before we formulate our fuller response to al

It is a big ask, and I am very clear that this must be a moment of change. I do not want to be standing here with a future tragedy, saying the same things that have been said in response to what happened in Southport. We owe the families a true moment of change in how public services are delivered. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: a cultural shift is critical for making onward progress, including for agencies that do not normally consider the risk posed to others, because they are primari

My hon. Friend notes one of the key failures, which related to the question of who the risk was to. In this case, too many of the internal assessments were of the risk to the perpetrator himself, not the risk that he posed to others. That must change, and Sir Adrian Fulford will make practical recommendations for the individual agencies, but his report speaks to the need for a cultural shift in the way in which these cases are looked at and managed. That will be a cultural shift for colleagues i

I would be happy to hear the hon. Lady’s personal experiences of the quality of that training. I think this is the first time that she and I have had an interaction on this matter, so I would be very happy to pick those issues up with her offline. On the substance of the hon. Lady’s point, we must follow the findings of the inquiry’s chair, who said that there were five major failures in this case, including that no single agency took ownership of the risk that the perpetrator posed, that there

I thank my hon. Friend for what she has just said, and associate myself with her remarks about the victims of the Forbury Gardens attack—about those who died and their families. She is absolutely right that we have been here far too many times. This must be a moment of change, and I am very hopeful that with such a thorough report from Sir Adrian Fulford, with such clear, practical recommendations for action to prevent such a tragedy from occurring in the future, we can and will make progress. A

The Liberal Democrat spokeswoman is absolutely right; the sheer number of missed opportunities in this case is truly horrifying. That is why we must do everything we can to reform all these systems in our public services to make sure that no such incident can happen again. There will be a comprehensive response from the Government on all of the inquiry’s phase 1 recommendations. I intend for that to come before the summer so the House will have an opportunity to debate it. As we move to delivery

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point about the reliance that all of us place on the Prevent programme. We should rightly be able to place that reliance on the programme and ensure that it is as strong as it possibly can be when it comes to preventing tragedies, diverting people away from potentially committing a terrorist act and driving them away from extremism more broadly. We have already been delivering a number of improvements to the Prevent programme. There is new statutory g

I wholeheartedly agree; that was about to be my next point. Of course, the information must be shared with the relevant agencies, and whenever concerns are brought to those agencies they must also be raised with family members. None of this is a reason to reject the principle; it is a reason to do the work properly. The Government have to act on what Maya’s family are saying. They must recognise that, while the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill may improve information sharing, that is not th

It is clear now that there was no plan behind this reckless war, and that the resulting energy crisis will have huge impacts both here in the UK and around the world. Can I thank the Prime Minister for his cool-headed approach in the face of pressure from the leaders of Reform and the Conservatives to follow the US blindly into this war? Does he agree that this demonstrates how important it is that we finally get off the fossil fuel rollercoaster and continue our record investment in green energ

I welcome the shadow Home Secretary’s comments about potentially working together on the changes that need to be made as a result of the inquiry’s initial findings. The Government will respond by the summer, and I look forward to discussions with him and other hon. Members to ensure that the House is united as one in the action that needs to be taken. As he said, that is the very least that we owe the victims’ families and all those who have been affected by this horrific tragedy. The shadow Hom

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Southport inquiry. I must thank all who participated in the inquiry and the chair, Sir Adrian Fulford, and his team. Today, Sir Adrian published the report of the inquiry’s first phase. This summer, the Government will provide a full response. That will also cover Lord Anderson’s Prevent review. Today, I will provide the Government’s initial reaction to an inquiry that exposes a series of tragic failures from which we

My hon. Friend makes the case for women’s homelessness and rough sleeping to be better understood. To improve evidence, we added an indicator on gender to the monthly rough sleeping survey, which we published in February 2026, but I encourage all local authorities to listen to the question that she just asked, to consider taking part in the women’s rough sleeping census and to understand that domestic abuse is the third biggest reason for homelessness. We need to act on this issue.

The US is using the bases to attack the Iranian capability to fire missiles into the region, including at our citizens and our nationals. Members will have seen the images—going into hotels and the bases where our military are based. Is the hon. Lady seriously suggesting that we should reduce protection for our people in the region and expose them to attacks that they would not otherwise be exposed to? That, to me, would be a dereliction of duty, and I will never do that.

I thank all Members for contributing to this important and serious debate. As we can tell from the Members present, this issue has a particular north-east focus, because it was our part of the world where Maya lived and was loved, and where she was tragically killed. However, this issue is far from specific to the north-east, as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster), made clear when he referred to the case of Sara Sharif. The hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkl

Japan, Turkey, China and India have already been in negotiation with Iran to try to secure safe passage for their vessels through the strait of Hormuz. The Prime Minister was absolutely right to visit the Gulf states and their leaders. He knows the importance of the strait to those economies. Did he receive any assurance from them that they would not try to negotiate with Iran to salvage their own economies? Any tacit acceptance by those states of Iran’s right to control the strait would set a t

That is precisely why we are working with other countries to de-escalate the situation and get the strait of Hormuz open. As I said in my statement, that will not be easy, but notwithstanding that challenge, we will continue to do that work.

I thank the Prime Minister for the positive steps that the UK is taking to promote a negotiated settlement to the war, and reassurance to shipping post-settlement through the straits of Hormuz, but it is clear that the war even thus far will have a significant impact on British consumers. He has talked about very welcome measures to support residents with energy bills, and those will be welcomed by my Dartford constituents, but would he consider additional measures to support those who are most

As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have taken measures on both of those fronts in relation to the framework of law that we have in place.

We are working to finalise the defence investment plan. It is really important that we do not make the mistakes that the last Government made; we inherited plans that were unfunded and not deliverable, so it is really important that our plan is robust. We are finalising it, but it will be a robust plan that serves for the future defence and protection of this country.

I thank my hon. Friend for drawing attention to the really important issue of the relationship between Russia and Iran, and the assistance that Russia has given to Iran in relation to the intelligence that is being used during the conflict. We must never lose sight of the fact that we are facing a war on two fronts, and Russia is a huge threat to our continent and our country.