April 2026

The hon. Member is making an excellent speech. I have participated many a time in the Allendale challenge up in Northumberland to raise money for the North of Tyne Mountain Rescue Team. I thank all the volunteers who get involved, wherever in the country they are helping out. Since it is volunteers who are giving up their time, one of the key recommendations of the report from the APPG for volunteer rescue services was for the Government to recognise the mental health and wellbeing challenges th

Q5. Poor housing and temporary accommodation is having a devastating impact on families, their life chances, our schools and communities. Will the Prime Minister put the full weight of Government behind ensuring that new developments in London are delivering for Londoners, not private investors and landlords, including on the Billingsgate market site in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum)?

I hesitate to intervene, but I think the right hon. Member perhaps has not understood that children with a modern hearing aid, for example, use an application on a smartphone, which cannot be put on to a brick phone. That necessitates having a smartphone in the classroom.

I will not take any further interventions because of the time left, if that is okay. The need for urgent action to take children off social media in their crucial formative years is clear, so I welcome the Government’s consultation, the measures in the Bill to enable a ban and other regulatory measures to be introduced via statutory instrument with no need for further primary legislation. In our evidence session yesterday, we also heard from academics about some of the complexity that must be co

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. One of the reasons for the incredulity among those listening to the evidence yesterday was precisely that we recognise the addictive nature of social media. Frankly, the discussion yesterday felt like how a discussion about tobacco might have felt in the 1940s. The harm is so evident as to be undeniable, but the companies responsible for it continue to argue that the harm is minimal or non-existent and that anythin

I agree with the hon. Member—and, indeed, with the Opposition Front Bencher, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott)—that the ban must be on the basis that phones are not in bags during the school day, but are removed from children while they are at school. The point I was making was really about children who need to have their phone with them. There will be some exceptions, and the question of how that is worked through in the guidance is important for protecting those children from t

First, I welcome the Government’s decision to introduce a statutory ban on mobile phones in schools. I appreciate that the guidance previously proposed was clear and that schools must take account of Government guidance, but where an issue is unequivocal—and I think the need for mobile phones to be absent from schools unless there is a clear need for an exception is unequivocal—putting the matter into legislation is the most straightforward way to ensure compliance, and it provides clarity for t

With almost 170,000 workers in Wales benefiting from Labour’s successive increases to the national minimum wage and the living wage, families across the country—including many of my constituents—will now be better off. Despite resistance from Opposition parties, this Government have shown their commitment to tackling the cost of living crisis and supporting working people. Could the Secretary of State update the House on how those changes and the Employment Rights Act 2025 will benefit people in

12. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help reduce the cost of living in Wales.

The House of Lords has identified clear gaps and proposed practical solutions, and has sent improvements back to us. The Lords has acted to put in place clear safeguards, and the Government respond by stripping them out and pressing ahead regardless. Let us take Lords amendment 38. The Lords were clear that they required action to protect children from harm online, including stronger age assurance and a clear expectation of progress within 12 months. The Government have chosen to strip that out,

I note the hon. Member’s question, and I understand that support is provided to mountain rescue services within Northern Ireland, but that is a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly.[Official Report, 27 April 2026; Vol. 784, c. 4WC.] As a number of hon. Members have rightly said, it is important to recognise that resilience is not only about equipment or interoperability; it is about people. Search and rescue can be physically demanding, and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim F

I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point. Indeed, I met Warwickshire search and rescue when Lowland Rescue visited the House of Commons earlier this year or late last year. The partnership embodied in UK Search and Rescue, or UKSAR, brings together Government Departments, statutory responders and voluntary organisations from across the United Kingdom. Through its strategic board and operators group, it provides a forum that supports alignment between policy, operational delivery an

I understand the concern that the hon. Member and other hon. Members have raised but, as he will appreciate, that falls outside my Department’s remit. However, I will ask my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to respond on that point and on other questions that have been raised. I note the request for a meeting from the hon. Member for Hazel Grove, and I will ensure that that is drawn to their attention. Search and rescue in the United Kingdom is, at its heart, a collective n

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I am pleased to be able to respond on behalf of my hon. Friend the Minister for Aviation, Maritime and Decarbonisation. I thank hon. Members from across the House for their thoughtful contributions and for shining a light on the vital work of volunteer mountain rescue teams. I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) who secured this debate and in doing so has provided not only an opportunity to consider

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. An important aspect of Government spending is food procurement in the NHS, on which £500 million is spent every year in England alone. May I stress to the Government that we must ensure that we back British farming and British food and ensure that the processes we are undertaking support our British farmers?

It is a great pleasure to serve under you this afternoon, Ms Lewell, and I thank the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for securing this important debate. We have heard quite a lot of depressing stories about how people have been scammed and ripped off, and all colleagues will agree that more needs to be done to tackle fraud and spoofing in the car insurance industry. Whether it is crash-for-cash scams, ghost broking or paid ad spoofing, our constituents are all being ripped off on

Parliamentary appearance by Gerald Jones

… The FDP is fundamentally an NHS construct. It consists of multiple contracts awarded to a number of consortia, including Palantir, Accenture, PwC, Carnall Farrar and the North of England Care System Support. [Official Report, 16 April 2026; Vol. 783, c. 486WH.] Written correction submitted by the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed):

… The FDP is fundamentally an NHS construct. It consists of multiple contracts awarded to a consortium, including Palantir, Accenture, PwC, Carnall Farrar and the North of England Care System Support.

… The FDP is part of an infrastructure—it is not the infrastructure or the only infrastructure—to resolve that gap. It is improving efficiency and generating savings across the health service worth up to £2.4 billion, according to independent estimates. Those independent estimates are being further bolstered by a commissioned study by Imperial College that will look at the economic impact of the FDP. [Official Report, 16 April 2026; Vol. 783, c. 487WH.]