Tom Collins

Energy Security

I agree with so much of what my hon. Friend is saying. We need to be ambitious, and we need to be looking at the big picture and fixing systems as well as situations. Like her, I want to see us being far more ambitious from here onward. The headings of the Bills in the King’s Speech offer huge potential for us to do things that are far more transformative and meaningful, and address the root causes of many of the problems we face. Does she agree that if the Government take a radical, different a

Royal Mail: Performance

Many people in Worcester are very frustrated by the delays in the Royal Mail service, which are impacting their healthcare and their access to money. However, having spoken to Citizens Advice, I know that this is not an issue of the moment, nor one restricted to Worcester; it is much bigger than that. I thank the Minister for his action on this issue. However, having met Royal Mail representatives myself, what is even more concerning than everything else is how hard it is to get acceptance from

Palliative Care

My hon. Friend is entirely right. We need far better integration across those services. I was heartbroken to see that the palliative care that my mother was receiving seemed to have been outsourced to charities, and was not being provided by the NHS at all. That specialist care ought to be something that is native to our NHS. I was recently talking to a couple of GPs in Worcester. Speaking with them is a refreshing change. While their work is in diagnosing and treating illness and, to a good ext

Palliative Care

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) for leading on this topic. I have seen palliative care fail. My mum, Alison, had ovarian cancer. She died lonely and in dreadful indignity in a hospital ward intended for recovering liver and kidney patients. She felt a burden to a nursing team who were used to people getting better. She was waiting for a hospice bed, but, as it turned out, the waiting time was longer than she had. In my constituency, we have hospices with supe

Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

A few of my colleagues have been offering jokes. I was not able to prepare detailed remarks, so I hope they will forgive me if I just wing it. [Laughter.] Although we have discussed decarbonisation a number of times in this debate, it has not been said yet that the Bill is about addressing the climate crisis. That incredibly important and urgent piece of work demands the utmost urgency and ambition. For that reason, I naturally support it and what it is trying to achieve. Similar mechanisms have

Kinship Carer Identification

It is true that there is a real diversity in the situations of kinship carers, both in the causes of people finding themselves caring for young people and in the legal structures that they are operating under. We totally recognise that, as we move forward in trying to tackle these issues, we need to be really open-eyed to that full range of different experiences and situations. Caroline tells her story: “Eve landed on her arm, screamed out in pain, one look and I knew it was broken. I took her t

Kinship Carer Identification

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising good cases and good examples that we might like to follow. I also appreciate his having spoken to me beforehand about his experiences with the situation in Northern Ireland. I would like to share the experiences of Clare. She said: “I rushed into A&E in a complete panic. I was carrying my two-year-old nephew…who was struggling to breathe. The receptionist barely looked up as she asked me my nephew’s name and date of birth. Her next question filled

Kinship Carer Identification

Sometimes, a child’s birth parents cannot look after them. Around 100,000 children in the UK are looked after by the state, and most of us are familiar with the concepts of adoption and fostering. But it is estimated that well over 100,000 children in the UK are being raised by members of their extended family, or by friends of their family: they are being cared for by kinship carers. An ever-increasing number of children are now in kinship care, and staying with a family member or friend has a