Live Debate: Commons Chamber

Select Committee Statement: Select Committee Statement on the Ninth Report of the Environmental Audit Committee, Addressing the risks from Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS), HC 852

Thank you.

12:29

Mr Toby Perkins MP (Chesterfield, Labour)

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Very much indeed. Madam Deputy Speaker, I'm very pleased to present the Environmental Audit Committees ninth report of this Committees ninth report of this Parliament on addressing the risks from perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. I was practising that also known as forever chemicals. This inquiry was launched last year when the acronym PFAs might have been familiar to just a few experts. But one year on, there's been an ITV and N's report documentary about PFAs, the first ever government PFAs action plan, and much more.

Public awareness and scrutiny on PFAs pollution and contamination, for the benefit of those watching or unaware, I will briefly outline the PFAs issue before turning to the substance of our report. PFAs are a class of more than 10,000 synthetic chemicals, which are used in a wide variety of applications for their water resistance and resilience, from non-stick frying pans to making school uniforms more water resistant, and from firefighting foams to cosmetics. However, it is the same quality their resistance to breaking down, which means that they accumulate in the environment and in the human body over time.

And it's for this reason that they're known as forever chemicals. PFAs are now widely detected in UK rivers, soils, wildlife and in the blood of most people, and a growing body of evidence links high PFAs exposure to serious health and environmental risks, including certain cancers, immunity suppression and fertility, and developmental impacts. Addressing PFAs pollution is therefore essential to protecting public health, preventing long term environmental harm, and reducing future remediation costs. The UK government, acknowledging the growing issue of PFAs, published in February, a PFAs action plan, the first of its kind and a very welcome step, and the committee is grateful to the Department for the environment and to my hon.

Friend, the Minister for member for Hull Western Haltemprice, for engaging proactively with us and allowing us the opportunity to examine the government's plan as part of our inquiry and their very constructive engagement with us throughout this process. The committee's inquiry found that the UK faces a growing legacy of PFAs pollution alongside continued emissions. The government's plan was to welcome starting point is short on the decisive action needed to prevent the harmful build-up of these chemicals in the environment. The plan focuses disproportionately on monitoring rather than prevention and remediation, and it also suggests voluntary action and industry self-regulation.

Whereas, in our view, this will be insufficient to reduce the level of PFAs emissions we need to see, in the committee's view, tackling the scale of contamination requires a combined approach. Firstly, preventing ongoing PFAs emissions at source. Secondly, managing continued PFAs emissions and thirdly, addressing remediation and disposal of PFAs. This must be supported by sustained research, funding, monitoring and public transparency. The longer action is delayed in addressing the risks of PFAs, the greater the health, economic and environmental burdens will become.

I'll briefly highlight some of the committee's recommendations to government in these three areas. Right now, PFAs is still being manufactured, put into consumer products and released into the environment. The committee made several recommendations to prevent PFAs pollution at source. The committee is calling for restrictions on PFAs in non-essential consumer products, including food packaging, cookware, cosmetics and coatings on school uniforms, where the use of PFAs is considered essential to protect the health, safety and functioning of society, than exemptions can of course, be granted in phasing out PFAs.

The regulatory system should shift from a substance by substance approach to group based regulation to prevent the replacement of banned PFAs with structurally similar and potentially harmful alternatives. We believe that without this broad group based restriction on PFAs, the government risks a whack a mole approach where new substances emerge faster than they can be evaluated and banned. In the EU, more decisive action has been taken and chemicals are banned as a group, with firms having to seek a derogation from the law if the compound is either vital or irreplaceable, lack of the same kind of action actually brings risks to our trade and economy too.

Having unnecessary regulatory divergence from the EU creates trade barriers within the UK between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and between the UK and the EU, which impacts UK manufacturing competitiveness. To research this issue, the committee not only visited Angus Fire in Bentham and met directors of the firm. Campaigners and villagers from Bentham in North Yorkshire, but also visited Lyon and the French parliament to learn about the regulatory actions there and where the campaign and public opinion is. In France too.

The committee also argue that clear limits on the acceptable level of PFAs must be set to enforce to enable enforcement and remediation. The government rightly mandated the guidelines for the level of PFAs allowed in drinking water. We would like to see statutory limits of PFAs in food and in soils, and monitoring and enforcement by the Environment Agency to match. Protecting public health also requires long term investment in bio monitoring and in epidemiological research. The committee recommended enhanced health screening for people with potentially high PFAs exposure.

Whilst monitoring and research is vital, it must not be used to delay action. Finally, there is an important set of questions around existing PFAs contamination and historic PFAs contamination. How should it be cleaned up? Who should pay for it? Where the government wasn't clear, the committee was based on the polluter pays principle. Those who release PFAs into the environment should be expected to pay for it to be remediated. We, of course, recognise in some cases, government and manufacturing industry will need to work together to ensure that costs associated with the cleanup of the past don't endanger the future of these companies.

We also recognise that in some cases, the companies who polluted in the past may no longer exist and that the clean up will fall on government. But we want to see government starting from the perspective that the polluter should pay and the taxpayer should not be expected to foot the bill. The committee recommended that the government should explore the implications of emissions levy for PFAs on the UK reach candidate list to deter ongoing environmental contamination and hold polluters responsible in cases where the PFAs contamination is not attributable, central government must provide dedicated funding for local authorities to clean it up and provide clear guidance on remediation and destruction methodologies.

The committee's investigation of PFAs pollution was complex and at times technical, but our conclusions are not forever. Chemicals are still being emitted. They are building up in our bodies and in the environment, and we know that they are harmful. Waiting will only make the problem worse. Now is the time to act. In conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to place on record several. Thanks to all the members of the Committee for their contributions and thoughtful engagement with this inquiry to the Committee members, regulators and industry in Bentham, who took the time to meet with the committee to discuss this sensitive and important topic with great transparency and candour.

And finally, to the staff of the Environmental Audit Committee, in particular, Doctor Nisha Patel, Doctor William Britton, Jonathan Wright and Jacob Morton for their work and expertise in coordinating the inquiry, the visits, the reports and the communications. And with that, I place this report in front of the House. Thank you very much.

12:37

Dr Neil Hudson MP (Epping Forest, Conservative)

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Shadow Minister. Doctor Neil Hudson. Hudson. >> Thank you, Madam. Deputy Speaker. As Shadow DEFRA Minister, can I congratulate and thank the chair of congratulate and thank the chair of the committee and his cross-party Environmental Audit Committee for Environmental Audit Committee for this excellent and timely report. Madam Deputy Speaker, the PFAs, these forever chemicals, as he has said, are hugely damaging to the environment and pose significant risks to human health, animals and wildlife. The previous government started work with the EPA and the HSE to look at monitoring and risks, and the current government has taken that forward.

As he said with the PFAs report in February of this year. But as his report rightly says, more needs to be done. So does he agree with me? The government needs to really take this forward now and move forward more into prevention and solutions, such as placing pressure on water companies to enforce drinking water. Inspectorate guidelines on PFAs limits.

12:38

Mr Toby Perkins MP (Chesterfield, Labour)

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Thank you for that. Absolutely. >> Thank you for that. Absolutely. Do believe that the government needs to be ambitious on this. We welcome the fact that we have now got a PFAs report. We didn't have that PFAs plan. We didn't have that previously. And so we want to be right behind the Minister in in right behind the Minister in in pushing and looking for DEFRA to be as ambitious as they possibly can on this. I think water companies contributed to our inquiry, and they were quite glad to be in the unusual position of not being battered over the head for polluting, but actually, in this case, as the victims of pollution.

But I think he's absolutely right that the Drinking Water Inspectorate do need to be held to account. They are, I think, is all in the sort of panoply of water regulators more successful than than other elements. And I think it's important to recognise that. But we also, alongside drinking water, want to see the same sort of limits in terms of food and in terms of our agricultural sector more generally.

12:39

Chris Bloore MP (Redditch, Labour)

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Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would like to congratulate. >> My hon. Friend and his committee for an important and timely report, something that we know all too well in Redditch is our new fire and in Redditch is our new fire and police have reflects the report's findings. Large scale contamination was found on the site and whilst the. It has now successfully been remediated, the work relied on containment rather than destruction, removing many of the committee's findings. I understand the committee heard that the UK destruction capacity is extremely limited and largely reliant on high temperature incineration.

Does my hon. Friend agree that this local example in Redditch underlines the urgency of expanding safe, scalable destruction capability beyond incineration alone?

12:40

Mr Toby Perkins MP (Chesterfield, Labour)

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Yeah, absolutely. firefighting industry is one that we know is very much affected. And clearly they have, in comparison to some industries, made quite some industries, made quite significant progress in finding alternatives to PFAs. But they are a major polluter over the years. Clearly, we also recognise that being able to put out fires is incredibly important. This is the kind of essential use that we would understand derogations, but when it's being used in things like cosmetics and so on, you do wonder whether we shouldn't be aiming to be more ambitious in terms of getting these bans put in place, but I agree with the points that he made and thank him for that contribution.

12:40

Rt Hon Sir Julian Smith MP (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)

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Julian Smith I commend the committee chair on the report and the committee and also the government on the. PFAs plan, and thank him and the committee for attending the location in my attending the location in my constituency that has suffered from this issue. I think realistically, this levy idea is the only. I can't this levy idea is the only. I can't see this government on. Future government is going to be able to put the money in needed. The levy idea that he's referred to seems to be a key way ahead.

Would he agree that communities who are impacted by PFAs, whilst the consideration is made of the recommendations of his report, do need to have confidence in statutory authorities such as the Environment Agency and local authorities.

12:41

Mr Toby Perkins MP (Chesterfield, Labour)

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I absolutely do agree with him >> I absolutely do agree with him and thank him for his engagement with us on behalf of his constituents and, of course, in constituents and, of course, in part on behalf of an important employer in his constituency, too. And I think it's important that the message going out from this is we don't want to panic communities, we don't want to create the sense that Bentham or indeed anywhere else, is a community that's sort of blighted and no one should should want to live there.

At the same time, we do want to recognise where where these pollution contamination events have taken place, and people need to be confident that the Environment Agency have both the tools, the capacity, the resources, the expertise, but also the legislative heft to be able to take action where there have been contamination breaches.

12:42

Jim Shannon MP (Strangford, Democratic Unionist Party)

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Jim Shannon speaker, can I thank the chair of the Select Committee and the committee for their their and the committee for their their endeavours and for their hard work on the synthetic chemicals and for highlighting the dangers to us all highlighting the dangers to us all as citizens and also as part of the environment, environment issues are a devolved matter. Can I ask what discussions or inquiries did the Select Committee in the chair have with the Data Minister in Northern Ireland? Probably the Health Minister as well at the Assembly? There is, of course, a necessity that the regulations that are needed will, will impact not just here but impact us in Northern Ireland as well.

So ever helpful. And the question hopefully the chair can give us that answer. Thank you.

12:43

Mr Toby Perkins MP (Chesterfield, Labour)

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Raises a very important point. And in fact, his colleague, who is And in fact, his colleague, who is a member of our committee member for Antrim, made very strongly the for Antrim, made very strongly the point that because we have divergence from the EU in this area, it potentially causes major problems for the the agricultural sector in Northern Ireland, where effectively they will have different rules to to the Republic and. And that obviously creates a major issue. So the issue of the impact on Northern Ireland was something was debated at considerable length within the Committee and is an important point that's mentioned within our report and is another thing that we will be taking to government, but we haven't yet communicated with the Northern Irish Assembly and be very happy to do so following this report.

12:44

Emma Hardy MP, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice, Labour)

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Final question on this report. >> Minister thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I just want to say thank you so much to my hon. Friend for raising this and highlighting it. And as you said at the it. And as you said at the beginning of his remarks, I think it's quite clear that this wasn't an issue many people were talking an issue many people were talking about until recently. And I thank him for recognising that it's this government that are creating that plan. And so my question to him is, I hope he'll continue to work with us to raise this issue and tackle it finally in this country.

12:44

Mr Toby Perkins MP (Chesterfield, Labour)

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Well, so it will look forward to working with her. We'll be doing everything we can to to provide her everything we can to to provide her with the support that she might need within the department to get this taken as seriously as it this taken as seriously as it possibly can. We recognise that there's always going to be people pushing back. There are important reasons why we need to tread carefully in terms of supporting UK manufacturing, but we also need to recognise this as a serious public health issue and welcome and thank her for the work she's doing on this.

12:45

Select Committee Statement: Select Committee Statement on the Fifth Report of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, Housing conditions in temporary accommodation, HC 1831

That concludes the first Select Committee statement. We now come to the second Select Committee statement on behalf of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Communities and Local Government Committee. Florence Eshalomi will speak for up to ten minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of her statement, I will call members to ask questions on the subject of the statement. These should be brief questions, not speeches, and can I emphasise that questions should be directed to the Select Committee Chair and not the relevant government Minister? Frontbenchers may of course take part in questioning.

I call Florence Eshalomi Chorley.

12:45

Florence Eshalomi MP (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, Labour )

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12:55

Jim Shannon MP (Strangford, Democratic Unionist Party)

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Jim Shannon thank. >> You, Madam Speaker. First of all, can I thank the chair of the committee and also the Select Committee for a truly excellent Committee for a truly excellent report and for highlighting the issues on temporary housing. Are this for us in Northern Ireland is this for us in Northern Ireland is so important where the pressure for housing is critical. Temporary accommodation has become therefore more important and more sought after. The honourable is to be congratulated for this report, but I would therefore request that the report be shared with the Housing Minister and my colleague Gordon Lyons, so that the report has highlighted some of the matters which are very, very important to my people back home.

It's so important when we learn something. Share it please.

12:55

Florence Eshalomi MP (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, Labour )

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I thank the hon. Member, and I think he's absolutely right. It's really important for us to look at the issue of housing right across the issue of housing right across the yards, and I know that any best practice that we can learn and take from England. It's important we share with Ministers. And I'm sure share with Ministers. And I'm sure that the minister's taken those remarks. On when she's talking with her counterparts across the aisles.

12:56

Andrew Cooper MP (Mid Cheshire, Labour)

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Thank you very much, speaker. >> Friend for her statement today and for her leadership of the Select Committee during this inquiry? I'd like to start by commending Cheshire West and commending Cheshire West and Chester Council for the efforts that they've made to substantially reduce air B&B use for temporary accommodation. Not every local authority is in the same position as Cheshire West, though, and it's really difficult and I'd like to join her in thanking the people who attended our roundtable, particularly the families who, with lived experience of temporary accommodation, who came and shared their experiences with us.

Many of them talked about how they had to sign in daily or risk losing their accommodation. Some of them talked about their fears of effective reprisal evictions, that if they complained about the state of the accommodation, the landlord would be sort of a B&B. Owner will be straight on the phone to the council and they'd lose their place. One young lady very bravely told us about how the council had provided her contact details to the hotel reception for understandable reasons, and the hotel reception staff then used that to make unwanted advances to her absolutely disgusting behaviour that we heard from on that the bit, the particular bit that I wanted to talk about was the evidence that we heard from from another family about the increased travel time to school for for her children because of the out of authority placement that she had, which we know inevitably leads to poor attendance, it can lead to off roading and short to safeguarding disaster.

It is outside of the scope of of our inquiry. But I wonder if she agrees with me that we should be tracking the outcomes of children who have experienced temporary accommodation, in much the same way as we do children who have experienced care, because I think that we would find similar problems, and I think it would affect the policy solutions that we come forward with. Does she agree?

12:57

Florence Eshalomi MP (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, Labour )

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I thank my honourable colleague >> I thank my honourable colleague and one of my members on the Select Committee for his engagement and his work, and all my other committee members and the clerk for committee members and the clerk for their work on this really important report. I think it's so important. I went to visit a school in my constituency this morning before I came here, and the key issue that was raised with me by the headteacher at Crawford Primary School was temporary accommodation and the amount of children are living in to and how that's affecting their educational attainment.

I think this is a real area that we do need to make sure that the government is addressing, because we want every child to benefit from the massive increases that the government are making in in breakfast clubs and more teachers. But if our children are not turning up to school because they are travelling in some cases for two hours just to get to school, those children are not going to benefit from those changes.

12:58

Jen Craft MP (Thurrock, Labour)

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Jen Craft thank you, Madam. >> Jen Craft thank you, Madam. >> Speaker. >> And I'd like to. >> Congratulate the hon. Member. >> For bringing this report forward.

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For bringing this report forward. And I think I am not alone in this House and being moved by the stories that she shared that her committee have unearthed during committee have unearthed during their inquiry. And a number of my constituents who live in temporary accommodation also have a special educational need or disability, and the impact on them is also sometimes twofold, as they struggle living in inappropriate accommodation, and sometimes it doesn't meet a physical or an emotional need. Would she agree with me that when local authorities look at placing, or look at moving people on from temporary accommodation, due consideration must be given to children that have a disability or a special educational needs and the impact that that has on them.

12:59

Florence Eshalomi MP (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, Labour )

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Yeah, yeah. >> I thank my honourable colleague, and I know that the experience that she brings to this and her role in making sure that those children with additional complex needs have a voice, it's really vital that we remember a number of children who remember a number of children who who, who are being failed by the system. Let's be honest. And it's vital that we look at their needs as well. So when we are looking at placing families, especially families with children with additional needs and disabilities, that those accommodation is suitable.

Basic things like access for a child when a wheelchair into the door of the property. These are basic things and this would happen if councils placed in families in temporary accommodation are carrying out the checks. Those checks are currently not in place and that should be something that councils should do before placing vulnerable families in to.

13:00

Chris Bloore MP (Redditch, Labour)

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Chris Bloore speaking, can I thank my good friend for her committee's work on this important committee's work on this important issue? It's one of the most comprehensive reports I've read and heartbreaking in many elements. And can I declare my interest as a can I declare my interest as a member of the APPG for temporary accommodation in light of the report's findings on poor conditions and the lack of national data, what steps does she believe are needed to take be taken to improve oversight and standards, particularly for constituents like mine in Redditch, who are sometimes asked to take up privately run temporary accommodation at sites miles away from their friends and family, often in conditions that are disgraceful and simply unsafe, that often lead to my constituents deciding to go on the streets, rather than the accommodation that they've been placed into.

13:01

Florence Eshalomi MP (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, Labour )

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I thank my colleague in the work that the important work that the All-Party parliamentary Group that All-Party parliamentary Group that he sits on is doing in terms of making sure that they're meeting with campaigners and, most importantly, people caught up in to. importantly, people caught up in to. I think it's vitally important that we recognise that a lot of this accommodation is paid for by taxpayers money. That's the shameful thing about this, and the fact that this accommodation is not suitable for human habitation should worry us all.

And this is why I agree with with the Minister in trying to make sure that that that the homelessness strategy is looking at how we can work with councils in councils, bringing forward their own to locally, so that you're not seeing councils having to rely on outer borough placements, which frankly, should not be, you know, those landlords and those providers should not be getting a penny of taxpayers money for that accommodation.

13:01

Rachel Taylor MP (North Warwickshire and Bedworth, Labour)

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Rachel Taylor thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, And can I thank the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green for her tireless Camberwell Green for her tireless work in this area and for her fantastic stewardship of the Select fantastic stewardship of the Select Committee. This report is really harrowing to read, but these reports don't get written without the witnesses giving evidence and very often putting themselves on the line and at risk in in doing so. So could I commend all of the witnesses who wrote to you or appeared in front of your committee, or sat on on round tables? This is a scandal that children and families are living in these conditions in Great Britain in 2026, and could I ask her to impress on the Minister? We really need to see a change.

And that means every single one of our local authorities making that change and committing to that, and in particular in rural areas like mine, where temporary accommodation is really scarce, meaning that people are living many miles away in areas they don't know or understand. Without the family support networks.

13:03

Florence Eshalomi MP (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, Labour )

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I thank my hon. Member for raising that valid point, and it's raising that valid point, and it's important when we are talking about housing, temporary accommodation and homelessness, we remember the massive impact this has on constituencies like hers, rural communities, where to get to some services will take you a good hour and a half on the bus services. So you think about people with complex needs having to go to appointments. It's vital that we recognise that the issue of temporary accommodation, homelessness is not just confined to our inner cities, it's right across England.

We recognise the fact that councils up and down the country after adult social care to and homelessness is a big strength for many councils. Up and down the country. We are seeing a shift, we are seeing more money coming in and it's about making sure that, you know, the government continue to keep a focus on this. And I'm sure that this is something that the Minister agrees with me on, and we need to continue to help her to make that case to

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Treasury, to make sure we continue to fund our councils adequately. And that concludes the Select Committee statement. If I can give the Frontbenches a few moments to the Frontbenches a few moments to to swap over. I'll come to the Duncan-Jordan.

13:04

Presentation of bills

Hunting Act 2004. >> Second Reading. What day? >> Friday the 8th of May.

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Friday the 8th of May. Friday the 8th of May. We now come to the backbench debate on the come to the backbench debate on the contribution of Allied health professionals and. I call Jen Craft, who will speak for up to 15 minutes.

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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I beg to move that this House has considered the contribution of

13:04

Backbench Business: General Debate on contribution of Allied Health Professionals

has considered the contribution of allied health professionals, and I'm very grateful to be able to introduce this debate today, and would like to begin by

13:04

Jen Craft MP (Thurrock, Labour)

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13:20

Rebecca Smith MP (South West Devon, Conservative)

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physios, as we've already heard, are struggling to even find a job. This is due to recruitment freezes

13:20

Jen Craft MP (Thurrock, Labour)

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and a lack of entry level positions, as well as problems with job security. Worryingly, this government confirmed last year that

13:20

Rebecca Smith MP (South West Devon, Conservative)

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government confirmed last year that it had made no estimate of the impact of recruitment freezes for physiotherapists or physiotherapists. Support workers in South West Devon, 23% of my constituents have at least one long constituents have at least one long term condition. Over 18,000 are classed as disabled, slightly higher than the average across England. Relatively speaking, it is an ageing constituency with 45% of constituents over the age of 50, but this makes the role of physios and other allied health professionals even more vital, enabling people to prepare for and rehabilitate from things like cancer treatment or surgery.

I want to commend the Rehab Legends campaign, which is led by Kate Tantam, an inspirational constituent of mine who works as an intensive care sister at Derriford Hospital. Kate has spent years campaigning to ensure that every patient in the UK can access rehabilitation services towards the end of their stay in intensive care, which would end the patchy provision that currently exists. Now, what is this, you might ask? It's effectively a multi-disciplinary team who are put in place to help rehabilitate those men and women who have been on life support, because if you're on life support, you're often see deconditioning in the rest of your body, and with rehabilitation, you stand a much better time of moving on from intensive care.

Now, why is this important? Because at the moment, the step down step down from ICU to a normal ward is huge. And if you don't have the physical ability to be to to take that step down, you significantly, you're impacted significantly in your ultimate rehabilitation and your ability to get back out into life as a whole. And interestingly, one of the points that has been raised that came up during some work that was done by an APPG on intensive care under the last government, under the last Parliament, I should say, which my predecessor, Sir Gary Streeter, was the chair of.

We heard time and time again that it's also about that step down from intensive care to normal wards that needs addressing as well. And so whilst that's not directly, entirely about allied health professionals, I do think it is something that I'm sure the Minister is aware of, and it'd be interesting to hear what might be done on that. Ultimately, that role of rehab rehabilitation is good for patients and good for society, because we want to enable everyone to have that chance if they've survived intensive care, to be able to actually leave intensive care and leave hospital.

We've also heard a plenty about occupational therapists and speech and language therapists. Now, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and others have highlighted that the NHS long term workforce plan is only likely to cover speech and language therapists in the NHS workforce, which overlooks shortages in educational and criminal justice system settings as well. And as we've heard already, there is a real need for a holistic approach in developing the workforce, recognising the vital role played by speech and language therapists and others in supporting, in particular, special educational needs children, but also without the capacity in the NHS for speech and language therapy therapists.

We're not going to be able to deliver on improving the outcomes that I'm sure we would all agree. We want to see for some of the most vulnerable in our community with a range of challenges. Now, before closing, I want to mention the work of allied health professionals who assess people for health related benefits. Now, we know that over half of assessors leave in their first year. According to data from the Department for Work and Pensions, which was published in January, rather late assessors describe stressful time constraints and impossible workloads as some of their reasons why.

Now, under the current government, 1 in 10 people are now claiming disability benefits in England and Wales and this number is only set to increase. So I would urge the Minister to ensure that all allied health professionals are empowered to assess their patients without undue haste. I worry that otherwise, this overstretched system may be incentivising assessors to recommend that a person gets disability benefits without having the appropriate time to go through a thorough investigation of their patient's needs. Now, of course, this is in no way a reflection of these professionals themselves.

They're simply doing the job that they are there to do with limited time and resources. So I finish Madam Deputy Speaker with three brief requests. Firstly, I urge the Minister to capitalise on the record number of newly qualified physiotherapists that we currently have. Will the Minister confirm what steps the Department is taking to ensure that newly qualified physiotherapists can be guaranteed an NHS job? Secondly, I urge the Minister to commit to retaining the Chief Allied Health Professions Officer role to ensure that their clinical expertise is recognised in the Department.

And thirdly, a plug for rehabilitation. I would love for the Minister to ensure that their that that role of intensive care rehabilitation is reflected in the NHS workforce plan and that that holistic look is central to that. So I want to echo concerns raised by the Chartered Society for physiotherapy, which has critiqued the government's requirement for integrated care boards to reduce their budgets by 50%, and the impact that this will have on allied healthcare professional leadership roles. Under the previous conservative government, NHS England set out to increase our much needed AHP workforce as outlined in the 2023 NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.

This included an ambition to increase training places by 25% by 2031 and 2032. We know how critical allied healthcare professions are in prevention and recovery. This government must ensure it prioritises them in the revised NHS Workforce Plan Workforce Workforce Plan, due to be published this spring, they're ideally placed to help people help themselves. If we want a healthier country and a more productive society, we must be backing them all the way.

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Here, here, here, here. Sonia Kumar thank you. Madam Deputy Speaker. And Happy Saint George's Day to

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And Happy Saint George's Day to everyone in the chamber today. I am immensely grateful to have the opportunity to co-lead this debate on the contribution of allied health professionals as a physiotherapist. A historic moment physiotherapist. A historic moment this is the first ever debate on AHPs in this House, and I want to thank the backbench committee for granting this debate, and I'm particularly grateful for the right hon. Friend, the Member for Thurrock, for her leadership and partnership here. She has set out powerfully why AHPs must be central to ascend and MPs reforms, and I want to broaden the lens and argue that h r the NHS best kept secret.

They're the most powerful levers we have to keep our health and social system sustainable, patient centred and effective. Madam Deputy Speaker, If we serious about delivering the government's ambition in the ten year health plan and the ten year workforce plan, the shift from hospital to community, from sickness to prevention, from analogue to digital, then allied health professionals must be part of heart of policy planning and delivery. And today I want to do three things. First, to set out who AHPs are and the scale of their contribution across our lifetime.

13:27

Sonia Kumar MP (Dudley, Labour)

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Second, to set up why? To demonstrate with evidence the

13:27

Rebecca Smith MP (South West Devon, Conservative)

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demonstrate with evidence the impact they have on outcomes on public finances and why they are worth investing in. And thirdly, to

13:27

Sonia Kumar MP (Dudley, Labour)

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worth investing in. And thirdly, to set up five concrete demands or recommendations or wishes to the recommendations or wishes to the government rooted in the evidence from AHP bodies aligned with the three major shifts in the three major shifts in the government's agenda, which is set out. So, Madam Deputy Speaker, who are allied health professionals? There are 14 AHPs covering 15 roles, and together they form the third largest clinical workforce in the NHS, with over 300,000 AHPs on the UK.

Hcpc Register today. They include art therapists, Dramatherapists, music therapists, dieticians, occupational therapists, operating department practitioners, Orthoptics, osteoporosis, osteopaths, paramedics, physiotherapists, podiatrists, prosthetics, orthotics, radiographers and finally, speech and language therapists, which I may need after this speech. From the start of our life, AHPs are present in our lives. Neonatal therapists, including physiotherapists, OTS and speech and language therapists, all support premature and sick babies to feed, move and develop with long term gains for their health, learning and independence in adulthood.

Our centre, by keeping us in work and out of hospital, the government rightly wants to get more people back into work. And that's exactly what OTS do. OTS run vocational rehab services that enable 94% of people on long term sick in one primary care network in Wakefield to return to work, helping lead to a 40% reduction in fit notes, preventing over 1700 people leaving the workforce. If you want a healthier workforce, dieticians help diabetics reduce risk risk of complications by up to 50%, and people who see a dietician are 2.5 times more likely to achieve their blood sugar targets.

This means fewer long term complications, complications, fewer heart attacks, and fewer strokes for older people. Physiotherapists and Otis lead falls, prevention services and frailty programs that reduce falls at home by around a third, preventing injuries and avoidable hospital admissions, reducing fractures and maintaining patients dignity. I've treated patients that have fallen in their home, who have laid on the floor for hours waiting for an ambulance to arrive. One patient said. She lost her dignity and her self-worth as she sat in her own urine dehydrated, hungry, helpless on the floor, waiting for help.

Madam Deputy Speaker, we can reduce these cases. Nobody wants their grandmother, relative or friend to be left on the floor, helpless for hours. Early access to community podiatry can reduce amputations by 80%. My podiatry friends, can prevent life changing surgery from happening every single day. Having worked with on surgical wards, patients say time and time again they wish they got intervention earlier. Prosthetics and orthotics ensure that people who have side major trauma can regain independence quickly.

A seven day prosthetic service in east London reduces lower limb amputees from becoming. Reduces the lower limb amputees from becoming independent. With a prosthesis from just three months to seven weeks. So independence is gained quicker. Radiographers underpin around 80% of hospital pathway through imaging. Community diagnostic centres, which I may say I've gained from a Labour government at the guest hospital staffed by radiographers. Reduce pressure on urgent and emergency care. We have a healthcare and mental health crisis for both children, and adults are not getting the care quick enough.

Art therapists, music therapists dramatherapists provide early intervention in schools and communities, reducing referrals and were the overwhelming Cam service and supporting wellbeing and resilience are the NHS staff themselves. Madam Deputy Speaker, This is not just a care case, it's an economic case as well and it's very compelling. We have clear return on investment data across multiple professions. Self-referral to AHP services have shown a return on around £98 for every £1 invested by reducing unnecessary GP appointments and enabling early management.

Exercise based self-management programs, often led by physiotherapists, have demonstrated a return on investment of £8.80 per £1 invested. Nutritious nutritional interventions led by dieticians to rent and treat malnutrition. Advice delivered on returns on investment. Around £10 for every £1 invested. Osteopathic care can generate up to £2 for every £1 invested in primary care physiotherapists across a range of conditions, save an overall economic return on investment for £4 for every £1 invested. Which modelling suggests potentially saves the NHS a staggering £700 million over five years, and in addition, £639 million worldwide in terms of economic benefit in the UK.

Now, Madam Deputy Speaker, the government has set out three core shifts a have already delivering these three. First, digital and data paramedics are leading the hair and treat models using tele consultations and shared electronic records to assess advise. Refer 999 and 111 callers without always dispatching an ambulance in London. That approach is saving around 9200 double crewed ambulances hours each week, allowing crews to reach the sickest patients faster. Second, from hospital to neighbourhood care, advanced paramedics working in primary care and urgent community response teams carry out the same day home visits, treat people where they are and avoid unnecessary trips to A&E.

And with the Welsh model, reducing avoidable hospital visits by 70%. Operating department practitioners are the only profession trained at graduation to work with anaesthetics, surgery and recovery, and they tackle the elective backlog. Maintain safety, especially as robotic assisted surgery and smart operating theatres expand. Third from prevention over sickness, orthoptics are central to delivering early eye condition care, and they should be rolled out to screen our children in every school so children get the best start to life.

If we do not integrate AHPs into these shifts, we simply will not achieve the ambitious ambitions of the ten year or the ten year workforce plan. Madam Deputy Speaker, Let me turn to my five recommendations. Drawing on the evidence from the HCPC and from the expert AHP professional bodies, from patients and from the APPG APPG of AHPs, which I chair. First, we must put AHP leadership at the table at every level. This means retaining and strengthening the Chief Allied health professional as a role and the Director of Rehabilitation role in the Department of Health and Social Care.

If they're not at the heart of government, they'll simply be forgotten at system level. Every integrated care board and major provider should have a senior AHP director with parity to medical and nursing directors responsible for rehabilitation, prevention and neighbourhood care. This should be mirrored in primary care and neighbourhood boards, where clinical leadership roles should be defined by function and capability, not based on profession. Second, we should expand and evaluate advanced and extended scope AHP roles in areas where there's most need and value, such as first contact practitioners in primary care, which reduce secondary care referrals, speed up diagnosis and recovery, and reduce opioid prescription compared with GP led care.

Third, we must invest in AHP careers from start to retirement. That means increasing training places in line with population need for each of the 14 professionals. But protecting small and valuable professionals such as prosthetics and orthotics with minimum training place guarantees. We should fully fund AHP apprenticeships, including operating department practitioners and dieticians with backfill, guaranteeing high quality placements and structured preceptorships often forgotten by departments. We should also embed CPD funding into the workforce planning, which is essential that CPD is a regulatory requirement and a patient's patient safety issue, and it's not a luxury.

Madam Deputy Speaker, This includes bringing forward independent prescribing rights across AHP professions, where appropriate, to reduce delays and free up medical time. Building on recent legislation for paramedics. Fourth, we must fix digital plumbing to enable multidisciplinary care. AHP need full, appropriate access to shared care records, ordering and systems, result systems and remote care tools when they are prescribing and have prescribing responsibilities. Their digital profiles must reflect this so they can prescribe safe and safe. And it's visible, and it's integrated with the whole system.

Data must also captured what AHPs do and the outcomes they deliver and function. Independence, return to work, quality of life participation. And it's not just contracts and processes. Fifth, we should make AHPs outcomes visible, use them to drive important and improvements across the system at national level. The NHS and DHSC should publish regular data on AHP workforce numbers, vacancies and outcomes across each of the 14 professionals using HCPC data and other workforce plan and neighbourhood data.

At local level, the integrated care system should require a report to access Ahb services on a key indicator such as falls, amputations, delayed discharge, return to work rates, send outcomes linking them to AHP provision where investment in, for example, community podiatry or OT rehabilitation, reduce admissions or benefits are demonstrated, they should be visible and therefore reinvested. Five demands five things that would show real progress, backed by experts, backed by patients. And I hope the Minister will meet with me to discuss these further.

If we give AHPs the leadership roles, the tools and the recognition they deserve, if we embed them in the ten year workforce plan in the neighbourhood, health plans, in Sen reforms and in the Women's Health strategy, they will repay them over and over again in reduced hospital admissions, shorter stays, fewer amputations, more people in work, children and adults be able to communicate, live and learn independently. Allied health professionals are ready to deliver if we choose and let them hear Vikki Slade.

Thank you. Madam Deputy Speaker. Can I congratulate the hon. Member for Dudley for securing this important debate and the hon. Member for Thurrock for introducing it. During the Easter recess, I was invited to meet with the Dorset Young Onset Parkinson's Group in Wimborne. Two of the people I met, Simon and Julia, have been diagnosed with the condition in their 30s. The impact on their decisions about family life, their ability to work and save for the future, and the effect on their families who have had to take on caring responsibility much earlier than most, was clear to see.

They told me about the success of their open water swimming group, and in particular, about the impact of the recently introduced walking football team, the Dorset Striders. The team was named team of the year Impairment section by the Woking Football Association in its grassroots awards last year, and also achieved fantastic results at the Sports Parkinson's Walking football tournament earlier this month. Both of these programs are boosting physical health, mental well-being and providing peer support. They shared their concerns about the complete loss of Parkinson's nurses in the county of Dorset.

I've since engaged with the University Hospitals, Dorset, to call for the service to be restored without delay, and we've discussed the severe shortage of neurologists across the country made more acute by our ageing population. But it isn't just doctors and nurses who can make a positive difference for people living with Parkinson's. Neuro physiotherapy focuses not on muscles and joints, but on improving movement, balance, coordination and overall quality of life for people living with neurological conditions. At its core, this aims to restore as much independence as possible using targeted techniques that help people regain their function, relearn movement and adapt to physical challenges.

It can be life changing for individuals recovering from trauma or surgery, as well as those living with long term neurological conditions. If people with Parkinson's can improve their balance and gait, their risk of falls reduces incidents that can have a profound impact on their independence, their confidence and their long term health. This branch of physiotherapy also benefits people who have experienced strokes, live with multiple sclerosis or who have acquired brain injuries. The mental health and wellbeing benefits are significant, as is the reduction in pain that can be achieved through this approach.

I also want to highlight the crucial role of occupational therapy, particularly in educational settings. Around one third of children starting school are not considered to be school ready, often lacking the communication or functional skills needed to mix confidently with other children. School's already under pressure are then required to provide significant extra support. Many children who spend more time using tablets than colouring books lack the fine motor skills needed to write, while others struggle with everyday activities such as eating a school meal with a knife and fork.

Paediatric occupational therapy offers practical, play based support and can prevent children from losing confidence or developing a fear or aversion of school. By addressing these needs, early children with special educational needs and disabilities can also be overwhelmed in traditional classroom environments. With growing evidence about the impact of excessive screen time on

13:42

Vikki Slade MP (Mid Dorset and North Poole, Liberal Democrat)

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attention and regulation, small changes to the physical environment can help not only these children, but all pupils to improve their focus and learning. My constituent Anna, who's an occupational therapist, shared with me the importance of using their principles in classrooms and on a visit to Colehill first school last visit to Colehill first school last year, I was impressed by how the school had removed bright colours from classrooms, replacing them from classrooms, replacing them with muted shades and consistent layouts as children move through the school to create calmer learning spaces.

At my son's specialist setting Summerwood in Bournemouth, ceilings include sound absorbing panels and walls are gently curved to support children with neurodiversity to regulate and reduce distraction. The reality is that these adjustments help everyone, not just those with additional needs. And if these approaches work in classrooms, it's likely they can be effective in workplaces and public spaces, too. Reducing harsh fluorescent lighting, lowering background noise, and creating opportunities for movement throughout the day. A techniques that can be applied widely and successfully.

However, inclusion of occupational. Sorry. Inclusion of occupational therapy within programs such as experts at hand is essential to make this happen. The Royal College of Occupational Therapists has welcomed the ambition set out in the White Paper, but has raised serious concerns about whether the sector is sufficiently resourced to develop them. It's most recent workforce survey found that two thirds of respondents did not believe the profession currently could provide the level and support for children and young people needed, highlighting the need to fund more frontline teams.

Taken together, these examples make one thing clear allied health professionals, as already referenced by the hon. Member for Thurrock, are not a nice to have. They are essential to helping people live independently, participating fully in educational work and avoiding crises later on, and ensuring that everyone fulfils their potential. I therefore urge the government to match its recognition of the importance of allied health professionals with meaningful action in workforce planning and resourcing. If we're serious about prevention, inclusion and long term value for money across health and education, investing in this workforce and ensuring funding research reaches the front line must be part of that

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commitment. I call Cat Eccles. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I'd like to thank the honourable, my hon. Friend for Thurrock for opening this debate and my hon. Friend for Dudley, for and my hon. Friend for Dudley, for securing this much overdue debate as well. So, as we've heard, allied health professionals make up a third the third largest clinical workforce in the NHS. Yet sadly, workforce in the NHS. Yet sadly, time and again we only hear about the health service in terms of doctors and nurses.

Just last week, the government announced a welcome package of measures to widen access to healthcare careers for people from disadvantaged backgrounds. It promised 2000 new nursing, apprenticeships and support for 2000 young people from deprived communities to apply to medical school. And these commitments really matter. But for AHPs, there was nothing. Not a single initiative, not a single pathway, not even a mention. And this omission is not an oversight. It is a pattern. For decades, successive governments have failed to recognise the value and invest in this vital part of the NHS workforce.

And this is especially relevant given the increase in workforce required to deliver on

13:46

Cat Eccles MP (Stourbridge, Labour)

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the Department for Education's Send reforms. We need more speech and language therapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists. So why don't we make it easier for more people to access easier for more people to access these careers? Before entering Parliament at the last election, I spent more than 20 years in the NHS spent more than 20 years in the NHS as an operating department practitioner, and I'm proud to be the first ODP here in Parliament. the first ODP here in Parliament. In fact, my time working in the NHS is in large part what politicised me and drove me to want to make the changes that are desperately needed to highlight and improve the profession.

Odps are unique within the healthcare workforce at the point of graduation. They are the only professionals fully qualified to work across every area of perioperative practice and anaesthetics, surgery and post anaesthetic care. And my speech today will focus in on this profession in particular. As of March 2026, there were 17,906 Odps registered with the HCPC. They are highly skilled, highly committed, with strong retention rates across the NHS, and many go on to hold senior clinical leadership roles, not just in the operating department and playing a crucial role in patient safety, service efficiency and the successful running of our theatres.

My profession plays a critical role in keeping the NHS functioning and in safeguarding patient safety every single day. And with the recent reviews into maternity care, I want to highlight the importance of odps for maternal and neonatal safety. Nearly half of births are now done by caesarean section, and odps are involved in every single one playing a key role in the perinatal period. I'd like to commend the operating the College of Operating Department Practitioners for their recent contribution to the NHS Resolution Maternity, Perinatal Incentive Scheme, safety actions and given the importance of operating department practitioners to the NHS, they should be properly recognised, valued and supported.

But instead, too often they are forgotten and that neglect has real consequences. An area of serious concern is the eligibility of operating department practitioners to supply and administer medicines within their scope of practice, using patient group directions known as Pgds. This is currently holding the profession back and creates a perverse situation in clinical settings, where an ODP must seek the supervision of a nurse or a doctor to administer certain medications. So, for example, post-surgery, it is really common for patients to experience post-operative nausea and vomiting.

There is a suite of anti-emetics that can be given without a prescription under a PGD, but an ODP caring for the nauseous patient cannot give relief without input from a nurse or a doctor. Delaying treatment and putting unnecessary pressure on colleagues. Another example is odps working in endoscopy units where sedatives are routinely administered under a PGD. This also impacts the ability to administer vaccines, and during the pandemic, Odps were unable to support the vaccination effort due to the use of Pgds.

Yet, bizarrely, a healthcare assistant could carry out this role. Odps are being prevented from making a valuable contribution to a public health and system resilience. The department has recently carried out a consultation on expanding the supply and administration of medicines to Odps, as well as physiotherapists, paramedics and diagnostic radiographers, and we must move at pace to level the playing field to benefit both healthcare professionals and their patients. So I'd ask the Minister today to commit to adding Odps to schedule 16 of the Human Medicines regulations, and can she outline when this change is likely to be implemented? Another example is the introduction of the Graduate Guarantee scheme for newly qualified nurses.

While very well intentioned, its narrow focus has the unintended consequence, with some newly qualified odps finding themselves displaced and unable to secure posts within the NHS operating departments. And this is not just unfair to those professionals, it is short sighted and risks wasting vital skills at a time when our health service can least afford it. A review is currently underway into band five nursing roles, yet no equivalent review is taking place for Odps or other AHPs. This selective approach risks unpicking the harmonised pay structures established under an agenda for change in 2004.

The RCN has long pushed for a separate pay spine for nursing, but this would be absolutely the wrong move, breaking the concept of one NHS team and creating a two tier employment, particularly in the operating department. We must uphold the fundamental principle of equal pay for equal work, and anything less would be a serious step backwards for fairness, morale and workforce cohesion in the NHS. So could the Minister, therefore commit to ensuring that any band five review of roles includes AHP, so that parity and equity are properly protected? I know in a recent letter to the College for Operating Department Practitioners, the Minister did state that any review of the national profiles for Odps would need to be supported by the NHS Staff Council, with the Job Evaluation Group on an established group of the Council responsible for undertaking that review, which absolutely explains the process.

But it cannot excuse the delay and it is vital that this work is taken forward promptly with a clear timetable and at the same time, Odps and AHPs more broadly, are still waiting for the publication of the NHS Workforce Plan. This plan, unlike those that came before it, must finally include meaningful, measurable commitments to the third largest clinical workforce in the NHS, rather than relegating it to the margins once again. Odps and AHPs more widely, are not asking for special treatment.

They're asking for recognition, fairness and a clear strategy that reflects the reality of how the NHS actually operates. As the third largest clinical workforce, they are central to patient safety, service delivery and the long term sustainability of the health service. I'd like to put on record my concerns about abolishing the role of the chief AHP in NHS England. And while the current Chief Nursing Officer is a strong and passionate advocate of AHPs, I believe we need the representation and oversight achieved.

AHP can provide. And finally, I'd like to highlight the removal of NHS bursaries for allied health professionals. I was lucky enough to train with a bursary receiving around £500 a month during my two years of training. And while the recent introduction of apprenticeships has negated some of the costs of going to university, these places are really limited and dependent on NHS trust, NHS trust training budgets. I think getting into excess of £30,000 of debt for a starting salary that barely is above minimum wage does not really incentivise prospective students to get into these professions.

So after decades of being overlooked. Warm words are no longer enough. And what we need now is action. Fair pay structures are protected. Sensible regulation that makes full use of professional skills, clear career pathways, and a workforce plan that treats AHPs as integral to the future of the NHS. The message from ODP and AHP is clear they want to contribute, to lead and be part of the solution to the pressures facing our health service, and it is time for the government to act and give this vital workforce the recognition and

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support it has long deserved. Hey. Sarah Olney. Thank.

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You very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, and can I thank the members for Thurrock and Dudley for bringing this important debate to bringing this important debate to the House? I'd like to echo the sentiments made by other members of this House and underlining the this House and underlining the important work that allied health professionals undertake and recognise the role that these clinicians play in saving lives, in clinicians play in saving lives, in providing care and keeping our NHS running. At a time when some patients are experiencing corridor care.

Allied health Professional Service is even more pivotal, as their work helps to keep people out of A&E, and these clinicians lend their expertise to help treat, care for or diagnose illnesses before they require urgent attention. These practitioners have also volunteered to take even more strain off of emergency services. Writing to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care early last month to request additional responsibilities in this letter. The allied health professionals asked for the Department for Health and Social Care to consider extending additional independent prescribing powers to their sectors currently.

Allied health professionals are provided with negligible independent prescribing responsibilities. Despite many of these clinicians having undertaken the exact same training as other

13:55

Sarah Olney MP (Richmond Park, Liberal Democrat)

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medical professionals. For example, podiatrists are able to prescribe medicine for their patients, but medicine for their patients, but dieticians only have supplementary prescribing rights and have to be overseen by a doctor. This issue was raised to me by one of my constituents, who is a dietitian, and who supported the allied health professionals request for additional prescribing responsibilities. She states that this change would not only reduce GP waiting list times, but also GP waiting list times, but also recognise the studies and expertise that allied health professionals possess.

My constituent highlights the bureaucracy and the farce of an allied health professional running their own clinic, having to go and find a consultant to sign off their prescribing, even though they will have had all of their prescribing permissions checked and signed off by the chief pharmacist in the hospital. And this creates a duplication of work at a time when we desperately need to make the NHS more efficient. The Government's Pharmacy First initiative has had success in encouraging patients away from GPS and towards pharmacists who can prescribe medicine for common ailments.

My constituent is merely asking that the government builds on its own good work in this area and extends prescription powers to all allied health professionals equally. I would be grateful if the Minister could consider my constituents request and respond to that letter that was sent to the Department for Health and Social Care last month. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker Luke Akehurst thank.

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You, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I declare an interest as a member of the all party group on Allied the all party group on Allied Health Professionals. I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley for initially securing this Dudley for initially securing this important debate before her well-deserved promotion to Parliamentary Private Secretary and Parliamentary Private Secretary and my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock for leading this debate. It is quite right that we talk about doctors and nurses when we talk about the NHS and the difference that the the NHS makes to people's lives and to saving lives.

We often overlook the incredible contribution also made by the Group of 14 professionals known as Allied Health professionals. Today, I want to share my personal experience of the importance of these key workers. Without them, I would literally not be stood here today in this chamber, serving as the Member of Parliament for North Durham and speaking, Allied health professionals worked alongside doctors and nurses, as well as a host of other clinicians and non-clinicians. Saving my life when I had a life threatening illness in 2009 and then to my mind, giving me my life back as they worked across disciplines to rehabilitate me following severe illness and disability.

In 2009, I was hit by a sudden onset neurological illness called poems syndrome. It's a rare type of neurological disorder caused by a tumour that can affect multiple systems in the body. I spent five months in hospital being treated for and recovering from this illness, followed by an extensive process of recovery and rehabilitation in the months and years following this. The symptoms of my condition were similar to M.S. meaning they affected my nervous system, which impaired my mobility, causing me to spend a year using a wheelchair and now to use a walking stick and orthotics, which you can't see, but you can just about hear us looking through the list of the 14 Allied health professions.

I was staggered by just how many of them I'd been helped by. I will confine myself today to talking about the 6 or 7 professions in this group of professions, which I have personally experienced help and care from. At the beginning of my illness, when I was diagnosed, it was radiographers who contributed to diagnosing the tumour, causing my condition using a range of

13:58

Luke Akehurst MP (North Durham, Labour)

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techniques from skeletal surveys to MRI scans to eventually a pet CT MRI scans to eventually a pet CT scan, and then once the tumour and its role were identified, they mapped its location to prepare me mapped its location to prepare me for radiotherapy and administered 30 days of 30 greys of radiotherapy in the basement of University in the basement of University College London Hospital. And then it was them who, as I recovered, measured the shrinkage and eventual elimination of my tumour using further pet CT scans.

More recently, I've been back to see radiographers. I can actually remember the day that it was because I. When I went into an MRI scan the last time I had one. Liz Truss was the Prime Minister and I came out and the people looking after me said that the Prime Minister had resigned. So. But she wasn't there for for that long. But it felt like a long time. It feels like a long time when you're in an MRI, but they're not using the MRI too, because they think there's a risk of recurrence of my illness.

They're measuring the long term regrowth of my nervous system. Following on from this, there were the physiotherapists who taught me to to walk again. And in fact, before that, they got me actually standing using a standing frame because I couldn't stand independently. And I had an intensive period of two months inpatient physiotherapy on the rehabilitation ward of the National Hospital for neurology at Queen square. This was followed by almost a year of outpatient physiotherapy at home and in Saint Leonard's Hospital in Hackney.

Support from my physiotherapist took me from being unable even to stand to the first faltering steps, using a backslab foot ups and a walking frame through to using two crutches, then one crutch and now a walking stick and ankle orthotics. As part of our recovery, the physiotherapists ask every neurological patient on the wall to set themselves a higher level balance task to walk towards. They told me I was the first patient they had met who set a high level balance goal of leading a canvassing team whilst carrying a clipboard and pen.

The dieticians in hospital were tasked with helping me rebuild my wasted muscles. They rather kindly ask me what food I liked and when I answered Red meat and cheese fortunately agreed that at that stage, these were the ideal sources of protein to rebuild muscles which had wasted away during five months spent predominantly in a hospital bed. My dieticians also made sure I was occasionally taken from the hospital by friends or family in my wheelchair to Carluccio's restaurant in the nearby Brunswick centre.

Because the Italian style liver and bacon there very usefully contained the vitamins necessary for nerve regrowth. As I prepared for and then adjusted to life outside a hospital ward, there came the support of occupational therapists who taught me how to use a kitchen from a wheelchair and later a purchasing stall, who taught me how to safely pour boiling water from a kettle when my arms were weakened. Who taught me how to write again using a biro? When my ability to to grip a pen had gone, who unfortunately didn't get very far with teaching me how to cook again, as cooking had never been something I'd come to grips with before my illness and disability.

Who taught me how to safely transfer from a wheelchair on and off of a piece of furniture? Who asked me what I needed to do in my life, and then worked as hard as they could to allow me to get back to doing it. One of the most fundamental tasks they succeeded in enabling me to do was to get down onto the floor. Sorry, it's a little bit emotional to play with my my three year old son and then to get back up again afterwards when my legs were too weak to lift me up and down.

When, when I left hospital, they equipped my wheelchair accessible flat that my amazing wife had organised at five days notice to move from a wheelchair accessible home with the equipment I needed to to to use it safely, such as a seat across the bathtub to shower myself safely. They oversaw my return to work, explaining to my then employers what adaptations they needed to make to my workplace. They advocated on my behalf for a graded return to work. Due to the severe fatigue my illness and disability had caused, and they signposted me to what support was available to my employers for transport, to and from and within work and physical adaptations from the Access to Work scheme.

It was also these occupational therapists who assessed my workplace to make sure I could physically get around it from a wheelchair. Alongside these were the podiatrists who helped me with a horrible side effect of having impaired sensory nerves in my feet, which made me very susceptible to ingrown toenails, which at first I couldn't feel because of nerve damage. And then when they do cut through, that is an excruciating pain. And so I thank the podiatrists for dealing with that in the first few months after I left hospital, and alleviating these nasty side effects, I still receive the ongoing support of the Orthotists who, once I was able to walk, fitted me with the ankle foot orthotics often known as splints, which I wear on each foot.

These stop me from tripping over my feet even now because my weak ankle nerves cause foot drop. I continue to rely on their services to have my orthotics repaired, refurbished and replaced whenever necessary, which reminded me that I have an outstanding appointment to schedule with University Hospital North Durham to have my orthotics refurbished in the coming months, and I'm fairly sure that there are operating department practitioners involved in my treatment. When I had an operation to enable analysis of the tumour once it had been located.

But as I was completely unconscious at the time under a general anaesthetic, I can't speak for who was in the room with the surgeon. It will be clear by now to members across the House. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to a wide array of people across the Allied health professional workforce is. This gratitude has driven me to come and speak in this debate today to call for greater prioritisation of AHP in NHS workforce planning and to parity of esteem with medics and nurses.

I want to join with colleagues in asking the Minister to recognise the critical contribution allied health professionals make to allow people like me to live happy, healthy lives. Measures the government could take to back this recognition recognition up include retaining the roles of Chief Allied Health Professions Officer and director of rehabilitation within the department, confirming which DHSC Minister holds responsibility for AHPs. But I think I might be able to guess from the president the very welcome presence of the Minister on the bench and restoring, crucially, ministerial meetings with the AHP Federation.

I know that some of the specific professions involved in my treatment also face their own unique challenges, which I wanted to ask the government to address. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, who I've worked closely with in recent months, are campaigning to embed physiotherapy leadership within neighbourhoods. Today I want to back their calls for the upcoming NHS ten year workforce plan to expand the capacity of core community rehabilitation services, given the record number of physiotherapists, graduates and high level of public trust in physiotherapists, empowering people to manage symptoms and improve general health, now is the time to take advantage of the healthy supply of physiotherapists to ensure people can live as well as possible for as long as possible.

It is clear to me that physiotherapists can play in the government's ambitious, ambitious shift of healthcare away from the hospital and closer to communities. However, recent years have seen recruitment freezes in physiotherapy, which I know have risked wasting the potential of newly qualified physios. Therefore, I want to ask the Minister if she will meet with me and representatives from the CSP to discuss widening access to physio careers through apprenticeship programs, a graduate guarantee of an NHS job for all newly qualified physios who want one, as has been rolled out for nurses and other challenges facing this vital workforce, I will come to a conclusion as quickly as I can.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I know the British Association of Prosthetics and Orthotics are asking for the creation of a formal, small and vulnerable profession designation within NHS workforce and education policy to trigger proportionate safeguards and guarantees for these workers. The Royal College of Occupational Therapists are calling on the government to establish national commissioning guidance to make occupational therapy a central component of the neighbourhood health systems the government is already delivering. I therefore want to ask the Minister to address these particular concerns from the industry, as well as outlining its broader support for the whole family of AHPs.

Without these professionals, I wouldn't have got my life back. I want to thank them and use this platform to say they are fantastic professions which need the pay, incentives and career structure to encourage the next generation of allied health professionals to support further future generations in the way that so many of them have supported me.

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Rachel Taylor thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I don't think anyone could put better the vital anyone could put better the vital importance of AHPs than my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham. Friend the Member for North Durham. Yes. I also want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley for securing this debate and for her tireless work as a physiotherapist. The hon. Member for Thurrock for leading the debate for Thurrock for leading the debate and also the hon.

Member for Stourbridge and all her work as an ODP. And that is a profession that often gets overlooked. Allied health professionals are such an important part of our healthcare workforce, yet they're undervalued and poorly represented in NHS hierarchies. I'm incredibly proud of this government's achievements within the NHS. £29 billion of additional funding, the largest injection of cash into our health service since Labour were last in government waiting lists have fallen by more than 320,000 across the country, 5 million more NHS appointments and 2500 new GPS.

14:09

Rachel Taylor MP (North Warwickshire and Bedworth, Labour)

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Having been recruited in my own constituency, we have started to see the benefits this investment is see the benefits this investment is having for local people. George Eliot Hospital has eliminated corridor care despite a difficult corridor care despite a difficult winter. They've also seen a 5% improvement in waiting lists. GP surgeries in Polesworth, Bedworth, Coleshill and Kearsley are all getting upgrades so that more patients can see physiotherapists, occupational therapists and other professionals much closer to home. Of course, there's much more to do, but we should be proud of the progress we've made in less than two years, these improvements would not have happened without the support of allied health professionals.

Their workforce represents over 276,000 practitioners, aided by skilled support workers. The government is right to be ambitious and reach its target to deliver more care in the community and invest in neighbourhood health centres across the country. In order to do this, we will rely on allied health professionals to support patients. We must embed dietitians, occupational therapists, osteopaths and physiotherapists into neighbourhood health. If we're going to succeed in treating more people closer to home, I want to commend the work done on frailty by the Hazelwood Group practice in Coleshill as part of the Apollo Primary Care Network.

I also want to pay tribute to the work of paramedics, radiographers and physios. My constituency is semi-rural without a hospital and so the quick work of paramedics is crucial in providing urgent initial care and supporting my constituents on their journey to hospital. Radiographers are vital in supporting patients through early diagnosis. As I found out myself a couple of weeks ago, 80% of hospital pathways require their skills for imaging to support a diagnosis. As part of this government's plans to bring care into the community, we must ensure that more radiographers are in community diagnostic centres, like the one recently opened at the George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton, or available through mobile services to reduce pressure on hospitals.

That way, patients can be treated faster and closer to home on their behalf. I would like to ask the Minister to keep the Chief Allied Health Professions Officer post at the Department of Health and work with local Icbs to establish AHP director roles in parity with medical directors and directors of nursing. In 2018, my father had a stroke. The staff at George Eliot Hospital were wonderful and took really good care of him. I can't thank them enough for the support they gave him, but they reached a point where I was wondering why is my elderly father still stuck in hospital? Why can't he leave? And we can help him get better from the comfort of his own home.

And my elderly mum wouldn't have to travel ten miles each day to see him. What is the plan for him and other stroke patients after they leave hospital? My dad, like many people recovering from a stroke, could not get the same support from speech and language therapy services at home or in his neighbourhood. These are vital services that help patients learn to swallow and slowly regain their ability to speak and be understood. And so my dad had to stay in hospital.

He's definitely a fighter, and he regained his speech and his ability to sing in a choir. Patients like him deserve to be able to see speech and language therapists in their local neighbourhoods, so they can recover at home once they're medically fit to leave hospital. This isn't about freeing up spaces in hospital, it's about giving patients choice and the best care we possibly can so they can recover comfortably at home, surrounded by friends and family. I will continue to work with all allied health professionals and their representative bodies to ensure that they're a core part of this government's ten year health plan.

And finally, as a tennis player, I'd like to thank the thousands of independent physiotherapists, support workers and students working in local gyms on the high street and those working in professional sports facilities and out at weekends at matches. Their support is vital to ensure that people can continue to play sport as they get older, and that injury doesn't stop you getting back on the court. We promise to deliver healthcare in the community and with the support of allied health professionals, I'm confident we will be able to do this successfully.

14:14

Josh Newbury MP (Cannock Chase, Labour)

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Josh Newbury thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I too would like to start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock for leading the Member for Thurrock for leading today's debate, and, of course, the Member for Dudley, who has done so much incredible work as a much incredible work as a physiotherapist previously and as a staunch advocate of allied health professionals. It's her first day in this House. I pay tribute to the AHP community right across my Cannock Chase constituency. In my past life, I had the pleasure of working at the Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS trust and that experience shapes how I've approached this debate.

Many hon. Members have rightly recognised roles like physiotherapists, paramedics, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists which are well recognised and rightly valued. But under that AHP umbrella are an incredible group of people that I would like to pay tribute to. The music, art and dramatherapists. These roles are not nice to haves, they are vital part of our mental health workforce. I saw during my time at DWP how powerful the benefits of creative therapy are, as so eloquently described by the Member for Thurrock in her excellent speech focussed on paediatrics.

For lots of people who have experienced trauma or who live with conditions that can make verbal communication difficult or who don't yet speak fluent English like refugees. Common forms of talking therapy that work for so many people don't necessarily work for them. For those experiencing mutism, for example, these creative therapies can be the only way that they can access treatment through art, music and drama. Lots of patients are able to process their emotions, communicate their experiences, and rebuild a sense of self in ways that traditional models don't always reach.

At DWP, there was a real investment in these services. Importantly, many therapists were directly employed rather than being brought in on short term contracts. That not only offers stability to the workforce but for patients. Services are able to embed, relationships can develop, and outcomes undoubtedly improve. And I have the privilege of seeing and hearing those patient stories for myself. And in so many cases, the work of those therapists was quite literally life changing. But despite that, these professions are so often in short supply.

Part of that issue, in my view, is visibility. These roles often aren't spoken about in schools, in careers advice, and not even at times within broader conversations about our NHS workforce. There are now established degree and training pathways for these roles. They are skilled professions that require significant training and expertise, and they are recognised through professional bodies regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council. Yet many young people with a creative inclination and flair are all too often unaware of them as a possible career path.

I believe that's a missed opportunity, both for those individuals who often have a passion for caring and sharing their creativity, as well as for our NHS and social care. The government is rightly focussed on getting more people into work, particularly young people who are facing a tough job market, and we should be thinking expansively about the routes that are available to them, including in creative and arts based professions. For those who are drawn to the arts, to music and to drama, these roles can be a way to build a deeply rewarding, stable career within the NHS, a career that combines creativity with care and one that contributes directly to patient well-being.

Importantly, for those who might have spent years navigating the uncertainty of freelance creative industries, these professions can provide a real sense of stability, progression, and purpose without them having to leave any of their skills behind. This is particularly true at those times of life where stability is so valuable, like when you're starting a family. The government's been clear that the workforce plan that will stem from the very welcome ten year plan will focus on how we can make good on its priorities, including shifting care closer to patients, bringing fragmented services together, and a greater focus on mental health.

I believe that sitting at the centre of this Venn diagram of all of those is creative therapies. So let's start with our therapists of tomorrow. By improving awareness for those roles through schools, colleges and careers advice, let's look at widening training pathways to make sure that those careers are open to a wide range of people, including career switchers. Currently, there is a level seven, so a master's level degree apprenticeship for the three main forms of creative therapy. But of course, as of this year, funding for level seven apprenticeships has been largely restricted to under 21 seconds.

So the number of people that will be accessing those higher level courses will be now very small. Given that in mental health, many staff move up into roles from within the workforce, it would be fantastic if an apprenticeship pathway through to creative therapist roles similar to what we see in nursing could be developed. But above all, I think we should recognise that the impact of those already in these roles is not peripheral. It is central to so many patients care and recovery. Investing in this area would not only support individual recovery, which would ease pressure elsewhere in the system and enable that earlier intervention that so many hon.

Members have referred to, but improved engagement and ultimately better outcomes will also flow. Art therapists, music therapists, dramatherapists they might not be the first roles that we think of in mental health, but they can often be the ones that help our most vulnerable and isolated constituents to start to open up, communicate their experiences, often for the first time, and guide the way to wellbeing. We talk a lot in this place about workforce shortages, and rightly so. There are thousands of young people out there, including in Cannock Chase who love music, who love art and drama, but who often have perhaps worry about whether there's a career for them in those creative industries.

What they might have absolutely no idea about is the enormous contribution that they would make in our healthcare workforce. So this is partly about recognition, but it's also about being more imaginative, about how we think about both healthcare and careers advice. It's a chance to give more people a way to use their creative passion to transform lives.

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Thank you. Yeah. Which brings us to the front bench contributions. Liberal Democrat spokesperson Alison

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Bennett. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker,

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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I'm very grateful to the hon. Member for Thurrock for opening the debate today and the hon. Member for Dudley, for securing it for her work on the APPG and, of course, work on the APPG and, of course, for her work as a physiotherapist. Medical staff in my Mid Sussex constituency and right across the country are the backbone of our National Health Service. While doctors and nurses are often front of mind when the public think about the NHS workforce, there are, as we have heard this afternoon, an army of highly skilled professionals who keep our health services running every single day.

They save lives, provide comfort in moments of fear and, as set out so brilliantly by the hon. Member for North Durham aid rehabilitation, making people

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get back to their normal lives. Yes. I'm grateful. Friend, give way. I'm conscious that this debate is obviously that this debate is obviously devolved, but I thought it worth mentioning that the Allied Health Professional Federation's hustings for the Scottish Parliament elections has been taking place earlier today. Topics included having input from health having input from health professionals during primary care and also about some of the crisis around vacancies on rehab that she around vacancies on rehab that she just mentioned.

Does she agree with me that we need to ensure that allied health professionals get the access they need to, for example, care home patients, so that we can get those people out of hospital and into the right setting to

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receive the care that they need. Alison Bennett thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. And of Friend for her intervention. And of course, she's absolutely right. We know that with the right support, often from allied healthcare often from allied healthcare professionals, people don't need to present at A&E and they will be able to get out of hospital and back into suitable accommodation back into suitable accommodation with the right levels of support much more quickly, which is better for them as individuals, and will for them as individuals, and will also support the NHS in carrying out its functions more efficiently.

Many of these, many of our allied healthcare professionals, which are the third largest professional group in the NHS, do such amazing work as we have heard, and they are central to prevention, diagnosis, treatment and public health. And as pressures on our health and care services have grown, their role has become indispensable. From the paramedic first on the scene in an emergency to the radiographer enabling rapid diagnosis to the physiotherapist helping someone regain their independence. These professionals are there at every stage of the patient journey.

They are often the difference between life and death, between recovery and long term disability, and between dependence and independence. And yet their contribution is overlooked. After years of mismanagement, our NHS has been left on its knees. Nowhere is that more visible than in our emergency departments. We have seen avoidable deaths in A&E waiting rooms. We have seen patients waiting hours for ambulances, and we have seen the shocking normalisation of corridor care patients left on trolleys without privacy, dignity or proper attention.

There are now even reports of people receiving end of life care in hospital corridors. This is a health system under intolerable strain. Public confidence is being shaken. It is no surprise that two thirds of people are worried about long A&E waits, and the data is stark. Last year saw the worst level of 12 hour

14:23

Alison Bennett MP (Mid Sussex, Liberal Democrat)

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trolley waits ever recorded. On average, hospital trusts are now seeing thousands of patients waiting more than 24 hours in A&E every year. This is unacceptable and the Liberal Democrats have been and the Liberal Democrats have been leading the call to end corridor care within a year. We believe that this crisis can be tackled, but this crisis can be tackled, but only with serious practical action, and that includes creating a bank of safety net, social care places of safety net, social care places and expanding step down care for patients who are medically fit to leave hospital but still need support.

And at the heart of that solution are allied healthcare professionals. By delivering rehabilitation packages through physiotherapists, occupational therapists and others, we can help people leave hospital sooner, recover more quickly and regain their independence at home. This is better for patients and it is essential for freeing up hospital capacity and ending the gridlock in A&E. So I ask the Minister, Will the government commit to ending corridor care and 12 hour waits this year, and will the government back that commitment with a real investment in community care, social care and the allied health workforce? Madam Deputy Speaker, If we are to rely on these professionals as we must and as we already do, then we need to support them properly.

Right now, working conditions across the NHS are driving morale into the ground. Staff face inflexible rotas, burnout and, shockingly, workplace violence that is not sustainable for them or for the patients they serve. The Liberal Democrats have a number of proposals that we would be grateful for the Minister to consider. We would establish a truly independent pay review body. We would expand access to affordable childcare so NHS staff can balance their family with their careers. And we are also calling for action on everyday costs, such as reducing car parking charges in hospitals.

These are practical steps that would make a real difference. There are also growing staffing pressures amongst the allied health professionals. The House of Commons Library reports that there has been a 57% increase in allied health professional fees over the last decade, rising from 75,000 to 118,000 employees. However, in my conversations with the Royal College College of Podiatrists, they describe high vacancy levels for NHS podiatry positions, declining pipelines of applications to study podiatry programs in England and rising demand for the services, all the while with the draw to work in the private sector in physiotherapy.

8 in 10 physiotherapists report they do not have enough staff to meet demand and yet many services are facing recruitment freezes. These contradictions speak volumes. The long delayed National Workforce Plan must finally deliver for allied health professionals. It must address regional shortages and embed those roles fully into workforce planning from the outset, not as an afterthought. If the government is serious about shifting care into the community and focusing on prevention, then investment in AHPs is essential. But too often we see a gap between rhetoric and reality.

While Ministers talk about prevention funding decisions to continue to prioritise short term fixes elsewhere. Madam Deputy Speaker. Our NHS is one of this country's greatest achievements, but it cannot function without the people who sustain it. Allied health professionals are highly trained autonomous practitioners. There are nearly 118,000 of them working across NHS in England. They are central to modern multidisciplinary care and to the future of a sustainable NHS. If we want a health service that prevents illness, reduces inequalities and supports people to live healthier, longer lives, then we must recognise and invest in their contribution.

We must continue to fight for an NHS that works for patients, and we will continue to stand up for the staff, especially those too often overlooked, who are doing everything they can to get our NHS back on its feet because they deserve nothing less. Thank you.

14:27

Gregory Stafford MP (Farnham and Bordon, Conservative)

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14:35

Karin Smyth MP, Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care) (Bristol South, Labour)

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a as a physiotherapist, because I am grateful for the opportunity to set out the practical contribution of AHPs to delivering this government's priorities for health and care at the ten year health plan, fit for the future, and the forthcoming ten year workforce plan during spring. We're now in spring. Hopefully very soon we'll be coming. Does provide. I agree with many hon. Members. It provides the real opportunity to optimise AHP contribution for the years ahead, including by supporting AHPs to work at the top of their skills as a department.

We are very clear that the three shifts, patients and the public need more care in the community, a stronger focus on prevention and better use of digital and data must be delivered in day to day services, and AHPs will be central to making that happen. They are, as we've heard, the third is large third largest workforce in the NHS. They include physiotherapists, occupational therapists, radiographers, speech and language therapists, paramedics, dieticians, podiatrists and the arts therapies, among others. They work across hospital, community, primary care, mental health and education settings, bringing regulated evidence based practice that supports faster access, better outcomes and better value for the taxpayer.

And their contribution is not confined to any single service line. AHP. Assess, diagnose, treat and rehabilitate. They support self-management and they work in multidisciplinary teams spanning health, social care and education. And that combination clinical autonomy alongside team based working is exactly what we need to redesign services around neighbourhoods and around people's day to day lives. So firstly, on the shift to community AHPs work across neighbourhoods, primary care and community services, including in people's homes, and they prevent avoidable admissions and they help people leave hospital sooner and recover well.

And physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists support rehabilitation and independent living, and paramedics are increasingly part of the urgent community response and neighbourhood teams, helping people get the right care first time closer to home. Secondly, on prevention, it is fundamental to AHP practice, as we've heard AHP support earlier intervention for long term conditions. They play a key role in falls, preventions, respiratory disease and musculoskeletal health and in improving population health well-being. That work helps people stay well and independent, and it reduces pressure on urgent and emergency care and on hospital waiting lists.

And that contribution also aligns directly with the government's work and health agenda by providing early intervention and rehabilitation. AHPs help people with long term conditions, disability or injury to remain in return to and thrive in work. And really, I think this afternoon, Madam Deputy Speaker, we have heard no better example of the role that they do and the very moving speech by my hon. Friend, the Member for North Durham, and I thank him for sharing that. And I hope he's enjoying still playing with his son.

And it's good to have him here. Being able to articulate that experience, it's not easy to do so. It's whether supporting recovery after illness, managing pain and fatigue, or enabling reasonable adjustments and independence. AHP reduce avoidable time away from employment and help more people to remain economically active, benefiting individuals, employers and the wider economy. And thirdly, on the shift to digital AHPs are helping to lead the adoption of digital tools to improve access and continuity that ranges from imaging and diagnostic technologies led by radiographers to virtual rehabilitation, remote monitoring and data enabled triage alongside shared care records.

These approaches can support safer, more efficient and more personalised care. Remote consultation should be used where appropriate, across each of those shifts. AHPs also make an important contribution to mental health and wider wellbeing. Occupational therapists support recovery and independence. Speech and language therapists help address communication needs that can affect engagement and the arts therapies, which we've heard about this afternoon, including art, music and drama therapy, offer clinically led support well articulated by many, including my friend the Member for Cannock Chase.

In neighbourhood teams. These skills can help provide earlier more joined up care, including for children and young people, and I also place a particular emphasis on children and young people. As my hon. Friend from Thurrock so ably has done, including those with special educational needs and disabilities. AHPs play that vital role in early identification, assessment and intervention, supporting communication, mobility, sensory needs, mental wellbeing and participation in education and community life. Speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, physios and others work alongside families and schools so that children can develop and learn and thrive, and so that their needs are met early before they escalate.

So for children, send timely access to AHP. Support is absolutely fundamental. Those delays do affect speech and language development, social interaction and educational attainment, and they can place additional pressure on families and carers. And that is why the work, which is already in train, working with the Department of Education, NHS England and integrated care boards and partners in local government to strengthen community speech and language therapy and other AHP provision. Our aim is earlier support closer to home and better joined up services, and I recognise that many members will understandably focus on the current access and waiting times, particularly around speech and language therapy.

We all, as constituency MPs recognise that and as the Member for Thurrock said, it is critical to achieving the government's ambition more broadly in neighbourhoods. AHP support people of all ages to avoid deterioration and to recover well. They do that through rapid assessment, rehabilitation and support management points well made by the Member for South West Devon and Mid Dorset and North Poole, working alongside GPS, community nursing, social care, mental health services and the voluntary sector. They help prevent complications, reduce frailty and improve long term condition management, easing pressure on acute services.

As my friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth quite rightly said, noting also can I thank her for her support in supporting George Elliot as they improve their services for her constituents. Delivering these shifts also depends on having the right AHP workforce in the right place, and that includes smaller AHP professions such as podiatry, orthotics and prosthetics, prosthetics and orthotics, sorry, orthotics and prosthetics and orthotics, whose specialist skills are not only being able to say it correctly, but are also essential to prevention of independence and quality of life.

And through our work with system leaders and professional bodies, we will continue to support education and training routes to improve retention and enable new ways of working across systems so that people can access specialist expertise when they need it. As part of enabling AHPs to work at the top of their skills, which is what we want, we are also taking forward the work to increase the ability of AHPs to prescribe medicines where it is safe and appropriate to do so. Points well made by the Member for Richmond Park and others have noted that.

Duplication issue and can I confirm to my friend and thank her for her expertise in this area around Odps? That does include Odps. We must also address variation in access, including in rural and underserved areas, neighbourhood delivery models, stronger integration with local authorities and the voluntary sector, and sensible use of digital services can all help broaden reach while maintaining safe, personalised care for those who need face to face support. So, in conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker AHPs bring the clinical skills and professional leadership to redesign pathways, strengthen neighbourhood teams and intervene earlier so that people receive effective care in the right place at the right time.

And my focus as the lead Minister for the workforce plan, as a Minister in the Department of Health, is to support systems to deliver those priorities. As part of that, I do work closely with the chief allied health professionals, and it is a bit of a news to both her and myself that there's concern about her ongoing role. We will continue to work closely together. I thank her for her help so far and indeed preparing for this debate. The ten year plan set the direction to rebuild the NHS, but it absolutely depends on all our staff to deliver it.

The long term workforce plan produced by the previous government essentially looked at supply, but it didn't look at future service models. It didn't look at the role of technology. It didn't ensure sustainability for the future, and it didn't base itself on future workforce models. That is some of the reason we have the problems with, for example, bottlenecks and the frustration, particularly for young people coming out of their training, not being able to get into the right roles at the right place.

That is part of the problem that we need to address with the long term workforce plan, so that with the workforce plan that we're bringing forward in the spring, so that we ensure patients and the public have the services they deserve, and particularly for young people, for children, they get the best start in life. And I look forward to bringing forward these plans. I've been asked again for several meetings. It's always nice to be popular for meetings, Madam Deputy Chair, but I am looking forward to working with people as we bring forward that plan.

We are working very closely with all representatives of the sector. I know there's a lot of interest in this work, and I very much look forward to working with hon. Members in this House as we go forward with delivering that and working through as we work through

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for the. And I will briefly. Thank you. And I really do appreciate the Minister giving way. I know she's in conclusion, at the end of her speech, just wanted to very specifically ask, I know you. Perhaps we can't reveal the Perhaps we can't reveal the contents of the workforce plan before it is published, obviously, but I think some reassurance that but I think some reassurance that particularly in terms of paediatric care, that the workforce plan that does have something in mind when it does have something in mind when it comes to servicing, that send experts at hand provision that is so key to delivering the white paper and so key to young people's life chances that we will be able

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to see that when it when it is evident, hopefully very soon. Well, I was literally at my last

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Well, I was literally at my last words. So let me go back. She tempts me to to reveal more about that as it comes forward. Obviously that as it comes forward. Obviously we're all ready. We're not waiting for the workforce plan to work with our colleagues. As I said, across the Department of Education, NHS the Department of Education, NHS England, locally with Icbs and so on, to make sure we deliver that on that ambition and we will, of that ambition and we will, of course, be setting out the the overarching plan and where we want to have people in the future.

And I look forward to working with her and others about how that will work. And we certainly want to engage with colleagues across the piece. That sandpaper, as she rightly knows, is central to the. We all know this as part of our constituency and central to the government's wider ambitions. We are due to publish that in the spring. I look forward to doing that very soon. I look forward to hon. Members working on that, and I thank them for their debate and contributions this afternoon.

14:46

Jen Craft MP (Thurrock, Labour)

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Jen Craft to wind up. and thank you to everyone who has contributed to this debate today. As the hon. Member for Dudley said, this is the first time a debate this is the first time a debate around the contribution of allied health professionals has taken place in in this place, and I think it is really important to acknowledge the contribution they make to our health services and to our healthcare role in general, particular. Thanks to the hon. Member, my hon. Friend from North Durham for sharing his very personal story about the contribution of so many different allied health professionals on bringing him back to health and restoring, basically bringing him back to life, which I think summed up perfectly the absolutely crucial role that these many different professions play and the impact that they can have.

And thanks as well to the hon. Member for Stourbridge for both her contribution and her work as an allied health professional. As someone who has had two C-sections, the entire operating theatre staff are crucial to that being a much better experience than I think anyone could have anticipated. But just a final plea to the Minister who. And thank you very much for her comments, and particularly for being gracious in accepting my intervention at the last minute to make sure that in the forthcoming workforce plan, it's absolutely vital.

Part of our NHS that is crucial to delivering those two strands, from sickness to prevention and hospital to community particularly are are not overlooked and that their contribution is both valued and given due prominence.

14:48

Yeah, yeah. >> Yeah, yeah. >> The question is, as on the Order Paper, as many of that opinion say, Paper, as many of that opinion say, I. Of the contrary, no, I think the ayes have it. The ayes have it. The point of order. Madam Deputy point of order. Madam Deputy Speaker Point of order. Joy Morrissey the government placed a.

14:48

Points of Order Joy Morrissey MP (Beaconsfield, Conservative)

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Miss on today's Order Paper to update the House on the much troubled Ajax Armoured Fighting Vehicle program. However, the media are now reporting within the last two hours that, according to urgent briefing from the Ministry of Defence themselves, this statement will now be delayed until later next week due to the need to seek further interdepartmental approval across Whitehall. Given that the Strategic defence review was published months late. The Defence Investment Plan, including vital new equipment programmes, is still unpublished nine months on and now the MoD are even putting out W in the Order Paper and then refusing to publish them.

The department seems clearly to be in a state of chaos and can. Madam Deputy Speaker advise me on how we can force the MoD to clarify this utterly confusing situation even later today or on Monday at the very latest.

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Yeah. Can I thank the hon. Member for giving notice of her point of order? giving notice of her point of order? This House is entitled to expect that when written statements should be delivered to the House, it must be delivered to the House, it must be done promptly on the day the government has given notice that they will be made. The government frontbench will have heard the member's point of order and may wish to verify what is happening wish to verify what is happening about the written statement.

The hon. Member may wish to take advice from the Table Office as to steps she can take to obtain clarity on the substance of the matter. Which brings us to the backbench debate on reform of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. Can I ask those members who are leaving to do so quickly and quietly? And I call Vikki Slade, who will speak for up to 15 minutes.

14:50

Backbench Business: General Debate on reform of the Drivers and Vehicles Licensing Agency

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I'm grateful to the backbench Business Committee for granting time for this debate on a topic that I know, and I can see from the

14:50

Vikki Slade MP (Mid Dorset and North Poole, Liberal Democrat)

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15:04

Sarah Coombes MP (West Bromwich, Labour)

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really matters. It matters to HMRC for road tax to pay for upkeep. It matters to those of us who want to matters to those of us who want to walk and cycle safely. It matters to the police who can work, who use it to work out who is using our it to work out who is using our roads and when and when the rules of the road are not enforced. When people flout them with no punishment, it degrades trust. Now punishment, it degrades trust.

Now there are two elements of the DVLA systems that, in my view, are failing. And I'd like to highlight failing. And I'd like to highlight today. First, the regulation of number plate sales and second, the rise of ghost vehicle owners due to no registered keeper. Let me start with number plates. The little piece of plastic on the front of a vehicle is something that most people hopefully never have to think too much about. However, these number plates are the quiet bedrock of how we enforce the rules of our roads.

Number plates should tell us who owns a car, and they should be readable by cameras, so the police can use automatic number plate recognition software that is essential to their work. In many other countries, number plates are treated as what they are passports for our roads. They are highly regulated. In France, for example, vehicles are allocated a plate for life, no changes, and many other countries only one or a few companies can sell plates. The UK system looks absurd in comparison.

To become a number plate supplier here, you simply pay a £40 one off fee to the DVLA. There are no background checks, no criminal checks whatsoever. This has led to a situation where the UK has over 34,000 suppliers registered as selling number plates with the DVLA. For context, that is four times the number of petrol stations in Britain. If the DVLA had the ability to check, all of these companies were doing the right thing, i.e. that the companies were asking for ownership documents and ID documents when they sold a number plate to someone, and only selling plates that were fully readable and not ghost plates, then the situation would be fine.

But the DVLA doesn't do this and they will never have the ability to check for a system so large. Now, I have no doubt that most people buying a number plate are doing so for innocent reasons, but it is crystal clear that many people are buying dodgy number plates to make themselves invisible to speed cameras, avoid paying road charges and to commit very serious crimes, and unscrupulous sellers are allowing this to happen. I'll give you an example. In 2025, a young man was murdered in cold blood in Slough, and the police eventually worked out that the killer's car was using a cloned plate.

When the police found that car, it had no plates on, but it had a stash of different registration plates in the back. They found the person who sold the cloned plates, and he was fined £5,500 and removed from the Dvla's register for five years, after which time he's perfectly allowed to start selling number plates all over again. There is currently a live rape case, which I won't go into any detail on, where a driver used a ghost number plate on his vehicle when he committed the alleged offence.

I have heard so many cases of drug dealers using ghost plates to go undetected by Anpr fraudsters copying other people's number plates, while these dodgy companies sell cloned number plates without a second thought. Law abiding drivers are left to pick up the pieces as they fight to prove their innocence in crimes or against huge financial penalties. I really think that dodgy number plate sellers are a public scandal waiting to happen. They are the next chapter of the candy shops or the dodgy vape shop story, which are really fronts for money laundering and criminality.

Now Rochdale trading standards have been superb at exposing this. Their work has uncovered links between DVLA accredited suppliers and individuals with histories of murder, firearms, drugs, robbery, violent assault. You couldn't make it up. In one of their inspections, they found 20 number plates, which were sold with none of the legally required ID checks or proof of vehicle checks. Almost half of these plates were later linked by the police to serious and organised crime. Rochdale Trading Standards officers described finding DVLA registered suppliers operating out of back bedrooms, garden sheds.

One supplier was at number 33 Smith Street. The other next supplier was at number 35 Smith Street. I hope this paints a picture of the very serious systemic failings about how the DVLA operates, our number plate sales in Britain. And when you think that some estimates say that up to 1 in 15 of all vehicles on UK roads have some kind of non-compliant plate, you can see the scale of the problem. Some of these suppliers are using ghost materials so routinely that even law abiding members of the public may be inadvertently buying ghost plates.

So I would urge anyone listening to this, if you do need to buy a number plate, please make sure that the seller asks you for your car ownership document and for your ID. If they don't, you are buying from an illegal seller who is breaking the law. Last year, the APPG for Transport Safety carried out, carried out an inquiry into registration plates and made ten recommendations, all of which I believe the government should implement. They included banning the use of 3D and 4D plates, introducing background checks on suppliers and restricting the number of licensed sellers.

Now, I'd like to praise the government for committing to action on this in the road safety strategy, and in particular, pay tribute to the Member for Nottingham South, who has been absolutely great. But can I ask the Minister, can he give us an update on when he hopes that some of these system changes will be made to tighten up the number plate system? In particular, can I ask the Minister to ask the DVLA what is going on with banning and 3D 4D plates, as these are the vast majority of ghost plates? And is he also able to update on when the next DFT roadside survey will take place? Because the last one was in 2023.

Now I'd like to move on to the second topic. I'm concerned about vehicle registered keeper information. Even if you have a fully compliant number plate, it's still possible for a driver to cheat the rules to become a ghost on the roads in another way. All cars should have a registered keeper listed with the DVLA, but unfortunately, lax rules mean many cars don't and their owners are therefore completely untraceable. Think about it. Hit and runs. Excessive speeding, running red lights. Even if a vehicle gets caught on camera doing any of those things.

If the DVLA has no information about who owns the vehicle, there is no way to hold them to account. Now, according to the DVLA, 7% of vehicles have no registered keeper and they argue that the majority of all of these are in the motor trade. But I just do not think that's true. I have a personal anecdote to explain why. Last summer I was out with the Roads Policing team in West Brom, and the Anpr in the police car kept dinging every 30s. I said to the officer, what is it that's setting off the Anpr? And the officer said, those are cars with no registered keeper.

And today the Guardian has covered a shocking FOI request made by the British Parking Association to the DVLA. Now sometimes when a car has no registered keeper or it has an outdated or incorrect keeper address, the DVLA registered the car to their own address. Now the DVLA has admitted in this FOI that the latest count, 18,260 vehicles are currently registered to the Dvla's own office in Swansea. The rise of these ghost owners undermines our ability to enforce the rules of our road.

And it's not just a safety risk. I spoke to the Motor Insurers Bureau about the rise in the number of collisions where one party cannot be traced, either because the vehicle had no registered keeper or because the number plate is fake, or a ghost plate, or because the driver raced away. We all pay a premium on our insurance to cover when uninsured or untraceable. Drivers are involved in a collision, and that is adding up to £50 on all our insurance premiums every year. There's also a big cost, or rather a big loss to the public sector through this issue as well.

Now I feel the pain is as much as anyone. When you get slapped with a parking ticket, when you think you've done the right thing or a fine for driving down the wrong road. But there are some people who are flouting the rules constantly, and they are getting away with it through things like having no registered keeper, or when they register with a knit farm so that their fine gets sent to a Po box, which is totally anonymous and the fine doesn't get passed on.

Since I started doing this work, I've realised how much of an issue unpaid fines are in Hackney. For example, a single individual owes the council £250,000. I recently asked my council, Sandwell, how much was owed to them, and I was shocked to discover that almost one third of Pcns had gone unpaid since last April, equating to £1.2 million. Can you imagine what this money could have been spent on? Now I'll finish because I know others want to speak. There are a great many good people who work in the DVLA as the hon.

Member opposite mentioned, and I know because I've spoken to lots of them. But what is failing here is the system, the system of how we sell the very plates that identify all our vehicles and how we regulate and monitor who actually owns the cards on our roads. I know the DVLA have got a lot on, but this is a very serious problem and there is a huge opportunity to grasp here by fixing

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this system for the future. I will do. Just making a. Really excellent speech, and

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Really excellent speech, and it's reminded me of a conversation that I had in my constituency recently around the area of Who and Plymstock, where they have really anti-social behaviour behaving drivers going around, and one of the police officers that I was with the police officers that I was with there, actually, we weren't even talking about the fact that they're registered to DVLA. Does she find it extraordinary the number that

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it extraordinary the number that are also registered to Mickey Mouse? That is absolutely true. Registered to Mickey Mouse, registered to other big organisations addresses. There is simply no checks whatsoever on who people register vehicles to, which means people are doing really dangerous, really anti-social things and getting away with it. So the Labour Party manifesto committed us to taking back our streets and reforming the DVLA will help us tackle the racers, the fraudsters, the drug dealers, the dodgy number plate sellers who are making our constituents lives a misery.

This situation has gone on for too long, and I hope now that the government is committed to action on this, we can finally catch the ghost plates and catch the ghost owners on our roads and make everyone and all our roads safer for us all.

15:14

Zöe Franklin MP (Guildford, Liberal Democrat)

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Here. hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole for securing this important debate. I want to keep my contributions brief and focus on the story of what just one of my Guildford constituents. Though I have had correspondence with many more, and I want to speak about this story because I think it really captures why the DVLA is in urgent need of reform. So when someone reports a medical condition and we've heard about medical conditions. My hon. Friend already. When they report to the DVLA, I really think they are doing it for the right reasons.

They're complying with the law. They're putting the safety of their fellow road users ahead of their own convenience. But too often the system does not respond in kind. So my constituent constituent is living with stage four lung cancer, despite them being a somatic. They responsibly surrendered their license in August 24th. They did so without hesitation because they understood their responsibilities and they wanted to be a good citizen. Their consultant has since confirmed they are medically fit to drive, and on that basis, they applied to have their licence reinstated in July of last year.

When I spoke to them last week, nine months later, they're still waiting for a decision. Nine months. During that time, they've submitted multiple complaints one in January, again later that month. Finally, in March, through the Dvla's own direct complaint system, which promises a response within ten days, not one of those complaints has received a reply. Madam Speaker, that's not simply a backlog. That is a system that has lost sight of the fact that its administrative processes have real human consequences while managing a life limiting illness.

My constituent has also had to manage months of uncertainty, uncertainty about when or even whether a decision will be made, and the daily restrictions that come from living without a driving licence. And of course, we're going to hear. We've already heard this isn't an isolated case. Across the country, constituents are waiting months for medical decisions, often with minimal communication. And there is a clear pattern. Straightforward cases move quickly and complex cases, the ones that need the most care, judgement and often are the most urgent because the circumstances of the individual wait the longest.

My constituents, remember, with no symptoms is my constituents have no symptoms and that that would disqualify them from driving. And they've been left in limbo again for nine months without explanation. The Dvla's target is to resolve most medical cases in 50 days. But even if the target were met consistently, which we we know it is not, we should really be asking, I think, whether 50 days is an acceptable length of time for someone's independence to be put on hold. The impact is real.

People can't get to work. They miss medical appointments, they lose their independence, and they become isolated from the support networks they rely on. Thankfully, my constituent can use public transport, but in so many honourable colleague's constituencies, particularly the rural ones, are driving. License is not a luxury, it is a lifeline, and the strain on this system is only going to increase. The proposed introduction of eye testing for drivers over 70th May be sensible for road safety, but it's only going to increase the volume of medical assessments that we already know.

The DVLA is not coping in terms of processing, so how is it going to cope when it's already failing? So many reform really isn't optional and it's really, really urgent for my constituent and for all of our constituents who are contacting us on a daily basis. And I'm afraid digitisation is not going to fix this alone. And we need what we need. Alongside that, digitisation is a far more basic, clear decision making timelines, reliable communication with applicants and better coordination between DVLA and the NHS and other agencies so medical evidence can be promptly assessed.

I really hope the Minister, in his closing remarks, will be able to set out a clear timeline for the reforms so that I can reassure my constituents and in particular the constituent I have referenced today. I just want to round off by saying again, if we ask the people to follow the. If we ask people to follow the rules and they are putting other people before themselves and surrendering their licence, then the state has a duty to respond promptly and proportionately. Thank you, Madam

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Deputy Speaker. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. In the West Midlands, the average waiting time for a driving test is 22 weeks, up from 12 weeks in 22 weeks, up from 12 weeks in October 2022. 22 weeks is nearly six months, and it will often mean that young people are unable to that young people are unable to take a driving test before their A-levels or leaving home for university. When I was growing up university. When I was growing up in Atherstone, getting my driving licence was a milestone for my independence.

It meant I could see friends share the driving with my parents when they picked me up at the end of term from university and take up jobs that simply weren't reachable by bus. And when I reached 21 driving the Leeds University night time women's minibus provided me with a good income, some great fun, and I was providing an excellent service. In fact, without learning to drive as a teenager and building up my confidence in driving, I wouldn't have been able to drive a group of students from Leeds down to London and also across to Manchester to protest against section 28.

That's why I find it so frustrating that so many young people in North Warwickshire and Bedworth are now stuck on endless waiting lists for their driving tests in a rural area with poor bus connections and unreliable timetables. The driving licence is not a luxury. It's crucial. It gives young people the independence and confidence to pursue education, training and work in neighbouring towns and cities. I also want to talk about the freight and logistics industry. One of the largest employers in my constituency, offering excellent apprenticeships and training opportunities for school leavers ready to start their careers.

But buses simply don't run frequently or at the right times for shifts to these hubs. My constituents who are waiting for driving tests are effectively locked out of these opportunities. I want to raise the case of an elderly constituent of mine. She'd called me after her driving licence was stuck with the DVLA, preventing her from being able to get around. My team and I contacted the DVLA and spoke to a member of the team who reassured us sorry, reissued her driving licence fairly promptly.

She told me how grateful she was and how much this would help her, but it shouldn't have to take MPs to deal with that. For people like her, a driving licence is a lifeline to allow them to get to appointments, shops and nearby villages and towns, to see friends and to stop being isolated. The DVLA must process these requests in a timely manner to ensure that people are not left isolated in rural communities. In 2021, the UK experienced a huge shortage of HGV drivers.

This was compounded by the delays in tests for HGV licences. Luckily, that situation has improved, but current practical test wait times are broadly acceptable at around three weeks. But the real problem is with the availability of theory tests for HGV drivers, as HGV candidates must sit multiple theory tests.

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They. It might be helpful if I were to

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It might be helpful if I were to highlight that driving tests are not governed by the DVLA. That's the D v s a and the subject of this the D v s a and the subject of this afternoon's debate is very specifically the DVLA. So perhaps members might take that as a point members might take that as a point of information and constrain their Taylor.

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Taylor. My apologies. I think when most of our constituents think of the DVLA and the DVSA, they think of one and the same. But I do think, Madam Deputy Speaker, for correcting me on that point, I think it's still fair to say that young people need access to their driving licence, and also many people with health conditions who might have to hand in their driving licence and wait for it to come back, are reliant on that coming back quickly.

I know my own mum has to take my dad around for hospital appointments, can't get to her nearest shop, can't go out to see her friend. And so these things have real impacts when people

15:22

Rachel Taylor MP (North Warwickshire and Bedworth, Labour)

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suffer minor strokes and they have their driving licence not returned. So it's a situation that the So it's a situation that the government does need to look at, and I would be grateful for anything the Minister could tell us anything the Minister could tell us to inform the situation. And I'd like to thank the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole for

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bringing this debate forward. Brian Mathew thank. You, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole for bringing such an important debate.

15:23

Brian Mathew MP (Melksham and Devizes, Liberal Democrat)

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Recently, I was contacted by a young person in my constituency who has been trying and failing to get has been trying and failing to get a provisional licence for three years after a series of medical issues. Despite being cleared, safe issues. Despite being cleared, safe to drive and, according to the DVLA standards, ready for their licence, their application has not progressed and the DVLA has been progressed and the DVLA has been impossible to contact as a knock on effect of the dvla's poor management.

They're struggling to get work, to travel, to interviews and must rely on family and friends to get anywhere. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. The Public Accounts Committee found that over 3 million people across the country have experienced long delays in the application process, leading to lost income and lost opportunities. The DVLA seemingly operates a two tier system where the simple cases breeze through, and difficult cases such as those with medical conditions are seemingly ignored and left to gather dust.

Another constituent just yesterday wrote to me that the situation with the DVLA caused her so much stress she decided just to give up, having lost all hope, even though she'd made a formal complaint that they were meant to respond to. Within ten working days, the DVLA took nearly 50 days to respond. I would urge the government to treat the reform of the DVLA seriously. Changes need to be made alongside reform of the DVSA so that the two departments can best manage issues and the current backlog of cases.

The delay in responding to medical licences and complaints is symptomatic of a larger problem. Inefficiencies across the whole system, from non-compliance to v d, leading in the to the loss of vital revenue for the government. The ability to drive gives a person their independence, especially in rural areas, and these administrative errors affect real people's lives. And I would again urge the government to take these reforms

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seriously. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Deputy Speaker. Can I first thank.

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Can I first thank. The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole for securing this backbench debate? It's a really important debate, and I'd like to important debate, and I'd like to start by saying very grateful to the members on the Liberal Democrat benches. The Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, the Member for and North Poole, the Member for Guildford and the Member for Melksham and Devizes, who just spoke for raising some issues that I'm going to touch on shortly as I'm going to touch on shortly as well, because people having all manner of problems with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the DVLA, is something that my office has also had to deal with time and time again, and still regularly does.

I, like colleagues on the Liberal Democrat benches, wanted to highlight the specific issue of people, often elderly, who've had

15:26

Adam Thompson MP (Erewash, Labour)

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to surrender their licences due to medical concerns and then have experienced trouble as a result, experienced trouble as a result, often even once they're medically cleared to drive again. It can take many months for the DVLA to return many months for the DVLA to return their licences. I want to give three examples today. Madam Deputy Speaker real people living in Erewash having their lives Erewash having their lives unnecessarily destroyed because of pure and simple administrative delay and failure. I've got a delay and failure.

I've got a couple in Brixton in my constituency, one of whom had their licence taken away after a routine medical check up. They were pretty quickly cleared medically again, but it then still took two months for the DVLA to restore their licence. They'd even been in the process of selling their car at the time, and the sale of the car was completely disrupted. Similarly, my team recently helped a man in Ilkeston who waited four months from being cleared to drive to having his licence returned to him.

And at the issue's most extreme, my team helped a woman recently who had her license taken away due to moderate sleep apnoea. She too was quickly okayed to drive again after further medical assessment, only for the DVLA to take seven months to finally give her her license back. These cases aren't old cases I'm not picking. I'm only picking the sort of three worst from the last 18 months that I've been a member of Parliament, and all of these cases have been handled by my team in recent months, and they were only resolved because of a member of Parliament's intervention.

We've heard from colleagues across the House today, Madam Deputy Speaker, how that is deeply inappropriate. Member of Members of Parliament should not have to step in to resolve these cases. It's simply not good enough. In Erewash, four in every five households depend on on a car to get around. I'm always advocating personally for more and better public transport and indeed engage with the Minister regularly on this front. We've also got some good services and connections, but going without a car for months on end is simply not just an inconvenience for my constituents.

It's an enormously disruptive problem that prevents people from getting around their day to day lives. I think that Madam Deputy Speaker, especially in anticipation of new rules coming forward to make our roads safer. Someone really needs to look at how the DVLA handles health related cases and interacts with elderly drivers. I think clearer timelines would be beneficial, as would improved communication between the DVLA and the people who are forced to rely on their services. I would greatly appreciate if the Minister could comment on his work and his department's work on that front during his comments later.

For me, Madam Deputy Speaker, what most needs to be recognised here is that a lot of people who have lost their licence and then and not had them back for months through no fault of their own, not being able to drive means that their life is put on hold. It's not right and I seriously hope that the DVLA can get it sorted. Yeah.

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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole for securing this debate. Dozens of my constituents have come to me with stories of DVLA failure. Each carries a variation of the same theme a system that has let them down, often involving delays in down, often involving delays in license renewals or restorations related to medical conditions. Take the case of one self-employed constituent. Due to delays with restoring their licence, they lost more than £60,000 worth of work.

For months, their livelihood, security and mental health were left hanging by a thread. Only after pressure from my office was the matter resolved. This was a medical case and the DVLA failed to justify the delay. Another constituent who must renew every three years owing to a medical condition, had their licence rejected because the DVLA had change was incorrect. That's an administrative error. Cost them six months of their licence. A third constituent appealed the decision on their medical fitness.

In response, the DVLA sent them the full medical records of another person. The department then spent three months arguing with the GP practice over the medical fee. The DVLA were only prepared to pay a fraction of what the GP wanted. My constituent offered to pay the difference to end the argument, but this was refused and they had to make an inconvenient journey to a distant, DVLA approved GP and when the licence eventually came it was granted for one year only. The case has been ongoing for over three years, having originally been with my predecessor.

These are just some of the cases affecting my constituents. The common denominator is not the medical condition itself, it is that every one of them involves a medical issue, and every one of them has been delayed. For reasons the DVLA has never made clear. The DVLA does not operate in isolation. It depends on GPS, consultants and the wider NHS to provide the evidence it needs to make decisions. When those channels fail, the DVLA fails with them and my constituents are the ones who pay the price.

Through a Freedom of information request. A constituent discovered the backlog for medical renewals alone stands in excess of 260,000 cases. As has been mentioned earlier, the 2023 Public Accounts Committee report found that nearly 3 million people notifying the DVLA of medical conditions had experienced long delays, with some losing employment and income as a direct consequence of the committee's 11 recommendations, the then government accepted ten. The one it declined was a strategic review of how cases involving medical conditions were handled, bringing together the DVLA, the Department of Health and Social Care and the

15:32

Claire Young MP (Thornbury and Yate, Liberal Democrat)

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NHS. My casework suggests that that rejection of that recommendation was shortsighted. One of my was shortsighted. One of my constituents waited five months simply for a constituent to be asked to review their records. asked to review their records. Never mind all the steps that had to happen after that five months. to happen after that five months. The DVLA knows the problem. The Department of Health knows the problem. My constituents certainly know the problem. The only question know the problem. The only question left is whether this government does.

Chris Bloore.

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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and can I congratulate the Member for Mid Norfolk Mid Dorset and North Poole for securing today's debate? It's one of those occasions debate? It's one of those occasions where I don't actually have a written speech from my staff, but I had a member, a constituent, come had a member, a constituent, come to visit me at my most recent surgery. Most people, I suspect, use some sort of casework system, use some sort of casework system, and I think I'm up to close to 20,000 at the moment.

But this member of the public was one of, I think, between 2 and 3000. And I was kind of shocked to see someone who'd come to me so early was still on our database. And I was reminded of this extraordinary case with Mr. Levin. Mr. Fleming, who's allowed me to talk about his case, who had that had an incredible moment in his life where he was told he had a

15:33

Chris Bloore MP (Redditch, Labour)

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benign tumour in his brain. And the incredible shock of that moment, a incredible shock of that moment, a young man with with children. And he went through the whole process of diagnosis, of treatment. And of diagnosis, of treatment. And thankfully it was benign. And he managed to get himself back to full managed to get himself back to full health. And to be quite frank, the DVLA have acted in a way that I find completely unacceptable for an institution that is meant to serve the people of this country.

Now, parliamentary language means I can't actually say the words that I said to him at my surgery on Saturday, but it shouldn't be the case that someone who has gone through the six month wait after a procedure, who has had it medically proven that their site has not changed or deteriorated through over this two year process, should still be waiting for an answer about when they are getting their

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licence back. This is a constituent of mine who It was worked for HMRC, who has

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It was worked for HMRC, who has worked with the public, who has helped businesses, who is a public servant. It takes him an extra three hours to get to and from work now, because of the situation that now, because of the situation that he has been forced into. Now I credit the HMRC, which is something I don't usually do in this place, but they have actually given him the ability to work from home more often, but he wants to be in the office.

He wants to lead his team to provide a quality service for the people that he works with, and shamefully, he has had to choose semi-retirement now because he has still not got his license back. Not only did he have to go through the process of thinking about whether he may die, he now feels isolated, feels like his self-worth has been diminished just because he wants to do the basic thing, which was to go out and provide for his family now. I was shocked when I became an MP about the fact that 85% of my casework is about chasing public institutions to do the job that they're meant to do.

You know, my hon. Member from North Shropshire mentioned the DVSA. We could have a whole debate on the Dfsa as well, but I know we're not allowed to Madam Deputy Speaker right now, but it's just unacceptable that just because you send an email with a Parliament email address, that suddenly the C's part and that these things are resolved. It's just unacceptable because quite frankly, some of my constituents will not come to me to support them. Some of them don't know that that's something I could help them with.

And quite frankly, it shouldn't be in that way. So again, thank the Member for bringing this debate forward, because I can only imagine that Kevin, in my constituency is not the only person that's been impacted like this, that has had to make a huge financial decision to get on with their life. That will undoubtedly impact the way he can support his children moving forward. And so I know the Minister, I'm sure, will respond to all of the points put forward by everybody today, but this just isn't about a administrative process.

This isn't just about trying to get some wait waiting list times down. This is having a material impact on the people that we represent every day. And to be quite frank, that is just just beyond the realms of my thinking right now how this is

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being allowed to happen. So yeah. I thank my friend for giving way and he's making a passionate speech, and he's making a passionate speech, but I think there's a real danger when when these delays are having such an impact on our constituents such an impact on our constituents that our constituents and others will be led to think that they won't be honest about medical conditions in order that they can keep driving licences. And the keep driving licences. And the knock on effect of that in terms of safety on our streets is unimaginable.

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I completely I completely concur with that point. We're asking people to play by the rules, and people to play by the rules, and yet, quite frankly, the rules don't work for them either. So I conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker, just by Madam Deputy Speaker, just by adding, I would just also like to pay tribute to the work for the member from West Bromwich and Ghost member from West Bromwich and Ghost Plates. It's a moment of pride to be on her named on her bill, but be on her named on her bill, but she has done an extraordinary job in trying to fight, which, to be quite frank, is an issue across county lines in a rural constituency like mine, which is having a huge impact on safety and and criminal activity.

So I think if this the question is, is if this organisation is the DVLA fit for purpose? I think my constituents

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would probably say no. Sarah Green thank you. Madam Deputy Speaker. I welcome today's debate and congratulate my hon. Friend for securing it. I, too wish to focus this afternoon on the to focus this afternoon on the experience of those navigating the medical license renewal process, but I want to begin by but I want to begin by acknowledging that the DVLA is aware of its shortcomings in this

15:38

Sarah Green MP (Chesham and Amersham, Liberal Democrat)

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area. When the chief executive, Tim Moss, appeared before the Public Accounts Committee in October last year, he was forthcoming and he acknowledged that too many people wait too long for decisions on medical licence cases. He outlined a two stage transformation programme, the migration to a new casework platform completed in September, followed by a new medical services platform intended to digitise many of these transactions. He also confirmed that the new systems allows the DVLA to prioritise those who currently hold no licence.

That is progress worth acknowledging, but Mr. Moss himself also said that standards were, and I quote, nowhere near where we want to be. Madam Deputy Speaker One of my constituents is a retired GP with 30 years in practice. He's familiar with DVLA regulations and processes. He suffered a cardiac arrest last summer, informed the DVLA immediately and hasn't driven since. He calculated that he would be legally permitted to drive again on the 7th of February this year, and submitted his application, along with a detailed covering letter setting out all the relevant medical facts eight weeks before that date exactly as instructed, ten days before his expected return to driving, neither his GP nor his specialist had received any inquiry from DVLA medical department, so he called the dedicated medical helpline and was told your application is being processed.

He's a retired doctor. He knew that couldn't be true. An application cannot be processed without the DVLA contacting his GP or specialist to verify the medical facts. His form had been sitting untouched for weeks on end. The helpline, rather than providing accurate information, was providing cover for a backlog. What makes this case notable? Notable is that my constituents spent 30 years navigating medical bureaucracy on behalf of patients. Even he couldn't get a straight answer or any meaningful progress from the DVLA.

He put it plainly to me in his letter. The helpline uses what he called a smokescreen to disguise the backlog of what appears to be a chronically under-resourced department. I think it's a fair characterisation, and I think Mr. Moss wouldn't entirely disagree. So I returned to the question of transformation. The new casework platform is welcome. The forthcoming medical services digital platform is welcome. The commitment to prioritise those without a licence is also welcome, but a system migration does not fix the underlying problem.

If the staffing and processes within that system remain inadequate. So I have three specific asks of the Minister in relation to medical licences. The first is about transparency. The DVLA helpline must be able to tell applicants the truth about where their case stands. Your application is being processed is not an acceptable response when no processing is taking place. Applicants deserve accurate information. If it's going to take months, they should be told they can then plan accordingly. The second relates to parallel inquiries.

The DVLA initiates inquiries to GPS and specialists, sometimes late and far too often one at a time. A properly designed system would identify all necessary medical inquiries at the point of application and dispatch them all at the same time. This single change could reduce waiting times significantly without additional resource. And my third question days, while others are genuinely complex. The system should reflect that reflect that distinction formally, where specialists have already provided clear sign offs. Those cases should not be sitting in the same queue as the most complex clinical decisions.

In his evidence, Mr. Moss told the Public Accounts Committee that the DVLA understands the impact these delays have on people's lives. The impact on my constituent is that he's sitting at home unable to drive. Being told his application is being processed when it's not. I urge the Minister to ensure that the transformation programme at the DVLA delivers not just new

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technology, but genuinely improved standards of service. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Gerald Jones thank.

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Gerald Jones thank. You. Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise briefly to speak in the debate, and I'd like to congratulate the and I'd like to congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole on securing the debate and obviously, the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. As we know, and as we've heard, the DVLA covers important aspects of work to oversee driving licences

15:43

Gerald Jones MP (Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare, Labour)

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work to oversee driving licences and people's ability to drive safely. Pay tribute as others have done to the DVLA staff. Working to support my constituents. However, I also wanted to rise to highlight some issues raised by a large number of my constituents over quite a period of time, which I know is similar to concerns raised by other hon. Members. One of the most common issues related to surprise, surprise medical applications, which we've heard time and time again this afternoon, and the the crux of the issue seems to be that the system is carried out on a paper based system and by post.

And unfortunately, this adds to further delays, not helped by issues with postal deliveries. But there also seems to be a lack of coordination between the DVLA and clinicians. In addition, after applications have been processed, whatever the outcome, constituents have highlighted to me their concerns that they have significant delays in the return of documents and in some cases, the licence and delays to issuing medical letters and Madam Deputy Speaker. In the worst of the cases that I've dealt with, this has taken in excess of seven months, and that seems to be an average six seven months for some of the cases, which on the face of it, don't seem to be overly complex, but it's clearly deeply unsatisfactory that things are taking that long.

I think the hon. Member for Redditch highlighted that we only see a fraction of these cases coming to us as MPs. There are lots more behind this who try to navigate the issues on their own. So clearly, you know, we're not seeing the full extent of the the problem here. I was pleased to to see the government increasing recruitment and additional staff to support the medical teams. And whilst this is a fairly new development, I think we all look forward to seeing that investment in the workforce.

That will help, hopefully to reduce those waiting times for decisions which will in turn reduce the frustration for my constituents and many others across the country. The Dvla's medical licensing system, as we know, is a vital service to our constituents. And it's it's the case for too long. I've heard from my constituents that they've had to put up with unexpected and long delays. Minister to set out in his response to the debate today. What more can be done alongside what the.

I recognise that the government understands the issue, unfortunately, along with a number of other things, there are issues that have been inherited over a period of time from the previous government. I know there's a recognition that there is much work to do, and I hope that the Minister can outline that, because I think that the length of time that my constituents and others are waiting in the frustration and the inconvenience it causes is just too much, really, for for constituents to put up with.

Many of the constituents who have contacted me, there are Wrexham forces, veterans, public servants and people who are doing the right thing. But the system, unfortunately at the moment is letting them down. And I hope that the Minister can address that

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in his his winding up this afternoon. Thank you. Liberal Democrat spokesperson

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Olly Glover. Thank you. Madam Deputy Speaker. And I just want to thank my hon. Friend the want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole for securing a debate on this very important topic and to thank the backbench Business Committee the backbench Business Committee for choosing it, for something for us to discuss this afternoon. And

15:47

Olly Glover MP (Didcot and Wantage, Liberal Democrat)

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we've heard from many hon. Members for on the very important reasons why the d v a DVLA needs to improve. I don't really have the time to highlight all of the excellent contributions, but I do want to highlight that of the hon. Member for Redditch, who certainly need not have been apologetic about not having notes. And in fact, I would say the passion and authenticity of his speech shows the rest of us that often fewer notes can lead to much better contributions.

Alas, I have not managed to do that this afternoon. We've heard lots of reasons why a well-functioning DVLA really matters. That ranges from safety culture, which is so important for everybody on our roads. Only if the DVLA works and is one that people have faith in, will we be able to encourage everybody to do the right thing about any medical condition which any of us could, could develop and have an impact on how we and our ability to drive safely.

And that faith in public institutions and the accountability of those institutions, which we have an obligation to comply with, is very important. And it's all the more important because we've had 70 years of societal change encouraged by government policy, which means the car for most of our country remains an essential and almost inevitable form of transport. We also need a better DVLA, because the government has quite rightly set out an ambitious road safety strategy which will impose additional duties and expectations on the DVLA.

If that road safety strategy is going to succeed, and my Oxfordshire constituency of Didcot and Wantage, along with other hon. Members, I have had many constituents get in touch with issues that affect their ability to access jobs and contribute to the economy and their personal independence in their car. I've had constituents who have had very long and unexplained waits for license renewal, and I think that's often the real frustration that the accountability and the communication just aren't there from the DVLA in many cases.

Another constituent had a circular and extremely confusing communication merry go round between himself, the DVLA and medical personnel, and he turned to me and my excellent casework team for help as to how to emerge from that incredibly frustrating communication merry go round because he did not know how to get out of it. Despite his best efforts to engage with the process. We're in the midst of a vehicle. Technological revolution. Driverless taxis are being piloted in London and electric vehicles are now commonplace.

As these changes are felt on our roads, we need to have confidence in the regulator responsible for managing it. We need a dynamic organisation ready to adapt to the challenges that these changes will bring. Unfortunately, the DVLA has not given us confidence. It will be up to the task and that's not just from constituent experience. The Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office and in November 2024, Cabinet Office review all found it wanting. The well documented delays around medical driving licences show a system struggling to cope with demand.

The 2023 Public Accounts Committee report found that over 3 million people had experienced long delays, with some losing employment and income as a result. And while improvements have been made with the average time to process medical licence cases 44 days down from 54 days the year before 2024 2025, this is clearly still far too long. The the DVLA are only facing more and more demands for their services, with an ageing population and the government's plan to introduce mandatory eye tests for over 70s.

Without structural reform, this problem is not likely to improve any time soon. Equally, the DVLA capacity to administer an increasingly complex and rapidly changing vehicle excise duty regime is a concern. The current system is already complex and opaque, given that car's heavy vehicle goods, heavy goods, vehicles and motorbikes are all calculated according to different metrics. Shortly after the transition in April 2025, when electric vehicles began paying Ved, the DVLA acknowledged issues with V5C vehicle logbooks displaying incorrect tax information.

This understandably raised concerns about the robustness of the agency's data and systems. At the 2025 Budget, the government announced electric vehicle excise duty e v e d a new tax payable alongside the existing v e d v e d from April 2028. Far too many acronyms here. Madam Deputy Speaker, Given that electric vehicle registrations accounted for record 19.6% market share in 2024, this will add further administrative pressure on a DVLA already making mistakes and struggling to cope with demand. And finally, as driverless cars become more commonplace in the UK, the DVLA will play a central role in licensing, registration and data management for autonomous vehicles, a function for which the agency's current legislative mandate and systems were not designed.

And the hon. Member for West Bromwich has already highlighted some of the problems with existing licence plates and their administration. All of these changes will place greater pressure on the agency and confidence is low that they will be able to handle it. So the government needs to go faster. In their reform of the DVLA, and the 2024 report was a welcome start in identifying the structural problems the government now needs to get on with the unglamorous but essential job of genuine and meaningful system reform to make sure we have a regulator that is up to the job it is facing.

And although outside of the scope of this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, reform of the DVLA must go hand in hand with further reform of the DVSA to address the persistent backlog in practical driving tests. I look forward to

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the Minister's comments. Harlow Minister. Jerome Mayhew.

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Harlow Minister. Jerome Mayhew. Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker and I join with everyone else in the chamber in congratulating the hon. Member for congratulating the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole for securing this debate, for making a very important contribution herself very important contribution herself personally in her speech, which has been supplemented right across the

15:53

Jerome Mayhew MP (Broadland and Fakenham, Conservative)

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chamber by speech after speech, all identifying a common theme around medical cases with the DVLA as well as other issues. And I will come on to those shortly. The Dvla's role in upholding the licence system is essential for maintaining driver safety. It's a truism to say that and to show and to ensure that the correct people are behind the wheels. We should not underestimate the scale of the task. It is a huge one. Last year, the agency collected £8.4 billion of vehicle excise duty for the Exchequer.

It maintained 53 million driver records as well as 47 million vehicle records, and it processed getting on for 100 million customer customer transactions. That is no mean feat, and if we want to keep our country moving, then it's vital that the DVLA processes its work efficiently, reaching the correct answers and doing so quickly. The huge disruption caused by Covid. The Covid pandemic did see an operation creak, and it exposed its weaknesses, with systems unable to cope, amongst other things, with staff distancing.

However, thanks to important work during the last government, backlogs were brought down and longer term efficiency improvements began to be implemented. Changes were made to streamline existing processes. For example, the law was altered to help to enable healthcare professionals other than doctors to respond to DVLA medical questionnaires. And my colleague, the Shadow Secretary of State for transport as Department for Transport Minister, launched an independent examination of the DBA in 2023 to establish what the government could do to provide genuinely customer focussed services.

We had hoped that this reforming process would continue through into the new administration. After the election of July 2024. Some of it has, but as we've heard from the debate today, I'm afraid that the data suggests that in many instances, that reforming zeal has not continued. Let's first of all look at medical cases. The Dvla's own business plan tells us that the average waiting time for licensing decisions on medical cases will be within 50 days. That's a long time in its own right.

However, the government now admits that in October 2025, the waiting time was over 78 days going up, and by November the delay had increased further to over 80 days. This has real consequences. We've heard from speaker after speaker, member after member. I'm just going to pick out one the hon. Member for Guildford, in her powerful speech referenced to a constituent of hers who has stage four cancer, who has been waiting nine months and counting for a decision that is totally unacceptable across 20 2025 2026, the total average was over 56 days, missing the government's own rather slack target of 50 days.

This simply isn't acceptable. It leaves drivers in limbo, uncertain of what their fate will be. I'd very much appreciate it if the Minister could explain whether this position has improved since November of last year, the last date for which figures are publicly available. Has the government met, or is it even closer to meeting the target? The DVLA has said that it's completing the migration of its digital driver licensing services from its old digital platform onto a new strategic cloud platform, and that is progress.

But whilst this is welcome, it does not appear to align with the scale of reform that was set out by the Treasury in its 2025 departmental Efficiency plans. This listed AI initiatives to increase automation and self-service, expanding the use of robotic process automation software and automating VAT refunds, as well as wider organisational and workforce restructuring. It claimed that those taken together would secure efficiencies, net efficiencies of £39 million by 2029. But now you look at the actual business case of the department for this year, for 2025 and 26, published in March, the business plan makes no reference to AI initiatives to bring forward automation and self-service or to automate refunds for customers.

So what's happened, Madam Deputy Speaker to the plans? Has the Minister changed his mind? Has he told the Treasury? Will he tell us without this focus in the business plan, how can we ever expect to see improvements in efficiency and service for the customer? And these are not the only reforms that the DVLA is struggling with. There are challenges also around fee deficits, the government's promised efficiency savings, but it's not clear how it plans to deliver them. My colleague, the shadow transport secretary, asked about the £2.50 fee charged for the release of vehicle keeper details.

Unfortunately, and ironically, the department's written answers were later later acknowledged themselves to be partially incorrect, including inaccurate information about the requirement for legislation. So can the Minister take this opportunity? I'm sure he will, to explain whether he plans to change these fees and, crucially, whether he is confident that he can make those changes effectively, given that he was unable to provide accurate information on the process in the first place. When there are questions about efficiency savings, it appears that there is a gap between the rhetoric and the actual delivery.

Tackling cloned number plates is another problem of increasing concern, highlighted very effectively by the hon. Member for West Bromwich, the DVLA has to be supported in their work with the police to crack down on this issue. She referenced in her important speech that an example where a manufacturer was caught but the fine they received was £5,000 and they were given a non permanent ban from the registration list at the DVLA. I think it was a five year ban from memory.

That's madness. She's she's absolutely right to highlight this. So we've got to tackle the supply and use of cloned plates. Current legislation doesn't properly reflect the seriousness of this crime. Now the Conservative Party is proposing new legislation so that manufacturers and online retailers have cloned plates, would face a fine of up to £100,000 and or up to five years imprisonment. On top of that, any driver caught using a plate that does not match their vehicles registered data would incur a driving ban of up to two years, up to a year in prison and a £5,000 plant £5,000 fine.

These are not accidental infringements of driving laws. These are. This is express criminal activity, often to facilitate other crimes and it should be treated as such. Ultimately, we need to have laws in place that clamp down on criminality. It's an oddity. Madam Deputy Speaker, that it's much harder to scrap a car than it is to buy one. To scrap a vehicle, you need ID, you need a vehicle license, and you need a UK bank account. Whereas to buy one, you just turn up and pay over the cash.

It's a gateway for thousands of uninsured vehicles to be used for criminal purposes, and it makes no sense this difference. So why don't we tighten up the rules so that if a person wants to buy a car, at the least they have to record their driving license with the government? Will the government consider working with the DVLA to support our proposal? Just to tighten up that method of removing uninsured vehicles from the road, the DVLA is ripe for further reform. Its services are ideal for use of AI to improve productivity, reduce costs and improve responsiveness.

Instead of being paralysed by the Mandelson affair, the government needs to focus on driving through reforms to serve the driving public and clamp down on vehicle related crime. Whilst I'm concerned that the current data appears to be going in the wrong direction, there is still time for the government to turn this around. We have a plan for improvements and I look forward to hearing that the government has won two.

16:01

Simon Lightwood MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport) (Wakefield and Rothwell, Labour )

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Minister Minister Simon Lightwood. Lightwood. >> Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I'm grateful for the opportunity to respond to this debate on the respond to this debate on the reform of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the DVLA. I Licensing Agency, the DVLA. I appreciate the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole for securing today's debate and for the backbench Business Committee for facilitating it. The DVLA touches almost every household in the United Kingdom. It is one of the most advanced and large scale digital organisations in government, handling billions of interactions each year.

Over 84% of transactions are now completed online, and for most drivers, this system works well. A standard non-medical driving licence application is typically processed in just 2 to 3 days, which demonstrates what a modern public service can achieve at scale. However, I want to focus today on whether service has not worked well enough. Drivers, medical services and explain what is being done to put that right. Drivers medical services has been a source of significant concern for members across this House and more importantly, for our constituents.

For many people, the ability to drive is essential. It supports independence, employment, caring responsibilities and access to healthcare. When a licence is delayed because of a medical investigation, the impact is immediate and it's personal. People can face lost income, isolation, missed appointments and prolonged uncertainty. The government is clear that the service levels in the driver's medical services have fallen below expectations for far too many drivers who are waiting for a licensing decision. Often, as has been pointed out numerous times today, after doing everything they've been asked to do now, I'm not going to stand here and make excuses.

I'm not going to point to the previous administration for the mess we inherited. But what I am going to say is I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. To all those who have been impacted by these delays. And we're going to put things right. We are putting things right. Your frustration is justified and it deserves both explanation and it deserves action. It is important to understand the scale and the complexity of the challenge. Demand for medical licensing decisions has risen sharply and consistently in in 2024 to 2025 alone, the DVLA made more than 830,000 medical licensing decisions, the vast majority of which did not involve MPs, and nor should they have to.

And demand continues to rise, driven in part by an ageing population who quite rightfully wishes to remain mobile and independent for longer. Not all medical cases are the same. As has been pointed out, many straightforward cases, such as those notified online for well controlled diabetes, for instance, can be resolved quickly, sometimes within days. But an increasingly increasing proportion are complex and required. Detailed clinical evidence from NHS professionals or specialist reports and examinations, all of which, I would add should be paid for by the DVLA.

Those decisions cannot be rushed. The DVLA is overriding duty is to protect road safety and every decision must be based on sound medical advice. That evidence is informed by six independent medical advisory panels covering key conditions that affect safe driving, including cardiovascular, neurological, psychiatric and visual disorders. These expert panels ensure decisions reflect modern clinical practice and support the introduction of new treatments. A good example is the recent change, allowing drivers with diabetes to use continuous glucose monitoring, removing a significant burden for drivers while improving efficiency.

Now, despite the dedication of DVLA staff, demand has at times exceeded capacity. The pressure was compounded by the need to replace legacy IT system. Introducing a modern casework system was essential, but it required investment. It required experienced staff input and it required training in the short term that has contributed to longer decision times, which rose to 71 working days alongside increased compliance call volumes and correspondence, of course, from members. What matters now is progress, and progress is being made.

Since September 2025, all new and renewed medical cases have been processed through a single modern digital casework system. Legacy cases have also been migrated, meaning all driver medical teams are now working in one digital environment. On 31st March, the DVLA launched its new digital medical services platform. This allows for more drivers to notify conditions, apply for new and renew licences online. It reduces errors, improves accuracy and enables staff to focus on the most complex cases. Initial case actions can now be taken within 24 hours.

Staff are supported by Decision Tree Logic and customers can be contacted by email. Reducing uncertainty and ensuring communication is flowing. I might add on the email point, there is some sections of the law which stipulate it must be done in in writing. Still, the system will continue to be developed further automation of letters and medical questionnaires are planned and more customers will be brought onto the platform over time, driving further efficiency. Alongside digital reform, the DVLA has also increased staffing capacity.

43 additional medical case workers are already in training, with a further 22 joining shortly. The steps we are taking are already delivering results. The average time to make a licensing decision in medical cases so far in April is 56.6 working days, a significant reduction from 71.4 days in February. The DVLA will continue to prioritise cases where driver needs or drivers need their licence for work or other urgent purposes. Members may also be aware in many cases, drivers are legally able to continue to drive while applications are processed where it is safe to do so under something called has been mentioned section 88.

And whilst the delays raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash on the return of those licences should not be happening. They should be covered by that section 88 ability, but I'm happy to pick up specific cases, both for my friend and any other members here today, but some delays remain unavoidable, particularly where information from healthcare professionals are outstanding. The DVLA issues automated reminders, but safe licensing decisions depend on adequate medical input. That is why the DVLA is also working with the Department for science, Innovation and Technology through the Customer First program, which is exploring further reforms to the driver's medical processes, including secure digital links with the NHS.

These changes sit within a wider transformation of the DVLA, the new Driver and Vehicles account, which allows motorists to manage their details digitally and self-serve more easily. By 2030, the DVLA intends to operate as an even more digital insight led organisation which is faster, which is fairer and which is more consistent, while retaining safeguards for vulnerable drivers. No one underestimates the impact these delays have had, but it is right to acknowledge that real action is underway and real progress is now being delivered.

Madam Deputy Speaker. Every life lost on our roads is a tragedy. Younger drivers are disproportionately involved in serious road collisions. Drivers aged 17 to 24 make up just 6% of licence holders, yet they're involved in nearly a quarter of all fatal and serious collisions. Those figures are stark and demand action. That is why the government's road safety strategy includes a consultation on minimum learning periods before a learner driver can take their practical test. This would allow learners greater exposure to vary conditions such as driving in poor weather or at night, or in heavier traffic, helping them to develop essential skills and judgement while preserving their freedoms that come with passing a test.

We are also consulting on lowering the the drink drive limit for newly qualified drivers, alongside continued investment in the think campaign, which targets those most at risk, particularly young men focusing on speeding and drink driving. Road safety is not only about young drivers, though. Everyone deserves to feel safe on our roads, including older drivers and families. Around 24% of drivers killed in 2024 were aged 70 or over. While many older people drive safely well into later life, it is right to address risks linked to eyesight and cognitive change.

That is why we are consulting on mandatory eye testing for drivers aged 70 and over, and developing options for cognitive testing, recognising that fitness to drive is about capability, not about age. I'd really encourage members to ensure that their constituents engage with the consultation that is under way. And just to pick up on one point about the lady mentioned about optometrists, they are able to inform the DVLA of a medical condition, including eyesight issues. If a patient can't or won't.

And I think that's important to point out. Turning to the growing concern around ghost plates and other non-compliant number plates, which my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich raised today, which undermine road safety and enforcement. Let me be clear it is already illegal to sell or display ghost or non-compliant number plates only. DVLA approved registered number plate suppliers may supply plates and they must meet strict standards and keep records. Drivers who use illegal plates can face fines of up to £1,000.

Jim Shannon.

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I'm grateful for the Minister giving way. This isn't a party political point because I'm sure blame can be focussed on my party blame can be focussed on my party as well. But does he recognise that when you have 34,000 registered when you have 34,000 registered suppliers, it's an impossible task for the DVLA to keep any kind of meaningful record as to whether or

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meaningful record as to whether or not they are in fact, compliant. Minister Mike Wood.

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I think I'll go on to address that point two degrees in a moment. Enforcement at the roadside is a matter of course for the police, supported by the DVLA enforcement officers working closely with trading standards to tackle illegal supplies. The government is not standing still. We are working with policing partners, including funding the Roads Policing Innovation Programme to strengthen enforcement. We're also reviewing the registered Number Plate supplier scheme, considering a new British standard for plates, and exploring how technology can identify illegal plates more effectively.

We also understand the importance of accurate records, and whilst the vast majority of vehicle records held by the DVLA have up to date and traceable registered keepers, we're always looking at ways to improve that accuracy. In conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker, drivers deserve timely and safe decisions. Staff deserve modern systems that support their professional judgement, and the public deserves confidence that safety and fairness remain at the heart of our licensing system. Acknowledging where services have fallen short matters, but so does recognising the progress that has been made.

I commend these efforts to the House.

16:14

Vikki Slade MP (Mid Dorset and North Poole, Liberal Democrat)

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Madam Deputy Speaker. who've spoken in the debate today. And the spokesperson, shadow Minister and Minister for their comments. And I'm very glad that the chair of the backbench business debate is here, so we can thank him again for allowing this debate. I again for allowing this debate. I think that's about the fifth time that's been referenced. I also want to just briefly say, I hope that everyone whose case is referenced today get their licenses back very soon, and that MPs can actually reduce their inbox so that we can get on with doing the job that we were sent here to do, and not just being additional caseworkers.

But I must pay tribute to all of the caseworkers in all of our offices who are doing the bulk of this work and helping those constituents in, particularly my fantastic team led by Emily the. The DVLA relies on trust, accountability, and it's there for safety. And I also want to thank the Minister for his apology. It is rare that we get a straightforward sorry from a government Minister, so that is very welcome. And I'm hopeful, from what he said, that we can look forward to a much more efficient system for all those of us as we come to renew our licences.

Thank you. The question is, as on the Order Paper, as many that opinion say I of the contrary, no. the ayes have it, the ayes have it. That is the end of that debate. I'll let the end of that debate. I'll let the front bench shuffle over. The question is that this House do now adjourn and I come to Bob Blackman on the implementation of the Supported Housing 2023 Bob Blackman.

16:15

Bob Blackman MP (Harrow East, Conservative)

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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I beg to move to the House has considered the implementation of the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023, so I rise to speak about an issue that goes to the very heart and responsibilities that we have as parliamentarians, namely, the duty to protect the most vulnerable people in our society from exploitation, neglect and harm. Now, in 2016, I had the honour of being selected in or drawn in the private members ballot. Now, at the time I sat on the Housing Communities Local Government Select Committee for some 14 years prior to the general election, we were conducting an inquiry into homelessness in England, and I was shocked by the treatment that single homeless people received from local authorities and the public sector in general.

So I had the privilege of sponsoring the Homelessness Reduction Act, which eventually became an Act of Parliament in 2017. It took 18 months for the act to be enacted, and the legislation was there to transform how we prevent and respond to homelessness in this country. It was built on a very simple but powerful principle that early intervention, dignity and support can actually change lives. And to date, Madam Deputy Speaker, my act has prevented 1.6 million people from becoming homeless.

Now, in 2022, once again, we were doing an inquiry at the behest of a lot of several Birmingham PS about the what can only be described as the Wild West situation in terms of supported housing in Birmingham. So we agreed to do an inquiry into the position of of what was going on in Birmingham, and we were shocked when we went to Birmingham and saw whole streets where rogue landlords had bought up houses, three bedroom houses, extended them to the side, to the rear and above, and converted three bedroom houses into eight single room properties with a small kitchen, small bathroom on a shared basis.

More shocking than that was the fact that these landlords were not providing any support whatsoever to the vulnerable people that were living in these properties. So you could have when we saw these houses, you could have someone who'd been a drug addict next door to a drug pusher, next door to a lady who was fleeing domestic violence, next door to someone who'd been convicted of domestic violence. There was no regulation at all. Birmingham City Council, to be fair to them, had introduced a voluntary scheme.

But unfortunately, the rogue landlords were the ones that wouldn't register. So it's very important as we we go through this particular legislation that we pay tribute to the wonderful charities up and down this country that provide not only a home, but support for vulnerable people. So I having drawn in the private member's bill ballot in 2022, I then took the step of introducing the what is now, of course, the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act, so that this house and the other place took the vital steps when it supported that act.

So I worked with charities such as crisis and as the act was born out of necessity, with mounting evidence. In too many cases that supported housing was failing the very people it was meant to help, and rogue landlords were getting away without proper regulation. Now, I think it's fair to say Madam Deputy Speaker, I have been patient, given that this was actually passed in 2023. We're still in 2026 and of course, the Act still has not been brought into operation. And I do know, of course, that the government has consulted on this particular act, and I welcome the fact that the government have continued to commit to implementing the act.

And as it's been set out in the recent response to the consultation, which once again, I welcome from the Department, but I must be clear we're in the. We're now in the time of consultation and delay. It must be over. We've got to get on with this because vulnerable people every single day are being exploited by those rogue landlords. So the need for action is urgent and immediate. Because while we continue to talk about this, rogue landlords continue to operate while we delay.

Vulnerable people continue to suffer and public money continues to flow into the hands of those exploit who exploit those in need rather than support them. So supported housing should be one of the great strengths of our social system. It provides accommodation alongside care, support and supervision for people literally rebuilding their lives. Let's not forget these people may have experienced homelessness, they may have fled domestic abuse, they may be living with complex needs and the good charities assess the need before, just after they provide a roof over their heads and supply the network of support.

The rogue landlords pop along once a week and say, everyone all right, yes, see you next week. And that's the extent of the support that they receive now as crisis has set out. When delivered, well supported housing can provide high quality transitional homes that help people move on from homelessness and rebuild their independence. And I miss UK's recent Rebuilding Lives report reinforces this, showing how good supportive housing offers not just shelter, but but provide purpose and opportunities for training and work which are key ingredients in helping people to regain stability and confidence.

So when it works well, supporting housing supportive housing is transformative and it provides a pathway to independence, access to employment to rebuild relationships and move on to settled homes. It saves the public purse billions by reducing demand on the health, criminal justice and emergency services. However, when it fails and when rogue landlords take control, we've seen individuals punished for daring to get a job because if they get a job, they lose their housing benefit. If they lose their housing benefit, the landlord can't charge the earth for rent.

So and indeed, these rogue landlords refuse to provide even basic support. And sometimes, as I've said, they literally house people next door to the very people they're fleeing. Now, over recent years, we've seen the rise of rogue operators in the exempt accommodation sector. Crisis has documented how these providers exploit gaps in regulation, particularly in non commissioned accommodation, where oversight is at its weakest. They've entered the market not to deliver support but to maximise profit. And that's because exempt accommodation allows providers to charge higher rents through housing benefit, recognising that supporting vulnerable people comes with additional costs.

But here comes the fundamental flaw. As highlighted by crisis, there's been no consistent, enforceable mechanism to ensure that the support justifying those higher rents is delivered, and no single regulator responsible for overseeing that support. So the result is that in some cases, we are rewarding exploitation. We've heard deeply troubling accounts from residents. Crisis has reported people being shared to by being forced to share basic facilities with literally dozens of others living in properties which are plagued by damp mould and vermin and experiencing intimidation and abuse.

And I've spoken to tenants who literally were abused and forced to move from one property to another. Some have even been forced back into homelessness to escape these conditions. Others have been charged additional fees for support that doesn't exist. Charges that eat into their already limited incomes and push people further into poverty. And heaven help those vulnerable people from daring to get a job. As the drop in housing support means the rogue landlord in most cases kicks them out. These findings are echoed in wider sector evidence, including the collapse of providers such as Prospect Housing, where residents were charged for inadequate or absent support.

So let's be absolutely clear this is not an isolated problem. Whilst I remember, as I said, visiting cities like Birmingham where the issues with supported housing have been at the forefront of these challenges, crisis and other organisations have identified similar patterns across London, the Midlands, South East and beyond. Rogue providers are expanding, exploiting inconsistencies in oversight between local authorities and adapting their business models to stay one step ahead of enforcement. Now, local authorities are not responsible for assessing eligibility for housing benefit and verifying that support is being provided.

But as crisis has highlighted, once again they face significant barriers, limited resources, inconsistent powers and legal constraints. There's also evidence that some councils struggle to proactively verify whether meaningful support is being delivered at all. Now other regulators exist, but none have comprehensive responsibility for the support element of exempt accommodation. Guidance, such as the national Statement of Expectations, sets out a vision, but it's not legally enforceable. Voluntary standards exist in some areas, but compliance is optional. In short, the system has allowed far too many providers to slip

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through the cracks. I will indeed. Chris Bloore thank you, Madam. Deputy Speaker. I think he's

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Deputy Speaker. I think he's making an excellent speech, and I just wanted to reiterate his point about I have an extraordinary situation in in Worcestershire, where many of my housing officers actually aren't in the region that actually aren't in the region that they serve. They're not even in the borough that they serve. And I find borough that they serve. And I find it extraordinary that I get regular interventions from the police telling me where the supported housing locations have cropped up in my own patch, and that my housing officers or housing teams have, don't even know that they exist in the local authority area.

And yet we are surprised that these people often live in squalor. And to the extent where some of my own residents, some of the most vulnerable residents, have chosen to live in tents in parks rather than being those supported housing accommodation.

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I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. And clearly, if they're living in tents or homeless on the streets, they're not getting on the streets, they're not getting the support they need to rebuild their lives, which is the key. So, Madam Deputy Speaker, this is why I introduced the Act act in the first place. It provides the framework we need to bring order, accountability need to bring order, accountability and integrity to the sector. The act enables the introduction of national supported housing standards, clear benchmarks for what good looks like, covering both accommodation and support.

It establishes a licensing regime, empowering local authorities to approve, monitor and, where necessary, shut down providers who fail to meet the standards. It requires councils to develop local strategies, ensuring that supported housing provision is aligned with genuine local need, rather than being driven by profit, an issue that's been highlighted by both Crisis and Emmaus research. And crucially, it allows for the linking of enhanced housing benefit to compliance, ensuring that public money supports only those providers who meet the required standards.

The reality is that this is costing the taxpayer an absolute fortune when it's going to rogue landlords. Now, the government's recent response to the consultation provides much needed further detail on how the measures will be implemented, and I welcome the commitment to a national licensing system and the introduction of a national supported housing standards and the application of a fit and proper person test for those managing schemes. I hope, though, we can actually make sure that some of the weasel ways that some of these regulations get around this can be corrected.

These are supposed to be not for profit organisations, but often allow a person will buy a property then and then rent it to a registered charity, who then charge the rent and and pay the rent to the landlord. And although they the charity's not making a profit, the owner of the property is making a fortune. So I hope we can correct that particular area. I also welcome the decision, strongly supported by crisis, to make eligibility for Enhanced Housing Benefit contingent on a scheme holding a licence.

This gives the system real teeth, removing the financial incentive that has driven rogue providers into the market. But I must express my concern about the timeline. The government has indicated the implementation will begin begin in April 2027, four years after my act received Royal Assent. So I welcome the commitment. But we've. We've pointed out there must be no further delay given the scale of harm which has already been caused, and the times that since the act was approved.

During that time, the harms we sought to address have continued and actually have escalated. So we must continue to ensure they do not continue this profit making every month of delay allows rogue landlords to operate unchecked. Every delay means more vulnerable people placed unsafe conditions, and every delay represents a failure to deliver on the promise we made on a cross-party basis in this House. So we must ask ourselves how many more people suffer before the powers are brought into into force.

We must recognise that regulation alone is not enough. The problem in this sector has been exacerbated by years of underinvestment in support services. Crisis has made clear that the growth of poor quality non-commissioned provision is closely linked to the decline in funding for support and the absence of a dedicated national funding stream. Housing benefit can cover higher rents, but it can't fund support services. That creates a perverse incentive. Providers must house people with support needs to qualify for higher payments, but there's no dedicated funding to meet those needs.

Some providers go to great lengths to bridge this gap, relying on charitable funding or volunteers, as highlighted by Emmaus, whose model demonstrates the value of meaningful activity, work and community. Others, however, pass the cost on to the residents, charging additional fees that push people further into poverty. Now, if we're serious about making this work, we must address this imbalance. The Treasury's ongoing review of homelessness spending presents an opportunity to align funding with the new regulatory framework. As crisis has argued, this must include a reset and increase in funding for support services, including approaches such as Housing First and floating support.

So I would urge the government to a majority, not only their side, but support across the House on this issue. To really get on and do this, we must ensure that local authorities have the resources they need to implement licensing and enforcement. The new burdens placed on councils must be fully funded. If the system is to succeed, and we must ensure that as we tackle rogue provision, we don't inadvertently increase homelessness. So the government's commitment to produce guidance on rehousing residents affected by scheme closures is welcome.

But the caution here guidance alone is not enough. Local authorities must be supported financially and strategically to prevent homelessness and to take a proactive, coordinated approach. We must also listen to those with lived experience. Evidence from residents, including the testimonies gathered by Emma's, consistently showed that the good, supportive housing is about more than accommodation. It's about meaningful support, opportunities for training and work, and a sense of community and belonging. It's about rebuilding lives and we must ensure these voices are at the heart of the new system shaping national standards, informing local strategies and holding providers to account.

Ultimately, that is what this act is about. It's about people. People who already faced significant hardship and who do deserve better than from us. So the act represents a once in a generation opportunity to reset the system, to drive out rogue landlords, raise standards, and to ensure that supported housing truly supports those in need. Just look at the success of my first act. I say again, 1.6 million people from prevented from being made homeless. And that's why we must implement the Supported Housing Regulatory Oversight Act.

We must do so with urgency. So in closing, I ask the government very simply bring forward the regulations, bring forward the guidance, ensure the April 2027 timetable is met without further delay. Provide the resources needed for effective implementation and ensure that no further delays stand in the way of protecting vulnerable people. Let us honour the intent of this House. Let us deliver on the promise we made in 2023, and let us never, ever again have a position where vulnerable people be treated as commodities in a broken system.

So, Madam Deputy Speaker, the time for action is now, and I look forward to the minister's response.

16:33

Alison McGovern MP, Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Birkenhead, Labour)

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Minister Alison McGovern. >> Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. And can I just begin by saying thank you to the Member for Redditch for his contribution to a Redditch for his contribution to a debate brought up by the hon. Member for Harrow East that reflected his extensive experience in this area. And as he relayed it to the House, some of the success that his legislation has already had, I just want to start by saying, in response to the points that he he made at the end there about what he's asking the government to do and his summary of the next steps.

I wholeheartedly agree with him. And I hope that anybody listening to this debate who has an interest in this will understand the cross-party support for this action clearly is we waste far too much time in this place. Madam Deputy Speaker in disagreement when there are issues like this, where there is significant cross-party agreement, where I hope that everyone will understand we are going to crack on with this because it is important for all the reasons that he mentions. I want to pay tribute to crisis and to Emmaus for the work that he mentions also, and for the attention that they've brought to this, but also that I hope that he will see that spirit of prevention running through our homelessness strategy, which we published in December, because the best homelessness policies are the ones that stop the trauma before it begins.

The Supported Housing Regulatory Oversight Act that he mentions is an important piece of legislation. It was introduced because supported housing can play a vital role, often providing stability and support for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities and where delivered well. It offers safe accommodation to help people live with dignity. But this House has heard that there have also been worrying examples where the system has not worked at all as it should. Examples of poor quality accommodation, weak oversight and vulnerable residents badly let down.

That's why this act matters. It provides the basis for

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strong oversight, clear standards Taylor. I thank my hon. Friend for

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I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and I pay tribute to the work of the hon. Gentleman and the organisations which you've the organisations which you've mentioned. I too in my constituency in North Warwickshire and Bedworth, hear stories of people who have been evicted from their supported housing. When they've gone on to get work, they should be good stories, they should be good news stories. But instead those people then find it extremely difficult to find accommodation with other landlords because they can't get references from the previous landlord because they were kicked out for not paying over inflated rents.

So it really is high time that this government, with our values, does something about this appalling situation.

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Mr. McGovern. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the hon. Lady for that I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention and those trigger points that she mentions that can inadvertently exacerbate homelessness is exactly the point of the duty to collaborate that we've brought forward with the homelessness strategy, and we'll be homelessness strategy, and we'll be working on the exact point that she mentions. It is important to get mentions. It is important to get the detail right. There's broad support for improving standards and support in supported housing, and rightly so.

And the hon. Member mentioned the consultation response we recently published this month. We need to make sure that the framework we put in place is workable, proportionate and fair, and regulation will target poor practice without creating unnecessary burdens for the many responsible providers who are delivering good quality support every day across the country, there are providers doing excellent work. There are housing associations, charities, local organisations and others that are operating high quality, supported housing for those who need it most.

That's why we'll drive out the very poor practice while supporting and protecting good providers. So the government is committed to not just to the aims of the act, but implementing it in a way that works on the ground. Now, the member mentioned the Treasury's value for money review as well. This is a very, very important element of this work. We are wasting taxpayers money for very poor outcomes. None of us can tolerate that. So Ministers are working together on that value for money review.

We've established the Supported Housing Advisory Panel to bring together expertise from across the sector and inform how the act is implemented. And just this morning, I met with the chair, Sir David Pearson, and I am confident that under his leadership, the panel will provide insight and challenge as a critical friend as we reform supported housing. And if I may say to the House, I have asked him to meet with parliamentarians as well to brief them directly. We have also published guidance to support local authorities in developing their supported housing strategies, which will help them identify and respond to need in their area.

Alongside that, we've provided funding to local authorities to support the development of those strategies and that work is now underway in many areas, and this is not the end of that support. Further funding will follow to help authorities move on to the next stage, including the setup of licensing schemes. These are important steps and I have heard very clearly what the hon. Gentleman has said on the length of time between the legislation being enacted and its provisions being felt on the ground, I have a lot of sympathy with his point.

I am trying to help with this, but I know that if I don't and if there's delay, I will be asked many times about it at this Dispatch Box. So it's in all of our interests to get on with this. The effectiveness of this act will depend on the regulations, on the support standards and on the way these powers are used. That means continuing to work carefully through the detail, listening to residents, providers and local authorities, and making sure the final framework delivers the improvements that residents badly need.

We're also making sure, as I've said, that in raising standards, we preserve the good that already exists and in fact, shine a light on it. You don't want to undermine the providers who are already doing the right thing with supported housing. We want to strengthen that system so that people can continue to work with confidence, whilst poor providers and those who are bringing about some of these terrible circumstances are no longer able to exploit the system. And I think that approach is the right one.

It's the way to protect residents, improve quality and maintain a supported housing sector, meeting the needs of the people who really need it most. And as part of that approach, we'll soon consult on the actual draft regulations. We are committed to the purpose of the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023. We recognise its importance and how impactful it will be when its provisions are finally in full force. I again thank hon. Members for their contributions to.

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Thank you, Madam Speaker. I thank the Minister for the response that she. Given thus far, obviously, I'm not going to get into the I'm not going to get into the politics of this, but local government reorganisation is going on. And could she just say a little bit about what's going to happen in terms of ensuring that local government sets up in the right scheme?

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scheme? Minister McGovern. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker,

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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, And there is a response to this in the consultation response that we published recently. I am very conscious of all of the potential effects of local government reorganisation. I think unitary the creation of unitary councils is the right thing because where you have the splitting of functions that can make tackling homelessness and bringing the act into force harder than it needs to be. But, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am conscious that this will be a period of transition and that those areas undergoing reorganisation do need particular attention in relation to this.

So I would just thank him for raising that. And we have got it on our on our agenda. I do want to thank the hon. Member for Harrow East for all the work that he has done, keeping attention focussed on this issue. It has been very good to work with him so far on it, and I look forward to doing so even more in the near future. We need to make progress on this and I am determined that we will do so.

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The question is. This House do now adjourn. As many say, I, I the ayes have it, the ayes have it.

09:00

Oral questions: Cabinet Office

This debate has concluded

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