Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

Debate between Helen Morgan and Daisy Cooper

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Helen Morgan]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be one of those victims—one of those survivors—and to see repeatedly over the years the establishment closing ranks around those who knew Epstein and telling us that everything is okay. The hon. Gentleman is entirely right that this whole process must be extremely painful for everyone involved, so the victims should be foremost in everything we do.

[Daisy Cooper]

One of the things that I have been struck by as we have heard more and more revelations is that it is difficult for some members of the public to keep up, and that many of them—particularly a number of women—want to turn away from what they see on their screens. Does my hon. Friend agree that what we see unfolding before our eyes is a conspiracy of silence? Horrific acts were allowed to take place in the shadows, and we are increasingly seeing that the arms of the British state protected, facilitated or colluded in horrific acts by people in power. Does she agree that this House must make the boldest statement it can that we will not rest until we have turned over every single stone?

[Helen Morgan]

My hon. Friend puts it better than I could; she is entirely right. We have seen complicity by people at the heart of the British establishment—we are in the right place to hold them to account—and the international establishment. Either they turned a blind eye to Jeffrey Epstein’s acts, or they were possibly implicated in them—we do not know for sure yet. But those who turned a blind eye must have known what was going on. It is not normal for an older businessman to be surrounded by young teenagers all the time and to receive massages from them—as we know, there were all sorts of other terrible acts. People thought that was somehow normal, acceptable or even admirable. We heard Donald Trump say that some of those girls were “on the younger side”, as if that were something to be applauded. It is appalling. Those people must have known, and if they chose not to look, they are part of the problem.

The decades-long cover-up must have compounded the trauma suffered by those women, who were children at the time. We must put the victims first and allow the police investigations to go ahead, but we need to look at the wider elements of the scandal too.

Hospitals

Debate between Helen Morgan and Daisy Cooper

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Helen Morgan]

I will make some progress.

One of the main reasons those problems have not been rectified is successive delays from successive Governments. Shropshire is, again, a prime example. This is not related to the new hospital programme, but none the less, £312 million was granted for the hospital transformation programme in Shropshire back in 2018. Seven years later, while the country has been through five Prime Ministers and eight different Health Secretaries, Shropshire is still waiting for that transformation to take place. Opposition from both the Labour and Conservative councils that serve the area, along with the ridiculously lengthy process that capital expenditure has to go through to be signed off, means that desperately needed improvements have been horribly delayed as construction costs rise. As a result, the original plans have been scaled back and their value diminished.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

My hon. Friend mentions the inordinate delays that occur with regard to applications for capital funds. I have watched with horror as my local hospital trust in West Hertfordshire has had to submit business case after business case while watching the costs rack up. Does she agree that one way to spend the allocated money more efficiently would be by devolving those budgets to local hospital trusts, rather than having a centralised programme that drives up the costs?

[Helen Morgan]

I could not agree more. That is exactly the situation we saw in Shropshire. Once again, the people who will suffer are the patients.

Last year, less than £900 million of the £13.8 billion required to eradicate the repair backlog for hospitals was invested—just 6.5%. It does not take an accountant to work out that at that rate, it will take 15 years to clear the current backlog, let alone the further deterioration of the crumbling buildings. Investment in eradicating the repair backlog fell sharply from £1.4 billion in 2021 to £895 million in 2023-24—a fall of 37%. I am afraid that, just like their approach to fixing social care, the Government’s continued lack of imagination and ambition is leaving our NHS less productive and less stable, which risks leaving millions languishing on NHS waiting lists.