Courts and Tribunals Bill

Debate between Caroline Johnson and Josh Fenton-Glynn

2nd reading
Tuesday 10th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Johnson]

That is why I have explained that the presumption is that the parents have involvement. The court must take the risks to the child into consideration and, unless shown otherwise, give contact to both parents. If the child is at risk, however, the court has the absolute right to prevent the child from seeing those parents or to restrict contact to different forms and timeframes. The welfare of the child is key in those decisions.

That is in line with international law, which I know the Government are fond of. The UN convention on the rights of the child says that parents and children should maintain

“personal relations and direct contact with both parents on a regular basis, except if it is contrary to the child’s…interests.”

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Johnson]

Not for the moment. Article 8 of the European convention on human rights provides the right to family life and suggests that consideration be given to all alternatives before ordering no contact. The Government, however—

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

Will she please give way?

[Dr Johnson]

I give way.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

In talking about the right to family life, the hon. Lady is talking not about the rights of the children, but about the rights of the abusers. If we start from the idea that an abuser has the right to contact their children, we end up with bad decisions. That is why, in the past 30 years, 67 children have died when contact should not have been granted. That is the change that we are making, those are the lives that we are saving and that is why it is important to do this today.

[Dr Johnson]

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I will continue my speech and perhaps he will listen to what I have to say.

The purpose of court decisions is, as the hon. Gentleman said, to prevent unsafe contact and to prevent tragedies. As a paediatrician, I have seen situations where children have been given back to parents and have come to significant harm as a result. I have dealt with and looked after those children, and unfortunately they have not been protected or saved in every case. The law is there to prevent unsafe contact, but the children’s needs must be put first, with the power to restrict access where they are in danger. The court must listen to all the evidence available, but no system is infallible and sometimes judges get it wrong. When they do, the outcomes can be hugely tragic, leading to the loss or serious injury of a child.

I know that this legislation has been brought forward with good intentions. The test is whether it will prevent such harm and such tragedies. I think that it might not. The reason is that the impact assessment produced by the Government says that it is “unlikely to materially change” the outcome in court. If that is the case, what is the point of the legislation? Will it, on the other hand, reduce the likelihood of children seeing their parents? Will that, in and of itself, cause some harm? Will it prevent some children from having the contact they need with their family members? Will it prevent the tragedies that we wish to prevent or not? Will it isolate those children who will come to harm? Do we have the right risk assessments to do that?

Every single one of us in this House wants to protect children. We need to improve the risk assessments and ensure that social workers have time to make proper risk assessments so that they identify the children who may be at risk and separate them from those who are not. We also need to improve the representation of children in court. I was once in court, in the witness box, and the barrister who was representing the children got up to speak. He asked me a question, but he had forgotten the name of one of the two children in the family and I had to remind him from the witness box. We really need to improve the quality of the representation of children.

Department of Health and Social Care

Debate between Caroline Johnson and Josh Fenton-Glynn

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Johnson]

One of the key things about the Government’s deal is that they have given in on money without asking for anything in return in terms of productivity. The Government needed to agree a pay deal that was sensible and affordable, not talk about the money that they are giving to the NHS while taking away with the other hand in taxes.

Let us hear what some healthcare providers have had to say about the implications of Labour’s NICs rises for their constituents’ healthcare. The Royal College of General Practitioners has warned that the NICs increase will force GP practices to choose between redundancies and closure. The hospice sector believes that the cost of national insurance rises could be £30 million a year. The Government have given that sector a capital grant worth £100 million, which is welcome and will improve facilities; however, if those facilities are empty and cannot be staffed, they will not deliver much in the way of improvement. Air ambulances are also under threat from the Chancellor’s rise in national insurance and taxes in last year’s autumn Budget, with the local service in my constituency, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire air ambulance—which is entirely charitably funded—needing to find another £70,000 just to pay for those national insurance rises.

The Independent Pharmacies Association estimates that the rises in employer national insurance contributions and the minimum wage will cost the average pharmacy over £12,000 a year, totalling more than £125 million for the sector as a whole. Nick Kaye, chairman of the National Pharmacy Association, has warned that

“Pharmacies face a financial cliff edge at the beginning of April, with a triple whammy of rising National Insurance, National Living Wage, and business rates all arriving at once.”

What impact will this have on our constituents’ health? The Government talk a good talk about bringing healthcare closer to the community, but actions speak louder than words, and putting extra pressure on community-delivered services is not a good way of delivering their aims.

The Nuffield Trust suggests that the national insurance rise alone will add a £900 million burden to the adult social care sector. With other new costs factored in, the care sector is believed to be facing a bill of an additional £2.8 billion, dwarfing the £600 million extra allocated to the local authorities responsible for providing social care. This will have a devastating knock-on effect: the amount of care that can be bought by local authorities will fall, the cost of private care will rise—so more people will be reliant on the state, rather than the private sector—and the waiting lists that the Government claim to prioritise will also rise. The Nuffield Trust warns that many small care providers will either have to increase prices, stop accepting council-funded patients, or go bust.

That will have a knock-on effect on the hospital sector, as people are unable to be discharged because there is not adequate social care for them. The Government talk about creating a new national care service, but they have managed to damage the existing one by hiking the costs borne by care homes through national insurance rises and other tax and wage increases.

In January, the Government announced a deal with private hospitals in an attempt to cut waiting lists. The deal, which sounded good to start with, would see private hospitals being paid for each patient that they treated, incentivising them to treat as many people as possible. However, The Times reported that NHS England has recently capped the amount that each hospital can be paid. The chief executive of the Independent Healthcare Providers Network has warned that the policy will actually lengthen waiting times. Will the Minister comment on that?

The Minister is focused on prevention, but when the Government announced that they would be cutting the overseas development aid budget by 40%, the Prime Minister said that the UK would continue to play a key humanitarian role on a range of issues, including global health and challenges such as vaccination. I would appreciate clarification from the Minister on whether the global health budget will be cut, or whether the cuts will be made from other aspects of the ODA budget.

Workforce is the key asset of the NHS, yet sickness levels are running at around 5.5%, which is a considerable cost to Government and drag on productivity. They vary considerably across trusts and professions, with consistently less than 2% of consultants off sick, but almost 8% of ambulance support staff. If those rates could be reduced, it would lead to improved productivity and patients being treated much faster. What is the Minister doing to look at that? Perhaps she will have another one of her reviews.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

The hon. Member has frequently been quick to criticise NHS pay rises. Will there be more or fewer sickness absences in the ambulance service if its staff are better paid?

[Dr Johnson]

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that whether someone becomes ill is entirely dependent on whether they get another 2% in their pay packet? I am not sure that it is.

The Government promised a great deal when they came into power last July. Since then, they have handed out inflation-busting pay rises, raised costs and abandoned election pledges. At the centre of the Government’s approach is a classic socialist trick—a sleight of hand, taking money away from NHS providers in taxes with one hand, and expecting praise when they give some of it back with the other. The public will see straight through it.