Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Daisy Cooper and Andy Burnham

Wednesday 21st October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

Q7.   Three million households are in debt on their energy bills, pushing up everyone’s energy bills by around £50 a year to cover it. As a result, energy companies and Ofgem are ringing the alarm bell that the almost £7 billion of energy debt in this country is now undermining the sector’s ability to make the investments that could lower bills in the long term. Will the Prime Minister be more ambitious than the VAT cut on electricity and reviewing the standing charge on gas, and introduce an essential energy guarantee, where 50% of average use is charged at a cheaper rate permanently, to cut bills and help families and the energy sector to escape Britain’s energy debt crisis?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes a very strong point. Getting energy bills down, gas and electric, is at the very top of my list of priorities. It matters for households. She described the number of people in debt, which is an appalling situation for so many people to be in. It matters to businesses, too. Businesses are struggling with the cost of energy and to get grid connections. That is why the energy sector needs significant reform, and we will make it. We will go further, on the back of the VAT cut, and we will set out more in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Daisy Cooper and Andy Burnham

Wednesday 14th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am going to go back to the response to the Milburn review. I think we need to give guarantees of mental health support when young people need it—not waiting months, not waiting years, but exactly when they need it—and that will be a part of my response.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

Q4. Exactly five weeks ago, I asked the Prime Minister if he would back my three-year campaign to get a new mental health in-patient hub in Hertfordshire, which would begin to pay for itself as soon as it is built. I know that the Prime Minister understands the principle of invest to save, because he himself has used this argument to explain why building social homes will reduce the housing benefit bill. So will he stick to his principles and, having reviewed the proposal that I sent him, now commit to provide the up-front resources to build this self-funding mental health hub in Hertfordshire?

[The Prime Minister]

I will be writing to the hon. Lady soon. This might sound disappointing, as we will not be taking forward her specific suggestion, but we will be bringing forward four new community mental health centres across Hertfordshire, as part of 159 across the country. I will be happy to ensure that the Health and Social Care Secretary works with her to involve her in the design of those new hubs, so that we can deliver the mental health support that she is rightly calling for.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Daisy Cooper and Andy Burnham

Wednesday 9th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the incredible work she is doing in memory of her friend; I know that her dad Nigel has also campaigned so strongly on this. I have always believed in whole-person care—in physical, mental and social care being delivered together. We are investing more in perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationships—more funding is going in—but I accept, as she is saying, that more needs to be done. I will look at her Bill. I understand the call for Sophie’s law and will make sure that a Health Minister meets her to discuss it.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

Q12. Hertfordshire has one of the lowest numbers of mental health in-patient beds per head in England. When patients, including some young people, are in crisis, they can be sent hundreds of miles away, which undermines their recovery. The cost of private beds comes in at millions of pounds. Will the Prime Minister commit personally to looking at my three-year campaign to fund a mental health facility in Hertfordshire? It is shovel-ready, would improve health outcomes for patients, and would pay for itself within just a few years.