Health Bill

Jen Craft Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 1st June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

I gently remind the hon. Lady that it was the former Secretary of State who said that he did not want to go through another reorganisation, because it would be very costly. We still cannot get a clear answer from the Government about how much this is all going to cost the taxpayer, and there are estimates of £1 billion. There are still serious questions to be answered. The hon. Lady talks about democratic responsibility and accountability, and she is right to do that. She is fortunate—depending on one’s point of view—to have a mayor, but my constituency and county do not. Will my constituents get less of a voice in their NHS than her constituents in Shipley? That does not seem fair to me.

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

Is it not the case that transferring powers from an unelected quango to the Secretary of State, who is directly accountable to this very House, increases, not diminishes, accountability in the NHS?

[Stuart Andrew]

I am talking about trying to get accountability down to the local area. That is where it matters, and that is where my constituents want to see it. They know their local services and the hospitals in their areas, and they are the ones who should have their voices.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

The NHS is at a critical juncture in its existence. In order to survive, it needs radical change in how it is run. I welcome the measures in the Bill to keep the NHS around for generations to come, but there are opportunities for the Bill to go further.

I will briefly touch on the situation in my constituency, where an acute care trust has been under-delivering for decades. It constantly gets terrible CQC ratings, whether they relate to how it is run, specific departments or access to services such as A&E. During a recent inspection, two of the inspectors had to stop the work that they were carrying out to point out that there was a deterioration in a patient that had not been noticed by the medical staff on duty. The previous Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), placed the trust into an intervention programme, naming it as one of five trusts across the country that were “challenged”, which means it will be subject to significant NHS intervention.

I strongly welcome the measures in the Bill, particularly those that put a clear emphasis on accountability and preventing historic patterns of underperformance and that allow the Secretary of State to deauthorise failing foundation trusts, taking away some of their independence and bringing them under the control of the Secretary of State. Ongoing interventions have not delivered the healthcare that my constituents need, so this might be the final measure that ticks the trust into working, benefiting from the wealth of expertise and experience within the Department of Health and Social Care.

I believe that the Bill can go further in the area of special educational needs and disabilities, delivering for children with disabilities or extra educational needs. There is a systemic problem that is not related to individual instances in specific trusts or areas of the country. Far too often, health is not at the table when it comes to commissioning services for disabled children or meeting the needs of children with additional needs, so there is an onus on local authorities, who have a statutory duty to provide services that it is not in their gift to provide. We hear from local authorities, schools, academy trusts, parents and sometimes even children that the absence of health in these discussions is critical.

The crucial role that the Department of Health and Social Care can play in delivering the SEND White Paper relates to the “Experts at Hand” model. These experts provide an early intervention model, so that all children who exhibit an additional educational need can access expert advice from a panel of people who make up part of the allied health professions. We know that there is a huge shortage in this workforce and, again, it is in the gift of DHSC to remedy that. The Bill could go further to create a change in the commissioning and the development of a workforce strategy, moving the responsibility from NHS England to the Secretary of State. The Bill should mention allied health professionals and paediatric allied health professionals, which would put them on an equal footing with normal clinical staff.

Another way in which the Bill could go slightly further is by putting a duty of partnership and a duty of commissioning on ICBs around SEND services, particularly paediatric services. As I said, there is currently a statutory duty on LAs. We have heard time and again that a similar statutory duty on ICBs would help delivery.

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

My hon. Friend is making some powerful points. I hear again and again from parents that while different commissioning bodies argue about who is responsible, children fall through the cracks. Does she agree that we must urge the Secretary of State to go further and ensure that these children do not fall through the cracks?

[Jen Craft]

My hon. Friend is completely right.

One of the biggest issues with delivering care for children in the SEND system and for disabled children more widely is the lack of join-up between the various services that they should be able to access. The single point of access in this Bill is a great way to deliver on the health aspect of that. I hear from my constituents who parent children with chronic or complex medical needs, and they find it extremely frustrating that they are the one nexus holding all the information about their child’s healthcare and what they need. They are quite often battling a number of healthcare bureaucracies to get their child the healthcare and support that they need.

I believe that with a few tweaks, this Bill could be truly revolutionary in delivering the healthcare and support that disabled children and children with extra educational needs require and in taking the onus and the stress away from their parents.

Health Bill

Jen Craft Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 7th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)]

We all often have a common memory that is so incredibly important and special: holding our child for the very first time. Sadly, so many people up and down this country cannot have that memory because of their difficulty in having children.

In 2004, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended a way forward on IVF, which was to give all a minimum three cycles of IVF treatment. That was set out 22 years ago, so we would hope that over time all ICBs would have moved towards delivering that. Sadly, it is something that people have moved away from, and that is not because the issue has got easier or better or is impacting fewer people. The reality is that the issue has got more difficult and is impacting more people, meaning that more people will not have that amazing joy of holding their own child.

I ask the Minister to look at new clause 104, which has been tabled in my name, with the support of 16 other Members from all parts of the House. The issue of people not being able to have children is growing. Male fertility has been collapsing over the past few decades. As people are dealing with greater pressures to buy their own home, they are having children later in life, rather than earlier.

We have a postcode lottery. Only two ICBs across the country offer the NICE recommendation of three cycles. In fact, as we have already heard, the offer in Manchester has been decreased. That is also the case in Cheshire and Merseyside. In Staffordshire, which I represent, people are not even entitled to one full cycle of IVF, meaning that unless someone is incredibly rich, they are condemned to probably never being able to have children. That is just not right, and I urge the Minister to be proactive in looking at how it can be addressed.

We face a demographic issue in this country. We have a falling birth rate, with fewer than 600,000 babies born in this country last year. That will only get worse. It is sad that the NHS is not prioritising this issue. I understand the pressures that ICBs operate under, and it may always be seen as an easy, no-cost option to deprive people of the ability to have a child, but for those people who desperately spend their whole life doing everything they can—remortgaging their homes, begging for money from family and friends—to have a cycle of IVF, it is destroying them. There is no humanity in this system. I urge the Minister to look at new clause 104 and give families the opportunity—the greatest blessing that they can have—to hold their own child. I urge her to take action, as opposed to ignoring something that is so important to so many.

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

I strongly welcome this landmark Bill, which will protect and strengthen our health service for decades to come, but for children with special educational needs and disabilities who are disproportionately impacted by not getting the healthcare that they need, I believe that it should go further. That is why I tabled new clause 85, which seeks to address the fundamental imbalance in the provision of health services for disabled children and young people. Currently, the statutory duty to deliver education, health and care plans—the legal mechanism by which children with special educational needs and disabilities can receive support—sits entirely with local authorities.

[Jim Shannon]

I commend the hon. Lady for all her endeavours in this regard. Does she share my concern that when a child is diagnosed with cancer, the parents are instantly overwhelmed by medical jargon, by appointments and by sheer panic? Does she agree that the Minister, and the Government, should accept the common-sense duty to ensure that no family faces those critical first two weeks completely alone?

[Jen Craft]

I do agree. The hon. Gentleman has made a very good point about the impact of childhood illness, not only on the child but on the family. I also agree that support for families is crucial. They are part of the care team for children when they are unwell, and that acknowledgment needs to be strengthened and acted on.

As I was saying, the statutory duty to deliver EHCPs sits solely with local authorities. In practice, that means that councils are the only bodies that can be held legally responsible for providing the service that a disabled child needs to access education, including health services such as occupational or speech and language therapy. Health bodies are not subject to the same requirement, and I know from my work as a member of the Health and Social Care Committee and a constituency MP, and as a parent of a disabled child, that that too often means that they are not at the table when it comes to delivering services for children with special educational needs and disabilities. There is a fundamental lack of accountability in the system. That, in practice, can force local authorities or families to procure privately, which can drive shortages in the NHS workforce or can mean that provision is substandard or non-existent.

My constituent’s son Haider, for example, has an EHCP which outlines his need for speech and language therapy to gain full access to education. Despite his mother Qaila’s relentless efforts, that support was not delivered for months. Qaila tells me that she has been forced to watch while Haider has become withdrawn, anxious and isolated. My constituent Elizabeth has a similar story. She has been fighting to get occupational and physical therapy for her son William, but significant delays in securing assessments from healthcare professionals have resulted in inaccurate, unhelpful support arrangements.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

I thank my hon. Friend for making such a powerful speech, and for all the work that she does in this regard. These long waiting times are particularly difficult when children are involved, because a child's life is so attenuated. If a parent is waiting for 18 months, that amounts to one and a half or two school years. Does my hon. Friend agree that the key to prevention is to ensure that these matters are dealt with as quickly as possible?

[Jen Craft]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Owing to the lack of early intervention for my constituent Elizabeth and her son William, he has missed countless hours and days and weeks of schooling at a critical point in his development.

At a drop-in that I hosted last week, I met a woman called Annika. Her daughter Winnie has cerebral palsy, and her EHCP clearly states that she requires a physiotherapist, but the family have been forced to arrange that for themselves. Countless other families are in the same position. I think that every single Member in this House will have encountered similar constituency cases, and it is just not good enough.

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Lady is making a most powerful speech. We will all have experienced the frustration of parents with a child whose EHCP lacks the health element. Does the hon. Lady share my concern that, furthermore, the abolition of Healthwatch might remove one of the few elements that externally and independently marks the homework of the NHS, and that we are moving to a situation in which the NHS itself, and Ministers, will collect the data and mark their own homework, and we will lose yet another of the few tools that a frustrated parent has to hold the system to account?

[Jen Craft]

I agree that there needs to be better accountability in the health service. It currently does not work, and the mechanisms by which we can hold healthcare bodies to account are few and far between. I believe that it is most acutely felt in paediatric care and in the special educational needs and disabilities system, where a mechanism for holding public bodies to account already exists: EHCPs. The idea that the responsibility should fall entirely on local authorities is misguided, because roughly 50% of what a child with an EHCP needs in order to access education is healthcare, which should be provided by a healthcare service. There must be better accountability and transparency for parents, and for their children, when that does not happen. I know that parents often have to go out of their way and spend, on average, £8,500 a year on their child’s healthcare so that they can access education.

[Ben Coleman]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jen Craft]

I will not, because I am going to run out of time.

Roughly 40% of people have paid privately for therapies, and many are forced to fundraise for the vital medical equipment to which their child is legally entitled. It is worth noting that beyond the direct costs, many parents are forced to miss work because the right support is not available for their child to attend school. Around 40% report cutting back their hours, and 35% have left the job market completely. Before I became a Member of Parliament, I stopped work to become a full-time carer for my daughter. I do not regret that choice for a second, but it was a difficult and sometimes lonely period. Like many parents, I had not anticipated just how hard it would be to secure basic support for my child. Even to this day, I struggle to secure the basic healthcare support that she needs to support her education and her place at school. I am wearing a dragon for her today, and she will know why that is. I will not share it with the House, but if she watches this debate, she will see the dragon and it will make her smile.

New clause 85 is intended to fix the inequality. It would place a statutory duty on ICBs to deliver the health part of EHCPs, matching the existing duty on local authorities. The fundamental concept that there must be a meaningful legal requirement on health services to deliver the support set out in EHCPs is critical. If we do not act and do not rightly demand that health services pull their weight, the status quo of young people missing out on education will continue, and I am afraid the planned SEND reforms will be doomed to failure. Disabled children are no less worthy of a decent education than their peers and are no less capable of thriving in school, but we are denying them access to the tools they need to succeed.

I am grateful to the Health and Social Care Committee and the Education Committee for their support for new clause 85, and to the nearly 100 Members from across the House who put their name to it. I want to express my thanks to the charities involved for their continued campaigning efforts, and to the many parents who have contacted me. I sincerely hope that the Government will give the new clause the attention it deserves. If they cannot accept it in whole, I hope that they will give a commitment to deliver proper accountability.

[Several hon. Members rose—]