Women’s Health Strategy

Jen Craft Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth]

I thank the Liberal Democrat representative for his comments—frankly, that is the way it is done.

Let me turn to some of the issues that the hon. Gentleman raised. May I take the opportunity to mention endometriosis in particular? There have long been campaigns on that issue in this place from many women and men such as him talking not on behalf of their partners, but for them about the suffering. That is all very welcome.

I commend the work of Sir David Amess, a former Member of the House whose plaque is behind us, and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) in chairing the all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis. When in opposition in 2017 or 2018, I had a member of staff—I hope she does not mind my saying so—who opened my eyes to this issue. Persistence works. We have got to where we are by supporting women’s voices across the country, and that is front and centre in this strategy.

On the hon. Gentleman’s wider point, I am sure that when he gets all the way through the strategy, he will see that there is a list of 102 actions—if I remember rightly—with dates aligned to them. I am sure that all hon. Members will look at that. I notice that my friend Baroness Merron is in the Gallery; she will be keeping everybody’s feet to the fire, including the Secretary of State’s, to deliver on this work. That list is in the strategy, and we wanted to set it out very clearly. We are waiting for the roll-out of NHS Online during the summer, and seeing how that works will be a litmus test for us, so I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman’s challenging us on that.

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

I strongly welcome the women’s health strategy, and I congratulate both Baroness Merron and my hon. Friend the Minister on their work on it. Since its publication yesterday, my inbox has received a number of emails from women in my constituency who suffer from endometriosis.

I wanted to highlight that, because it is very rare that constituents contact us on the publication of a Government report to comment on its contents so quickly. That shows what an absolute hotbed this issue is and how profoundly it affects people. They speak of sometimes having decades of debilitating pain, going into debt while looking for treatment, losing housing, and suffering from relationships being impacted, their jobs being undermined and experiencing a loss of income, but overall they talk about how the condition is just not recognised and how their pain goes unheard.

One of my constituents said that women need better understanding, better support and better options, and seeing that set out in black and white in a Government report has really meant so much to women. Will the Minister join me in thanking these women for their bravery in continuing to raise their voices despite their continued experience?

[Karin Smyth]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is unusual to receive emails saying good things. There will be challenges in this work, but it speaks to a wider issue. Many of us as women experience much of this ourselves, and we have women in Parliament who are able to articulate that. There are some fantastic women clinicians whom we have been pleased to work with and who have really pushed forward those voices as they have become more senior in the medical and clinical professions to help us with those clinical pathways. We have been able to build on all that in bringing this strategy forward.

May I commend my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State? He was on various media yesterday and he has been working with people such as influencers to give voice to those women. I think that this is an important part of our democracy. It is worth emailing MPs—I am sorry if that elicits more emails to other Members and to my staff—because we listen and we are engaged. It matters when people raise these issues in our surgeries and come forward with them. Sometimes policy development and getting action is a struggle for all of us; it is tough and takes a long time. The process of politics sometimes takes too long, but those women have made this happen, and I thank them for it.