Allied Health Professionals

Jen Craft Excerpts

Thursday 23rd April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That his House has considered the contribution of allied health professionals.

I am very grateful to be able to introduce this debate today, and I would like to begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Sonia Kumar) on her hard work in securing it.

Allied health professionals, such as occupational therapists, physiotherapists, dieticians, music therapists and so many more, are a vital part of our NHS. They will be crucial to delivering the three shifts in healthcare—in particular, treatment to prevention and hospital to community—that the Secretary of State set out as key to delivering the 10-year health plan and securing the future of the NHS for generations to come. They help people to recover from illness or injury, prevent the onset and development of conditions such as frailty, help people to adjust to new or existing realities of disability, and are vital in enabling and empowering people to take control of their health.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley brings considerable professional experience to this place as a trained physiotherapist. I believe she plans to speak to the importance of those professionals to adult healthcare—indeed, she is best placed to do so—so I will focus primarily on the vital role of allied health professionals in paediatric care.

As a parent with experience of paediatric allied health professionals, I can speak to their completely invaluable contribution to a child’s wellbeing. They not only support the child who is the patient in their care, but the entire family. It can be a real lifeline to have a trusted professional helping you to come to terms with your child’s diagnosis, or perhaps with a shift in reality. I also know, from friends and constituents who have children living with life-limiting conditions, that allied health professionals such as music therapists and drama therapists can be the lifeline that provides moments of joy, as well as extending the lifespan and the time that people get to spend with their children who have very severe and limiting conditions.

I want to put on record that paediatric allied health professionals in particular are not just a “nice to have” or an add-on to the health profession. It is quite easy to overlook the contribution and impact that people such as music therapists—I will give an excellent example—can have on a child’s life. If Members can imagine a child who is non-verbal and potentially has behavioural and communication difficulties and no real form of self-expression, an art therapist, a music therapist or a drama therapist can help to unlock something that traditional healthcare workers perhaps cannot. They can make a real difference to how that child’s care progresses and how their life chances pan out.

Paediatric allied health professionals are also able to reduce the pressure and the intensity on the acute system. Excellent work has been done with music therapists, art therapists and play therapists, who do not currently come under the auspices of allied health professionals but perhaps one day may do, to reduce sometimes even the need for general anaesthetic, MRI scans or CT scans for particular children with complex needs, as they help them to navigate their pathway through the system.

They are also crucial in helping children who perhaps have had a traumatic early start to life to engage with the healthcare system and the wider healthcare system at large. Children who are recovering from, or going through treatment for, cancer or other severe diseases and illnesses, are supported by these professionals to come to terms and to grips with what they are going through and to express themselves. Professions such as occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and speech and language therapists play a vital role in childhood, enabling children who have an additional need in those areas to be able to perform at the same level as their peers and to be the best version of themselves.

The Health and Social Care Committee, of which I am a member, has taken considerable evidence on the crisis in the allied healthcare professions, in particular in paediatrics and early years. We have discussed at length with various organisations such as the Royal College of Occupational Therapists, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, Speech and Language UK, the Disabled Children’s Partnership and Contact the impact this is having on children, on families and on the professionals themselves.

There are currently 77,500 children who have been on community waiting lists—quite often the way that people access allied health professional care—for over a year.

[Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham Erdington) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making some fantastic points, especially those highlighting the findings of the Health and Social Care Committee. Allied health professionals are absolutely vital to what we do in the health service. As with health visitors, their numbers seem to be going down at the moment, and nothing is really being done to build them back up. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to build the numbers of allied health professionals back up?

[Jen Craft]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She brings a breadth of experience to this place on these issues, both as a member of the Health and Social Care Committee and as a registered nurse. I agree that we do need to take urgent action to rebuild the numbers of allied health professionals and health visitors. The Committee has heard that there has been a halving of the number of health visitors in the past 10 years, which has had an almost catastrophic impact on their ability to deliver the vital role that they play in identifying early need in childhood, particularly in the early years, supporting families where there is an additional need for support and signposting people to other mechanisms, such as Best Start family hubs, to ensure there is that proportionate universalism that is so key to ensuring that those who need help get it in a timely way. I very much agree with my hon. Friend that urgent action needs to be taken to address this, which we will hopefully see in the upcoming NHS workforce plan.

That ties into my earlier point. There are 77,500 children and young people who have been on a community care waiting list for more than a year in England, which is a sixfold rise since the start of 2023. For comparison, only around 1% of adults wait for more than a year for community care, compared with around 25% of children. Thinking about equity in healthcare, a year for a child could be an entire lifetime, which is not the case for an adult.

We also know that there is a really rapid development window in the early years, particularly in the first 1,001 days, where we have the ability to make an impact on the life chances of a child, when all that quick-fire development is happening mentally, physically, socially and emotionally. It is absolutely crucial to get in at the onset and arrest conditions before they become more serious and make a real impact on the life chances of a child through to schooling, employment and beyond.

However, there is a crisis across the allied health professions, particularly in early years. I want to highlight a few areas where this is really bearing fruit. According to the Royal College of Occupational Therapists, four fifths of occupational therapists are unable to meet local demand. The workforce remains focused on secondary care, which limits capacity for prevention and early intervention in communities. Workforce pressure does translate into rising waiting lists; in February 2026, nearly 18,000 children and young people were waiting to see an occupational therapist. This has a huge impact on the life of a young person. Quite often occupational therapist interventions are not costly, but the inference and reference of an expert or specialist is needed to be able to direct people in how best to carry them out. The fact that 18,000 children are waiting to see an OT is really shocking. These delays will have a real impact on professionals being able to act at the very earliest opportunity to turn children’s life chances around.

Speech and language therapy is another area that is experiencing a crisis in both recruitment and retention. According to Speech and Language UK, more than 2 million children in the UK have struggled to speak or understand words and an estimated 1.3 million have a developmental language disorder. The Government must train and recruit enough speech and language therapists to ensure that the trend of a reduction in the profession is arrested. Currently, 16% of NHS speech and language therapy posts in England are vacant, and the vacancy rate for NHS speech and language therapy posts supporting people with a learning disability is even more stark, at 25%. The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists reports that 96% of children’s speech and language therapy services say that recruitment is more or much more challenging than at any time in the past three years.

What that translates to is those in these crucial professions spending the vast majority of their time carrying out assessment work when things have reached a point of crisis or acute care need. They are not getting to see people and intervene at the earliest opportunity, and they are not getting to help families. That is driving the retention crisis, as professionals find themselves unable to perform the role for which they trained and about which they are, by and large, incredibly passionate. Instead, they are spending their time carrying out assessments and recommending therapeutic care that they know is very unlikely to materialise.

The real crisis in the paediatric allied healthcare professions could have a huge knock-on effect on a major part of Government policy found in the education White Paper. I know that the Minister is here to speak for the Department of Health and Social Care, but the Health and Social Care Committee has continually found that there is a real gap in the role of healthcare when it comes to education, health and care plans, and in the special educational needs and disabilities system as a whole.

The White Paper places huge demand on having “experts at hand”—a locally trained workforce who are able to provide specialist support. It names professions such as occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech and language therapy, which fall entirely within the allied health professional workforce, which it is in the gift of the Department of Health and Social Care to provide. However, we know that these occupations are at crisis point; time and again, when we talk to our local integrated care boards, they say that they do not have the people available to fulfil that “expert at hand” role. It is such an important part of the education White Paper that if it fails, I am afraid the entire White Paper is at risk of failure. The crux of it is early and timely intervention, and support for families, school staff and children, in order to make an impact at the earliest possible opportunity. Without this workforce, it cannot and will not succeed.

I ask the Minister: what plans will there be in the upcoming workforce strategy to address the decline in paediatric allied healthcare professionals? What plans are there for training, recruitment and retention, not just to support this important part of the education White Paper, but to address the real health inequality in paediatrics? It is fair to say that the impact on children is so much worse than that on adults receiving healthcare, because they can spend such a significant chunk of their life on a waiting list.

Most importantly, what action is being taken to ensure that these professionals, particularly those in the paediatric workforce, feel valued and know that their contribution really counts towards the delivery of both the current healthcare system and the Government’s wider reform agenda? How can we ensure that the life chances of children are best improved and encouraged through the recruitment, retention and valuing of allied healthcare professionals?

--- Later in debate ---

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

May I wish you a very happy St George’s day, Madam Deputy Speaker?

It is a privilege to respond to this debate on behalf of His Majesty’s most loyal Opposition and to recognise the invaluable contribution of allied health professionals, especially those living and working in my Farnham and Bordon constituency. Having spent much of my career in the healthcare sector, including time working for the College of Occupational Therapists—before it was granted its royal title, which shows how old I am—I have seen at first hand the critical role those professionals play across health and social care, often without the recognition they deserve.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) on leading today’s debate, and the hon. Member for Dudley (Sonia Kumar) , a physiotherapist herself, for her work in securing it. The House is right to give time to those who do so much, often without fanfare. I want also to mention the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst), whose experience of care by allied health professionals was both extraordinarily moving and amusing. I have taken to heart his recommendation of a diet of red meat and cheese.

If this debate is to mean anything, we must address the central issue, which is workforce. Without a clear and credible workforce plan, warm words about allied health professionals will not translate into better care for patients. The Government’s still-awaited NHS workforce plan, due this spring, will be crucial. It is meant to set out how the ambitions of the 10-year health plan will be delivered. Without it, there remains real uncertainty about how workforce shortages and rising demands will be addressed, as the hon. Member for Thurrock highlighted so powerfully when she summed up the situation as “a crisis”. That matters, because allied health professionals are already helping to unlock capacity across the system. We see that clearly in the expansion of independent prescribing, which we as Conservatives support. By enabling allied health professionals to take on those responsibilities, pressure is reduced on GPs and specialists, and patients receive faster, more efficient care. It is a practical reform that improves outcomes, but one that depends on proper planning and support in order to scale it.

The challenge does not stop in the NHS; it extends directly into education and special educational needs and disabilities provision. As the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for SEND, I see the growing reliance on an expanded workforce of therapists and specialists to support children with additional needs. From experience of working alongside occupational therapists early in my career, I know just how critical that support can be in helping children to access education and achieve their potential.

However, the pipeline simply does not match the ambition. Training an educational psychologist can take up to eight years and other key roles, such as speech and language therapists or occupational therapists, take many years to develop. Without a clear and actionable workforce plan, local authorities are left trying to bridge that gap themselves, often without the certainty or the funding required to do so effectively. I saw that at first hand in Hampshire, as I am sure you have, Madam Deputy Speaker. Proposed changes to therapy provision raised real concerns among professionals in my constituency, but through consultation, the council listened, protected staff and expanded the specialist roles. That is the difference that practical, locally informed decision making can make, protecting services while improving provision.

Unfortunately, by contrast, there is a growing concern that the Government’s approach risks creating uncertainty, rather than clarity. That is particularly striking when we consider the progress that had begun under the previous Conservative Government, rightly outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) in her superb speech. Through the AHP strategy and the long-term workforce plan, clear steps were set out to expand the workforce, increase training places and grow apprenticeship routes into these vital professions. It was not perfect, but it was a plan.

What we see now, however, are drifts: no published workforce plan, no clear assessment of the impact of recruitment challenges, and decisions that risk weakening the very structures needed to support AHPs. The requirement for integrated care boards to reduce their budgets has already raised serious concerns. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy has warned about the impact on leadership roles, and we are already seeing a reduction in senior AHP positions across the system. That is not strengthening the workforce but undermining it.

[Jen Craft]

I welcome the hon. Member’s comments on supporting the SEND White Paper through an allied health professional workforce plan. However, there is something of an amnesiac recollection from Conservative Members when it comes to looking at a decline in numbers of healthcare professionals, and allied health professionals are not unique in that. Would he like to say what happened to the figures for allied health professionals over the 14 years when the Conservative Government were in office?

[Gregory Stafford]

The hon. Lady, with whom I serve on the Health and Social Care Committee, always raises important points. What the last Government were trying to do—certainly by the end—with their workforce plan, which was the first of its kind, was to ensure that the workforce began to expand again. That is what all of us across the House are hoping that this Government will build on.

The Government have confirmed that they have no plans to extend the job guarantee to allied health professionals, and have made no assessments of the impact of recruitment delays on patient care. For a Government who often speak about the importance of the NHS, it is difficult to understand why the very professionals who play such a central role in recovery, rehabilitation and patient flow are being overlooked, as the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) passionately highlighted. If we are serious about reducing waiting lists, improving outcomes and supporting patients across both health and education, allied health professionals are not optional but essential—and essential services require serious planning.

In conclusion, I will ask the Minister three simple questions. First, when will the NHS workforce plan be published and how will it specifically address the shortages in allied health professionals? Secondly, will the Government reconsider their decision not to include AHPs in the job guarantee, given the clear need to support and retain this workforce? Thirdly, what steps will be taken to ensure that NHS organisations and local services can recruit and retain the AHPs they need, particularly in under-resourced areas?

Without clear answers to those questions the risk is clear: we will continue to ask more of allied health professionals while giving them less support to deliver. From what I have seen throughout my career, including in my work with occupational therapists, that is not a position that any of us should accept for the workforce or the patients who depend on them

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

I add my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for introducing the debate and to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Sonia Kumar) for bringing it forward and setting out her role as a physiotherapist.

I am grateful for the opportunity to set out the practical contribution of AHPs to delivering this Government’s priorities for health and care. I agree with many hon. Members who have spoken that the 10-year health plan, “Fit for the Future”, and the forthcoming 10-year workforce plan, due in the spring—we are now in the spring, so hopefully very soon—provide a real opportunity to optimise the AHP contribution for the years ahead, including by supporting AHPs to work at the top of their skills. As a Department, we are clear that the three shifts that patients and the public need—more care in the community, a stronger focus on prevention and better use of digital and data—must be delivered in day-to-day services. AHPs will be central to making that happen.

As we have heard, AHPs make up the third largest workforce in the NHS. They include physiotherapists, occupational therapists, radiographers, speech and language therapists, paramedics, dietitians, podiatrists, and arts therapists, among others. They work across hospital, community, primary care, mental health and education settings, bringing regulated, evidence-based practice that supports faster access, better outcomes and better value for the taxpayer.

The contribution of AHPs is not confined to any single service line. AHPs assess, diagnose, treat and rehabilitate. They support self-management and they work in multidisciplinary teams spanning health, social care and education. That combination—clinical autonomy alongside team-based working—is exactly what we need to redesign services around neighbourhoods and around people’s day-to-day lives.

First, on the shift to community, AHPs work across neighbourhoods, primary care and community services, including in people’s homes. They prevent avoidable admissions and they help people leave hospital sooner and recover well. Physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists support rehabilitation and independent living. Paramedics are increasingly part of urgent community response and neighbourhood teams, helping people get the right care, first time, closer to home.

Secondly, on the shift to prevention, prevention is fundamental to AHP practice, as we have heard. AHPs support earlier intervention for long-term conditions. They play a key role in falls prevention, respiratory disease and musculoskeletal health, and in improving population wellbeing. That work helps people stay well and independent, and it reduces pressure on urgent and emergency care and on hospital waiting lists. That contribution aligns directly with the Government’s work and health agenda.

By providing early intervention and rehabilitation, AHPs help people with long-term conditions, disability or injury to remain in, return to and thrive in work. We heard no better example of the role that they play than in the very moving speech by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst). I thank him for sharing his experience and I hope he is still enjoying playing with his son. It is good to have him in the Chamber being able to articulate that experience, which is not easy to do. Whether supporting recovery after illness, managing pain and fatigue, or enabling reasonable adjustments and independence, AHPs reduce avoidable time away from employment and help more people to remain economically active, benefiting individuals, employers and the wider economy.

Thirdly, on the shift to digital, AHPs are helping to lead the adoption of digital tools to improve access and continuity. That ranges from imaging and diagnostic technologies led by radiographers, to virtual rehabilitation, remote monitoring and data-enabled triage. Alongside shared care records, these approaches can support safer, more efficient and more personalised care. Remote consultations should be used where appropriate.

Across each of those shifts, AHPs also make an important contribution to mental health and wider wellbeing. Occupational therapists support recovery and independence, speech and language therapists help to address communication needs that can affect engagement, and arts therapies, which we heard about, including art, music and drama therapy, offer clinically led support. As was well articulated by many, including by my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury), those skills in neighbourhood teams can help to provide earlier, more joined-up care, including for children and young people.

I place particular emphasis on children and young people, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock did so ably, including those with special educational needs and disabilities. AHPs play a vital role in early identification, assessment and intervention, supporting communication, mobility, sensory needs, mental wellbeing and participation in education and community life. Speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, physios and others work alongside families and schools so that children can develop, learn and thrive, meeting their needs before they escalate.

For children with SEND, timely access to AHP support is fundamental. Delays affect speech and language development, social interaction and educational attainment, and they can place additional pressure on families and carers. That is why work is already in train with the Department for Education, NHS England, integrated care boards and partners in local government to strengthen community speech and language therapy and other AHP provision. Our aim is earlier support closer to home and better, joined-up services.

I recognise that many hon. Members will understandably focus on the current access and waiting times, particularly for speech and language therapy. We as constituency MPs all recognise that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock said, that is critical to achieving the Government’s ambition.

More broadly, in neighbourhoods, AHPs support people of all ages to avoid deterioration and to recover well through rapid assessment, rehabilitation and support management. That point was well made by the hon. Members for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) and for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade). Working alongside GPs, community nursing, social care, mental health services and the voluntary sector, they help prevent complications, reduce frailty and improve long-term condition management, easing pressure on acute services, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor) rightly said. I thank her for her support for George Eliot hospital as it improves its services for her constituents.

Delivering those shifts depends on having the right AHP workforce in the right place. That includes those smaller AHP professions such as podiatry, orthoptics, and prosthetics and orthotics whose specialist skills are essential to prevention, independence and quality of life. Through our work with system leaders and professional bodies, we will continue to support education and training routes to improve retention and enable new ways of working across systems so that people can access specialist expertise when they need it.

As part of enabling AHPs to work at the top of their skills—that is what we want—we are also taking forward work to increase their ability to prescribe medicines where it is safe and appropriate to do so. That point was well made by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney); others noted that duplication issue. I confirm to my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles)—I thank her for her expertise in operating department practitioners—that that does include ODPs.

We must also address variation in access, including in rural and underserved areas. Neighbourhood delivery models, stronger integration with local authorities and the voluntary sector, and sensible use of digital services can all help broaden reach while maintaining safe, personalised care for those who need face-to-face support.

AHPs bring the clinical skills and professional leadership to redesign pathways, strengthen neighbourhood teams and intervene earlier so that people receive effective care in the right place at the right time. My focus as the lead Minister for the workforce plan in the Department of Health and Social Care is to support systems to deliver those priorities. As part of that, I work closely with the chief allied health professions officer—it was news both to her and to me that there is concern about her ongoing role—and will continue to do so. I thank her for her help so far—indeed, including in preparing for this debate.

The 10-year plan set the direction to rebuild the NHS, but it absolutely depends on all our staff to deliver it. The long-term workforce plan produced by the previous Government essentially looked at supply, but it did not look at future service models, it did not look at the role of technology, it did not ensure sustainability for the future and it did not base itself on future workforce models. That is some of the reason why we have problems with, for example, bottlenecks and frustration—particularly for young people coming out of their training—in not being able to get into the right roles in the right places. That is part of the problem that we need to address with the workforce plan, which we will bringing forward in the spring, so that we ensure patients and the public have the services they deserve, and particularly so that young people and children get the best start in life. I look forward to bringing forward those plans.

I have been asked again for several meetings—it is always nice to be popular for meetings—and I look forward to working with people as we bring forward that plan. We are working closely with all representatives of the sector—I know that there is a lot of interest in this work—and I very much look forward to working with hon. Members in the House as we go forward with delivering the plan.

[Jen Craft]

I really appreciate the Minister giving way—I know that she was concluding her speech. She obviously cannot reveal the contents of the workforce plan before it is published, but particularly on paediatric care, can I ask specifically for reassurance that there is something in mind for the plan when it comes to servicing the SEND Experts at Hand provision? That will be key to delivering the White Paper aims and key to young people’s life chances. We hope to be able to see that soon.

[Karin Smyth]

I was literally on my last words, so let me go back. My hon. Friend tempts me to reveal more about the workforce plan. As I said, we are not waiting for the plan to work with our colleagues across the Department for Education, NHS England, locally in ICBs and so on to ensure that we deliver on that ambition. We will of course set out the overarching plan and where we want to have people in the future. I look forward to working with her and others on how that will work. We certainly want to engage with colleagues across the piece.

As my hon. Friend knows, the SEND White Paper—we all know this through our constituency work—is central to that and to the Government’s wider ambitions. We are due to publish the plan in the spring; I look forward to doing so very soon. I look forward to working with hon. Members on that, and I thank them for the debate and their contributions this afternoon.

[Jen Craft]

I thank everyone who has contributed to the debate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Sonia Kumar) said, this is the first time a debate about the contribution of allied health professionals has happened in this place. It is really important to acknowledge the contribution they make to our health services and to healthcare in general. Particular thanks go to my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for sharing his personal story about the contribution of so many different allied health professionals in bringing him back to health—basically bringing him back to life—which summed up perfectly the crucial role these many different professions play and the impact they can have.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) both for her contribution and for her work as an allied health professional. As someone who has had two C-sections, I know that the entire operating theatre staff were crucial to making that a much better experience than anyone could have anticipated.

I thank the Minister very much for her comments, and particularly for being gracious in accepting my intervention at the last minute. I make a final plea for her to ensure that this vital part of our NHS, which is crucial to delivering those two strands—from sickness to prevention and from hospital to community—is not overlooked in the forthcoming workforce plan, and that its contribution is both valued and given due prominence.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That his House has considered the contribution of allied health professionals.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Government placed a written ministerial statement on today’s Order Paper to update the House on the much-troubled Ajax armoured fighting vehicle programme. However, the media have reported within the last two hours that, according to urgent briefing from the Ministry of Defence, the statement will now be delayed until later next week due to the need to seek further interdepartmental approval across Whitehall. Given that the strategic defence review was published months late, the defence investment plan, including vital new equipment programmes, is still unpublished nine months on, and now the MOD is putting out WMSs on the Order Paper and then refusing to publish them, the Department is clearly in a state of chaos. Can you advise me on how we can force the MOD to clarify this utterly confusing situation later today, or on Monday at the very latest?

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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jen Craft Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

1. What steps he is taking to improve underperforming hospital trusts.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)]

Under Labour, the NHS is on the road to recovery: with an extra £26 billion invested, 2,000 extra GPs and 100 community diagnostic centres now open weekdays and weekends, waiting lists are coming down and patient satisfaction is going up—lots done, but so much more to do to ensure that that improvement is felt everywhere. Where trusts underperform, we will send crack teams of top clinicians into those struggling trusts to cut waiting times faster. No more turning a blind eye to failure: this Government, unlike our predecessors, will do whatever it takes to improve the NHS in every part of the country—lots done; lots more to do.

[Jen Craft]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s work in improving the NHS and turning fortunes around, but as he has said, that is unfortunately not the case in every area of the country, including my own. Mid and South Essex NHS foundation trust, which looks after constituents in my area including at Basildon university hospital, has been named as one of the challenged trusts in the intensive recovery programme, which I strongly welcome. The issues with the trust are not just recent but historical—they sometimes go back decades—and quite frankly, my constituents are not getting the healthcare they deserve. Will the Secretary of State set out what the recovery programme looks like and how my constituents can be assured that they will get the level of healthcare they deserve?

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question and for the work that she has been doing on behalf of the people of Thurrock to speak up consistently for improving services and to expose failures at her local trust. As I told listeners to BBC Essex this morning, I will always report back on the things that this Government are doing well but I will also acknowledge where we are not seeing improvement fast enough. I am sorry to say that Mid and South Essex is one such trust, despite the best efforts of frontline staff. That is why we announced that Mid and South Essex is one of the first providers to be put in the new intensive recovery programme. We are sending in teams of clinical experts to identify the root causes of failure and a new chief executive will take up post shortly and get a grip on the issues at the trust so that we deliver for patients.

Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill

Jen Craft Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

People are the backbone of our NHS, and I am incredibly grateful to the healthcare staff who work in it, particularly in Thurrock, and who care tirelessly every day, often in difficult conditions, for my constituents. As a lifelong Thurrock resident, I have experienced their excellent care as a patient, and now as an MP I see at first hand when visiting services in our area that they perform all the time to a high level despite the immense pressure they are under.

This Bill is about supporting our excellent NHS workforce, prioritising home-grown talent to ensure there is a pipeline for the next generation of fantastic doctors and nurses. It is right that it is introduced as emergency legislation, because the former Government left the NHS in a critical condition. The Tories’ botched policies on immigration saw students and junior doctors who study in the UK competing against the world for foundation and specialty roles. Visa and immigration changes meant that thousands more international workers applied for coveted training positions in the NHS. In 2019, there were 12,000 applicants for 9,000 specialty training places. That figure has now soared to nearly 40,000 applicants for 10,000 places, with twice as many overseas-trained applicants as UK-trained ones.

Those bottlenecks mean that we are losing home-grown talent. We are losing people who grew up in our communities, studied at our schools and universities, and know our NHS back to front from personal experience, because they move to jobs abroad or in the private sector. The Bill begins to correct those mistakes. It implements the commitment in our 10-year plan for health to put home-grown talent at the front of the queue for medical training posts, ensuring that UK graduates are prioritised for foundation and specialty training places. It is a signal of this Government’s intent to improve terms, conditions, and opportunities for doctors. It is a downpayment on the tangible progress offered in the deal that the BMA unfortunately rejected in December, and it marks a critical step in supporting long-term sustainable workforce planning for the NHS, ending our—let’s face it—unethical addiction to hiring from abroad. There is also an economic case. Each year, we spend £4 billion on training medical students and doctors, only to not offer those graduates a training place to continue their careers in NHS. By ensuring that we retain that talent, we will ensure that patients in the UK benefit from the investment, which is better for local doctors and the taxpayer.

Retention of staff is particularly vital in Thurrock, where we have a critical shortage of GPs and an acute hospital trust ranked among the bottom in the country. It has always been difficult to recruit doctors to our area, not least because if staff get a job 10 miles down the road—even one mile down the road, in some cases—they can earn significantly more because they will benefit from London weighting. Last year, I held a roundtable with local GPs to ask them why they chose to work in our area and how I could encourage more young doctors to make it their base.

Many young people growing up in Thurrock say that they would like to return home after medical training. They are ambitious to improve our NHS and they want to serve their community. They want to live and work in the area where they grew up. Ensuring that those graduates are prioritised to local places and have local career training, advancing their ongoing professional development, is key to unlocking a sustainable long-term workforce for our area. I urge the Secretary of State to use the opportunity afforded by both this Bill and the upcoming workforce plan to ensure that the right professionals are in the right places geographically, in order to fill historical gaps in provision.

I also urge the Secretary of State to use the workforce plan to ensure that training, recruitment and retention in all professional areas is considered and planned for, particularly in those vital professions that are often overlooked. Allied health professionals, such as speech and language therapists, physiotherapists and occupational therapists, spring to mind and must feature in the plan, particularly those working in paediatric care, where waits for diagnosis are often felt acutely. I add a personal plea for the unique and important role played by learning disability nurses, who are already under strain. The charity Mencap, among others, warns that the role could collapse in three years’ time without urgent Government action. Those nurses are crucial in ensuring that some of the most vulnerable people in our society receive safe, effective healthcare, and in avoiding preventable deaths.

I welcome that the Secretary of State has brought this Bill forward, and the efficiency and speed shown in turning the legislation around at pace. I urge him to use the same efficiency and speed to bring forward the workforce plan, in order to set the right direction of travel to recruit, train and retain home-grown talent. I encourage him to bring forward the workforce plan as soon as possible, to ensure that those gaps in vital provision are addressed and to support our communities through our fantastic NHS well into the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jen Craft Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth]

I thank the hon. Member for her almost support for the Bill that we will present later to address much of this problem. Again, we are clearing up the mess we were left by her party, which, by changing the rules in delivering a workforce plan in 2023, essentially ramped up the supply of staff by extrapolating existing trends without any reference to the constraints or needs of the service. Our workforce plan will be different. We do hope for support for the Bill to remove some of the problem with foundation and specialty training places, and we look forward to rigorous debate on that subject.

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

Unfortunately, my constituency is not unique in seeing long waits for diagnosis of neurodiversity. From 18 to 24 months is the expected waiting time in Thurrock, and some have to wait much longer. Given that, for a child, a wait of 18 to 24 months can sometimes be their whole lifespan or half their lifespan, will the upcoming workforce plan make sure that there is a plan for paediatric care, particularly for allied health professionals such as occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, and clinical physicians?

[Karin Smyth]

The services my hon. Friend outlines cover a number of different areas in different locations, and I think it is very important that the workforce plan we are bringing forward reflects a different model of care. We have seen more services going into secondary care and particularly hospitals, at the expense of community care and particularly primary care. That needs to change across the age spectrum, and the new workforce plan will be designed in lockstep with a new service design, more staff in neighbourhoods and more digital support, as well as to address the issues she outlines.

Therapeutic Play and Children’s Healthcare

Jen Craft Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Mr Bailey]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, who raises a powerful point about specialist training. I know she has written to the Skills Minister and lobbied the Department for Work and Pensions directly to help the Minister who is responding today and close the skills gap on behalf of her constituent.

Those are the challenges and the situation that the toolkit is there to address and that its implementation must change. This is also a real opportunity for positive change as the Government’s NHS reform programmes move forward, because better play services for children in every part of England can not only reduce trauma and its long-term consequences, but save money through quicker procedures, lead to fewer cancellations, and reduce the need for anaesthetic.

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

Much like my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran), my constituent Ambia has written to me to highlight the fact that funding has been withdrawn for her level 7 apprenticeship in play therapy. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) agree that if the Government want to see the savings related to therapeutic play that he talks about, they need to invest up front?

[Mr Bailey]

I thank my hon. Friend for her powerful intervention. I know that she is fighting for her constituent and that she is lobbying the DWP, in support of the Department of Health and Social Care, to make sure that the challenges her constituents face are addressed.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ashley Dalton)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) for securing this debate on such an important topic. I am grateful to him for sharing Hari’s story, and to Hari and Sarah for making the trip to Parliament. I have always believed in bringing patient voices to the heart of what we do in Parliament, and I hope they both leave safe in the knowledge that this Government are listening.

I strongly agree with what hon. Friends have said about the relationship between play and medicine. I volunteered in a healthcare setting as a play worker many moons ago, but more than 30 years later, the important impact of that work has stayed with me. Play and medicine are not in competition, and it is disappointing that Sarah had to fight so hard for play to remain an essential part of Hari’s care. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead got a constructive response from Whipps Cross, but he is right to say that coverage of play services varies across the country.

Investing in our children is not just a moral mission; it is a downpayment on a better future. Children do not stop being children when they enter a hospital or a GP clinic. It is important to treat children like children when they are at home, at school or in hospital. There is growing evidence that therapeutic play can mitigate risks of trauma. We recognise that play services are integral to paediatric care, not a nice-to-have. We published the NHS England and Starlight Play Well toolkit in June last year, and I am delighted to see representatives of Starlight in the Public Gallery today. That included the first national guidelines and standards for commissioning and delivering health play services in England. NHS England is making sure that every manager of health play services knows about the Play Well toolkit across a wide range of settings. We are promoting it in community clinics, emergency departments, children’s hospices and acute paediatric wards. A range of communication channels have been used to raise awareness, including engagement with services via professional bodies, messaging via the chief nursing officer, and ongoing promotion through operational delivery networks directly to trusts and with professional groups.

The NHS is also undertaking evidence-based initiatives such as the iSupport programme, which focuses on ensuring children’s rights and wellbeing. The iSupport checklist aims to help professionals deliver safe, compassionate and child-centred care. The programme is already being picked up by children’s wards across the country. I look forward to meeting Starlight. We have been trying to get this meeting in the diary for some time, and I am delighted that we have managed to do that. I look forward to working with Starlight to see where we can go further to help kids like Hari avoid childhood trauma.

[Jen Craft]

Recently, my daughter had an in-patient stay, and I saw a Starlight notice on the door of the playroom. Having met Starlight, it gave me quite a lot of confidence. In fact, thanks to the play therapist, the most traumatic thing about my daughter’s visit was when she had to leave, as she had such a good time. That was in an inner-city hospital; we also have a regional hospital that does not have the same resources. Can the Minister say how play therapy can be rolled out across the country so that every child can benefit?

[Ashley Dalton]

As I stated earlier, we are promoting the Play Well toolkit right across the country through a variety of communication methods. We look forward to a variety of healthcare settings using that toolkit to deliver in their local areas.

That moves me on to mental health. Under this Government, all children will have access to a mental health support team in their school or college by the end of this Parliament. We are also committed to opening 50 Young Futures hubs over the next four years, which will bring together services to help young people at a community level. There have been calls for us to go further on the children’s health workforce. The Minister for Secondary Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), is absolutely committed to making sure that we have the right skills to care for patients, including children, when they need it. We are working through the changes and what they will mean for different professional groups. I know that mental health will be at the top of the agenda, not least for children.

Health play therapists are trained through foundation degrees. The toolkit that has been developed sets out clearly how services should support practical training of specialists. Games and active play build social and emotional skills and support children’s wellbeing. We want every child to feel safe from harm and for their families to feel supported. We know that the poorest children are more likely to develop long-term illnesses. That is why it is shameful that child poverty has increased by 700,000 since 2010.

With more than 4 million children now living in poverty in the UK and 800,000 children using food banks to eat, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor took the necessary decision to fund the biggest reduction in child poverty of any Budget this century. We are expanding free school meals to half a million kids whose parents are on low incomes, and lifting hundreds of thousands out of poverty by removing the two-child benefit cap.

In addition, there is a £126 million funding boost for the family hubs and Start for Life programme this financial year. Best Start family hubs will be rolled out to every local authority from April. We have kept our manifesto promise to restrict junk food advertising targeted at children. We have announced improvements to the soft drink industry levy, and we have invested £11 million in local authorities to deploy supervised toothbrushing for three to five-year-olds in schools and nurseries in the most deprived areas of England.

On neighbourhood health, my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead raised an important point about multidisciplinary teams for children and young people, which should take an holistic approach to looking after children. The aim is to embed general paediatricians in primary care to give specialist paediatric advice and reduce the need for out-patient paediatric referrals. Those discussions ideally bring together wider health, social care and educational specialists. The make-up of the teams is locally determined by integrated care boards, but play specialists could absolutely be involved as part of a neighbourhood team.

Resident Doctors: Industrial Action

Jen Craft Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for that contribution, which is really important on two fronts. First, she is absolutely right that this really is not the time for this kind of disruption, and I think the BMA knows that. I do not think that those I am dealing with are bad people. I think they are frustrated with me and this Government—they do not think we have gone far enough—and I am equally frustrated with them, and the fact that they do not recognise how far we have come, and how fast, but that is the nature of the dispute. With the extended mandate, there is an opportunity for us all to park this and, in the worst-case scenario, revisit it in January. I hope, even now, that the BMA will seize that opportunity. I think it would do it the world of good in the eyes of the public, and in the eyes of its members and the wider NHS family.

I am really glad that the Chair of the Select Committee raised the point about international medical graduates and the overseas workforce. The NHS has always been an international employer. We have been so fortunate as a country that, since 1948, people have come from around the world to help us build and sustain a national health service. Without them, it would collapse, and we never want to be a country that closes the door to international talent.

What is extraordinary is that many of those overseas doctors, when they see the competition ratios and compare our approach to that of their home country and other countries, think we have lost the plot. They cannot believe we do not already do this, so I think they will understand what we are doing and why. I hope they will be reassured that international recruits who have given service to the NHS will also be able to apply for specialty places, because we want to recruit and retain great talent, but they will also recognise how this is a game changer for the ratios for homegrown talent. I think they will understand that. I think they will respect that. Not least, I have been at pains as Health Secretary, given some of the ugly rhetoric that has come from one corner of this Chamber, to emphasise that, while some people in this House might tell those international recruits to go home, as far as we are concerned they are home.

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

My mum, a former shop steward, always drummed it into me that there are no winners in a strike. Never is that as stark as in the situation we are facing now. There will be healthcare workers in my constituency, already under tremendous pressure, who will be looking at the situation coming up in the next few weeks with dread. That includes resident doctors who will be looking at that uncertainty and wanting some surety as to where they should go. The Secretary of State has been incredibly reasonable and has set out a plan that I plead the leadership of the BMA to get on board with. Call off these strikes to get us through winter and through this difficult period for the benefit of patients and for the whole NHS. Will the Secretary of State join me in echoing that plea?

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I hope that point is not lost on the BMA. On the Labour Benches, we are the party of labour. We were created by the trade union movement to represent the interests of working people. That has been our calling for more than a century, since this party was founded. We have shown through our actions, not just our words, that this is a party in government who are committed to defending and extending the rights of working people, to improving pay and conditions, to clamping down on exploitation, and to making sure that this is a Government with and for the people.

The BMA has a willing partner with this Government. I sometimes feel like the Government have changed, the policies have changed and the approach has changed, but the BMA’s tactics towards us have stayed the same. I understand their cynicism about politics and their grievances with the situation they are working in, but I ask them also to recognise the progress we have made when we work together. There is an opportunity confronting them now to make further progress and I urge them to seize it.

Budget Resolutions

Jen Craft Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

We will see what happens. It would be interesting to know exactly where the money will come from. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State just said that if the prices go up, there will be no cuts to the NHS budget, but where will the money come from? Which other part of the national health service and social care will the money come from? We will have to wait and see.

The Budget last week made no mention of social care. After all, Labour’s only plan is to delay coming up with a plan for a few more years, despite the urgency and the scale of the challenge. Many of us entered the cross-party talks in really good faith, and they were encouraging, but we have only met once. Surely we should be getting on with it. The message was loud and clear that we want to work together, but we want to get on with it. Please can we have another meeting, so that we can get on with tackling this really important issue?

It is not quite true to say that social care is unaffected by what was announced. The increase in the national living wage will be welcomed by those on the lowest incomes, but the Nuffield Trust estimates that it will cost the social care sector £1.2 billion. The sector is already struggling with last year’s national insurance contributions hike, so who will pay for this? Will there be funding cuts to other parts of the health budget? Will self-funders have to fork out yet more again, or will it be passed on to local authorities, inevitably leading to council tax rises? What impact will this national living wage increase have on wider pay in the sector?

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is talking about two completely opposite ends. He says his party wants to invest in and find a way forward on social care, but he is opposing something minimal that will raise the living standards of those who work in the industry. Which one is it: does he want to invest in social care or not?

[Stuart Andrew]

I am asking the question of who is going to pay for it. There is no detail in anything this Government do. They are full of plans and no delivery. The sectors I have been meeting are asking those questions—where is the money coming from?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)]

May I beg your indulgence briefly, Madam Deputy Speaker? This morning, I had the honour of attending the funeral of Makhan Singh, a kind and dedicated public servant in Gravesham. He served as a councillor for 36 years and was the first Sikh mayor in Kent and a freeman. He spent his life living the essence of Sikhism: service to others before oneself. He loved politics, but he loved helping people more, so I would like to send much love to his family as he will be missed.

This Budget delivers on much of the manifesto to help residents of Gravesham. I would like to touch on a few things that will help Gravesham. First, the Budget will help children out of poverty. Children and young people are not just our future; they are here, and the mark of any decent society is how we look after and support our children and young people.

I am delighted to see many of the measures in the Budget, including the removal of the two-child limit, which will help over 3,000 children in Gravesham, as well as money for breakfast clubs and childcare, so that families can balance the competing pressures of work and raising a family. In addition, the youth guarantee scheme will help young people who are starting out.

There is help for Gravesham’s businesses, too. The Chancellor spoke to local businesses in Gravesham about reforming business rates to ensure that high streets have the same opportunities despite the competition with large supermarkets and online retailers. The Budget starts the journey of reforming rates, helping 1,000 businesses and ensuring that warehouses and online retailers pay more, including during the transition.

The Budget will help with the cost of living. Freezing rail fares, reducing energy bills, freezing fuel duty and freezing prescription charges will help in the months ahead, as will keeping the triple lock on state pensions.

In the Budget, the Chancellor mentioned the lower Thames crossing. The Treasury and Transport teams will know of my long-running campaign on that. My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) and I will be holding the Government to account on the promises made to our communities. We have been calling in particular for the permanent restoration of the Gravesend-Tilbury ferry passenger service, which was cut by Kent county council and Thurrock council. We think that a small amount of the lower Thames crossing toll money should be ringfenced to provide that service.

[Jen Craft]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for mentioning our campaign. As she said, we both care very much about the return of the Gravesend-Tilbury ferry, which is a vital part of local public transport infrastructure. Our plea is for a very small proportion of the projected toll of the lower Thames crossing to be used to pay for the return of the ferry in perpetuity.

[Dr Sullivan]

I could not agree more.

After 14 years of cuts and austerity for local councils, communities like mine in Gravesham have been impacted by so many reduced services. In welcoming the Budget, I call for Gravesham’s fair share of the fair funding formula. The £1.5 million pride of place funding is a fantastic start as a downpayment for investment in Gravesham, but the Budget will be meaningful only if it reaches places like my constituency, which has carried the weight of neglect for years. Gravesham has the potential, talent and ambition to thrive, but it needs sustained investment to unlock that promise. I support the Budget and will continue pressing for the funded services and local infrastructure that my constituents have been denied for so long.

Mental Health Bill [Lords]

Jen Craft Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 14th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Jen Craft to make the final contribution. All those who have contributed to the debate should make their way back to the Chamber.

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker—I will be as brief as possible. I will speak to new clause 37, which stands in my name and which seeks to support the Government in ending the scandal of the inappropriate detention of people with a learning disability and/or autism. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on learning disability.

Currently, a learning disability or autism, in and of itself, can be grounds for detention under the Mental Health Act. As we all know, this is an absolute scandal—something from a previous age that should be a source of moral shame to everyone in our community. The Bill seeks to address this by removing autism or a learning disability, in and of themselves, as criteria for detention under the Mental Health Act. That offers a lifeline—a light in the tunnel of darkness that a number of people who are detained under the current Act face.

However, the impact assessment for the Bill states that the proposed changes to the detention criteria in clauses 3 and 4

“will only be switched on when systems are able to demonstrate sufficient level of community support”.

The families and carers of those have a learning disability or autism and who are detained under the Mental Health Act, and the organisations that support them and people who advocate for them, know that too often this vulnerable group of people are pushed to the bottom of a list of competing priorities, and very often slide off it.

We know that this Government and the Department of Health and Social Care have a number of competing priorities to deliver on, and the concern for people who fall into this bracket under the legislation is that their concerns just will not be addressed and that this absolute scandal will continue in perpetuity. People who have a learning disability or autism will be detained because our community services just are not up to snuff; we have so categorically failed them that the only thing we can think to do is to lock them away from society.

[Anna Dixon]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jen Craft]

I will not, because I am aware that I am almost out of time.

My new clause would ensure that the Government have to set out, within six months of this Bill receiving Royal Assent, a road map that engages in a co-productive way with people with learning disabilities or autism, their advocates and organisations that champion their rights. The road map will design what they need to support them to lead independent dignified lives in the community, and there will be a report every year to say how we are getting community services to a sufficient place so that these much-needed clauses in the Bill can be switched on.

This Bill updates mental health legislation and brings it into the 21st century. It is only right that it does so for everyone in our society, including the most vulnerable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jen Craft Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

We absolutely need to look at reducing waste in the NHS, so I would be delighted to pick up that case. Can I also say an enormous thank you to Holly’s family for the work they are doing in such unimaginable circumstances? I really admire people who put themselves forward to serve others in that way after such a painful experience.

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

Last Friday I brought together GPs, housing developers, the local authority, the ICB, and anyone else you care to name, to try finally to solve the issue of our having one of the most under-doctored areas in the country for primary care. Among the many issues raised was a particularly niche one: thanks to NHS Property Services demanding a late payment from a couple of GP surgeries, which were unaware that they were due to pay this rent, those surgeries now face the possibility of having to pay a bill that equates to the cost of one GP’s salary for a year. That cannot be right.