Health Bill

Debate between Jim Dickson and Yvette Cooper

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 8th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Yvette Cooper)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Let me thank all those who have been involved in bringing this Bill to this point, including all those involved in Committee. I thank the parliamentary staff, the departmental staff and the legal staff, and the Members on both sides of the House, who have debated so many different issues during the passage of the Bill. In particular, I pay huge thanks to the Minister for Secondary Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), who has not only chaperoned this Bill through every stage from beginning to end—with some different Health Secretaries along the way—but has done today’s Report stage on her birthday; I wish her a hugely happy birthday.

I am grateful to everybody for their engagement, including those who, as well as debating the issues covered by the Bill, have taken the opportunity of these debates to raise so many issues that are so important to patient care right across the country, and to the improvements we need to make to patient and family care. I include in those thanks the parents of little Hugh Menai-Davis, who were in the House today.

Members in all parts of the House have been raising issues from special educational needs and disabilities to funeral regulation and health inequalities, and it is important that our NHS and health systems continue to improve.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State very much for giving way, because I know time is short. She is talking about the various issues that have come up while the Bill has been debated. One of them is the most common cause of death in the UK: dementia. An amendment that I tabled with the Alzheimer’s Society suggested that we bring the data on dementia, which is scattered right across the health system at the moment, into a single place to drive progress on early diagnosis and treatment. Does she agree that that is an important priority for the Government?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right to raise this vital issue. So many of us will have families and constituents who are affected by dementia. We are committed to introducing a dementia tsar as part of our response to Louise Casey’s commission, and we will be looking at data issues and evidence as part of that.

As this legislation completes its passage through this House, I thank my predecessor Health Secretaries for the work that they have done in bringing down waiting lists, improving treatment and getting more appointments than ever before. There are thousands more doctors, nurses, midwives and mental health workers in place than ever before, and we thank our national health service staff across the country. They also recognised that we inherited a system that was still badly held back by the failed 2012 Lansley reforms, including the huge administrative issue and unaccountable bureaucracy, with lots of duplication, poor communication and no proper accountability. This legislation is about strengthening democratic accountability and the focus on patient care. To be clear, I pay tribute to the work done by many people across NHS England—including in particular the recent work of the current chief executive, Jim Mackey, to substantially improve patient care and to reduce that duplication—but the systems and structures have been holding people back. That is why we have brought this reform forward, part of which will not just end the wasteful duplication, but ensure that our NHS system is better able to deliver.

I will update the House and the NHS shortly on the future operating arrangements. Let me say now that that means returning to some of the arrangements that applied before 2012, when we had strong national NHS leadership, but with much greater partnership and accountability and far less duplication than we have today. I have been frank with both the Department and NHS England that the focus needs to be on patients.

We are making some further reforms in response to the discussions in this House. I have made a commitment that we will bring forward amendments in the House of Lords to establish England’s first statutory maternity commissioner, implementing the Amos review’s recommendation, but also directly reflecting the work and determination of my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh), the Government’s national maternity adviser. I thank her for the work that she has done. We have also amended the Bill to ensure that local government is represented on ICBs. That was raised by the Select Committee. I am also clear that we need to ensure that patients’ voices are properly embedded in decision making. Members have all debated the importance of the single patient record to improve care.

It is great to be back at this Dispatch Box as a Health Minister, 24 years since I last spoke at the Dispatch Box as a Health Minister. I am surprised by how little has changed in many ways, but one thing that has not changed, but which is so immensely important to all of us, is the dedication of NHS staff and the people who work right across the country to support patients and communities. This Bill is about helping them to ensure they can do their jobs in the most effective way. I commend this Bill to the House.

NATO Summit

Debate between Jim Dickson and Yvette Cooper

Thursday 9th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman mentions a range of issues. In terms of the areas of agreement and disagreement, there will be areas where we continue to disagree with the President of the United States and have said so, including in our continued support for the sovereignty of Greenland and Denmark, which we have always made clear. That is why we worked in NATO and with the support of the United States for a new Arctic Sentry in NATO. The UK carrier strike group is operating as part of that. That is an important way of having a multilateral and shared defence of the High North, which is about protecting Canada, the United States, Norway and the western flank of Europe, including the United Kingdom, as well as the whole of Europe. That is the way in which we approach our Arctic security. That has strong agreement from the United States, which I think is a reflection of the way that we have worked to deal with those issues.

On the £37 billion for deep precision strike, we have allocated £3 billion over the first four years from the defence investment plan. That will help to fund some of the work we are doing with Germany and some separate work we are doing with France and Italy as part of a series of programmes all about deep precision strike, which we have brought European allies together on.

The hon. Gentleman refers to the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank and the multilateral defence mechanism. He may have seen that the Prime Minister and the Canadian Prime Minister put out a joint statement over the last couple of days to set out how we seek to work together to ensure that those initiatives, which do slightly different things, can combine and collaborate to ensure that we get the best possible impact.

On Sudan, we continue to raise the issue of arms flows, and we take that immensely seriously. That is exactly why we want to extend the arms embargo and believe that that needs to continue across the whole of Sudan. That is also why I have raised this issue with the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who are members of the Quad, and we will continue to pursue it.

The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of proscription. He will know that that is a matter for the Home Office, but we believe that there should be a full arms embargo on Sudan.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for her statement and for the work that she and the Prime Minister have done at the NATO summit. May I register my huge concern, and that of my constituents, that the ceasefire between the US and Iran appears to be over, due to the egregious breaches by Iran? The situation has escalated, with the US taking military action. May I ask for reassurance that those who helped to bring about the first ceasefire, including the UK, by working very closely with allies behind the scenes, will now do everything to try to bring about a new ceasefire, so that we can get a deal in place that will lead to a permanent peace? That will be good for the region and much better for the UK and the world economy.

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s points. We need to see an end to Iran’s attacks on commercial shipping in the strait. Crucially, that means Iran must give up its claim that it somehow has the right to control international shipping routes and Omani waters, because it does not. We want to see a return to talks, and we want the ceasefire to be sustained. We have offered to support the technical talks around preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and the reopening of the strait through our multilateral maritime mission.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jim Dickson and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Children kidnapped and stolen from Ukraine need to be returned to their families and to their country—that is essential. It must happen, and it is unconditional on anything else. The UK is continuing to support Ukraine and other countries in the work of tracing and identifying where children are, which includes direct work that has helped to identify the locations of 600 stolen children.

[Jim Dickson]

I thank the Secretary of State for her answer and, in particular, the UK Government’s continued excellent work to marshal the coalition of the willing in support of Ukraine. Does she agree that in any future peace agreement key Ukrainian red lines need to be defended: the preservation of Ukraine; that key parts of the Donbas are not under Russian control; that there are no Russian-imposed limits on Ukrainian armed forces; and freedom of Ukraine to join NATO?

[Yvette Cooper]

We have been clear throughout that, first and foremost, the future of Ukraine is for Ukrainians to decide. That means, as the Prime Minister said last week, that borders should not be changed by force. There must also be a sustainable peace, and not just an opportunity for Putin to pause and then come again. That would be a threat not just to the security of Ukraine, but to the security of Europe.