Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lee Barron and Keir Starmer

Wednesday 24th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s personal experience and pay tribute to his campaign. I am incredibly proud of the national cancer plan, which sets out how we are ending the postcode lottery through more cancer specialists, through paying the travel costs of children travelling for cancer care, and through investing in technology to drive research into rare cancers. Thanks to our record investment in the NHS, we have the shortest waits for cancer diagnosis on record. He will be pleased to know that, in his constituency, waiting lists in his local care board are down by 40,000. That is thanks to a Labour Government and Labour decisions.

[Lee Barron (Corby and East Northamptonshire) (Lab)]

Q2. Max Hall is 14 years old. He should be worrying about school, football, friends and what he wants to be when he grows up. Instead, he is living with a high-grade brain tumour and there is no cure available to him. His parents, Jackie and Steven, want to know why children being diagnosed with brain tumours are still being told that there are no treatment options available. Why does brain tumour research remain so underfunded, when brain tumours kill more children than adults under 40 than any other cancer? Why are families like them left to search for hope themselves? This Prime Minister has done so much to strengthen our NHS, so does he agree that we need to move at pace and do much more to offer hope to Max and his family, and families like his who are facing this unequally devastating disease?

[The Prime Minister]

My thoughts—and, I am sure, the thoughts of the whole House—are with Max and his family in what must be the most awful of circumstances. Through our cancer trials accelerator programme, we will make it easier to launch innovative new clinical trials and find new treatment. For people like Max, that will make young people’s cancer a research priority, make clinical trials more accessible and pay for his travel costs for care. I hope that comes as some comfort, but as a parent, I cannot imagine what his family are going through, given the circumstances that he faces. I know that a Minister would be happy to meet Max and his family.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lee Barron and Keir Starmer

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lee Barron (Corby and East Northamptonshire) (Lab)]

Q12. For too long, many of my constituents have not had access to good, secure, well-paid jobs. We made a commitment in our manifesto that we would change that. We cannot grow an economy based on insecure work where, from one week to the next, somebody does not know how many hours they will work or how much money they will be paid. Does the Prime Minister agree that all workers should have the hours that they actually work reflected in their contract so that we can give all working people the security to plan their finances and their lives and to build a future for themselves and their family?

[The Prime Minister]

I am proud of this Labour Government delivering the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation. We are ending exploitative zero-hours contracts and unscrupulous fire and rehire practices, plus we have changes to parental leave and sick pay. Workers will benefit from those rights in April, and they should never forget that Reform and the Tories opposed every single one of them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lee Barron and Keir Starmer

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me give the right hon. Lady a simple example. We had an example of green-belt land that was, in fact, a car park where building did not take place, and non-green-belt land that was an open playing field where building did take place. That does not make sense to me. That is why we have our policy.

[Lee Barron (Corby and East Northamptonshire) (Lab)]

Q11. Twelve-year-old Millie Blair from Oundle joins us today in the Gallery along with her mum, Gemma, her sister, Jessica, and her dad, Gordon. On Millie’s 11th birthday, she was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer, which led to her leg being amputated. Millie attends Prince William school, but she cannot access the lower playing field because the slope is too steep. Her parents, the school and I have asked the East Midlands academy trust to put in a ramp, but it has refused, claiming that it is not subject to certain parts of the Equality Act 2010. Does the Prime Minister agree that the trust has an absolute moral obligation to make those adjustments to give Millie full access to all the school, so that she can play and thrive with all her friends?

[The Prime Minister]

I welcome Millie to the Gallery—I appreciate that Members on the Opposition Benches cannot see her, but she is looking down at us and smiling with the courage and positivity that I know is everything to her. We absolutely salute that; we are humbled by it. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I really do find it hard to understand how a school trust could make a decision like that in relation to the ramp. Rather than berate those in the trust from the Chamber, I would just implore them on behalf of everybody here and Millie in particular to look again, and hopefully, with the endorsement of the whole House, to reconsider that decision, put in that ramp and match the positivity and the courage that Millie has shown all of us. I thank my hon. Friend for raising that campaign.