Office for Students

Debate between Maria Miller and Emma Hardy

Wednesday 26th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Emma Hardy]

I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate. The Minister knows how to charm me: he talked about how good Hull University is, and of course I agree. That brings me to my favourite fact about it: there are more graduates from Hull University in the Houses of Parliament than from any other university, partly because of its internship programme.

Nobody minds bureaucracy and paperwork if their purpose is seen as improving outcomes for students; as a teacher, I never minded that. The core of the issue is that although some OfS bureaucracy does make a difference—I share the Minister’s thoughts about the equality risk register—so much of it does not improve outcomes for students. In fact, it has a detrimental impact as it drives resources and energy away from the necessary focus on students. I welcome the fact that the Minister is going to look at some of my examples.

On the issue of the chair of the OfS, I should say that the Minister and I served together for a few years on the Education Committee—he cares about education, as does everyone in this room. I just believe that we deserve an OfS chair who genuinely cares about education as much as we all do.

[Dame Maria Miller (in the Chair)]

Before I put the question, I offer a sincere apology to the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield). I started the debate six minutes early because I knew that we would fill every moment, but I could see that he had made every effort to be here by 4.30 pm. I hope he will understand that, in starting early as we did, we gave the debate an extra few minutes—including an extra few minutes’ scrutiny of the Minister, which I am sure the Minister appreciated.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Office for Students.

Health and Care Bill

Debate between Maria Miller and Emma Hardy

Report stage
Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy]

I will be brief, speaking to new clause 32 in my name. It is an amendment based on the proposed Charlie’s law. I thank my dear friend and colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), who has been working on the issue with the Charlie Gard Foundation and the tireless campaigning of Charlie’s parents.

I will be as brief as I can be. In short, my new clause seeks to do five things: first, to require the Secretary of State to put in place measures to improve early access to mediation services in hospitals where conflict is in prospect; secondly, to provide for access to appropriate clinical ethics committees, so that both doctors and parents are supported in making difficult decisions by impartial ethical experts; thirdly, to provide the means necessary to obtain second medical opinions swiftly and to ensure that, when requested, parents receive access to their child’s full medical data, so that the second opinions are fully informed; fourthly, to provide access to legal aid to ensure that families are not forced to employ costly legal representation or to rely on outside interest groups to fund representation in court; and, finally, to create a new legal test of whether an alternative credible medical treatment would cause a child a disproportionate risk or significant harm in deciding whether a parent is able to seek that treatment for their child.

In essence, the provisions set out in the new clause would mitigate conflicts at the earliest stage, ensure that the voices and opinions of parents are listened to, save hundreds and thousands of pounds for parents, doctors and the NHS in protracted legal battles, and ensure that a critically ill child is given the best care and support available at a crucial time in that child’s life. No parent wants to spend time in court or in battle against the NHS when their child is critically ill. There must be a better way to resolve conflict. I hope that the Minister looks seriously at my new clause 32 and at ways to incorporate it into future legislation.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I speak to new clause 50, tabled in my name and that of the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson).

We badly need a wake-up call, because at the moment we are allowing the criminal law as currently drafted to drive a fundamental wedge between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, treating women in Northern Ireland in a completely different way from women in England and Wales when it comes to abortion. Two years ago, the Government changed the law governing abortion in Northern Ireland after a vote in this place, removing criminal sanctions on abortions in Northern Ireland, while leaving women in England and indeed Wales facing the possibility of the harshest criminal sanctions for abortion in the world, under laws passed more than 50 years before any women was even able to vote for the people representing them in this place.

New clause 50 would change that. It would decriminalise abortion and ensure that women in England and Wales are treated in the same way as women in Northern Ireland when it comes to abortion. Our values and our rights are what unite our four nations. To treat women differently in those nations weakens those ties. That needs to be rectified. The new clause does just that, and it would change nothing about abortion services, access to abortion or the time limits on abortion.

The women most likely to be affected and governed by the criminal law are some of the most vulnerable in our society: victims of domestic abuse, of honour-based violence and of rape, and those who are too poor or marginalised to travel to a clinic to seek help. If a desperate woman attempts to end her pregnancy, do we really want her to not seek medical help for fear of arrest and prosecution? New clause 50 simply removes women from being subject to the criminal law for seeking an abortion, and it is fully supported by the medical experts, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of General Practitioners.