Hughes Report: Second Anniversary

Marie Goldman Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) for securing this vital and timely debate. First, I want to recognise the victims of the sodium valproate and pelvic mesh scandals, their families and especially the women who are yet again, through no fault of their own, another example of the UK’s unacceptable gender health gap.

I have spoken about my constituent Mary on several occasions in the House. It is a pleasure to welcome her and other women affected by these scandals here to watch this debate. I thank Mary and other campaigning mothers, such as Karen and Deborah, who have already been mentioned, for their tireless work to bring foetal valproate syndrome to my and other Members’ attention, and to keep this injustice in the spotlight. Mothers such as Mary have had to reckon not just with looking after their children with complex needs, who regularly require round-the-clock care, but with continuing their exhausting campaign work to try to keep the focus on the plight of their children in an attempt to receive better support.

One of the points that Mary and other mothers with children affected by foetal valproate syndrome are clearest about is that this is an evolving disability. No one knows the true damage that the drug may be causing victims as they grow older; those symptoms are evolving as they do, and children’s complex conditions often deteriorate. That can make appointments with GPs and other healthcare specialists incredibly difficult and complex. The lack of awareness and understanding about the situation among the medical community simply exacerbates the issue, and makes it even harder for mothers to get on with helping their children. It is vital that measures are brought into the clinician training curriculum, and those absolutely must feature testimonies from victims of medical scandals so that the medical community truly understand what they are facing.

It cannot be underlined enough that all these challenges are not hypothetical questions to these women and their families; they are their everyday realities. For that reason, it is incredibly frustrating—and, to be quite honest, angering—for those mothers that, more than two whole years after the publication of Professor Henrietta Hughes’s report into sodium valproate and mesh implants, the Government have not only not responded but have, of late, been stating that they

“will respond in due course.”

I am sorry, but what a totally rubbish, useless and uncaring answer! Much is said about distrust in our politics and our politicians in this country; that sort of mealy-mouthed answer, I am afraid, does absolutely nothing to restore that trust. We must do better.

I have so much more to say, but I am conscious of time. I will just say that Mary told me this morning, “We are exhausted from fighting.” Her plea is for MPs to find out more, to do more and to raise more awareness. I leave that plea with the House. The Government have an obligation to support families like Mary’s, and I hope that they will do the right thing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Karin Smyth]

I thank both Members for their comments. Experienced parliamentarians will know what I will be able to say. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West, outlined in his letter, costs—I think that is what the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East was alluding to—are part of the overall consideration, along with the complexity, in the work that he is leading on behalf of the Department across all Government Departments.

[Marie Goldman]

Will the Minster give way?

[Karin Smyth]

I am going to close by emphasising again that we are profoundly sorry, of course, for the enduring harm experienced by women affected by sodium valproate and pelvic mesh. Their pain, which we keep in our minds at all times, and the life-altering consequences they have suffered are truly heartbreaking. We recognise the immense toll, much of which we have heard about again today, that this has taken on them and their families. We have listened closely to calls for clarity, speed and decisive action on the report’s recommendations. To be very clear, we are committed to setting out our response at the earliest credible opportunity while ensuring that it is both robust and deliverable. I think that, as we have heard again today, Members here and people listening recognise the complexity of that. I assure those listening that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State is determined to progress this matter, and he is willing to meet campaigners and discuss that in more detail, as Members have asked us to do today.

Budget Resolutions

Marie Goldman Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)]

Like many Members across this House, my team and I deal with casework about special educational needs on an almost daily basis, so I welcome the announcement that from 2028 the Government will be centrally funding SEND, in theory ending the postcode lottery of SEND provision and lessening the pressure on financially strapped local authorities. However, there was no new money for schools in the Budget, and the OBR estimated that almost £2 billion would need to be cut from the SEND Budget in 2028-29, so how will this work?

The Government and the Education Secretary have long said that the SEND reforms will not be about cutting funds, yet when asked by The Guardian whether the SEND White Paper would have any role in this cut, it was reported that His Majesty’s Treasury said that it would. It is parents and children that must be at the heart of any reform, not cost cutting, but I worry that the Budget sets the scene for just that. I encourage the Government to assure families that their children’s needs will not be ignored because, amid the cuts, they are deemed too expensive.

Sadly, this Budget worsens the economic outlook for young people. The Resolution Foundation has noted that the rise in the minimum wage for under-20s could make it even harder for this age group to find work because, coupled with last year’s employer national insurance rise, it will make hiring even more expensive. Freezing the threshold for when student loan repayments must start is not just another stealth tax; it is one that is specifically aimed at young people. The Government’s decision to again freeze tax bands will also disproportionately impact young people, who earn most of their income through wages rather than dividends and who spend a much larger share of their income on essentials that are impacted by higher inflation, such as food and rent.

Turning to disabled people, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I welcome the long-overdue removal of the two-child benefit cap, but this change does not help families raising disabled children, who were already exempt from it and are far more likely to be living in poverty. Rhetoric suggesting that benefit claimants get luxury cars is simply misleading, unhelpful and ultimately punitive. It does nothing to fix our economy, but it does create an enemy of vulnerable people. People from disabled communities have told me that they used to be forgotten entirely, but are now upset at being scapegoated for the country’s ills, and are getting tired of it. One disabled person told me recently that they almost wished disabled people could go back to being forgotten. Research from Sense, the charity for disabled people with complex needs, points out that two in five parents of disabled children cannot properly heat their homes in winter, with the same proportion skipping meals so that their child can eat. There are so many other measures that should have been in the Budget, but it does absolutely nothing to support these communities.

Finally, on mental health, Renew Counselling, a 100-year-old charity in my constituency delivering mental health support, wrote to me after the Budget to remind me of the extra strain the rise in the minimum wage will place on it. It is not that it disagrees with paying it, but where is the support for those charities?

Maternity Services

Marie Goldman Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) for securing this important debate. I will keep this brief and not reiterate all the things that have been said before, but there are a couple of points I want to make about how important it is to talk about women at the most vulnerable point in their lives, as well as the most vulnerable point for the babies who are being born. There cannot be a more important time in their lives than the moment when they are born, which is why it is so important to talk about this. I speak as a woman and a mother, but also as a human being. We are discussing the birth of the human race; I do not think there is anything more profound than that.

However, I will focus on something that has not been raised very much today: the role of the CQC in keeping our maternity services safe. One of the hospitals that serves my constituency of Chelmsford is Broomfield hospital, the maternity services rating of which was downgraded to inadequate at the beginning of January. That on its own is shocking and worrying enough. I have met the staff at Broomfield hospital and been to the maternity services there. I want to give it help and support so that it can improve. However, what concerns me is that the CQC carried out its inspection in March last year and only released its report in January. That is utterly unacceptable. How can we be expected to hold our services to account and how can we help them to improve if we do not even know what is wrong with them in the first place?

It is the CQC’s job to tell us what is wrong with those services and lay it out bare so that we can learn from the things that go wrong and quickly put them right. It is not okay for the CQC to turn around and say “We have had technical difficulties with our new system and, therefore, we couldn’t get the report out”. That is not good enough. It is also not good enough for them to say “We shared some of our findings with the hospital, which is also making them public at the same time”. It is simply not good enough. We need to support the CQC to do much better.

I am conscious of time and I know other Members want to speak, but I want to underline the importance of the role of the CQC, as well as the leadership across all of the NHS. From the excellent job that the midwives and the support staff do in maternity centres to the leadership of the hospitals, including the chief executives and the ICBs, everyone has a role to play in improving maternity services. The CQC also has a huge role to play, and it must do better.