Changing Places Toilets: Capital Funding

Rishi Sunak Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Rishi Sunak (Richmond and Northallerton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I will do my best to keep standing—if nothing else, it will make me speak for a lot less time than I might otherwise, which will be a relief to everyone. I both congratulate the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) and thank him for securing this important debate. He speaks from personal experience, and he spoke very movingly and powerfully about the situation we are discussing today. I am grateful to him for giving us the opportunity to discuss this important topic.

Politics is often about addressing the great matters of state. We often talk about war and peace in this House. However, politics is also about making people’s everyday lives that little bit easier. One of the things all MPs discover is that we learn a lot from our constituents—certainly if those constituents are from Yorkshire, as the Chairman will appreciate. I was profoundly moved after a meeting I had with a group of my constituents in 2017. I had called in at the Dales School in Morton-on-Swale near Northallerton, and a group of parents of the most severely disabled children at the school wanted to talk to me. They told me about the difficulties they faced as families when they went out. and explained how a lack of suitable toilets and changing facilities meant that visiting the majority of leisure attractions and destinations across the country on a day out, which most families would take for granted, was nigh-on impossible for them.

I vividly remember one mum putting in front of me a magazine with all the events and attractions happening across the region in the summer holidays. She had gone through them and crossed out 99% because they did not have the facilities that her child required. As a parent myself, I looked at that list, saw all the places she had crossed out and realised that those were the very places I had taken my two young daughters to, to help them fall in love with Yorkshire after we first moved there. I reflected on the huge unfairness of that situation and how it compounded the difficulties that that family and many others faced—difficulties that most of us will never encounter—and how most of those places were just off limits for them. As I sat there, I felt that the situation was just not right.

Another parent, Andrew, spoke—similarly to the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford—of the physical difficulty and the indignity of having on occasion to change his 10-year-old daughter Aniela on rough ground behind a shed or on the dirty floor of a public bathroom, because those were the only places available to them in the circumstances. I admit that, going into my meeting with those parents, I had complacently assumed that we had largely resolved the issue of access to and provision of disabled toilets in this country. I had not realised, until I met and listened to them, that for young children or adults who require the help of a carer to use a toilet, a disabled toilet is not sufficient. They need a Changing Places facility with a bench, a hoist and a privacy screen.

After that meeting, I vowed to those parents that I would do whatever I could to raise and highlight the issue, which I began to do as a Back-Bench MP in Parliament. Fortuitously, a year later, I was lucky to be appointed Minister for Local Government. In that role, I was inspired by my predecessor as Member of Parliament for Richmond (Yorks), William Hague. As Minister for disabled people, which was one of his first ministerial jobs, he was instrumental in bringing into law, under John Major’s Government, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. That legislation enshrined in law the principle that institutions must make reasonable adjustments to ensure equality of opportunity for disabled people.

Twenty years after the introduction of the 1995 Act, I felt that we needed to renew that spirit to address the issue of Changing Places. As a junior Minister, I therefore set about changing building regulations to make it mandatory to install Changing Places facilities in new large public buildings such as shopping centres, cinemas and theme parks.

At about that time, I happened to meet Zack Kerr, a young campaigner with cerebral palsy—I am sure the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford knows him well. Zack told me then:

“Life can be difficult enough in many ways, but when there are no accessible toilet facilities where I can be hoisted safely from my wheelchair and changed in privacy and with dignity, I face the choice between staying at home or restricting my social life because of my needs...that’s just not fair.”

Zack rightly also pointed out the need for Changing Place facilities at motorway service stations, so that families could travel freely across the country. I am glad that, when the Conservatives were in Government, we made £4 million available not just to install Changing Places at motorway service stations, but to make a better start on installing them in NHS hospitals.

In 2020—fortuitously or not, depending on your point of view—I then became Chancellor of the Exchequer. In my first Budget, I launched the £30 million Changing Places fund, which match funded the cost of installing the toilets in existing buildings, where the need is, as we have heard, significant. I am delighted that over the subsequent years, the fund has made possible almost 500 different Changing Places facilities across the nation, including in Leyburn and at the Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes in my constituency.

As we have heard, more than 2,500 Changing Places are now installed across the country. We should take a moment to reflect that that is three times as many as there were a decade or so ago, when I first became aware of the issue. Now landmark attractions such as Alton Towers, Madame Tussauds and the Tower of London, as well as most Premier League stadiums and cinemas and shopping centres right across the country, all have that vital facility in place. Of course, the job is not done. We need more Changing Places facilities; almost a quarter of a million people rely on them.

We have made real progress, and it is worth taking a moment to thank the people who deserve praise for that. The consortium, as we have heard, is now run by PAMIS and the Centre for Accessible Environments, but previously, when I was in post, it was run by Mencap and Muscular Dystrophy UK, supported by many others. They deserve enormous credit for their co-ordination and campaigning on this issue. So do the tireless campaigners up and down the country—families with severely disabled children and other family members, like dad Andrew Newton and his daughter Aniela, who came to see me all those years ago.

Certainly for my part, as I reflect on my political career, it will remain one of my proudest achievements to have played a small part in supporting all their efforts. Every time a parent gets in touch to say they have been able to enjoy a family day out that most of us take for granted, I feel a real sense of pride. We all know there is much wrong with our politics, but this issue shows the value of our constituency system: communities are able to raise issues directly with their elected representatives and see them turned into action. It also shows the benefit of working across party lines over years to make changes, and to make people’s lives that bit easier.

I associate myself with the powerful speech by the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford. I know the Minister will have listened hard to what he said about the need for capital funding for existing buildings, and I am sure she will do what she can to make colleagues in Government aware of that issue, and to make representations to them. I know she will do that because all of us here are deeply committed to ensuring that these families can enjoy more opportunities and the better quality of life that they deserve, and most importantly, have the chance to live with dignity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. I thank the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) for introducing a topic that, as he said and as we all know, touches the very core of human dignity, equality and basic compassion. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Juliet Campbell) as well; I thank her for her contribution.

It was also a pleasure to hear the story told by the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) of how he was approached by his constituents and how, as he rose up the ministerial ladder, he used his position to ensure that the very things that his constituents had asked for were delivered. I wish to put on record my thanks to him for using his position for his constituents and all our people, because ultimately, we all benefit from that £50 million to which he referred.

It is also a pleasure to see the Minister in her place. I am not sure what is going on, but whenever she turns up, I seem to turn up as well. Westminster Hall has been well used this week on numerous occasions by both of us, and by many others as well. However, we seem to be featuring in similar debates.

When it comes to the welfare of vulnerable people, I will knock on any door and speak in any Chamber to ensure that they are not forgotten. That is why today is so important. I secured a debate just a few weeks ago about stoma care facilities and public toilets, but today we are talking about something slightly different: Changing Places toilets. We are not talking about standard disabled toilets; we are talking about life-changing essential facilities that provide an adult-sized, height-adjustable changing bench, a tracking hoist system, a centrally placed toilet and room for two carers—the physical room for them to be able to help.

Without those facilities, thousands of our fellow citizens cannot leave their homes for more than a couple of hours without facing the horrific, unsanitary and utterly degrading reality of being changed on a dirty public toilet floor. I would not like that, which is why I am here to speak up. I thank the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford for his moving contribution and his personal story. We all agree that personal stories carry weight. Today, he shared his with us all, and I thank him for doing so.

The Government previously announced magnificent capital funding pots for Changing Places toilets across England. But as the Member for Strangford, I will tell the story from Northern Ireland—it is not a great story but a disappointing one; maybe not for my constituency but certainly across Northern Ireland—to ensure that capital funding reaches the places that are falling desperately behind.

An estimated 7,000 people across our province rely entirely on Changing Places facilities to live a normal life, yet the figures show that Northern Ireland has historically been one of the worst-performing regions in the entire United Kingdom for provision, with a shocking lack of options outside major city hubs. Campaign groups have highlighted that four out of five hospitals in Northern Ireland—it almost makes me cringe to say this—still have no registered Changing Places facilities, leaving vulnerable patients, staff and visitors completely stranded in the very places that are meant to care for them, which leaves me incredulous. I followed up with the Northern Ireland Minister in relation to the stoma debate, and I will do the same now to reinforce the need for change.

I am very fortunate that my constituency of Strangford and the borough of Ards and North Down have been able to record the data: out of nearly 40 publicly available toilets across the borough, only about a dozen are standard accessible toilets. When looking for true, fully compliant and registered Changing Places toilets, the list shrinks even further. I commend—and I mean this, because I know that it has been doing many things—Ards and North Down borough council. I had the distinct honour of serving on it for some 26 years, and it has shown real leadership: it was the first council in Northern Ireland to ensure that all council accessible toilets were stoma-friendly. That is the good news story I shared in the stoma debate in this place about four weeks ago.

The council has successfully put standard Changing Places facilities into key hubs like the Bangor Aurora Aquatic and Leisure Complex, the Comber Leisure Centre and the magnificent Ards Blair Mayne Wellbeing and Leisure Complex. My council has moved mountains to make sure that those things happened, but local councils cannot carry the weight alone on strained ratepayers’ money.

If a family want to enjoy the beautiful shores of the Ards peninsula where I live, or visit Ballyhalbert, Portavogie or Cloughey, the facilities simply do not exist. Those places are nearly off-limits for those who, as the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford said, want to take their family out, even if it is only two hours down the road and back again. Families are forced to cut their days short and rush back to Newtownards or Bangor just so a loved one can use a bathroom in a dignified manner—we are talking about dignity here—which is a crying shame in this day and age.

While Northern Ireland has introduced legislative changes to building regulations in recent years to mandate these toilets in any new major public buildings such as shopping centres—the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford referred to that—the Department of Health and local authorities back home are facing severe financial constraints and have explicitly stated that they lack the central capital budget to retrofit existing hospitals, transport hubs and some town centres.

I am ever-mindful of the Minister’s responsibilities and that she always tries to give helpful answers to our questions, but will she take up this cause with the Chancellor and the Northern Ireland Executive to ensure that regional capital funding formulas allow for dedicated, ringfenced resources to expand their Changing Places network? The right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton can tell me whether I am right or wrong, but I presume that the £50 million earmarked for the project had Barnett consequentials.

[Rishi Sunak]

indicated assent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nesil Caliskan]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the important point he made earlier. I was coming on to say that of course I absolutely welcome a dialogue with him, but also with the consortium that has been referenced in the debate, which does such good work already. I am happy to meet with the consortium myself, but I am also confident that MHCLG and all current or future Ministers would welcome that engagement and dialogue. My hon. Friend is right that these sorts of facilities are successfully delivered only if there is a cross-governmental commitment.

Regulation and funding are part of that challenge, but we also need a joint recognition of the challenges in our communities to be able to see things delivered. The consortium is clearly playing a valuable role in articulating those challenges. It is absolutely right that MHCLG has that engagement and I am confident that it will going forward. I am happy to discuss with my hon. Friend any letters, correspondence or meetings that we need to have as a Department in the coming weeks and months to make sure that we can continue to make the case for these facilities.

Let me address the point about specific Government Departments and the opportunities that we face now because of Government initiatives and changes, which we do not want to lose, so that we can improve facilities for those who have needs. I was shocked to hear that so many NHS hospitals do not have the provision that we are talking about. That is not acceptable, and I think that all our constituents would be surprised to hear that. I am very happy to take that away and speak to colleagues in other Departments; I think they, too, will be surprised. It is a good example of where we need cross-governmental working, and I welcome the input from Members on how we might be able to do that.

I recognise the important points made about transport. The Government’s commitment to accessible transport is demonstrated in the spending that we have committed to the railways. Because of that, there is an opportunity to make sure they are accessible, and our transport hubs will play a key part in that. I will take those two specific points away.

I recognise the point that my hon. Friend made on modernising software and maps. A needs map, if you will, feels like quite an obvious thing that we could do, which would really make a difference to constituents across the country who simply do not know if there is a facility. An ability to map out the gaps could also give the necessary encouragement to Government and local authorities to allocate the moneys that are required to set up facilities.

I recognise the strength of feeling across the House in this very important debate on ensuring that public spaces are accessible, inclusive and supportive of people’s dignity and independence. I pay tribute to my good and hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford. The very best of politics are people who just get things done. I saw that for many years in local government, when he got things done, and he gets things done as a Member of Parliament too, but nobody who knows him will say that he is a soft touch in any way. He is formidable and effective. He is my hon. Friend, but he will tell me if we are doing something wrong as a Government, as he has.

[Rishi Sunak]

I add my thanks and congratulations to the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis). Before the Minister wraps up, I thank her for a very considered, informed and thoughtful response to the debate. Whatever happens next week, I very much hope that she is in a position to continue being a champion of this cause in Government, because I think she would do it very well.

[Nesil Caliskan]

That is very generous of the right hon. Member. I again thank all Members for their contributions and provide my reassurance that MHCLG will be committed to doing everything it can to meet the challenges that our constituents face.