High Speed Rail (Crewe - Manchester) Bill (Instruction) (No. 3)

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Graham Stringer

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer]

Indeed, but we are talking about major national infrastructure. I always hoped that HS2 would not just go to Manchester and Leeds but, for both political and transport reasons, would go to Scotland. As someone who believes in the Union between England and Scotland, I think that would help, and it would be very good transport policy, too.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for taking another intervention. Does he agree that cancelling the northern leg of HS2 has taken away capacity that is now ending up on the roads, and that we therefore have more congestion, more pollution and more environmental damage?

[Graham Stringer]

I agree with the hon. Lady, and I hope I have already made that point.

Covid-19: Response and Excess Deaths

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Graham Stringer

Thursday 18th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer]

I am not familiar with that particular paper, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that nothing is ever 100% safe and vaccines have an overall benefit. I am vaccinated against covid, as I have been vaccinated against many things over my lifetime. Vaccines have made the health of this country, and countries around the world that can afford vaccines, much better over many years.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Further to that, may I suggest that this should not be binary? We do not acknowledge that some people have clearly had severely negative side effects from the covid vaccine. That should be acknowledged and there should be compensation and support, without completely throwing out the whole vaccine programme.

[Graham Stringer]

Of course.

I want to move on to excess deaths over the last couple of years, since covid, and the figures during covid. One of the ways of measuring the impact of covid was looking at excess deaths during covid. They were measured against a five-year average—that was the gold standard; it is the way it has been done—and that gave quite large figures. That is interesting given what has happened when the excess 100,000 deaths per year over the past two years have been looked at. The Office for National Statistics has moved away from that basis and on to a different one, and the figures are coming down.

We need an anonymised account of those excess deaths—this was part of a recent Westminster Hall debate—because that will help us to understand what is going on. The pharmaceutical companies have been given that information, but Ministers just give reassuring statements that there is no evidence that excess deaths are caused by the covid vaccinations—by the mRNA vaccinations. How do they know? They do not tell us that. We need to know, first, how they have come to that conclusion and, secondly, if that is a fair, reasoned and balanced conclusion. We also need a detailed look at the anonymised statistics, so that we can ask further questions about the problems that are worrying us—that certainly worry me—and so that we can make better decisions in future.

Ambulance and Emergency Department Waiting Times

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Graham Stringer

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

I found on the doorsteps in my part of Devon over the last month that pretty much every door I knocked on had somebody behind it with an anecdote about how ambulance waiting times had affected them personally. In south-west England we have the longest waiting times in the country. One paramedic told me that despite his very best efforts to treat patients, there were times when he came across very undignified scenes. He talked about one example of how he came across a lady who had fallen down and had to wait 14 hours for an ambulance to arrive.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order. I realise that the hon. Gentleman is new, but interventions should be short and to the point. I did not want to interrupt him, but I ask him to remember that interventions should be as brief and to the point as possible.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Thank you, Mr Stringer. I think every one of us has such stories from the doorstep. Almost everybody knows of a loved one or a friend who has waited an unacceptably long time. That is why it is so important that we get the urgent review that Liberal Democrats have been calling for.

We are calling for a formal inquiry. The Government need to fund thousands of extra beds to stop handover delays in A&E so that ambulances can get back on the road as soon as possible. Will the Minister comment on a formal inquiry into the crisis?

Leaving the EU

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Graham Stringer

Monday 5th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I have many reasons to be proud of my constituency of Bath. One of the most important to me is its long tradition as an open-minded, welcoming and outward-looking city. Bathonians want this country to reflect those values, which we hold close to our hearts. Bath was one of the constituencies with the most signatories to the petition to halt Brexit for a public inquiry. In 2016, 68% of Bath residents voted to remain, putting us in the top 50 remain-voting constituencies in the UK.

Just days after the referendum, a handful of us residents founded what became one of the most active grassroots campaigning organisations in the country, Bath for Europe. We came together as a non-party political group of volunteers campaigning for the UK to remain at the heart of the European Union. I was a founder member of Bath for Europe before I was elected the MP for Bath. We were ordinary people achieving extraordinary things. We donated our spare time, talent, creativity, knowledge, experience, ideas and resources to keep the cause of Europe front and centre, both locally and nationally.

In addition to organising rallies, marches, speakers, events and regular meetings, perhaps our biggest achievement was our constant engagement with members of our community. Every week, we held street stalls and commuter calls, handing out leaflets and discussing Brexit and what it would mean for our city and our country. We did our research, and we respectfully listened to people, some of whom had opinions very different from our own. We spoke to them in a positive spirit. We became a fixture in Bath, and our constructive dialogue helped to lift the public discourse.

Among the most damaging legacies of Brexit have been the deepening division in our society and an aggressive culture war that seeks to pit people against each other. Bath for Europe stands for equality and fairness. For example, this spring, the group held a virtual EU citizens fair to support those applying for settled status. Bath for Europe remains a force in our city. The people of Bath will continue to uphold the values of openness, inclusion and international co-operation, and I will use my voice to represent their views in Parliament.

It is important to stress that we should not fight lost battles. No EU membership is now a reality. That does not mean that there are not many millions of people in the UK who believe that our place is at the heart of the European Union. Their voices need to be heard too, and I am one of them. Passionate supporters of a football club do not immediately switch sides to the club who won the premier league. They stay loyal to their side through the years, even through relegation, and prepare for better times.

[Graham Stringer]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is a fundamental of democracy that the losing side accepts the overall result and the winners? That is how democracy works. One does not have to change one’s view, but one has to recognise the result.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I absolutely understand that democracy needs to play itself out, and I do not want to reheat the battles that we had for two and a half years in this Parliament.

However, we have argued again and again that the decision made in 2016 was unclear. We need to make it clear and discuss to the end whether what people understood they voted for in 2016 is really what they wanted. The result is now there, I accept that; we had a very clear election result, and we are now no longer members of the European Union. That is why I say that it is no use to now fight lost battles. But we have a passion to be at the heart of the European Union, and almost half of the people of the UK still believed that going into the 2019 election. They have not suddenly gone away. The winning side has to accept that too, therefore the debates that we continue to have here are not undemocratic. They are part of democracy. People have their voices heard.

EU membership at some point in the future continues to be a Liberal Democrat ambition. I firmly believe that our time will come, but in the meantime I will stand up for all EU citizens here in the UK and for UK citizens in Europe, and make sure that they can live with all their rights undiminished. That is what I now fight for: to keep the flame alive that our place as the United Kingdom is at the heart of the European Union. I will not give up on that belief, and I do believe that our time will come.