Westminster Hall

Tuesday 13th October 2026 Westminster Hall

Tuesday 13 October 2026

[Karl Turner in the Chair]

UK Coach Industry

Tuesday 13th October 2026 Westminster Hall

09:30

[Alex Mayer (Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard) (Lab) [R]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of the UK coach industry.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. A couple of years ago, I was invited to speak at the conference of the Coach Operators Association. Being a reasonably diligent MP, I checked how many mentions of “coach” there had been in that parliamentary Session. There were rather more than I expected. Delving deeper, I found many references to cricket coaches, football coaches, basketball coaches and various issues that hon. Members wished to drive a horse and coach through.

Parliament has been talking about coaches for almost as long as they have existed. In the 1790s, Parliament debated people who leapt on to stagecoaches and, just as they reached the tollgate, jumped off and got on again at the other side, in what seems the short ticketing of the past. In 1839, there was a mention of Dunstable and coaches. A coach proprietor, Mr Johnstone of Dunstable, was worried about taxation on stagecoaches and competition from newfangled railways. I have to report that, unfortunately, the Chancellor was not sympathetic to the plight of stagecoaches. I hope the Minister today will be more so to the modern coach industry.

Coaches have been described to me by many in the industry as a social glue. They are certainly not niche; we see them all around us. They offer flexible, affordable and sustainable transport for millions of people. They take 600,000 children to school every day. One million people take coach trips and tours in the UK each year.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Given the importance of the coach industry, I wonder whether my hon. Friend agrees that parking arrangements for coaches have never been given proper consideration. In a city like Cambridge, a tourist hotspot, it is a long-running problem.

[Alex Mayer]

My hon. Friend makes a fantastic point. Cambridge, along the Backs, is often full of coaches. It is important to get across to residents that one big coach stops a lot of small cars. Although we need more coach parking spaces, it is important to think about the environmental benefits that a coach brings.

Coaches also take people to concerts and football matches—Wembley is home to Europe’s largest coach park—and they provide rail replacement services. Importantly, they bring passengers to the door. A railway station might be a little away, but a coach will take passengers to the door of Alton Towers or a National Trust property.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Coaches do even more than the hon. Lady mentions. They take my Orange lodge in Northern Ireland, my Royal Black Preceptory and the Apprentice Boys to the 12 July parade. For Northern Ireland, coaches are the glue that keeps the community and our Orange lodges going.

[Karl Turner (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions need to be short.

[Alex Mayer]

Coaches can be booked to get people anywhere they want to go. They are also important for growth, a defining mission for Governments of all stripes. The coach industry brings £17 billion to the UK economy. When I pitched this debate to the Backbench Business Committee, I compared coaches to the fishing industry, which brings about £1 billion, saying that coaches should feature in as many debates as fish in this place.

Coaches are easy to deploy. There is no need to spend years building railway tracks, for example. Despite all that, coaches remain under-appreciated. Why is that? Surveys show that about a third of respondents think coaches are uncomfortable, outdated and infrequent. That is an outdated view; today’s coaches are comfortable and modern, and often take passengers precisely where they want to go. I think one of the reasons for that view is that they are family businesses and do not necessarily employ public relations folk to talk to us here and get the messages across that they need to. I also think it is down to us. MPs and journalists do not often use coaches in the way that we use trains. There is a good statistic that says that 97% of people have never heard a politician talk about coaches. I hope they are all tuning in today so that we can right that wrong.

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I am going to talk about coaches. The hon. Lady mentions local businesses, which include Eastbourne Coaches and Lynns Travel Eastbourne. Does she agree that there is a role for those businesses, and also for big business such as National Express to bring their coaches to Eastbourne, especially in the light of the terrible railways we are experiencing in our patch?

[Alex Mayer]

Coaches have the potential to bring people to all kinds of tourist destinations and to fantastic seaside areas. We should appreciate them for that.

Within the Department for Transport, there are specific teams for bus and for rail, but not a specific coach team. Might the Minister be willing to comment on that? On that theme, one issue facing the coach sector is that it gets lumped together with other sectors, most noticeably bus, but also HGV.

Having waxed lyrical about coaches, I come to my next question: what is a coach? That might seem a bit odd at this stage, because I think we all instinctively and intuitively know what a coach is: the passengers climb up into it, there is a space for luggage underneath, they sit—there are probably seatbelts—and the coach takes them a reasonable distance. However, in law it is a bit more of a muddle. When granting an operator’s licence for a coach, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency mixes coaches and buses together, so coaches cannot be specifically counted. When it comes to accessibility rules, the Department for Transport says a coach is something that passengers sit down in and there are no standing passengers. A coach can even become a bus as it is driving along—it can start being regulated as a coach, but if it picks up and drops off passengers with a 15-mile gap between them, it becomes a bus for that bit of the route, before magically turning into a coach again. When I have asked parliamentary questions on this subject, Ministers cannot reliably tell me how many coaches there are. I do not think it should be down to enthusiasts to be counting them.

As well as not being able to count coaches, we cannot count coach drivers. It is the same issue: the standard occupational classification data used by the Office for National Statistics puts bus and coach drivers together. When I was looking at that dataset, I did the same thing as I did with Hansard and did a keyword search to find out where coach drivers appeared. They were indeed in with bus drivers. Then I looked again at sports coaches, which have their own subcategories of cricket coaches, football coaches, and the like. Why can we not do the same for coach drivers? If we had better data, we would ultimately be making better policy.

While we are on the subject of drivers, we need more of them. There are 5,000 to 10,000 vacancies in the sector at the moment and about a quarter of coach drivers are over the age of 60, so it is a challenge that is likely to get worse. What we need is a plan to get young drivers straight from school into the driver’s seat. Back in 2024, there was a consultation on one of the issues for young drivers. The mileage that young drivers do is limited by law at the moment. For example, if a young driver started off from 10 Downing Street and drove north to No. 10 North, they would only get as far as about Milton Keynes before they had to stop. The Minister has said before that he is looking at the results of that consultation and assessing proposals. Might he be able to give us a timeline for when we might hear more about that? While the Minister is at it, could he also talk to his colleagues in the Department for Education? Yesterday, I received a letter from a Minister about skills bootcamps, but although HGV drivers can use the good funding available in skills bootcamps, coach drivers cannot.

Lumping things together also happens on the path to net zero. Coaches are lumped in with HGVs, rather than buses, although the requirements can be quite different. If an HGV driver stops at a motorway service station, they park, plug in, and away they go, but a coach driver has 50-odd passengers to deal with, all of whom need to be got safely off the coach and into the motorway service station to buy some overpriced sandwiches, so the requirements are very different. A zero emission HGV and coach infrastructure strategy is due soon. Can the Minister assure me that adequate attention will be given to the specific challenges for coaches?

In a recent pilot programme to install charging infrastructure, which was shared between trucks, HGVs and coaches, it turned out that less than 3% of the funding went to the coach sector. Coaches have also been excluded from the van and truck zero emission grants because they are not vans or trucks, and from ZEBRA—the zero emission bus regional areas scheme—because they are not buses.

In dealing with issues around net zero, we need more support for the industry, which is hard to decarbonise, because coaches by their nature go to lots of places and do not necessarily have predictable routes. At the moment, 75% of operators say that they do not plan to buy net zero vehicles. Will the Minister commit to a long-term road map so that the coach industry knows where it is going? Has the low-carbon fuel strategy, which was consulted on back in 2022—some in the industry are still awaiting the outcomes—been lost in the mists of time? Should we be waiting for something else, or will we get some results from it?

Fuel costs are one of the issues that many in the industry are talking about. Because of Trump’s ill-thought-out war in Iran, diesel prices have absolutely rocketed—they are up 46% since February—and that is having a real impact on operators up and down the country. I am sure we will hear some examples of that after I have finished speaking. I know the Minister cannot comment on what is likely to be in the Budget, but would he be willing to talk to some of his Treasury colleagues ahead of the announcement to make the case for the coach industry?

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) (PC)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her fantastic speech and on emphasising the importance of coach operators across the country. Does she agree that, in making the case to the Treasury, the Minister should point out that in many rural areas local coach operators serve as the backbone of the school transport system? Quite frankly, the school transport system would collapse without them.

[Alex Mayer]

Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman makes the point well. Coach operators normally sell tickets in advance, whether for tours around the country—the brochures are printed perhaps a year in advance, they go through letterboxes, and half the places are filled up by Christmas—or for school transport, for which they bid for a contract from the local authority at a time when they thought the fuel price would be different. Coach UK warns that, without help, some schoolchildren could be left stranded, so I hope the Minister will look into that.

This debate is about the future of the coach industry, which I think is bright. We have a brand-new trade body, Coach UK. Coaches were mentioned in the Government’s “Better Connected” strategy, which many people in the industry were enthused and excited about. Pursuing a closer relationship with our European partners and neighbours might sort out some of the issues that coach drivers face at the border during international travel.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I apologise for missing the beginning of the hon. Lady’s speech. She is making a bold case and a welcome one, and I congratulate her on bringing this matter to the House. She mentioned the issue of recruitment; she will know that two of the barriers to recruitment relate to the restrictions on young people driving. First, Gary and Michele Salter from Long Sutton in my constituency, who run GDS Travel, tell me that young drivers cannot start their off-road and theory training until they have a provisional licence. That seems to be a nonsense. Secondly, young drivers are restricted as to where and how far they can drive. Changing those two things would attract more young people into the industry and deal with some of the issues the hon. Lady has raised.

[Alex Mayer]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and I am keen to hear from the Minister when we might hear back from the Government about the consultation that was undertaken.

To make sure the coach industry succeeds as much as possible, we need to make sure that the industry is visible and that the Government really focus on it. That could involve big things like a net zero strategy, and also little things to make coach operators’ lives a bit easier. I cannot understand why, a quarter of the way into the 21st century, coaches still have to display a paper disc on their windscreen showing their operator’s licence when we got rid of all that kind of thing for cars years ago. We might be able to sort out those kind of little bureaucratic things.

I have been bothering the noble Lord Hendy about the new Great British Railways app. Trainline—other apps are available—allows users to toggle between train and coach. The new GBR app ought to be able to do the same thing if we believe in an integrated transport system and in giving people choice. Choosing to travel by coach is often much more affordable.

Coaches are unique and vital. We should celebrate them for what they are, not for what they share with other forms of transport. I am convinced that they will continue to adapt as we move into the future. On that note, I wish everybody a happy National Coach Week.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Karl Turner (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to speak in the debate. As there is a lot of interest and lots of people want to speak, I am going to impose an informal time limit of four minutes. I call Jim Shannon.

09:47

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Thank you very much, Mr Turner. It is always a pleasure to be called, and to be called first is almost unique. In the Chamber I am usually last, but the last shall be first and the first shall be last, so in this case I am well ahead. I thank the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) for raising the issue of the coach sector. I will speak about two significant coach companies in my constituency, what they do and what it means to the community.

Across the United Kingdom, some 2,500 coach operators have faced a 46% increase in diesel prices since February this year. For many industries, the question is no longer how to turn a profit but how to stay afloat. Some 38% of coach companies say they are likely to withdraw from home-to-school transport contracts due to the rising operating costs, which have not been matched by the rates they receive.

I am aware that colleagues on the Opposition Benches have some comments, and I look forward to hearing them, but the companies that I talk to tell me they are under pressure to try to deliver a contract that has been agreed, while diesel prices go through the roof. The pressures today are immense, and the consequences will be deeply felt by families and parents who face additional stress and the expense of finding alternative arrangements. In the rural community where I live, the buses and particularly the coaches are under incredible pressure because of some of the contracts. The challenges facing coach services will extend beyond the industry itself, as the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard said.

Of course, fuel costs are not the only challenge. The proportion of unfilled coach driver positions stands at 12.4%—again, the hon. Lady referred to that. A community group in my constituency has done some excellent work in introducing men to the opportunity—very rarely is it a woman who takes on the job, at least in my constituency. It is mostly men, but the opportunity is there and people are encouraged.

We must look again at scrapping the outdated restrictions on younger coach drivers. For instance, qualified 18 and 19-year-olds can drive HGVs without the same distance restrictions that apply to younger coach drivers. It is difficult to justify maintaining such restrictions when coach operators face a national recruitment shortage. Combined with an ageing workforce, the restrictions make the shortage even worse.

We must support the economic contribution of the coach sector, which supports some 81,000 jobs and generates £6.4 billion in economic value. Allowing our coach services to fail would put people out of work and undermine local economies.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there needs to be greater recognition of excellent companies such as Hutchison Engineering and Wrightbus in Northern Ireland, which frequently hold fantastic exhibitions to demonstrate their expertise? We need more recognition of and support for coach builders.

[Jim Shannon]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is brilliant to see that locally.

I will mention two companies in particular. Coach Connections in Portaferry is doing so well from its hub in my constituency. Adrian and the team do a fantastic job keeping community members, schoolchildren and sports teams moving safely and reliably right across the country. Managing a top-class fleet alongside a dedicated team of more than 15 local staff is no small feat. They have a brilliant line-up of vehicles, from highly accessible 19 to 33-seater mini-coaches, which are perfect for community groups, right up to the flagship 53-seater Mercedes-Benz Tourismo luxury tri-axle coaches. Now, if that is not a good encouragement for a business in my constituency, I do not know what is.

Seeing the expansion of Coach Connections this year, alongside its taking on the excellent Volvo and Plaxton touring vehicles from McAvoys, which it brought over, is a massive testament to the hard work and dedication of its staff. We are incredibly lucky to have such a brilliant and dependable service operating right on our doorstep.

Of course, the strength of our local transport network does not stop there. We also have a fantastic team at Giles Tours. Since 1981, Neil and Patricia’s award-winning family business has been a household name for quality travel. Their wonderful drivers, including Josh, Dave and Andrew, constantly go the extra mile to look after passengers with unmatched hospitality. Whether it is on an executive private hire or on the company’s famous luxury coach holidays across the United Kingdom, Ireland and Europe, Giles Tours provides a first-class service that makes the entire constituency of Strangford proud. I am very proud to be the MP for Strangford and to have such companies locally. It is is encouraging. Our local travel needs are in the safest possible hands.

The Translink bus group is under considerable financial pressure, saying that it faces a £46.6 million loss in the upcoming year. Translink has some 160 coaches in Northern Ireland. [Interruption.] I am going to conclude—

[Karl Turner (in the Chair)]

Order. We need to stick to the time limit to allow Members to get in, if we don’t mind.

[Jim Shannon]

Okay. I urge the Government to consider short-term support for coach operators to help them to keep services on the road.

09:52

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

Good morning, Mr Turner. It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair, as always. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) for securing the debate. I wish to concentrate on the industrial and procurement elements in respect of buses and coaches. I refer right hon. and hon. Members to my membership of Unite the union.

At the end of March, Alexander Dennis announced that there would be 115 job losses and an end to Scottish bus manufacturing in Falkirk. In my constituency, the Larbert site has been converted to chassis manufacturing. The week before Alexander Dennis made that announcement, the Scottish Government declared the results of the £45 million Scottish zero emission bus challenge fund, or ScotZEB 3. In total, 334 zero emission vehicles were to be built. Alexander Dennis was awarded 123 buses, which is just 36% of the total, whereas just under half of all orders—for 166 buses—were awarded to a Chinese company Yutong.

Make no mistake: the SNP Scottish Government were fully aware that ScotZEB was essential for the sustainability of the Alexander Dennis sites in Scotland. The SNP also knew that Alexander Dennis workers needed the Scottish Government to back them, but the SNP backed China instead.

Of course, as with all industrial issues, there is a ripple or knock-on effect. For every job in bus manufacturing, there is a multiplier of three to four jobs in the wider supply chain and support services. The 115 job losses on the site really translates into hundreds more job losses—maybe even as high as four figures—in the supply chain across the Forth valley and the rest of Scotland.

What is happening at Alexander Dennis is another example in a catalogue of industrial closures impacting Scotland. I say respectfully to the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) that he is welcome to challenge me and intervene on anything that I am about to say. The truth is that the SNP solution was a furlough scheme, introduced with the aim of providing a stopgap solution, so that NFI—the Canadian-based owners of Alexander Dennis—could come up with a rescue plan, but no rescue plan was forthcoming. The SNP strategy was, “Let’s give NFI a pot of money and hope that the problem will go away.” Instead of doing anything meaningful that would actually save the jobs, all the SNP had to offer was a stalling tactic: delay the news of the inevitable SNP Scottish Government’s failure to help and save Scottish bus manufacturing until after the Holyrood election. The SNP put its own party’s success at the ballot box well ahead of workers and industry in Scotland.

[Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Member agree that it might be more reasonable for him to focus on issues reserved to Westminster, rather than speaking about issues reserved to Holyrood, given that he is not an elected Member there but is an elected Member here?

[Brian Leishman]

I say to the hon. Member from the Scottish National party that constituents are constituents. When constituents from Alloa and Grangemouth, in the corresponding Scottish Parliament area, come to me because they have had dreadful service from an SNP MSP, does he expect me to turn my back on them? No, I will do something different: I will give them the service that they elected me to provide.

Instead of subsidising Chinese competition, the Scottish Government should simply back Scottish workers. A possible solution, as Scottish Labour suggested, was for the Scottish Government to move to direct state procurement, allowing contracting authorities to use the Procurement Act 2023 to legally disregard bids from non-treaty state suppliers such as China and instead embed domestic social value for Scottish workers, Scottish communities and Scottish business. The Scottish Government should get rid of the failed ScotZEB model and put in place a state-backed purchasing and leasing scheme.

I find it laughable that the SNP wants more powers to go to Holyrood. How about using the powers that it actually has for public good and saving Scottish bus manufacturing? Of course, that would not fit in with the “Westminster bad” narrative, which is oh so easy. After 20 years of SNP government, the party still refuses to take responsibility, and the Alexander Dennis workers and the wider Scottish working class are paying the cost for it.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Karl Turner (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members that the subject of the debate is the future of the UK coach industry.

09:57

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) for securing this important and timely debate.

Coaches are often primarily viewed as being used only for holidays and leisure, but that is just a small part of the important services that operators provide. In fact, coaches account for 450 million passenger journeys a year in Great Britain and support 81,000 jobs, generating £6.4 billion of economic value for the economy. Coach passengers are estimated to spend £8.3 billion annually in local economies—and perhaps service stations, to which the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard alluded—through tourism, retail and leisure. Coach companies such as Edward Thomas & Son, which operates in my constituency, provide essential services. They transport children safely to and from school every day, support educational trips and are available for private hire and transport for local groups, organisations and communities.

Coach journeys present an important and often more affordable alternative for travel across the UK, particularly with the current high rail and fuel prices. Without a healthy network of independent coach operators, services will become more expensive to provide and more difficult to access. The coach industry is struggling and we must do more to support it. High fuel prices are a massive concern. Coaches are high-mileage vehicles, and fuel represents one of their largest operating costs, so any significant increase or volatility in diesel prices immediately impacts operators, particularly where fuel contracts have been agreed well in advance at a fixed price. It is really difficult for coach operators to absorb substantial cost increases of this nature without ultimately affecting the costs or availability of their services.

But it is not just about fuel: the general costs of operating a coach company have increased significantly, whether that is the price of coaches, insurance, maintenance, parts, tyres, wages or regulatory compliance. Modern coaches are a huge capital investment and can cost upwards of £250,000—that is massive. To make those investments, coach operators need certainty and support to justify continued investment in their fleets. The Government’s anti-business tax regime, with increased business rates and employer national insurance contributions, has hugely impacted the industry’s bottom line. That is threatening the future commercial viability of the coach industry.

The availability of drivers is also a major challenge, as has been alluded to. The current driver vacancy rate is 14%. Recruiting and retaining suitable professional passenger-carrying vehicle drivers continues to be difficult. Coach driving is a skilled and responsible occupation, but the industry has an ageing workforce, with around 25% of drivers aged 60 or above. Attracting enough new drivers remains challenging, not least because of the Government-led barriers to training new and young drivers, with regulatory restrictions on drivers aged 18 to 20 limiting the journeys they can take. That makes coach driving an unattractive early-career option, which compounds recruitment difficulties as the workforce ages out. It restricts the amount of work operators are physically able to undertake, even when high customer demand is there.

The coach industry continues to be overlooked in Government planning and infrastructure. That has caused the sector to suffer, like so many other industries, from the pressures that the last decade has placed on businesses. It has been left to deal with blows from uncontrollable shocks such as the pandemic, Brexit red tape and the push for net zero, with limited support.

If a coach operator wants to commit to zero-emission coaches, it needs to secure, at high cost, vehicles with sufficient range, and ensure that there is reliable charging infrastructure across its routes. Coaches travel longer-than-average journeys, and there are currently limited charging provisions on motorways and A roads. Operators need greater certainty before committing to the significant investment required to reach net zero. However, unlike cars and vans, coaches are not currently covered by the zero-emission vehicle mandate, and no equivalent statutory trajectory or long-term road map exists for the sector.

We must do more to support the coach industry. We must engage meaningfully with the sector to fix those fundamental issues. If we fail to do so, we will lose this industry and the vital services it supports. I therefore urge the Minister to reflect on all the contributions and calls made by me and other colleagues today.

10:02

[Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) for bringing us here.

I want to speak about Stanley Travel, a coach business based in my North Durham constituency. Established in 1961, Stanley Travel remains a family-owned and operated business. It operates more than 50 vehicles and employs 95 staff. From serving schools and colleges in my constituency to allowing tourists on a budget to get around the country, it provides constituents with a great deal of value, like other coach companies we have heard about today. Unfortunately, Stanley Travel and other coach businesses face severe pressures on their operations, so I want to raise four questions with the Minister.

Rising fuel prices have substantially increased costs. Diesel prices have risen from £1.08 per litre in March to £1.59 per litre last week. That represents an additional £9,690 each week across Stanley Travel’s operation. Where transport contracts have already been agreed at fixed prices in advance, it is local family businesses that are forced to absorb that cost. Those challenges will only be compounded by future increases in fuel duty. We ought to recognise coaches as essential users of fuel, delivering education and community transport and lower-carbon group travel. Therefore, my first question is, will the Minister support an essential user fuel rebate for coach operators and urge the Treasury to cancel the proposed fuel duty increases?

Driver and technician shortages make it harder for operators to maintain and expand services. Recruiting and training new staff requires lots of investment, while restrictions affecting younger coach drivers make it difficult, as we have heard, to recruit directly from schools and colleges. Stanley Travel tells me that it needs a clearer pathway into coach driving and engineering, supported by accessible training and apprenticeships. Will the Government support funded category D licence training, review driver apprenticeships and remove unnecessary barriers to younger people entering the sector?

Too often, coaches are overlooked in transport and destination planning. Inadequate parking, unsuitable pick-up points and insufficient space for wheelchair boarding create practical difficulties for drivers and passengers. What steps will the Government take to ensure that councils and visitor destinations provide adequate coach parking, accessible boarding facilities and suitable driver rest areas?

Finally, coaches already offer an efficient way of moving groups while reducing individual car journeys, but operators also want to invest in cleaner technology. However, vehicle costs, range and charging infrastructure must reflect the demands of long-distance and touring work. A clear, coach-specific road map to cleaner technology would give businesses greater confidence to plan investment, supported by practical infrastructure and appropriate financial assistance. Will the Government develop that road map with operators and provide funding support that recognises the coach sector’s needs?

Currently, trading conditions for coach businesses such as Stanley Travel are exceptionally difficult. Supporting coaches protects local jobs, affordable travel and essential services while helping communities to access experiences and opportunities across the country. I hope the Minister can set out what the Government will do to address each of the concerns I have raised and to support companies such as Stanley Travel, which has delivered so much for my constituents over the last 65 years.

10:05

[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner.

Coaches are an essential part of Britain’s transport infrastructure, and they deserve proper recognition in Government transport policy. Their role goes far beyond holidays: they take children to school, workers to their jobs and patients to appointments, and they provide transport for our armed forces and community groups. They keep communities connected. For older people without a car, coach services can be a lifeline, helping them stay independent and preventing isolation. Coaches also support local jobs and businesses, bringing visitors into our towns, and they help to reduce the number of cars on our roads.

But operators are under serious financial pressure. Rising diesel costs are particularly difficult for companies tied into school and other contracts agreed months ago. Those extra costs cannot simply be passed on. The Government must treat the industry fairly. Bus operators in England have received additional fuel support through the bus service operators grant—I think it is 15p a litre, although it may have gone up, but I am not 100% sure. Hauliers have been given a temporary vehicle tax break. Coaches deserve proper consideration too—they get nothing.

In my constituency of Runcorn and Helsby, local coach companies such as Anthony’s Travel, which I am delighted to welcome to the Public Gallery today, face an additional burden: bridge tolls. Charges on the Mersey Gateway and Silver Jubilee bridges add to the cost of journeys across the river. A large coach can face a charge of £19.20 for a return crossing, before discounts. For operators making repeated journeys, those charges quickly mount up. That bridge tax puts further pressure on already stretched businesses—valuable businesses that we do not want to lose and which, like Anthony’s Travel, contribute so much to the local community. At the moment, the cost must either be absorbed by the operator or reflected in what customers pay. I would like Ministers to consider meaningful toll relief for coaches providing essential services, alongside fair treatment in future transport funding and support.

National Coach Week is an opportunity to recognise the people who keep this industry moving: the drivers, staff and operators delivering services that our communities depend on. The message to Government is simple: recognise coaches, listen to operators and give them a fair deal.

10:08

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank my colleague and neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer), for securing this important debate.

In Aylesbury and across the country, transport is not just about moving people from one place to another; it is central to our economy, future growth and the wellbeing and opportunities in our communities today. Coaches have a particularly important role to play, and I pay tribute to all the operators in my area, including Masons coaches, Motts Travel, Redline and Star Travel. They connect Aylesbury with the surrounding rural communities and vice versa; support schools and colleges, as we have heard; provide transport for community groups; and help residents access leisure, cultural, sporting and tourism opportunities. Alongside our rail and bus networks, these coaches are vital in so many ways.

Last week, I caught up with the brilliant Candice Mason from Masons coaches in my constituency to discuss the challenges facing the business and the sector. Sadly, the picture is not looking great. Masons is planning to reduce its fleet from 28 coaches to fewer than 20, because the costs on the business have skyrocketed. Workshop costs are up from £50,000 to £90,000 per year before covid to £330,000 now. Insurance has risen sharply, and the business is spending £8,000 per week on diesel. That is on top of rising energy costs and national insurance, minimum wage and business rates. Those pressures are felt not just by Masons but by small and medium-sized enterprises across Buckinghamshire, which are the backbone of our economy.

What does better engagement and support from Government for the coach industry look like? I want to share three suggestions. The first point is about transport and planning policy, because that is where it all starts. Too often, local planning decisions overlook the practical needs of coaches. The result is poor parking, poor drop-off and pick-up facilities, a lack of suitable rest areas for drivers and so on. If we want coaches to support our local communities, planning guidance has to recognise them as a distinct mode of transport, while local authorities and visitor destinations have to be encouraged to provide appropriate facilities for coach operators and their passengers. That could help to tackle the increased congestion on our roads, but it could also have a beneficial impact on the environment, given that a single coach can remove dozens of cars from the road and significantly reduce emissions per passenger. Within transport planning, accessibility must also be front and centre. I know that the coach sector strongly supports making travel more accessible for disabled passengers and older people, but it must not just be about the coaches themselves; it must also be about the wider adaptations across the whole journey, including suitable boarding areas, kerbside spaces, level access points and so on.

The second issue is the skills shortage in the coach sector. Around 14% of posts remain vacant, and nearly a quarter of drivers are thought to be over the age of 60 and close to retirement. Masons has highlighted that it is hard to attract new drivers, particularly because of insurance restrictions that mean it can no longer teach and train newly qualified drivers, but also because of wider issues with the industry and struggles to attract women. I would like to know what the Minister thinks about that.

The third suggestion is about costs. So many of our coach operators are local, family-run SMEs. They play a vital role in employing and training up local people, purchasing from other businesses and paying taxes and national insurance, and yet they are having to absorb increasing costs. I ask the Minister what he can do to address that, whether through targeted support when SMEs experience fast-rising costs beyond their control or through grants or transitional funding when Government regulation—for example, on accessibility—requires new investment. As we have heard, the coach industry would particularly welcome support with fuel costs, through similar mechanisms to those available elsewhere in passenger transport.

Coaches are too often the forgotten part of our transport network, and yet they are vital. A thriving coach sector is not just a luxury but a necessity in Aylesbury, the villages and across the country, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts.

10:13

[David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) for securing this debate, and I commend her on her informative speech.

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of visiting AE Gough & Sons coaches in Llandrindod Wells, where I heard at first hand some of the challenges facing the industry. I am also fortunate to have other excellent coach operators in my constituency, including Herdman Coaches and Williams Coaches. These family-run businesses are the hidden workhorses of our economy, but right now they are absorbing a lot of pain.

The coach industry is particularly important to the Welsh economy and plays a vital role in connecting rural communities and destinations that cannot always be reached by rail. That is particularly important in my constituency, which contains major attractions and sites such as the Brecon Beacons, Hay-on-Wye and Waterfall Country. However, the coach industry faces significant challenges, particularly when it comes to rising operating costs and recruiting the next generation of drivers.

On fuel costs, the Government must continue the freeze on fuel duty to protect operators and passengers from further inflationary pressures. The Liberal Democrats believe that a lot more must be done to help. Donald Trump’s reckless war with Iran, cheered on originally by the Conservatives and Reform, has pushed up prices at the pump, while the Treasury stands to receive an additional £2 billion in tax revenues as a result of soaring prices. The Liberal Democrats believe that money should be returned to motorists and businesses through a 10p cut in fuel duty that would reduce pump prices by around 12p per litre. For the coach operators that we have been talking about, who rely on fuel every single day, that would provide some much-needed relief.

We must also see work being done to address the industry’s growing workforce crisis. That point has been made several times, which makes it apparent how pressing that really is. The bus and coach sector faces an estimated shortage of between 5,000 and 10,000 drivers, with almost a quarter of existing drivers thought to be over 60. At a time when so many young people are struggling to find employment, particularly in areas such as rural Wales, it is extraordinary that an industry that is crying out for skilled workers is facing such significant barriers to recruitment. That is why we need to see funded category D licence training and reform of the driver apprenticeship system. That was one of the issues raised with me by AE Gough & Sons, which highlighted the difficulties that operators face by taking on apprentices directly, rather than having to rely on college-led arrangements.

Ultimately, if we want a thriving tourism economy, better rural connectivity and more opportunities for young people, we must give our coach industry the support that it needs. I hope the Minister will take those concerns seriously and work with the industry to secure its long-term future.

10:16

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) for securing this debate, and I declare an interest as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for British buses and draw hon. Members’ attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

At the start of the debate, my hon. Friend rightly asked about the distinction between what a bus is and what a coach is. It is one that very few people think about, and I acknowledge that I did not give that much thought before becoming a Member of Parliament. Luckily, I believe that that distinction is understood by the Minister and by No. 10, if not in Bute House or, as my hon. Friend described more alarmingly, in UK law.

While many companies still call themselves coachbuilders, there is no longer any full coach manufacturing taking place exclusively in the UK. However, the latent capacity is still there at Alexander Dennis and Wrightbus of Northern Ireland, with the latter having secured a deal to build the revived line of contour coaches last year. But primary coachbuilding ended last year in the United Kingdom and that should cause us alarm.

However, we are part of a wider European automotive supply chain that contains countless companies that build engines, brakes, HVAC—heating, ventilation and air conditioning—and thermal systems, wheelchair lifts, destination displays, screens and battery packs. As the industry transitions to zero emission coaches, that means that Government support such as developing electrification infrastructure, funding through programmes such as DRIVE35 and subsidies for transitioning fleets becomes more important, especially as there has been less access for decarbonisation funding for the coach sector than there has been for buses.

Before the Minister, off the back of the spending review, heads off to develop such a scheme for coaches—there has been one for buses—I again make the case that when we spend taxpayers’ money to help this sector, and the broader transport sector, we must ensure that operators relying on Government intervention benefit, not bash, our domestic manufacturing industry. Too often, quick decisions and poorly designed schemes have seen money sent to Chinese manufacturers, with a subsequent loss of domestic jobs and undercutting of the UK industrial capacity that could help us to bring coachbuilding back.

In the coming years, we need a sustainable pipeline to deliver a successful transition to an electrified coach and bus fleet, with a focus on incentivising our manufacturers to restart coachbuilding here in the United Kingdom. There has not been access to previous dedicated decarbonisation funding for the coach sector. As my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) pointed out, the Scottish Government spectacularly failed to do that. The primary beneficiary of their ScotZEB3 scheme was the coachbuilder Ember, who run a fantastic, comparatively affordable and fully decarbonised coach service in Scotland. However, as they have run exclusively electric buses since they started their operations in 2020, and as the largest beneficiary of that scheme as an operator, they ended up using taxpayer-funded decarbonisation schemes to scale their fleet, not to decarbonise.

When the Government design any future support for the sector, rather than totally lacking a strategy like the SNP, they should found it on two principles: whether it will take more carbon out of the air than would have otherwise been there, and whether it will put more money into the pockets of British manufacturing workers or more money into the pockets of those in boardrooms in Beijing.

ScotZEB3 is a cautionary tale for any future Government support. Currently, mayors are required to provide only 10% consideration of social value for new content orders when they are building up their fleets, which is simply inadequate in practice to materially change contracting authority behaviour when we are subject to the scale of Chinese dumping that we are seeing.

The loss of jobs in bus manufacturing makes bringing back British-built coaches less likely. I will admit that the deal struck by the DFT last year is an improvement to the situation, but it does sit awkwardly when the Government are rightly mandating 20% social value for central major procurement decisions. I believe that the agreement the Department struck last year must be reopened in consideration of that.

I also noticed that the DRIVE35 scheme sets no rules on ownership, on keeping intellectual property in the UK or on national security screening. Considering the outstanding DFT and National Cyber Security Centre investigation into Chinese buses, that is worth consideration. The only rule requires benefiting companies to be registered in the UK. If we seek to onshore jobs, bring coachbuilding back and incentivise manufacturers to grasp the opportunity, that would be worth updating.

The ZEB mandate outlined—there is no separate mechanism for the coach sector—that we should be equally pragmatic with the coach and bus manufacturing sector as we consult and provide a pipeline that does not seek to undercut our manufacturing sector. Although having a clear focus on developing our own industrial supply chain with the existing funding would go a long way to supporting the UK’s industries, we could go further with measures that are coming up. As tariffs on Chinese EVs are being considered, I ask that the Minister makes representations to his colleagues in the Department for Business and Trade to make sure that any measures are inclusive of Chinese coaches and buses that would otherwise undercut our domestic market or the prospect of building one.

10:21

[Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Turner; I thank you for keeping the best wine to the end. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) on her excellent speech. Would I be right in saying that Toddington services is in her constituency? If not, it is very close. It is a place I am very familiar with, as I will explain in a moment.

Maynes Coaches in my constituency represents one of the many hundreds of family-owned and run coach companies up and down these islands. I must declare a non-financial interest because my mother and father founded a coach company more than 50 years ago. Along with my brothers Liam, Sean and Enda and my sister Una, I was part of a ready-made, non-unionised labour force that my parents ruthlessly exploited, but that is all part of history now.

Coaches connect our rural communities, transport pupils to school, provide resilience when rail services fail and ensure that major cultural and sporting events run smoothly and can take place successfully. Additionally, coaches play a very important role in the tourism sector. For those who do not drive or for those who take coach tours, for example, coaches can be the only transport option to many world-class tourism facilities. In fact, they are the bees that pollinate all those places. For example, research has highlighted that one coach calling at the same location every day each year can introduce at least £1 million to the local economy.

Although much responsibility for transport is devolved to the Scottish Parliament, I want to focus on issues that are in the remit of the UK Government, as opposed to some colleagues who wasted valuable time in their speeches speaking about matters that are devolved to Holyrood.

[Euan Stainbank]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Seamus Logan]

No, I will not, because we have heard quite enough from those on the hon. Gentleman’s side of the House on these matters.

I want to focus on two points. The European Union entry/exit system poses a significant challenge to international coach operators, with the 90 and 180-day rule already causing havoc for operators trying to comply with EU regulations with a limited supply of drivers who are compliant. The EES will increase the logistical challenges of the channel tunnel and ports, driving up costs and causing delays. That will result in unfair advantages for less green forms of international travel, such as air travel. The UK Government, as part of their ongoing discussions with the EU, should simplify border controls and explore pre-registration for coaches and ways to make international travel easier for the coach sector. I look forward to the Minister’s response to that point.

My second point concerns the cost of fuel, which has already been mentioned. This is a crucial issue. Fuel prices are increasing significantly due to the war in the middle east and the Government should outline what action they are taking to mitigate that increase as much as possible. To many households, coaches offer a lifeline of affordable travel. Support is therefore more vital than ever. We look to the Budget in the next two weeks to tell the coach industry what help it can expect in that area.

If Scotland seeks to grow its visitor economy, improve connectivity, support rural communities and meet ambitious environmental targets, coaches must be part of the solution.

[Euan Stainbank]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Seamus Logan]

No, I will not.

I make this penultimate point: I recognise that the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard said that sometimes it is a coach and sometimes it is a bus, but I can assure her that a coach, and a coach driver, is a very different thing. Finally, I urge Ministers to work closely with operators and industry bodies to address the issues with coach travel. I seek their assurance that further action will be taken on fuel costs in the forthcoming Budget.

10:25

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this debate and thank the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) for securing it. She brought to the Chamber her customary passion and championing of the coach industry, of which she always makes us conscious in the Transport Committee. She articulated the distinctive requirements of the coach industry and made me aware of National Coach Week, which I confess I had not previously known was a “week”, but there are weeks on a great many topics these days.

We have heard important themes raised during the debate. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) highlighted the critical rural role that the coach sector can play in getting people and to and from schools. The hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) and the hon. Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) outlined the critical role of manufacturing for our country’s bus and coach sector, and the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) talked about his own family heritage in the coach sector. Those three hon. Members gave us an amuse-bouche of the passions that dominate Holyrood, which was very interesting for those of us who do not get there often.

My hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) talked about the critical role that the coach plays in providing affordable travel. Many hon. Members, including the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) and the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin), talked about the local coach companies that they have in their constituency. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith) talked about the need for support and encouragement of the coach sector as a whole.

In my constituency, I have several coach companies that provide a critical service, such as Pearces coaches, now owned by the Go-Ahead Group at Thames Travel’s Didcot depot; JD Travel in Culham, which provides private hire; and Ridgeways Coaches in Wantage. Weavaway Travel is based in the next-door constituency, in Newbury, but took over the once-legendary Tappins Coaches brand, which was based in my constituency.

The economic benefits of the coach industry are hard to overstate and yet, as the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard said, we tend not to reflect on them as much as we should. Around 450 million passenger journeys are made by coach in Britain each year. Coach passengers are estimated to spend £8.3 billion annually in local economies through tourism, retail and leisure, with inbound international visitors travelling by coach contributing a further £610 million a year.

The industry estimates that a single additional coach visiting a destination each day can generate around £1 million a year for the local economy. With rail prices still generally higher than many would like, private coach operators often present an important, more affordable alternative for long-distance travel. Indeed, for inter-city rail operators, coach operators provide a vital function in the all-too-common rail replacement road service. I was on holiday in Switzerland recently and—believe it or not, fellow hon. Members—I had to go on a rail replacement bus even there, so it is not an issue unique to us. As has been said, coach travel can also be essential to providing some school transport.

There are key regulatory and economic challenges facing the coach industry. It has suffered, like so many industries, from the pressure that the last decade has placed on businesses, with uncontrollable shocks such as the pandemic, and completely self-imposed ones such as the Conservatives’ botched Brexit deals, excessive red tape and the huge delays we now see at borders for international coach travel as a result of the EU entry and exit system.

Some of the Government’s anti-business policies have further increased pressure, with raised business rates and employer national insurance contributions further threatening the coach industry’s bottom lines. Coach companies do not receive any of the fuel duty relief measures that other modes of passenger transport do. Operators want UK Government engagement with the EU on pre-registration and digital documentation for coach parties, a specific exemption for professional coach drivers from the 90/180 Schengen rule, and continued investment in port and border infrastructure to prevent repeats of the severe queuing seen in past peak periods.

As many hon. Members have mentioned, the coach sector faces severe workforce issues. The industry reports that driver shortfall stands at an estimated 5,000 to 10,000, with around 14% of driver roles currently vacant and about a quarter of the existing driver workforce aged over 60. I hope the Minister will specifically address the issue of coach drivers not being allowed to start at the age of 18. That seems particularly anomalous given recent Government announcements about the train driving age being lowered to 18. It is quite hard to see the logic and consistency, so I hope the Minister will be able to shed some light on that.

On the planning system, coaches have historically been an afterthought in both local and national transport planning, regulated in practice as an afterthought to bus policy despite being a fundamentally different and deregulated commercial method of transport. That has produced a chronic shortage of coach parking, drop-off space and driver rest facilities, directly affecting operators’ ability to comply with statutory drivers’ hours rules, and has left coaches significantly absent from local transport and spatial plans. Industry bodies are calling for coaches to be recognised as a distinct mode in planning guidance, for motorway service areas to be required to prioritise coach parking and driver facilities, and for more standardised local authority procurement to reduce the administrative burden on operators bidding for home-to-school and other contracted work.

Coaches are also an important consideration in improving integrated transport policy. Whether coach operators are given access to major urban bus stations is highly inconsistent, with local authorities and owners and operators of those bus terminals making very different decisions on whether to grant access to national coach operators.

Accessibility remains a challenge. The Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000 require coaches in scope to be fully wheelchair accessible, but in practice that depends on kerbside infrastructure just as much as the capability of the coaches. Level ground of up to 4 metres is needed, which does not exist at many locations coaches serve. That means vehicles can be technically compliant while still failing to deliver a reliably accessible journey. The accessibility equipment required also adds weight and takes up capacity that could otherwise carry passengers, so the sector’s ask is for a shift from a vehicle-focused compliance regime towards a whole journey accessibility framework covering booking, boarding infrastructure and arrival, developed jointly with local authorities, operators and disability groups.

As the hon. Member for Falkirk said, decarbonisation is a challenge for this sector. Unlike cars and vans, coaches are not currently covered by the zero emission vehicle mandate, and no equivalent statutory trajectory or long-term support and road map exists for the sector. Zero emission coaches face a much harder technical challenge than buses or cars, with longer average journeys increasing the importance of range and refuelling infrastructure, with charging and hydrogen infrastructure suitable for coaches largely non-existent on the motorway and major A-road networks. Industry data suggests that roughly three quarters of coach operators currently have no plan to introduce zero emission vehicles, citing high up-front costs and insufficient range as the main barriers. The sector is asking Government to publish a long-delayed low-carbon fuel strategy, to extend infrastructure trials such as a zero emission and hydrogen infrastructure demonstrator to coaches on a similar footing to heavy goods vehicles, and to consider an interim fuel duty incentive for low-carbon fuels to bridge the gap until zero emission coaches are commercially viable at scale.

We have heard today of the vital role that coaches play, whether as a long-distance public transport offer, helping children to get to school or enabling groups of people old and young to access tourism, hospitality, culture and so on. Coaches have not been supported or given enough attention. The hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard is moving us on the journey and I hope the Minister will say what more can be done to recognise and support this critical sector.

10:34

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, as always, Mr Turner. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) on securing the debate, and I agree with her that coaches are unique and vital.

The debate has shown that not much divides the House on this topic. The challenge, as ever, is what the Government do with the asks from Members on both sides of the Chamber and how they support the UK coach sector and secure its future.

As we have heard, coaches play a critical role in getting people to school, supporting tourism and helping businesses transport people around the country and internationally. The sector has said that just one additional coach every day can deliver £1 million in economic value annually to a destination. On the face of it, that may sound like a rather surprising amount, but when we consider the capacity of a coach and the number of people it can transport, it immediately becomes less surprising.

Although the precise number is unclear, we know that there are about 2,500 coach operators in the United Kingdom. It is estimated that 88% are family owned or individually owned, and they employ tens of thousands of people across the country. To give just one example of their contribution, they transport 600,000 children—including one of my own—to school every day. On that note, with the indulgence of the House, I want to briefly thank a wonderful man called Rob, who drove coaches on multiple home-to-school transport routes in Buckinghamshire until the end of last academic year, when he moved on to a local taxi firm. His bright outlook gave real joy to the children he transported each and every day. He would hand-write each of them a Christmas card, and he became famous for the songs that he put on between the bus stops, the pick-up points and school. The children very much miss him as their home-to-school coach driver. We thank him for what he did, and hopefully one day he might return to those routes in Buckinghamshire.

As with much of the transport sector, we would be foolish not to recognise the challenges facing the industry, particularly for operators that have not received Government support. With diesel hitting all-time highs, the challenges facing the coach industry are more pronounced than ever. A recent survey by the newly established Coach UK warned that 41% of operators would withdraw from home-to-school contracts and 18% would consider closing down altogether if high prices persist beyond December.

Although hope may be a suitable remedy for the Labour party, it does not help with the financial reality faced by businesses across the county. Given the particular challenges for the industry, there is a need to take steps to reduce costs for business, but what message would operators have taken from what the Government said at Labour party conference? The Transport Secretary did not mention the word “fuel” once in her speech, but operators face an increase in fuel duty scheduled to take effect at the start of next year, and another hike in March. The deadline is fast approaching, which is why the Conservatives have called for the Government to provide clarity immediately and freeze fuel duty further.

Although Labour Members may think that everything is going right simply because they have a new leader, the reality for coach drivers and operators is different. Given these circumstances, I recognise the coach industry’s call for targeted financial relief this year. I can clearly understand why operators are asking for it, and it should serve as a reminder that the Government’s focus should not be on extracting ever-greater revenues to fund its profligate spending. I recognise the challenge in committing to specific financial support, but ultimately we need to ensure that fuel prices remain affordable and that businesses can continue to operate sustainably. That involves ensuring that fuel duty does not increase and doing what we can as a country to increase the supply of fuel—fossil fuel, advanced sustainable fuels and, in the future, synthetic fuels.

Additionally, we must acknowledge the broader energy-related issues that are relevant to this discussion. The consultation outcome on ending the sale of new non-zero emission buses and on the decarbonisation of coaches and minibuses showed that respondents emphasised that coaches have significantly different operating cycles from those of buses used in regular services. For example, coaches may not return to their depots as often as service buses. They may also need to find refuelling locations wherever they operate, and the vehicles may need a range of hundreds of miles. If such measures were introduced, they would place obvious strains on efforts to procure vehicles that meet the standards the Government will ultimately require. The practicalities of operating the vehicles underline the importance of technological neutrality, allowing businesses to buy the vehicles that will enable them to provide the services they know how to deliver effectively.

Returning to the example of transporting children to school, we have heard from a variety of operators about the increasing costs resulting from the Government’s increase in national insurance contributions, originally estimated at £800 per driver per year. Those costs create challenges for the provision of transport for disabled people, who may require more bespoke arrangements. Overall, when considering the financial pressures facing the sector, it appears to be another example of treating those on the roads as a means of simply extracting revenue.

Although costs such as fuel remain an important consideration, we must also consider the regulations in place. One issue raised by operators in the coach sector, as well as the wider transport industry, is the difficulty of recruiting and training staff, which has come through in this debate. Such skill shortages can rapidly affect the industry if left unchecked, as in the HGV sector a few years ago. That means that we need to ensure that the regulations in place enable people—particularly young people entering the workforce—to develop the skills they need.

Providing young people with opportunities to learn and develop at an earlier age would be advantageous. For example, one element that Conservatives have sought to address in our recently released skills package is the removal of the 50-kilometre restriction for fully qualified bus and coach drivers aged 18 to 20. Finding ways to make regulations work better for business while creating opportunities for young people is essential. Furthermore, Conservative plans for a reduction in national insurance contributions for employers of 21 to 24-year-olds could provide opportunities for SMEs to invest in skills and encourage more young people to join the sector at the start of their careers. We do not mind if the Government pick up and run with those proposals.

I appreciate that that alone would not be sufficient to solve all the issues facing the industry, but it should inform the approach. The Government have said they acknowledge the role of the coach industry and are committed to supporting it. They could go further, however, by adopting the right approach and asking a simple question: what can Government do to enable those small businesses to operate and grow? Ultimately, the coach industry needs to be able to operate despite the significant costs it faces. It is an industry that typically receives no public funding, relying heavily on small operators working exceptionally hard to run their businesses.

We must not forget the people behind those businesses. Any steps that can be taken to make it easier for them to run their businesses should be welcomed. Ideas have been put from all sides of the House this morning. The challenge I put to the Minister is to take them back to the Department and make them a reality.

10:43

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Turner, to serve under your chairship. I join colleagues in thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) for securing this critically important debate, for her continued interest in the area and for holding the feet of Ministers in the Department for Transport to the fire on an important issue. I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond and participate on behalf of the Government. I wish everyone a happy National Coach Week.

I will turn later to some of the topics raised by my hon. Friend, particularly decarbonisation and the recruitment and retention of younger drivers. First, I want to touch on the point she raised about coach data, which is critical. She is right to say that the coach sector is relatively unevidenced compared with other major modes of transport. However, the available coach industry evidence suggests that there are about 2,500 coach operators in the United Kingdom, most of them small and family-owned, although she is right to say that no definitive national estimate currently exists. We must work tirelessly within the Department for Transport to remedy that.

I hope that hon. Members will be reassured about the Government’s commitment to supporting the UK coach sector, as well as the coach manufacturing sector, which has been raised by Members, in every part of the United Kingdom, including Scotland.

[Euan Stainbank]

I thank the Minister for talking about the importance of coach and bus manufacturing. The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) described it as a waste of time for Members to raise that today; ludicrously, his old boss, Stephen Flynn and the Member of the Scottish Parliament for Falkirk West blame this place for the challenges that ADL has faced. Why does the Minister think SNP Members duck this debate depending on which Parliament they happen to be sitting in at a particular moment?

[Keir Mather]

I thank my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) for their remarks. Manufacturing and sovereign capability in our bus and coach sector is critical irrespective of where someone lives in the United Kingdom: it is a matter for both the UK Government and the Government in Holyrood. Irrespective of who is holding the pen, the Prime Minister has been clear that he wants to facilitate reindustrialisation and growth in every postcode of the United Kingdom. We want colleagues in the SNP and across the United Kingdom to help us in that work and to work collaboratively with us to ensure that UK domestic manufacturers have the support needed to carry out their vital work.

Coaches are an essential, if sometimes under-recognised, part of our transport system. They connect people with education, employment, family, leisure and major events. They support rail passengers during disruption and give communities an affordable way to reach destinations across the country. They are a very democratic form of transport.

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

A number of years ago, there was a great initiative in my constituency to run coach tours of local heritage assets linked to Mary, Queen of Scots and John Clare, the famous poet. Does the Minister recognise the value that the sector brings to supporting local heritage and tourism?

[Keir Mather]

I thank my hon. Friend for shining a spotlight on the impact that the coach sector has in his constituency, putting greater focus on our incredible British heritage sites; the point is incredibly well made. However, there is also a macro point here: the sector itself estimates that coaches provide around 450 million passenger journeys each year. It directly employs around 54,000 people and supports a further 27,000 jobs through its supply chain. It contributes an estimated £6.4 billion to the economy. As has been said, coach passengers are also estimated to spend £8.3 billion each year in local economies.

[Sir John Hayes]

The sort of people who travel on coaches are typically not the most advantaged—pensioners, for example, or children getting to school. Some people can afford coach travel but cannot afford other forms of travel. For the constituents I have mentioned already, as well as Fowler’s in Holbeach Drove, Cropley in Fosdyke and other local coach operators, will the Minister agree to the rebate on fuel that they have suggested? The industry has suggested a small short-term rebate to help it get over the hump of escalating fuel prices and therefore provide the service to the vulnerable people and many others whom I have mentioned.

[Keir Mather]

The right hon. Gentleman points to an important fact: the coach sector is used by those who may not otherwise be able to book public transport to get where they need to. Although those people can also benefit from the package of measures brought forward by this Government to give them much needed breathing space, including the £2 bus cap, he is right to encourage me to always go further to improve on that. Unfortunately, he will be momentarily disappointed as I cannot provide him with advance notice of what may or may not be in the Budget. However, his general point—that support is important—is well made. That is why the fuel duty freeze is currently in place.

The figures that I raised underline the sector’s importance to tourism, high streets and destinations throughout Great Britain. However, the industry is also rooted in local communities. Many of those operators are small and family-run businesses that have served their areas for generations, as the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) pointed out from his own personal experience. We want those businesses to grow, invest and continue providing the flexible services on which passengers, schools and businesses depend.

I turn first to driver recruitment. We must continue to have an open dialogue with the coach sector about its challenges to doing business and what the Government can do to help. Driver recruitment is central. I recognise the sector’s concerns about recruiting and retaining drivers, in particular about the restrictions affecting younger drivers, which multiple hon. Members have raised today.

At present, 18 and 19-year-olds may drive buses and coaches only on regular services of up to 50 km. That can severely limit the work available in a sector where journeys are often of longer distance or not part of regular services. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) and the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) also raised the issue of when young drivers can begin their qualifications and theory tests. I will certainly take that away and raise it within the Department.

The Department has been engaging with the bus and coach industry, alongside road safety groups, to understand the potential impacts of amending the restrictions that apply to young drivers. However, I want hon. Members to be assured that we are working hard and at pace to get the next generation of drivers into the coach sector. We are considering the evidence carefully and will set out our next steps in due course. However, I will ask the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield and Rothwell (Simon Lightwood), the Minister with direct responsibility for this matter, to set out more detail on the timings in writing to my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard.

I turn now to cost pressures, which have been a consistent theme of this debate; they were particularly raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham. I recognise that operators face pressures at the pump. That is why the Government have extended the 5p fuel duty cut until the end of the year, which provides important support to businesses, including coach operators. We will continue to work closely with the sector, listening to its concerns and ensuring that the challenges facing coach operators are understood across Government.

There is also a continued role for international advocacy, which sits within my role at the Department for Transport: working with colleagues both across Government and with the UK delegations at the International Energy Agency, to ensure that we continue to maintain a robust supply of diesel into the United Kingdom.

[Greg Smith]

I want to raise an issue that I appreciate sits more with the Treasury than with the Department for Transport. Since fuel costs increased earlier this year, the Government have taken in over £1 billion in extra unexpected income to the Treasury from VAT on those higher fuel prices. The money is there to support the coach sector, the logistics sector and other sectors that so desperately need it, is it not?

[Keir Mather]

Later in my speech, I will reflect more on the steps that we are taking to support the coach sector, especially in building the longer-term resilience that we believe can be achieved through the benefits that can be accrued from decarbonisation. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue of rising fuel prices, which concerns the Government and on which we work on in close collaboration with the sector. He will, of course, understand that ahead of the Budget I cannot say much more about the exact issue that he raised.

I turn next to the issue of transport connectivity and the indispensable role of coaches as part of an integrated transport network. Earlier this year, the Department published “Better Connected”, the Government’s strategy for integrated transport in England. It sets out a clear national vision for all partners across the transport system to create integrated networks that work well for people and are safe, reliable, affordable and accessible, so that people can make their journeys easily. Its principles of putting people first, creating well-connected places and working in partnership apply across all forms of transport, but perhaps no more than in relation to coaches, which have a critical role to play as part of an integrated picture, particularly in connecting people to education and visitor destinations, but also in connecting rural communities and supporting elderly residents, as was raised by the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover). Better information, well-designed interchanges and closer co-ordination with rail, bus and local transport can make journeys easier, and we will continue working with local leaders to ensure that coach travel is properly considered in local transport plans.

I will also just touch briefly on an important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith) about working more closely with local authorities to break through planning challenges. Currently, there are obligations for local authorities to have regard to land use and land need for myriad factors that do not pertain to driver welfare stops as they relate to critical national infrastructure on the strategic road network. There is more work for the Department of Transport to do in order to work more closely with local authorities to make them more aware of just how critical it is to have proper freight and coach connectivity to every part of the United Kingdom.

I turn next to zero emission coaches. Coaches already provide an efficient form of mass transport, but we recognise the need to support the sector to go further in a way that makes good business sense. The transition to zero emission coaches presents particular challenges that I am very cognisant of: journeys can be long and variable, vehicles may spend extended periods away from their depot and operators need confidence that suitable charging will be available. The Government’s £170 million multi-year depot charging scheme supports zero emission HGVs, vans and coaches by part-funding charging infrastructure at fleet depots. Its first 2026 funding window offered support for up to 70% of eligible charge points and civil engineering costs of up to £1 million per organisation.

[Jim Shannon]

The Minister is right to underline the issue of energy efficiency, but when it comes to ensuring that companies across the United Kingdom—Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and here in the mainland—could work together, does he agree that the Government need to push energy efficiency through all the companies so that they can all gain?

[Keir Mather]

The hon. Member raises a really important point about ensuring that where the Government are encouraging decarbonisation and the resilience benefits that that can bring for the long term, it has to be done in a sustainable way, recognising the particular challenges faced by the coach sector in meeting that challenge. That applies in every part of the United Kingdom, but especially in Northern Ireland and the sort of area that he represents, where the tourist economy is so essential. Coach connectivity is critical to ensuring that his local economy continues to thrive, so that is an important point well made.

Depot charging will meet many operating needs, but as Members have raised today, longer-distance journeys will also require appropriate charging facilities at destinations and strategic locations. The Government’s forthcoming zero emission HGV and coach infrastructure strategy will provide clearer national direction—a road map, some might say—for how that infrastructure will develop, and we will continue engaging coach operators, charge point providers and motorway service area operators as the network expands. We understand that ultimately the transition must be practical, commercially viable and shaped by real operating patterns.

To touch briefly on accessibility, coaches provide vital connectivity for many people with disabilities. It is essential that they are able to travel safely, confidently and with dignity. That is just as important when they travel on leisure, rail replacement and home-to-school services as it is when they make long-distance journeys. Accessibility should be considered at all stages of the passenger journey, from finding information and planning trips though accessing coach stations and stops, and boarding, alighting and travelling on the vehicle. Accessible information is vital for giving disabled passengers the confidence to use services, and from 1 October, all coaches operating services that are subject to the accessible information regulations, which are largely rail replacement, must be compliant unless they are covered by an exemption. That is part of the broader work we are doing to ensure a more accessible transport network.

I will draw my remarks to a close by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard again for securing this critically important debate, and all the Members who have contributed and shared their personal and constituency-level experiences of the phenomenal contribution that the coach sector makes to our economy. I hope I have demonstrated that the Government recognise coaches as a vital part of the transport system—not just something that is lumped in with HGVs and other modes, but that deserves cognisance of the challenges coaches face and the enormous opportunities and benefits that they bring to communities across the United Kingdom in supporting growth, widening opportunity, strengthening tourism and connecting communities. We will continue working with the sector to support its progress and tackle some of those barriers together, including on growth and integration with the wider transport network, strengthening the workforce, increasing investment and progressing towards decarbonisation. Our aim is clear: we want a thriving, inclusive and sustainable coach industry that passengers can rely on for years to come, and I think that hon. Members from across the House have pushed us further in that direction today.

10:58

[Alex Mayer]

A wide range of issues have been raised today: accessibility, driver recruitment, planning, international travel and, perhaps most of all, fuel. What struck me about today’s debate was the wide range of local coach companies that were mentioned and how this is really all around the country, in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We have had a magical mystery tour all around the UK, and I think the coach sector should perhaps adopt the slogan, “Everything you need, satisfaction guaranteed”.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the future of the UK coach industry.

Wildfires: UK-Welsh Government Co-operation

Tuesday 13th October 2026 Westminster Hall

10:59

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered UK-Welsh Government co-operation on tackling wildfires.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Turner. This debate follows what has been an incredibly difficult summer for many people in my constituency. The wildfire began on the evening of 19 July, and it reignited on 10 August when it jumped a firebreak and travelled into a forestry, which put houses at risk. On 11 August, the South Wales fire and rescue service declared a major incident due to significant pressure on resources. On 13 August, a military aid to the civil authorities request was submitted by the South Wales fire and rescue service, and I commend the Secretary of State for Wales for agreeing to that request very swiftly. From 18 August, the fire was contained with tactical burns, firebreaks and the use of a helicopter, but the ground continued to smoulder until there was significant rainfall at the end of August.

Frankly, the impact has been devastating. Data from the Copernicus fire emissions watch analysed by Save the Children revealed that Torfaen had the fourth highest intensity of carbon emissions per square kilometre in the world in July 2026. The smoke travelled as far as Cardiff in one direction and Gloucestershire in the other. It affected between 220 and 270 hectares of common land. Pasture, vegetation and peat were burned, with some areas likely to be damaged for years to come.

I spoke to farmers who had livestock losses, disrupted water supplies, fencing damage, grazing management issues and loss of earnings. Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water said that damage to apparently remote land can affect drinking water, wildlife and communities beyond the immediate fire area. Twenty-one locations have been identified as needing immediate drainage improvements, and that needs to be done before ground stability work can be completed.

On 14 August, South Wales fire and rescue service said that selected appliances recorded 296 mobilisations and well over 10,000 cumulative incident hours, and officers recorded 99 mobilisations and over 500 incident hours. At its height, the South Wales fire and rescue service was responding to 14 concurrent wildfires. Between 11 August and 1 September, it publicly reported 961 grass fires, including 115 wildfires and 26 category 3 wildfires, which shows the pressure on the fire service.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

We have had similar wildfires in my constituency and on the Mournes. There has been co-operation between all, but does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we need a UK-wide framework to ensure that resources, joint strategies and best practices are shared fluidly between the UK Government and all the regional Administrations, so that we can do it better together and learn from each other?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about learning from best practice across the United Kingdom.

I pay tribute to the firefighters of the South Wales fire and rescue service and the 22 other fire services around the country who came to Blaenavon’s aid in the summer. I also thank Torfaen county borough council, Natural Resources Wales, Gwent police and the 110 military personnel who helped to combat the wildfires. I also recognise those from the Blorenge Commoners Association, local farmers, businesses and constituents who rallied together over the summer to tackle this devastating event. I also thank the Wales Office Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), for visiting Torfaen recently and listening to the concerns of local people. I say first and foremost, as I thank all those on the frontline, that we have to learn the lessons of this summer. I am afraid such fires will become more frequent, and putting in place a proper, structured response for next summer will be crucial. “Fire and Rescue National Framework for Wales 2026” identifies climate change as likely to increase the incidence and severity of weather-related events, and it highlights the possibility of wildfire risk shifting or extending.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The right hon. Member is very kind in giving way.

Military assistance to the civil authorities was not available for the wildfires on the Rhinogydd, which burned for two weeks and were so substantial that they could be seen from space. Does the right hon. Member agree that it is welcome that the Prime Minister has indicated an interest in commissioning a UK-wide aerial firefighting capability, which would be accessible to devolved Governments? Would that be a good result from today’s debate?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am certainly keen to have very substantial results from both this debate and the summit. The right hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the importance of that support and its availability across the United Kingdom.

In putting my speech together, I was assisted by local people. If I may, I will briefly quote some of them, because I think this is important. Anthony Watkins says:

“Unlike in the North of England and Scotland, the Fire and Rescue Services in Wales have less experience of tackling wildfires in large areas of peatland. Coordinating training with experienced firefighters in England and Scotland would provide invaluable expertise to the Welsh Services”.

Sara Warman argues for a new approach to land management. She asks the Welsh Government in particular to

“work alongside land managers to develop a dedicated Welsh Wildfire Strategy, provide meaningful post-fire recovery support, review fuel-load management policies, strengthen emergency response capability, and formally recognise commoners and graziers as operational partners in both wildfire prevention and emergency response”.

Indeed, co-operation—that word is in the motion—between the UK Government and the Welsh Government to equalise access to substantial recovery funding and resources is very important. At the moment, there are indeed disparities. To give an example, the permitted burning season in Wales is two weeks shorter than in England. Of course there will be distinctions, but the point, which has been made a couple of times now, about learning from best practice across the UK is absolutely crucial.

In advance of today’s debate, I also spoke to the South Wales fire and rescue service, which said that

“we need a sustainable approach to specialist capability and surge funding, together with stronger land-management and cross-government planning.”

The case I want to make today is about restoration, renewal and resilience. That extra support is needed very badly by my local community. I thank, first of all, Torfaen county borough council, which has already provided £50,000. We now need others to step up as well, and I will give one example. The North York Moors national park authority was awarded up to £3.2 million to recover from the devastating peat fires of 2025, through the nature for climate peatland grant scheme. The equivalent scheme in Wales is a lot smaller at the moment. It can award only about £10,000 to £250,000, so I urge the Welsh Government, in the first instance, to provide specific additional funding for the situation in Torfaen. Ministers in Cardiff Bay should look at how the money for the North York Moors national park authority was calculated, and provide fair funding for the peat fires that we have suffered in Torfaen.

I know that the UK Government are holding a wildfire summit to look at all the issues and, as the Minister would expect, I will be pressing the UK Government to provide appropriate support as well. When the Minister winds up the debate, I hope she can commit to co-ordinating on a regular basis with the Welsh Government, to MPs with affected constituencies being able to attend the summit, and to making sure that those on the frontline who have been affected have their voices heard.

[Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Of course, I am not from Wales, but my constituency suffered from terrible wildfires over the summer, with 19 homes completely destroyed and 22 more severely damaged. Some people are still displaced because of that.

I was pleased to be invited to the wildfire summit by the Prime Minister. My right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) is absolutely right that affected MPs should be able to attend the summit to take forward their constituents’ experiences and to ensure that we are not still talking about this issue in six months’ time.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I could not agree with her more.

On the voice of local people being heard, this is again Sara Warman from my constituency:

“Wales needs a new approach. One that combines science with practical experience. One that recognises that every common is different. One that treats local land managers as partners, not obstacles. Unless these policies change, we risk creating greater fuel loads, more frequent wildfires, and escalating environmental and economic damage across the Welsh uplands.”

We need to build that resilience, and action is needed to help prepare the common and other areas across Wales for the sad reality that this may happen again. That could be in the form of managing the land with wildfire prevention in mind; community training; the purchasing of wildfire-specific resources; aerial support to predict and prevent wildfires; or, frankly, up-to-date personal protective equipment for our firefighters, which is absolutely crucial.

[Gill German (Clwyd North) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for securing this important debate. The nature of firefighters’ work is changing all the time. Does he agree that, as it changes, it is essential that firefighters have access to modern, fit-for-purpose training facilities? Does he share my concern that training facilities in north Wales have not been substantially modernised since the 1990s?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. Wildfire prevention requirements and broader environmental policy need to be aligned, but this is what the South Wales fire and rescue service said to me:

“The scale, concurrency and duration of the response provide a strong evidence base for reviewing specialist wildfire assets, command capacity, logistics, communications, fire control and resilience and the mutual-aid arrangements.”

We were very lucky to have help from fire services across the country, but we have to make it systematic. We need to have a plan in place for that. All those aspects need to be considered, and the views of people and the agencies involved should be central.

In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles), the time allotted at the summit for listening to local people is going to be hugely important. It is great that the Welsh wildfire summit is being held on 22 October, but the point has been put to me that, at the moment, we have only one representative from Blaenavon who can attend. They put a simple question to me: is it expected that two hours is a sufficient amount of time to solve the accumulation of failings for the people of Torfaen? I wonder whether, in putting together the programme for that day, the Welsh Government might be able to ensure that people’s voices are given sufficient time to be properly heard and considered.

I want to give the Minister plenty of time to respond, but today has to be the start of a wider conversation that has to happen pretty urgently. The lessons that we need to learn from this summer have to be learned so that our plan is in place before next summer. I am sad to say that, given climate change, we are likely to see more of these wildfires, as we have seen in continental Europe and other areas. We need to look first at prevention, as we want to do all we can to stop these things happening in the first place. We then need to look at management.

While people in my constituency did a remarkable job, doing their best throughout the summer, it was obvious that there was not the original plan in place that is needed to deal with the multiplicity of agencies that are involved. I know the Minister well, and I know she is very committed to the conversation that we need to have. I look forward to contributing to the debate in the weeks and months ahead, but let us make absolutely sure that it is a conversation with an end point and a set of conclusions that we then implement so that we are in a position to have a systematic approach next summer, with the Governments across the UK working together.

11:14

[The Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith (Florence Eshalomi)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I start by thanking my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) for securing this important debate.

Wildfires have had a profound impact on communities in Wales and across the UK this year. The scale of the challenge this summer was stark. More than 1,300 wildfires have been recorded across England, and I know that Wales was similarly impacted, resulting in the deployment of around 200 military personnel to south Wales to support the committed frontline crews protecting their communities. At the height of the activity, 11 major incidents were declared in a day across the UK, and some incidents lasted for more than 30 days. That put immense strain on frontline services that were also dealing with other emergencies. We owe immense gratitude to the firefighters, military personnel, local responders, land managers, volunteers and others who worked in difficult and dangerous conditions to protect people, homes, businesses and the natural environment.

[Becky Gittins (Clwyd East) (Lab)]

In my north-east Wales constituency, we saw the absolute best of community spirit in Halkyn and Windmill, where the community came out to do a post-wildfire litter pick to clear up the area. As the Minister has recognised, their efforts, along with those of firefighters and military personnel, were crucial. My right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) has put forward many ways to improve wildfire responses; does the Minister agree that the response this time also showed the importance of cross-border collaboration in tackling wildfires?

[Florence Eshalomi]

My hon. Friend raises an important point that demonstrates that wildfires cannot be responded to by emergency services alone: it takes the community, the people, voluntary organisations and a number of charities working together to respond. It is important that we have in place an action plan that includes cross-border and cross-Government work on responses.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

The Minister is absolutely right. If we look at the wildfire management in Torfaen, the military personnel were deployed by the UK Government and the Secretary of State for Wales. Obviously, areas such as land management are devolved to the Welsh Government. The Minister is absolutely right about the number of agencies, but does she agree that we need a cross-Government plan to make sure we get that co-ordination right?

[Florence Eshalomi]

I will come on to that point, but I agree with my right hon. Friend. One of the reasons that the Prime Minister is calling the summit is to address that issue and to consider the national capability to respond. We want to make sure that we do not have a situation where we have more wildfires.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

My understanding is that North Wales fire and rescue service commissioned the provision of military aid to the civil authorities, and the Welsh Government backed it up. We need clarity, but the fundamental point is that it appears that across the United Kingdom, we have a real shortage of trained pilots and the equipment they need to bring water to fire situations in remote places. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to that point.

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the right hon. Lady for raising that important point; those are key areas. It is about making sure we have the right people across the table when the summit is held. The summit cannot just be dictated by Whitehall; we must work on the ground with the devolved nations to make sure that the key people are around the table so that we can get the best solutions going forward.

Although fire and rescue policy is devolved, so each devolved Government is responsible for arrangements in their nation, the impacts and challenges of wildfires remain constant. We work in tandem as we face shared challenges. Tackling wildfires is a good example of where practical co-operation, drawing on mutual aid and specialist capability, sharing learning and co-operating on planning for complex incidents, can make a real difference. We saw the value of such co-ordination in Wales in the development of the national wildfire capability pilot earlier this year. The pilot established six specialist teams, with vehicles, equipment and expert training, that are ready to be deployed in response to significant incidents. Not only do the two teams from south Wales form part of this programme, but their expertise has been instrumental in increasing resilience across the UK.

Despite the advances, the severity of this year’s incidents exposes areas where arrangements must and can improve, including cross-border co-ordination, consistent data, forecasting public warnings, and the way that operational learning is shared. Aerial firefighting is another area that we need to re-examine, including how we most effectively utilise capability across the four nations. This is vital in ensuring that firefighters on the ground get the best possible support when the terrain, scale or accessibility makes their jobs especially difficult. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen and other Members have mentioned, the Government will hold a wildfire summit this autumn in response to these challenges, bringing together fire chiefs, the National Fire Chiefs Council, the Fire Brigades Union, and other key organisations, to turn the lessons from 2026 wildfires into action. It is vital to ensure that key organisations, local constituents and Members of Parliament are involved in that summit.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee will soon be publishing a report. When it comes to who will be in the room come that wildfire summit, will the hon. Member give me an undertaking that it will not only be the organisations, but the private individuals, the gamekeepers, land managers, farmers and shepherds, who are very often the first line of response? Can she ensure that their voices will be heard at the same time as all the organisations?

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the right hon. Member for that point. He may be aware that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs have established joint governance to develop a wildfire action plan. They will be working to look at the attendees. I am sure that the hon. Member will make his representations, and I will pass those on to colleagues.

The Government are determined to support those on the frontline by ensuring that they have the capability, support and partnership they need to meet future challenges. We must act to reduce the risk of wildfire, improve readiness, strengthen frontline response and support communities to become more resilient. I know that Welsh colleagues will be holding their own summit later this month and we will continue to work and share insight with the Welsh Government, working together to enhance future readiness. The plan for the national wildfire summit is to look at the full risk cycle: prevention, readiness, response, recovery and adaptation. Work is already under way to improve forecasting and risk mapping, develop specialist capability and learn from this summer, ahead of future periods of heightened risk.

Better emergency response is only one part of the answer; wildfire resilience also depends on what happens before a fire starts. That means better forecasting and public information, responsible behaviour, proportionate land management and strong local readiness. Land managers, fire and rescue services, local authorities and local resilience forums all have an important role to play. By working together, they can understand local risk, protect vulnerable places and plan for the recovery as well as the response. By acting on the lessons learned from this year, we can improve readiness, strengthen specialist support, and make sure that Governments and responders share learning that has practical value.

[Mr Alex Barros-Curtis (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) for securing this debate, and to the Minister for giving way. I visited Ely fire station in my constituency and congratulated the firefighters there for their hard work. They asked me whether the summit will look at deterrents as well as prevention—they were in attendance at a fire, but arsonists then restarted the fire, so the firefighters do not feel that the sentencing laws are strong enough. Will the Minister look at that as part of the summit? Prevention is very important, but deterrents for arsonists are also important.

[Florence Eshalomi]

Just to reassure my hon. Friend and others, the agenda and themes for the summit have not been decided, but I am sure we will want to ensure that hon. and right hon. Members are able to feed in. As I mentioned, MHCLG and DEFRA are working on the joint summit, and there will be many opportunities for Members to feed in and ensure that we get the right people at the summit, and work on the right areas, so that we can get the best outcome.

I also want to take this opportunity to highlight the work of so many people on the ground. I thank the soldiers from the Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment, the South Wales fire and rescue service and firefighters up and down the country for their help getting the relentless wildfire at Blaenavon under control. At the height of the summer, an emergency alert reached 55 million phones across England and Wales, demonstrating the shared nature of the risk and the importance of ensuring that we work across Governments to make sure out nations are safe.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Talking about people on the frontline, I am sure the Minister shares my horror that our firefighters did not have the personal protective equipment that they needed. I hope she will pass on to the relevant Minister as a matter of urgency that that is one practical thing that we really need to deal with.

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank my right hon. Friend for highlighting that; he will know that the National Fire Chiefs Council, the Fire Brigades Union and firefighters, alongside other organisations and groups, will be at the seminar. I am sure they will make their voices and representations heard loud and clear.

I also want to highlight the two constituents mentioned by my right hon. Friend, Anthony Watkins and Sara Warman, for their work and effort in making sure we continue to work in co-operation with UK Governments including the Welsh Government, looking at shared learning, resilience and ensuring that the right funding is brought forward to address these key areas.

By acting on the lessons learned this year, we can improve readiness. My Department is committed to continuing to work with the Welsh Government and the Governments of Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as fire and rescue partners and communities across the UK. In conclusion, I once again thank my right hon. Friend for securing this debate and bringing the issue to the House.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I have one final point. As I said in my speech, there is also an issue around how the UK Government calculated how much money went to the North York Moors National Park Authority for recovery from a peat fire, which is also the situation in Torfaen. Will the Minister undertake to speak to ministerial colleagues about this? I have written to ask how exactly that was calculated. I am sure that is something I could look at putting to the Welsh Government, so will the Minister undertake to secure a response for me?

[Florence Eshalomi]

I will take that away and write back to my right hon. Friend with further details. He will be aware that MHCLG also announced a £97 million upgrade to the national resilience assets, including equipment and national wildfire response capability pilots, with specialist firefighters, equipment and training positioned right across the UK, but I will come back to him in writing on that specific point.

I pay tribute to everyone who has responded across the UK and in Wales this summer, as well as the communities impacted on the frontline. Their experience must shape what we do next, and our focus must now be on applying those lessons before the next wildfire season.

Question put and agreed to.

11:28

Sitting suspended.

Police Funding: North-east England

Tuesday 13th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Pete Wishart in the Chair]

10:54

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

My apologies for my tardiness. I call Luke Akehurst to move the motion.

[Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered police funding in the North East.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, MrI know that I will not be the only Member in the room who was deeply disturbed to see the scenes emerging out of Cleveland earlier this year. I pay tribute to PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I, too, would like to send my thoughts to the families of PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough. Matthew was a coach at my son’s football club. His loss and the loss of Tom have been felt very deeply across our region, but their tragic deaths did not come out of the blue. They were a result of systematic underfunding. Does my hon. Friend agree that the funding formula has become so perverse, so warped, so broken, that funding is now inverse to the levels of crime we are seeing in our communities, and that the north-east and Cleveland are losing out as a result?

[Luke Akehurst]

My hon. Friend has anticipated the general thrust of my remarks. I join him in paying tribute to PCs Matthew Blades and Tom Clough, who lost their lives trying to protect the public.

While the Labour Government were right to provide an additional £2 million for Cleveland police in response, it struck me that the challenges facing Cleveland are not unique in the north-east region. They are faced across the Durham, Cleveland and Northumbria police forces areas. Police numbers were cut in the years after 2010. Public safety has therefore deteriorated, and our constituents are paying the price. It terrifies me to think that communities like those I represent could ever face a breakdown in law and order of the kind that occurred temporarily in Cleveland. It drew me to ask the question: why was our region left so under-resourced that it became vulnerable to such pressures?

Sadly, I can only conclude that the answer lies in an ideological choice by the Conservative party during the 14 years in which it was in government that places such as North Durham were not deserving of the necessary police resources, despite the severe social and economic challenges that our communities have faced following decades of deindustrialisation. Frankly, that decision should be regarded as nothing short of a national scandal. As I hope to demonstrate today, it has reduced safety, security and opportunity for the people of our region. The numbers paint a damning picture of how badly the last Conservative Government failed the north-east of England. Our three police forces all sit in the top four across England and Wales in terms of percentage reduction in police numbers between 2010 and 2024.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. I wanted to come along to support him in his demands, along with his colleagues from the north-east. Unfortunately, I am sorry to say that police underfunding does not just happen in the north-east; it happens to us in Northern Ireland as well. Our police numbers are down and our funding is scarce. At the same time, in the last year, the Police Service of Northern Ireland has been able to detain and seize £0.5 million-worth of drugs. I am a great believer in community policing, and I know the hon. Gentleman has the same belief. Does he agree that it will suffer? It is the frontline and the face of the police. Does he feel that the Minister’s response must place a real emphasis on community policing as a priority?

[Luke Akehurst]

Obviously, I do not share the hon. Gentleman’s knowledge and expertise of the unique policing challenges in Northern Ireland, but I appreciate his support for north-east England in this debate and his points about community policing.

I do not believe it is a coincidence that, over the same period, Durham, Cleveland and Northumbria recorded the three largest increases in crime, excluding fraud, of any police force areas in England and Wales. Today, County Durham still has 120 fewer police officers than in 2010, equating to 102 full-time roles and a decrease of 6.7%. Across the whole north-east, 578 officers have been lost since 2010, a fall of 7.8%.

In stark contrast, the areas that saw the greatest increase in police numbers were Surrey, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Thames Valley. If one were being cynical, one might point out that those are all areas that, on the whole, had Conservative MPs when the Conservative party was in government, and generally greater levels of prosperity and lower levels of policing demand than many of the communities represented in this room.

Although officer numbers across the country sit 1.5% higher than in 2010, the regional disparity in which communities benefited from increased police numbers is clear and has grown. That prompts the question: why did successive Tory Governments deem those places to be most deserving of frontline police presence? Why did politicians in Westminster at that time decide that working-class families in North Durham were less deserving of police protection than people living in more prosperous areas with lower crime levels, where police officer numbers were increased?

To compare the demand that different police forces face, we can look at the measure of police recorded crime per officer. In County Durham, there were 42 recorded crimes per officer in 2025-26, which is much higher than the national average of 36. If our county received the same funding per recorded crime as the national average, it would be £29 million a year better funded. Not only are policing numbers on the ground lower than 2010, but our area faces more incidents requiring police time.

During July 2026, Durham Constabulary received more than 10,000 emergency 999 calls, an increase of 11% compared with the same month the previous year. Demand remained high throughout the summer, with crime-related incidents more than 14% above normal levels in August. Antisocial behaviour related to off-road bikes, e-bikes and scooters poses another challenge in policing in County Durham.

My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy), who cannot be here, has been campaigning on this issue over the past year, as have many others in the room. I commend her for highlighting the support that police officers in our area need to tackle this issue blighting our communities. Just last week, she observed 70 illegal bikes and scooters being crushed after being confiscated by Durham Constabulary.

Police chiefs in our area tell me that there were more than 1,000 more incidents each month over the summer than for the same period in 2025, representing two full days of additional demand each month. In particular, high levels of deprivation in our county translate into higher police demand related to mental health crises, drug or alcohol abuse and cases of missing children.

In the Durham and Northumbria police force areas, officers face the especially challenging combination of high levels of deprivation and extremely rural areas. It takes more money to police rural areas, due to additional travel costs and the need to maintain smaller, less efficient police buildings. I hope the Minister will set out what consideration has been given to the additional needs of police forces in rural areas that also have high levels of deprivation, and how the Government are supporting them with the unique challenges that that combination poses.

Although the Durham force has managed to maintain performance in responding to public requests for help, despite severe challenges, in other areas demand is affecting performance. According to the latest inspection, Durham had the highest rate of repeat domestic abuse incidents per thousand of the population of anywhere in England and Wales. Of 188 priority domestic abuse incidents, 118 did not meet the attendance target. That is shocking evidence of the scale of demand facing our police force and why it needs the resources to do more to protect vulnerable people and prevent abuse. Can the Minister please set out what assessment the Government have made of this particular problem and say how they will ensure that those experiencing domestic abuse in my constituency and across the region receive the same level of support as domestic abuse victims anywhere else in the country?

My message to my North Durham constituents is this: I will not allow our area to be denied the support that it needs and deserves from the state. A Labour Government will always stand up for our area and I look forward to hearing the Minister set out how we are doing that later on in the debate.

Having told Members what the numbers show, let me tell them what the impact is on typical constituents in North Durham. For a family in Stanley, it means worrying about their children being the victims of antisocial behaviour on their walk home from school. For a small business on Chester-le-Street Front Street, it means accepting that shoplifting is an inevitable cost of doing business. For a farmer near Lanchester, it means having no support to fend off perpetrators of agricultural crime who damage or steal their expensive machinery. For residents of Craghead, it means worrying that stretched police resources might prevent the prompt response and support they deserve when a crime occurs.

The consequences of stretched policing resources were hammered home to me in Parliament just last month when I hosted a group of women and girls from the Just for Women Centre in Stanley and St Bede’s school in Lanchester. In our discussion, the group highlighted their public safety concerns, recalling that they no longer feel safe walking home at night. They were clear that rather than simply catching perpetrators when awful crimes happen, our priority should be to prevent harm in the first place. I firmly believe that visible neighbourhood policing has an important part to play in preventing violence against women and girls, and in helping women to feel safe in their communities. I would be grateful if the Minister could specifically reflect on the safety of women and girls in the north-east of England and update the House on efforts in our region to tackle the scourge of VAWG and on any assessment that the Government have made of the gendered impact of the previous policing cuts in our area.

Of course, policing is not just about officers patrolling the streets in our neighbourhood; when the worst happens, it is also important to have enough officers in the response team to deal with the fallout. Too often, police shortages have meant that when major incidents occur, officers are pulled out of neighbourhood policing to respond, leaving our communities with a reduced police presence. In County Durham, such support for response teams from neighbourhood policing was provided on 129 occasions in August and 233 occasions in September. Will the Minister set out the Government’s thinking on the balance between neighbourhood policing and response teams, in particular explaining how she will ensure that when incidents occur, the towns and villages in my constituency and across our region are not stripped of their neighbourhood policing?

I now come to the rallying cry of this debate. As MPs from across the north-east of England, we are here today to call for more resources from central Government to deal with the challenges that our communities face. What we need is recognition that, because of decisions by previous Tory Governments, we are starting from a lower baseline of officer numbers than we should be. That is why I am calling for Ministers to deliver additional police numbers to the north-east on top of what is already promised through the neighbourhood policing guarantee, to reverse the cuts to policing in our area that have compromised our safety since 2010.

I welcome the Labour Government allowing Durham exceptional flexibility over our policing precept in order to prevent further avoidable cuts to our policing presence. I commend our police and crime commissioner, Joy Allen, for her consistent advocacy for policing across County Durham and Darlington, and for taking the difficult decision to propose a modest precept increase to ensure that residents are protected from crime and ASB. However, she has rightly pointed out that because our area has a low council tax base, the amount of money that we can raise locally to invest in policing is very limited. About 70% of County Durham properties are in council tax bands A and B, and I note that I am standing next to a proponent of council tax reform for those reasons, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash). Although a 1% council tax increase generates £1.9 million in Surrey, the same change in County Durham would raise only £500,000. The safety of my constituents should not depend on the value of property in their postcode. In fact, it is areas such as ours that need investment most desperately.

I know that the Police Federation, which represents 145,000 serving officers, has highlighted that reliance on council tax precepts risks a postcode lottery of funding. The Police Federation has called for a long-term funding settlement that takes that into account. Does the Minister think it is fair that local areas are expected to raise money for policing themselves when the areas that have the least ability to raise money are the same that, because of their levels of deprivation, need a police presence most?

In making this case, I am optimistic about our Labour Government, who have already shown that they care about these issues and want to deliver a fairer settlement for the north-east. Nationally, the Labour Government have been robust in making the case for a visible police presence on our streets to improve public safety, backed by a neighbourhood policing guarantee to deliver a named police officer for every community. Police funding is increasing, and after the unrest in Middlesbrough the Government acted swiftly and firmly to deliver more funding for Cleveland’s police force. The Home Secretary is also committed to a wider review of the police funding formula to ensure fairness. Will the Minister confirm when that review will happen, whether it will consider incidents of crime and ASB and whether we will see a real cash increase in funding for our north-east police forces during this Parliament?

As the Minister responds, I urge her not to lose sight of the fact that the north-east is still dealing with the consequences of years of disproportionate policing cuts. I hope she can outline what role that context plays in the Government’s thinking on the fairness of the current formulas, and how she is ensuring that this review properly takes into account the policing demand and lack of funding so clearly presented by our region.

Our constituents are not asking for special treatment; they demand that they are afforded the same level of protection as people elsewhere in the country. The safety of a family in Stanley, Chester-le-Street, Annfield Plain, Sacriston, Pelton, South Moor or Craghead should matter to politicians just as much as that of a family anywhere else in the country. That is why the Government must ensure a fair funding settlement that accounts for the challenges facing our communities to ensure policing that the public can have confidence in. Today, we are sending a clear message: the Government must do more to ensure that policing in the north-east of England is adequately funded to deliver for our constituents.

14:51

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for securing this very important debate and setting out so clearly, as he did, the issues that have brought so many north-east colleagues to this debate. I also thank those who serve in our north-east police forces for all they do to keep us safe every day.

Everyone has a right to feel safe and secure in their communities, especially in local areas such as our high streets, parks and town centres, as well as in their homes. However, time and again constituents tell me how antisocial behaviour such as theft and off-road bikes have caused chaos in our local communities, leaving my constituents feeling intimidated and unsafe. I know the issue of illegal off-road and e-bikes is of particular concern to my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham. I was very glad to attend a roundtable that he organised in his constituency just last month, held in the beautiful Beamish museum with partners from policing, local government and the community, where we discussed these very issues.

The previous Government considered many acts of criminality as low-level behaviour and failed to act. However, I know how even small acts of antisocial behaviour can compound to severely damage how a community views itself. Many feel as if respect for law and order has simply disappeared, with bobbies on the beat becoming a rarer sight. I therefore support this Labour Government’s Crime and Policing Act 2026, which is about taking back our streets, restoring respect for law and order, giving police the powers they need to tackle crime and providing support for victims of antisocial behaviour. The Act takes stronger action against antisocial behaviour through the new respect orders, longer dispersal powers and tougher penalties for breaches of public spaces protection orders.

The Government have also promised to rebuild neighbourhood policing through additional investment in officers and PCSOs, ensuring that every community has named, contactable officers focused on tackling local crime and antisocial behaviour. That is all good. I pay tribute to the Northumbria police and crime commissioner Susan Dungworth and her predecessor, the now Mayor of the North East, Kim McGuinness, who have been excellent at tackling crime as well as identifying the root causes of crime—notwithstanding, as I said, the legacy of the previous Government.

Despite our region including communities with some of the highest levels of deprivation and demand in England and Wales, police numbers in the north-east, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham in his opening speech, have fallen by a shocking 8% since 2010, when the Conservatives and Lib Dems embarked on their damaging programme of austerity. That translates to 578 fewer police officers in the north-east, including a loss of 255 in Northumbria police, who serve my constituency.

Forces in wealthier areas can raise substantially more, as we have heard, through the police precept. However, north-east forces cannot, due to lower property values and a far weaker tax base. That creates a greater reliance on central Government. Northumbria police in particular has the lowest police precept in England and Wales. That means that residents already contribute less through local taxation than in any other area, with Government grants making up 79% of the budget. Even where police and crime commissioners increase the precept by the maximum permitted amount, the financial yield generated is significantly lower than in forces with larger and more affluent tax bases.

That contributes to Northumbria police force having a budget that spends below average per head in England and Wales. In 2026-27, Northumbria police spent £50 less per head than Merseyside police, and £147 per head less than the Metropolitan police in London. While I do not want to oversimplify the matter, and I understand that both of those other areas face their own unique challenges, how will our region ever gain economic parity without parity of security?

Fundamentally, it is an issue of fairness. Communities should not receive less effective policing simply because they live in areas with lower property values. Future funding reforms should explicitly recognise deprivation, demand and limited local revenue raising capacity so as not to risk penalising the very areas with the greatest policing needs.

Like many colleagues in this debate, I campaigned heavily at the last election on issues of antisocial behaviour, and I genuinely believe that the Government have shown that they are willing to act. I commend them for that, but we must make sure that no one region of the country is left behind, and I sincerely hope that the Minister will consider the funding issues raised today.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

Order. If we all try to take about six minutes, everybody will get in sufficiently. I will not put a time limit on just now, but we will see how we get on.

14:57

[Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for securing this really important debate.

First of all, I pay tribute to PC Matthew Blades, PC Tom Clough and PC Jess Turnbull, three police officers who lost their lives in the line of duty. Jess Turnbull, who was killed only two or three miles from where I live, was 18 years of age when she lost her life. She had her life ahead of her. She joined the police force because she wanted to change the world and help people and she died at the age of 18 on 8 June. We should always remember the dangers that individual police officers and members of the police force put themselves in in the normal course of their duty.

Previous speakers have set out in detail the scale of the cuts faced by police forces across the north-east, so I do not intend to repeat those precise and excellent facts and figures. But it is fair to say that the years of Conservative austerity had a devastating impact on policing in our region—absolutely devastating.

It should not be forgotten that it went far beyond cuts to police budgets. Austerity reached into every corner of public life. The Crown Prosecution Service, prisons, the Probation Service, mental health services, education and countless other services were cut to the very bone. As those services weakened, police officers were increasingly left to pick up the pieces, facing growing demand with ever-dwindling resources.

At the same time, crime itself has evolved. The digital revolution has brought enormous opportunities, but the criminals have adapted just as well too. Police forces have been expected to tackle sophisticated online crime, combat the spread of misinformation, and manage an ever-growing burden of statutory checks and administrative tasks, all without the resources required to meet those challenges. It is all about resources and financing.

Again, I want to place on record my sincere thanks to the police officers serving my Blyth and Ashington constituency. Just for the record, my constituency is based in Northumberland, which, for those who are not aware, is cradled between the Scottish border and North Tyneside. It is the political no man’s land. I think Ministers generally forget where we are and have not really adapted the financing required for the police service that we desperately need. I feel sorry for some of these police officers, who go to work day in, day out, facing the problems they have in Ashington, Blyth, Bedlington, Newbiggin and Choppington, because of the lack of financial resource, with resources in general facing an uphill battle. I want to mention Inspector Dawn Sykes and Inspector Wayne Daniels, who serve our communities with great professionalism and dedication in the most unbelievable circumstances. I thank Northumbria’s police and crime commissioner, Susan Dungworth, who has worked tirelessly to ensure that the priorities of local people remain at the heart of policing.

I want to focus the rest of my remarks on what budget constraints have meant for the communities I represent. South-east Northumberland contains three of the county’s four largest towns, yet two of them have no police station at all, so members of the public cannot simply walk into one and speak to an officer. That is a direct consequence of funding pressures. Two of the largest towns in Northumberland have no manned police stations—the police stations are still there, but there is nobody in them.

The situation gets worse. The police station change has an immense impact on the people of south-east Northumberland. I will give a simple example. A constituent noticed that his neighbour’s porch light had been on continuously for several days. Concerned for their welfare, he phoned 101 to request a welfare check. After waiting almost an hour for his call to be answered, he gave up and went to Ashington police station, in the centre of the town, in person. When he arrived, he found a sign stating that the station was closed to the public, with an arrow directing him to a telephone on the wall so he could ring 101 again. That is unreal, but it is something that has happened right throughout the country, by the way: the closure of major police stations in major towns, right across the UK. We rightly pride ourselves on a system of policing by consent, but we also rely on the good will and public spirit of people such as my constituent. After an experience like that, I suspect he might think again about taking similar action.

Earlier this year, the custody suite in Bedlington closed, with the police citing funding constraints. That was another blow to local policing. Officers who make arrests in my patch must now transport detainees to Newcastle for processing, taking valuable police time and resources off the streets at critical times. We see that in my patch all too often. An already stretched police force is routinely called upon to respond to threats, the likes of—

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

Order. I hope the hon. Gentleman will be concluding his remarks so that his regional colleagues get a chance to say a few words.

[Ian Lavery]

Thank you very much, Mr Wishart. We see lots of things occurring due to lack of resourcing in my patch. We have masked motorbike riders, shoplifting, antisocial behaviour, county line drug dealing—it goes on and on. The police need the resources required to tackle not just those types of crimes but basic crimes as well.

15:04

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) on securing this debate on a critical issue for our region. I join him and colleagues in paying tribute to our two brave police officers in Cleveland, Tom Clough and Matthew Blades, who tragically lost their lives recently. I also pay tribute to their colleagues and friends in our force, particularly Chief Constable Victoria Fuller, who has conducted herself with incredible professionalism in this difficult time. Thank you to all of the police officers who deal with my office every day and who report and tackle crime, including Inspector Neil Deluce and Inspector Ian Mitchell, who are the pinnacle of professionalism, despite these challenging circumstances.

I also take a moment to thank everyone, including in the community, who has supported our police force amid everything they have been going through in recent weeks. The chief constable said to me recently that every single police station has been filled with gifts, cakes and cards for our officers—there has been a huge outpouring of support from the public. As she cannot speak in these kinds of debates, I take a moment to recognise my constituency neighbour, the right hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), given that this incident took place in her constituency and she has been engaged in all the same conversations as I have been.

Cleveland has a relatively small police force, but it suffers from some of the greatest demands in the country. We have among the highest recorded crime rates in England and Wales, alongside severe deprivation, serious violence, organised crime and immense pressure on public services, yet our funding has failed to keep pace for well over a decade. I heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham how the percentage change since 2010 in full-time equivalent police officer numbers shows that there are serious issues, not only in Cleveland, but across the north-east. We are not allowed to use props in these kinds of debates, but if I were to get out a graph, it would show Cleveland, Durham and Northumbria suffering the worst cuts in the country.

The chief constable said that an estimated 500 additional officers would be required in Cleveland to bring workload closer to the national average. That is just to catch up to the average, not to deal with the additional demands in our region. Those pressures are being felt by frontline officers every day and Cleveland Police Federation has warned about unmanageable workloads, with officers responding to traumatic incidents involving domestic abuse, serious violence and vulnerable people. In my constituency, that means officers dealing with antisocial behaviour in places such as Hemlington and Park End, illegal off-road bikes, as has been mentioned, in places such as Easterside, and the very different challenges of policing our rural villages in East Cleveland. In Guisborough, our town has suffered from shoplifting on the high street, and I want to recognise the work that Councillor Bill Suthers has done to convene residents, police and the council to discuss what more can be done, and to get results from that discussion.

At the same time, Cleveland has made real progress. The force has come out of special measures and has been recognised for its improvement. Our officers are delivering results, despite the pressures they face. This is nothing short of a miracle. So, too, our councils are delivering programmes to support their work tackling antisocial behaviour and crime. I welcome the decision taken just this week by Mayor Chris Cooke to introduce new public space protection orders in places such as Hemlington Lake to help address some of these issues. However, the reality is stark, and the PCC and chief constable have called for at least £20 million in additional funding each year, to keep pace with demand. It is a clear and practical request, backed by cross-party leaders across Cleveland.

When the Government take forward their police funding reform, they must ensure that deprivation, crime rates and demand are properly recognised, so that Cleveland finally receives the funding that reflects the challenges our officers face every day.

I also mention the similar challenges facing our fire brigade—the fire service funding formula also needs to change. It has also lost a third of its full-time firefighter posts since 2010 and now faces a £1.2 million funding gap. This is the legacy of austerity writ large in a region that desperately needs an urgent injection of funding for its police and fire brigade. We need a particular focus on our region as police reforms progress, and special consideration must be given to accelerating those reforms in the north-east, perhaps through a pilot programme, given the challenges across the whole region.

We also need clarity about what will happen with PCC funding beyond 2028. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham spoke about domestic abuse in our region. We have some fantastic organisations on Teesside, including ARCH Teesside, My Sister’s Place, EVA Women’s Aid, the Halo Project and many others. Many get their funding from police and crime commissioners, and they do not have clarity about what will happen after PCCs are abolished, so I would welcome some clarity on that from the Minister.

The message today from me and colleagues is that residents need safer streets and proper neighbourhood community policing again, which means that our Government must back our police force with the resources it desperately needs.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

Order. There are four speakers left and we have 20 minutes, so if Members stick to a strict five minutes, we will get everybody in.

15:10

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for securing this debate.

Let me start with a simple proposition. Cleveland police cannot be expected to tackle the highest levels of recorded crime in the country with the lowest levels of police resource. It is not fair on our officers or our communities; it is not good enough. The figures are stark: Cleveland has about 123 recorded crimes per 1,000 people—the highest rate of any police force in England and Wales—and Middlesbrough has the highest recorded crime of any local authority area.

What has happened to police numbers? Since 2010, we have suffered the worst percentage reduction in full-time equivalent officers of any force. It is down 15%, from 1,652 to just 1,405, or 247 fewer officers at a time of extraordinary demand. That is the disgraceful legacy of the Conservative party. Yet against that backdrop, Cleveland police is still one of the most improved forces in the land, and I commend Chief Constable Victoria Fuller for that achievement. It is now dealing with significant increases in recalls to prison, which have rocketed in recent times.

Our officers are being asked to do more with less. They are confronting serious crime, antisocial behaviour and major incidents with a depleted workforce. The appalling A66 collision in August brought the pressures into sharp focus. Seven lives were lost, including two magnificent and brave Cleveland police officers, PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough. I pay tribute to them and their families, and to their colleagues, who have continued to serve our communities in the most difficult of circumstances. The incident also exposed the demands placed on a small force, which has required mutual aid from other constabularies and continues to be ravaged by the ongoing evil of organised crime.

The A66 collision rightly brought Cleveland’s resources and funding under renewed scrutiny. We must learn the lessons, but we must not pretend that this terrible incident created the problems. The underlying pressures have been building for years. I welcome the Government’s £2 million of additional support. It is right that Cleveland receives help, given the exceptional demands, but let us be honest: a one-off £2 million payment is not a permanent solution to a structural funding deficit. The scale of the challenge is substantial. In any event, given that the mutual aid bill is already way north of £4 million, Matt Storey, our wonderful police and crime commissioner, said that the £2 million “won’t touch the sides.”

With the mutual aid, Cleveland has delivered 100% of 999 calls answered within the prescribed period and has made massive inroads into clearing arrest warrants, but it will end soon. As my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) said, realistic and conservative estimates put the additional annual funding required at north of £24 million per annum recurring. I welcome the Government’s commitment to review the police funding formula, but the published timetable concerns the review of police structures, and we have no firm date for a new funding formula to be implemented.

My colleagues, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), and I have said repeatedly that Cleveland cannot be told to wait while Whitehall works through another lengthy process. The Government have acknowledged that interim measures can be considered to better align funding with policing priorities, so I ask the Minister directly: why not start with Cleveland? I urge the Government to consider piloting a revised needs-based allocation for Cleveland for 2027-28, taking proper account of its exceptional crime rate, deprivation and depleted officer numbers, followed by a decision on additional recurring funding. That would not pre-empt national reform; it would demonstrate that the Government understand the difference between a long-term plan and an immediate responsibility to keep people safe. We cannot rebuild policing on the cheap, and we cannot ask our communities to wait indefinitely for change. That funding must deliver something people can see and feel in their daily lives: effective neighbourhood policing and the eradication of organised crime groups. People want to feel safe walking home and raising their children.

I beg the Minister to hear the pleas of the bereaved families, who have let it be known that they want the legacy of PCs Tom Clough and Matthew Blades to be fairer funding and an equitable policing settlement for Cleveland. Minister, do not let their deaths be in vain. Their tragic loss has further galvanised and unified our community. That is why restoring police capacity matters. It is not simply about figures on a spreadsheet or allocations made in Whitehall; it is about having enough officers to prevent crime, respond when things go wrong and build lasting relationships with the communities they serve.

This Labour Government was elected to change things. In Cleveland that means correcting an indefensible funding imbalance, rebuilding police capacity and putting officers back into our communities. The test is not what we announce in Westminster: it is what people see in the streets. I ask the Minister to come to Cleveland with a clear commitment, an urgent assessment of its needs, serious consideration of additional recurring funding and a needs-based pilot in 2027-28. The people of Cleveland have waited long enough. This Government must deliver visible change on the ground for our communities in Cleveland and across the north-east.

15:16

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst), on securing this debate. The consequences that we see today in our areas in the north-east, which we have heard about already, come as no surprise. Generational de-industrialisation causing regional economic disparity combined with austerity, deep cuts to public services and growing pressure on councils and community services have all taken their toll. We are now seeing those consequences—higher levels of social need, antisocial behaviour, neighbourhood insecurity and addiction.

Our officers can often be left dealing with the symptoms of the challenges that begin long before criminality occurs. The reality is that Durham constabulary has had to manage a rising and increasingly complex demand while operating with over 100 fewer police officers than it had in 2010, despite officer numbers increasing nationally overall. It has had a real impact on our communities. Only last week, I received an anonymous letter from a serving police officer outlining their concerns about neighbourhood policing. They told me that despite neighbourhood teams seeming to be adequately staffed on paper, the reality on the ground is that these officers are routinely assigned to cover other duties, leaving PCSOs to cover the majority of neighbourhood work.

Alongside that, the nature of policing has changed dramatically. Officers today are not only dealing with traditional crime, they are responding to incidents involving online offending, child exploitation, safeguarding concerns, domestic abuse and mental health crises. Those issues require significant time and resources, but are now a routine part of modern policing. The result is that officers are dealing with huge workloads. In Durham, recorded crime per officer remains above the national average. This has implications not only for the service provided to the public, but also for the wellbeing of officers and staff who continue to serve our communities with professionalism and dedication. Durham Police Federation has highlighted the pressures experienced by frontline officers. It has spoken of officers working hard to meet demand, often at the expense of their own wellbeing and family life, while dealing with uncertainty created by short-term funding settlements.

We have already heard about the unfairness of forces with lower council tax bases, so I will not repeat those facts. However, as discussions continue about the future structure and funding of policing, it is important that the experiences of north-east police forces are fully understood. Any assessment of need must reflect not only population but deprivation, rurality and vulnerability. County Durham contains both urban and rural communities, each with their own challenges, and those realities should be reflected in future considerations. We must listen to the views of our constituents, whose concerns often go unanswered for lengthy periods because there are not enough officers to respond to incidents.

I met Belmont Guides recently, and heard how deeply antisocial behaviour and low-level crime impacts their local community. Whether that is balaclava-clad youths riding e-bikes, vandals damaging park equipment and green spaces, acts of animal cruelty or intimidating behaviour as the evenings draw in, many of our communities are increasingly having to contend with these issues. These young girls deserve to feel safe in their communities, but they see a distinct lack of police officers on the streets. They want to know why that is. Minister, how do I reassure these young people in Durham that our county will receive the additional police officers we so desperately need and deserve, so that children feel safe enough to enjoy being out in the fresh air with their friends, instead of being attached to electronic devices?

It is not just young people. I regularly hear from elderly residents who are afraid to go out alone after dark, from women who have escaped abusive relationships only to find themselves being pursued again, from public transport users dealing with antisocial behaviour and violence at bus stations, and from shop workers and market traders who have repeatedly suffered thefts while seeing little police presence on our streets. This is a real picture that I am painting, and we ignore it at our peril.

Recent tragic events in the wider north-east region have served as a reminder of the risks that officers face in protecting the public, and our thoughts remain with those families. My constituents in Durham rightly expect an effective, visible and responsive police service. As future decisions are made about police structure and funding, I sincerely hope that the experiences of forces and residents across the north-east will be at the forefront of discussions, because it is time that the Government listened to them. I hope that it will be this Labour Government.

15:22

[Alan Strickland (Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for securing this crucial debate. Building on the powerful speeches by other hon. Members, I want to set out three reasons as a County Durham MP why this review of police funding is so important.

First, we must recognise the additional costs of policing areas that are both semi-rural and post-industrial, such as my constituency. Communities like the ones I am proud to represent have a strong industrial heritage of coal mining and other industry, but it is often forgotten across the public sector that they are, at the same time, largely rural. Of the population in County Durham, 43% lives in rural areas, and my constituency is entirely villages and small towns. They are often not farming communities, but former pit villages that still experience the serious, scarring effects of major losses in employment and social infrastructure in the ‘70s and ‘80s, while at the same time experiencing significant geographical isolation.

Those issues have caused a growth in county lines, organised crime and other very serious issues. Durham constabulary is dealing with complex problems across a sprawling county, which creates obvious policing challenges. Will the Minister consider how police funding can better take into account the challenge of increasingly serious criminal issues that one might expect in an urban area, but in rural settings that are much more expensive to police, and where effective neighbourhood policing, which can be important in preventing crime, is more difficult?

Secondly, there are ongoing challenges of deprivation in County Durham, without enough wider public sector support. We need to see it better reflected in funding. Durham constabulary works in communities with families affected by higher levels of complex need, intergenerational unemployment and poverty. For example, parts of Ferryhill, in my constituency, are in the top 1% of the most deprived communities in the country. Half of children are on free school meals. That brings significant challenges—social challenges and lack of opportunity—and with that comes greater crime, criminal justice issues and other problems.

As my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham rightly pointed out, that creates a dual challenge for the police in my area, with more difficult issues to tackle while a higher number of households in the very lowest council tax bands reduce the funding available. The complexity of some of the families that Durham officers are working with can mean that officers are not just dealing with criminal justice matters but have increasingly had to step in to fill gaps left by cuts to social services, mental health support and addiction and homelessness services caused by the deep austerity cuts of the last Conservative Government. Our police officers in Durham are to be congratulated for the myriad ways that they step up every day to support residents. But the message should be clear: the police cannot be expected to do everything.

I would be grateful if the Minister could set out how the Home Office can work with other Departments across Government to support more investment in family intervention projects, schemes to reduce youth reoffending and other measures outside of policing that could reduce and prevent crime.

My final point is about the growth in poorly regulated private landlords who too often allow crime and antisocial behaviour by their tenants to go unchecked. This is again creating more complex policing problems. I particularly urge Ministers across Government to put more pressure on authorities such as Reform-led Durham county council that are simply failing to act in many cases where irresponsible landlords are allowing their properties to become magnets for crime and disorder, often in previously quiet streets that had very low levels of crime. This is coming up again and again in my constituency. We know that council enforcement teams have got powers to tackle landlords who are refusing to take ASB seriously, but too often this simply is not happening.

I am pleased to report to the Minister that residents facing these serious incidents who I have met recently have been incredibly complimentary about the police force for responding quickly, but it is clear that the force is bearing significant costs, which the wider public sector could be helping with more effectively.

To finish, I support the calls for a review of funding. I would also like to echo the thanks given by colleagues to all serving police officers, but let us see what more we can do to make sure that our brave men and women in uniform have the proper resources they need.

15:26

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) on securing this important debate.

We have heard from colleagues representing constituencies covered by the Northumbria, Durham and Cleveland forces about what a huge issue this is for the north-east. That is because our forces, collectively and individually, have been asked to do more with less for longer than anywhere else in the country. There is a clear case for the north-east to be prioritised in responding to this challenge, for example, in the same way that Mission North East has prioritised schools in the north-east.

For my own force, Northumbria, between 2010 and 2019, central Government funding fell by more than 31% in real terms. No force was hit harder. It lost a quarter of its officers and we know that when budgets are cut, it is unfortunately the neighbourhood teams that often go first. Today, Northumbria has 255 fewer officers than in 2010. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham said, that was a political choice by the previous Government which skewed funding formulas and completely ignored deprivation and the need for places like the north-east to be policed appropriately.

We know that demand is higher than elsewhere. In the Office for National Statistics’ figures, the north-east records 98 crimes per 1,000 against 85 per 1,000 nationally—the highest of any region. In Sunderland we saw 27,000 recorded crimes last year, which is down 3%, but still above the national rate. However, recorded crime only tells us a small amount. Recorded crime is not all crime; it only shows what is reported. The ONS survey suggests that about a third of crimes people experience are reported to the police. The gap between what people live with and what they report itself tells us about the confidence in policing. Of course, police deal with much more than crime. Mental health incidents in Northumbria have risen by 152% since 2017—demand that never shows up in any crime figures.

As other hon. Members have already done, I want to also express my thanks to our officers. The range of what we ask them to do is extraordinary. I was three weeks into being elected when officers placed themselves in harm’s way in Sunderland city centre as thugs threw bricks and stones at them. They stood protecting our community and places of worship. Just two weeks ago, we had a terrible tragedy on the River Wear in Sunderland. Again it was police officers along with other emergency services responding and not just doing the search and rescue and the investigation of the incident, but liaising in the most difficult circumstances with the bereaved families. Every day, officers are on our streets, with people in crisis, tackling crime.

Our constituents tell us that police visibility is crucial, and it is probably what constituents raise with me more than anything else. When I am out on walkabouts with officers in Hendon, Pallion and the city centre, I see the response of the public to visible policing. I can sense that residents and shop workers feel safer, and that potential troublemakers are thinking twice. People stop to talk and share intelligence with the police about what is going on.

Too often, of course, residents do not see the police. When they do not see an officer and when they wait too long for a response to a call or an online report, they stop reporting and their trust and sense of security reduce. We need to boost visibility as a way of boosting confidence and reporting. Nowhere is that clearer than with antisocial behaviour, which is absolutely not low level. It is drunken, intoxicated behaviour; e-bikes and off-road bikes around estates or parks; yobbish behaviour. It wears down our communities night after night, and it is not good enough.

Visible policing matters. That is why I welcome the Government’s decision to replace the previous headcount target with a neighbourhood policing target, because Northumbria could hit the previous Government’s headcount target and still not have on-the-ground policing in Fulwell in my constituency. Northumbria is adding 54 neighbourhood posts by next March, which is a good first step, but those posts must be protected. We must have more and they must reach the estates and villages, not just city centres.

The Government have talked about structural reform of the police alongside funding formula reform. I will not speak for colleagues, but I am open to regional reorganisation. We already have a north-east regional organised crime unit, which does effective work across our forces. Where there are capabilities such as firearms, or potentially drones, we have seen a significant amount of mutual aid, particularly in recent months following events in Cleveland.

There is a reasonable case that moving to a north-east-wide regional force, if that is what the Hogan-Howe review recommends, would strengthen resilience and potentially produce some efficiencies in those areas, but people will only accept a bigger force with two guarantees. The first is to ensure that local policing areas are strong and protected, and that local officers still know Sunderland and have a local commander who we can hold to account. The second, crucially, is funding reform. Merging three underfunded forces would give us one large, underfunded force. We have to move on both together.

I will finish by asking the Minister a couple of questions. As she considers police force reorganisation, and if a north-east force is proposed, can we move faster than others? Others have also mentioned the funding formula, and there could be transformation funding as part of a move to a regional force, if that is helpful to the Home Office and considered necessary. There is clearly a case for the north-east to be treated differently—

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

Order. We have to move on to the Front-Bench spokespeople. I call the Lib Dem spokesperson, Max Wilkinson.

15:33

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. I commend the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for securing this debate. I begin by putting on the record my party’s thanks and admiration for our police services up and down the country, and for the vital role that officers play in keeping our communities safe.

The tragic A66 collision that claimed the lives of two police officers, Matthew Blades and Tom Clough, horrified us all. The disorder that followed in the days after that tragedy disturbed people far beyond the north-east, and we must hope it has brought renewed focus on the area’s safety. I commend all the MPs from the region who have spoken so powerfully with one voice in this debate today.

This summer’s disorder underlines the importance of having a police service that is properly resourced, that is visible and that is trusted by the communities it serves. We have long called for a return to genuine community policing, focused on preventing crime through policing that builds relationships with local communities.

Just a few days ago, I was in the north-east, in Peterlee, to appear on a televised political panel debate. It was clear that crime is a real concern for residents in that area. Indeed, it was raised by the audience member who asked the first question. The audience spoke about the impact on their communities and the underlying causes, including the fact that many communities have been hollowed out economically over the last few decades. What came across was a deep frustration and, very sadly, a sense of helplessness from those in the room.

Police presence must be part of the focus to address the concerns of residents across the north-east. Under the Conservatives, Cleveland police lost hundreds of officers—I think around 400—and after the disorder this summer, 200 officers had to be drafted in to deal with what unfolded. This is not an acceptable state of affairs. The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s pledge to recruit 13,000 additional police officers, but police numbers have sadly not matched the Government’s ambition. If the Government are serious about restoring neighbourhood policing, they must get more officers back on to our streets, and they will need to recruit many more. We cannot expect overstretched officers to do more with less, as other Members have said, and too many crimes go unsolved.

We hear about these issues regularly in relation to the north-east and elsewhere; they are common to so many places across the country. The Government will tell us that they have increased national police funding, but with reference to the north-east, Cleveland’s funding increase is the lowest in the country, worth £1.65 million a year less than if it had received the 4.5% average increase. On top of that, Cleveland police is being asked to find £3.88 million of savings to balance its budget. Regardless of the regional issue, it is clear that policing must refocus on finding more resources and making the best of the resources it has.

There is also the issue that a huge amount of police time is taken up by online crime, principally fraud but also including child sexual exploitation and violence against women and girls. Unfortunately, the companies that facilitate this behaviour have not acted strongly enough to prevent it from happening. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for a new police agency to tackle serious online crime, funded by a levy on big tech and AI companies. Will the Minister commit to taking steps to ensure that the companies that facilitate online crime are called to account and asked to pay for some of the problems that they create, on a “polluter pays” basis? That would help to redirect police resourcing to the frontline, to build and maintain the physical policing presence that our communities rightly expect. It would help to restore a police counter in every community, giving people accessible, convenient places to share information and engage with the police within their communities.

The Government talk about their neighbourhood policing guarantee, but we now need to see change in our communities. We believe that our proposals can help. One other concern lies in police force reorganisation. If merging forces means that officers become more distant from the communities they serve or are less able to respond to local crime—or, indeed, if three underfunded forces become one massive underfunded force—the reforms will have failed. Will the Minister ensure that police reform does not lead to resources being directed away from smaller communities, which are often in rural areas, to larger urban centres? That is particularly important for the rural communities we have heard about today, where crime has become increasingly organised, serious and persistent. We are calling for a countryside copper guarantee, with properly resourced, dedicated rural crime teams or specialists in every police force. Will the Minister commit to ensuring that forces serving rural areas have the resources they need?

Finally, transferring police and crime commissioners’ powers to mayors without sufficient democratic scrutiny risks replacing one flawed model with another. Local crime and police boards made up of local residents and representatives of the community can provide meaningful local accountability and oversight of policing. Is that being considered by Ministers in their police reforms? That is vital, because only by empowering communities to work with local police will we reduce crime across the country, including in the north-east.

15:38

[Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) on securing this important debate. I reiterate my condolences to the family and friends of PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough. Their deaths have been a tragedy for the local force, and their loss serves as a constant reminder of the risks our police officers face every day. Alongside other Members, I was privileged to attend their funerals. It was clear from everyone there how deeply they were loved by their families, respected by their colleagues and valued by the communities they served. The incidents that occurred after their deaths were a sad reflection of the problems that we face in the north-east.

Funding for our police forces is not an issue that should be taken lightly, as it clearly has a huge impact on their ability to operate effectively. As an MP from the region, representing an area served by a local force facing acute funding challenges, I share the concerns raised passionately by so many Members today.

As the Minister will be aware, following the incident in Middlesbrough, I raised the issue of police funding in the north-east, particularly in my own area of Cleveland. I have raised the issue on many occasions, under this Government and the last. While I appreciate the targeted funding announced in September, it is nowhere near enough to make a difference or solve the underlying problem. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) rightly points out that the funding has been more than consumed by the costs following the incident.

To give one example from the north-east, Cleveland serves some of the most deprived communities in the country and faces exceptional levels of demand. In the year ending March 2025, Cleveland had the highest recorded crime rate per head of population of any police force in England and Wales—122.1 crimes per 1,000 people compared with the national average of 87.2. While anecdotes can tell only part of the story, we unfortunately see brazen criminal activity—from off-road bikes to knife crime—taking place without effective intervention.

[Andy McDonald]

I am listening intently to what the shadow Minister has to say. Does the picture he is painting cause him to reflect on the savage cuts to Cleveland police under his party’s stewardship, which saw the force lose 500 officers? Will he apologise for that error?

[Matt Vickers]

I always think these things are better done—and have been better done—when there is one voice fighting for more resources for our areas. I was elected in 2019. In Home Office workforce data shared in September 2019, there were 1,226 police officers in Cleveland. In March 2024, there were 1,514. That is an increase of 288. In the year to March 2026, the number of full-time equivalent police officers in Cleveland fell by 17.

[Andy McDonald]

rose—

[Matt Vickers]

I am going to carry on; Stockton is going to have its say, as well as Middlesbrough. This week, police have had to impose section 60 and dispersal orders in Thornaby, in my constituency and the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, after a series of targeted incidents in which vehicles were driven into houses and two men were seriously assaulted with a knife. Yet the funding formula does not adequately recognise those pressures.

To be clear, although I speak as a shadow Minister, this is simply not a party political point. The Labour police and crime commissioner, Matt Storey, has warned of a £2.4 million funding shortfall—the equivalent of about 40 police officers. His argument, which the Minister has heard many times, is that a system based too heavily on population fails to take sufficient account of deprivation, crime and demand. The situation has been made worse by the Government’s decision to inflict the cost of national insurance increases on police forces while providing a woefully inadequate funding settlement. The consequences of that decision are clear.

While I recognise that areas such as Northumbria have seen an increase in officer numbers, the number of full-time equivalent officers in Cleveland fell by 17 between March 2025 and March 2026. The latest Home Office data shows that there are now fewer officers in place than in March 2024, under the previous Government. Ministers will point to the neighbourhood policing guarantee and, of course, we all want more visible local policing. However, if overall officer numbers are falling while more are badged as neighbourhood officers, they are being moved from somewhere else, often from response teams. That means fewer officers available when someone dials 999, longer waits for victims and less capacity to deal with the exact kind of serious incidents that we have seen in Thornaby this week. Given the scale of the challenges that the force is facing, which have been so clearly demonstrated, it seems preposterous that it is losing officers rather than gaining them.

I appreciate that the funding formula is not easily resolved. Hard-working MPs from across the House who represent areas disadvantaged under the existing rules have long pushed for change, including under the previous Government. However, I hope the Minister will accept that this issue requires action now. The most recent arrests under Operation Artemis, which include individuals connected to the events following the tragic incident on the A66, demonstrate the deep-rooted challenges the area faces.

What could we do immediately? The Minister will reject this proposal, but the Conservative party’s costed £800 million plan to recruit 10,000 additional officers across the country would at least go some way in tackling the issue. Although recruiting more officers is not a complete solution, our proposal would help Cleveland police by providing nearly 100 additional officers. The need is clear.

Despite all that, the message from people living in our area is that they want to see this as a turning point. Their resilience shows that change is possible, but only if we give our communities the support they need alongside robust enforcement. That means increasing police numbers, as I have said, but also ensuring that repeat offenders face consequences for their crimes, including prison where appropriate. The early release scheme, which is proving to be an unmitigated failure, undermines that. Offences that should see people behind bars are simply not. Because of the pressures on the criminal justice system, those offenders are not spending the time in prison that they should be. Although that may not fall directly within the Minister’s portfolio, I hope she is pressing her colleagues every day for an end to the early release scheme and for more police capacity.

Without effective enforcement, the funding allocated to police forces will not be used as effectively as it should be. Hon. Members in this debate know how easily the north-east’s problems can be overlooked. As we approach the forthcoming police funding announcements, I hope that the Government will reflect on the events of a few months ago, the words of north-east MPs and the need for meaningful improvement to police forces in our region. Our brave frontline police officers deserve the resources they need to do their job, and our law-abiding residents deserve safe streets to go about their lives without fear.

15:46

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) on securing this debate. I will start as he did by paying tribute to our police officers and police staff, who work tirelessly in what can be incredibly difficult circumstances, and who sometimes have to pay the ultimate price. I think all hon. Members have paid tribute to PC Blades, PC Clough and PC Turnbull, all of whom died this year. Their deaths have all been an incredible loss to their families, but also to the policing community and their wider communities.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) talked about Jess and how young she was. I have met her father a couple of times now. He was a police officer and had just retired when Jess became one. That whole community has been devastated. At all three of those funerals I saw an entire community coming out to support policing, which was incredibly powerful to see. I know that there has been a struggle in terms of people’s confidence in policing. There are challenges that we are dealing with, but in those communities I saw a community supporting their police officers and giving them the respect they deserve.

I probably have the best job in Government. Working with policing is an unbelievable privilege and a joy, but standing here and listening to hon. Members talk about the struggles they are facing in their communities is very humbling and difficult. I hear the message they are telling me loud and clear. Since the A66 crash and the awful incidents that followed, I have met the police and crime commissioner or the chief constable five or six times, and hon. Members as well. I have heard loud and clear, not least from my colleague in the Home Office, the Minister for Border Security and Asylum, my right hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), about the challenges that are being faced in people’s communities. I want hon. Members to know that I hear those challenges; that is important to say.

I will touch on a couple of topics. The first one is the funding formula, which everybody has leant into in this debate. The funding formula used to be based on many of the measures that Members have mentioned: deprivation rates, crime rates, rurality and ethnicity. A whole raft of indicators went into the police funding formula and previous calculations. When the Conservatives began austerity, they took the decision to cut all forces by the same proportion. That was the point at which the relationship between funding and all the different factors that go into the funding formula was cut. It was still there, in that the proportions were increased—or decreased, in that case—equally, but over time, what was originally the funding formula has lost its meaning, and it has lost its connection to the factors that need to go into determining funding. We are reviewing that. I am spending a lot of time thinking about that process. It is complicated, and we have to get it right. There are lots of different parts to it.

I ask Members to imagine a graph of a certain crime type—let us say violence against women and girls—plotted against an indicator of crime. We map all parts of the country and see what the line tells us. For example, it is clear from the graphs that there is a link between violent crime and educational attainment, so educational attainment has to be an indicator that is part of how funding formulas are worked out.

A lot of work has to go into that. The police put a lot of work into solving crime, as well as their other work. Police spend more than 50% of their time dealing with things other than crime, such as missing people and people with mental health problems. They are working on things that are not what people might perceive as crime. We have to think about that work.

Hon. Members mentioned fairness in relation to council tax and the precept. We have seen our colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government go through that process, to the advantage of some and to the disadvantage of others. There are always winners and losers in a funding formula review. It is a complicated process.

[Andy McDonald]

The Minister says that it is a complicated process, but the graph that I am sure she has seen showing the changes in full-time equivalents between 2010 and 2025 is stark, and there is political bias built into that. We on the Labour Benches are saying that that urgently needs to be corrected. It is an inequitable, unfair formula that visits badly on the constituencies in the north-east of England, and it is that that needs attention. We cannot wait months for the formula to be recalibrated to come up with a better answer. The need is now.

There is one point on which I agree with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers): if we carry on as we are, we will be losing more officers in Cleveland, so the need is urgent. It is not a matter for months; we have to do this in days. If the Minister needs any further information from Victoria Fuller, the chief constable of Cleveland police, I am sure it can be provided, but we need that progress immediately.

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend and I have had several conversations on this matter in recent times. Of course, I have talked to Victoria, I am well aware of all the statistics and I understand what my hon. Friend is saying. What I am saying is that we are reviewing the funding formula, and it will be fair.

The funding for the year ahead will be allocated and it will not be under the new funding formula. At the moment, we are going through a process to which the chief constable, Matt Storey and all the police chiefs and PCCs from across England and Wales are party. They can come to us while we allocate funding for next year and tell us their exceptional financial situation or exceptional circumstances. Of course, we are having those conversations with colleagues across the north-east, as all Members present would expect.

Although the funding formula will come with the reforms, we are looking right now at what we will do about the exceptional funding requests that people are making across the country. That is the second thing I wanted to say: there is a process, and we are looking at the funding for the next funding year, as well as reforming the funding formula, which will come later.

[Luke Myer]

I welcome the commitment to changing the funding formula. That is genuinely a seismic change. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) is making is that we cannot wait. This Government have already been in for two years, and it will be another two years until PCCs are abolished. We are encountering these incidents every single day. Last year, Norfolk had 20,000 fewer crimes than Cleveland but received £50 million more in funding. That cannot be justified. It is unfair and it is un-Labour. I urge the Minister to look at what can be done in-year and to look at the proposal to accelerate reforms in the north-east in particular.

[Sarah Jones]

That is exactly the point about looking at the funding for the coming year. We are doing that. We are looking at the exceptional circumstances for police forces across the country right now, and what we need to do about that.

I want to touch briefly on police reform, which some people have mentioned. The point of police reform is to do two things. The first is to make sure our police are equipped to tackle the epidemic of everyday crime that we see in our communities, and the second is to make sure we are equipped to tackle the changing nature of crime. Most crimes have a digital footprint. Serious organised crime does not pay any attention to boundaries and is much more complex than it used to be. Members have mentioned online sexual abuse, for example. We need to be able to tackle complex crimes. That is the point of police reform. We do not have the time now for me to set out how we will achieve the changes that we will achieve, but we will legislate on the police reform programme in this Session. We will introduce changes to the structure of police forces, and the way in which the funding formula works will have to fit with those structural changes.

Importantly, we are also putting more police in our neighbourhoods. I want to make one final point, which is hard to make in a short space of time. We have had lots of conversations on police numbers, which I understand and appreciate and do not disagree with, but we cannot judge a police force on just numbers. It does not work. When the Tories were in, they cut police numbers by 20,000. They then rushed to recruit another 20,000, and arrest rates have actually gone down because we have 12,000 officers sat behind desks, not out in our communities fighting crime.

We have had no investment in technology over the Tory years, which means that everybody has to spend hours filling in forms and doing the bureaucracy—I am sure that hon. Members find the same whenever they go out with the police. If we can cut that, people will have more time to be more productive. If we can get police out from behind desks and into our communities, they can be more productive. I am not denying the point that hon. Members make about police numbers, but if we measure just police numbers, that does not actually reflect what the police do and how they do it.

[Matt Vickers]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Jones]

I will not, because I have only a couple of moments left.

We are tilting our resources into neighbourhood policing. We have got just shy of 4,000 extra police into our communities.

I will end by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham. He asked me a series of questions and I have a list of answers. He asked how we are tackling violence against women and girls in the north-east. Other hon. Members asked questions about antisocial behaviour, online harms and the early release scheme. I am happy to meet and talk to other Members because we do not have the time here.

I assure hon. Members that the Government and I hear their case on the north-east. We are with them in their desire to reform policing and to make sure we have the people we need to fight crime so that their communities can feel safe, which is the very least that a Labour Government ought to be able to deliver.

15:58

[Luke Akehurst]

I am grateful to the Minister for her remarks and for getting to the crux of the matter, which is that the funding formula was ripped up under previous Governments. I am grateful to the shadow Ministers, the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers) and the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson), for at least understanding that the problem is low levels of funding in the north-east, but I regret that they were not able to bring themselves to explain that Conservative Governments, and a coalition Government including the Lib Dems, ripped up the funding formula.

I am grateful to my hon. Friends on the Government Benches for the eloquent way in which they have expressed the extreme pressures that policing is under in the communities that they represent, and some of the tragic events that have happened partly due to that pressure. With that, I am conscious of the need to sit down before the turn of the hour.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered police funding in the North East.

Bromsgrove Route Enhancement Programme

Tuesday 13th October 2026 Westminster Hall

15:59

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

Bradley Thomas will move the motion and I will call the Minster to respond. I remind hon. Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission of the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.

16:00

[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Bromsgrove Route Enhancement Programme.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. The Bromsgrove Route Enhancement Programme—BREP—is a niche topic for Westminster Hall. I am here because Bromsgrove is suffering under the chaos of BREP and the mismanagement of its delivery.

To provide some background, Bromsgrove is a busy commuter town in the West Midlands with two motorways, the M42 and the M5, running through it. That is crucial for context because, when the M5 is congested and snarled up, the A38 running through Bromsgrove—the route affected by BREP—becomes a pressure release valve. As a result, Bromsgrove suffers additional congestion once all that traffic is displaced from the motorway and running around the town.

I would argue that the A38 running through Bromsgrove is a part of our key national infrastructure, given the role that it plays in alleviating pressure on the M5. Bromsgrove is currently seeing investment to the tune of tens of millions of pounds into BREP, but the reality is the delivery of acute disruption to the local economy, businesses, schools and residents.

Any road project will inevitably bring some degree of disruption. The folk of Bromsgrove are reasonable and expect disruption when investment takes place, but the scale is beyond anything envisaged by those living and working in the town. Crucially, it is beyond anything that Worcestershire county council appears to acknowledge in its engagement with me or local residents.

Accepting that work has to take place does not mean accepting endless delays, lack of accountability, poor communication and date slipping, which are characteristics of the BREP work. The impact is profound, including safety concerns. Losses for businesses are particularly profound. I routinely meet and speak with businesses that quote BREP and the compounded effect of roadworks in Bromsgrove as one reason why their businesses are suffering. I note that when the BBC, ITV or other media outlets speak to local businesses, the congestion caused by BREP and other roadworks is routinely quoted. The result is severe reputational impact for Bromsgrove, which should have a vibrant economy, given its location, relative affluence of the hinterland and the connectivity the town previously enjoyed.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman, who is right to bring this forward. When millions of pounds of public money are committed to corridor schemes such as the Bromsgrove Route Enhancement Programme, we need stricter oversight to prevent administrative paralysis. The same thing happened in Northern Ireland. The Court of Appeal had to step in to greenlight the £1.7 billion A5 upgrade, a vital project that was trapped for 20 years in a web of legal and bureaucratic challenges. Is it not time that the Government ensure that when infrastructure funding is approved, red tape does not stand in the way of safety, economic growth and local commuters?

[Bradley Thomas]

I feel that the presence of the hon. Member vindicates this debate, not because of the worthiness of the point being discussed but because he is attending a debate about something happening in Bromsgrove. He is correct and I will touch on that point shortly.

The impact of the BREP works in Bromsgrove is profound. There are safety concerns, the losses for businesses that I have already spoken about, endless delays for people on routine trips, and the reputational damage to the town that I mentioned. Let us think about it—who is going about their lives in any town? There are parents wanting to take their children to school, workers driving to work, businesses reliant on deliveries and on trade, carers, and other people going about their lives, such as those needing to get to appointments, GPs or hospitals. I read a statistic that the average UK driver spends 62 hours a year stuck in traffic. Well, I can guarantee anyone who wants to listen that the figure will be a hell of a lot higher in Bromsgrove because of the BREP roadworks.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for securing this incredibly important debate. When he talks about the problems in Bromsgrove, he is speaking about a wider problem for the whole of Worcestershire and, indeed, the West Midlands. He will be well aware that in Stourport, in my constituency, we have huge problems with people who do not want to be in the town trying to get through it. The Government need to step up with some major road improvements, including a Stourport relief road and a new bridge over the River Severn.

[Bradley Thomas]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for his intervention. He is absolutely right that all our constituencies deserve investment. However, the crux of the story, which I hope will become apparent as I go through my remarks, is that when infrastructure is delivered, that must be done in a consultative way with local people and local businesses. We cannot allow the fragmentation of the state to paralyse the delivery of infrastructure projects that are so essential to our prosperity.

We have businesses in Bromsgrove that are struggling in the current economic climate, regardless of BREP and the compounded effects of the roadworks. The situation is particularly acute in Bromsgrove. Having spoken to so many residents and businesspeople, I know that there is a general sentiment that those responsible for delivering the scheme—it is important to note that Worcestershire county council is the body responsible for delivering it, even though it is backed by tens of millions of pounds of central Government funding—do not care or are not listening to the voices of those who are affected by it. I fear that a long period of time will elapse before the reputation of Bromsgrove recovers, even after these works are eventually complete.

Nationally, 83% of businesses claim that congestion is a problem; I can guarantee that in Bromsgrove 100% of businesses will make that claim. Nationally, 41% of businesses claim that their profitability is affected by congestion. Again, I can guarantee that practically every business in Bromsgrove will cite BREP and the compounded effect of roadworks as one of the reasons why they are struggling in an already difficult economic climate.

It should not be an abstract concept for any of us to believe that it is the responsibility of the state in all its forms—including central Government, local authorities, Government agencies—to do everything possible to ease the burden of the effect of roadworks on our communities. However, I am afraid that where Worcestershire county council is concerned, I am bewildered. I have had a reasonable amount of engagement with the county council over this project but it has felt incredibly tokenistic. I have had meetings with the council to discuss different parts and different phases of the project that are being delivered. At times, I have had meetings with the council and residents to discuss specific concerns about particular parts of the project, but I am afraid that the responses are only ever tokenistic. We get responses such as “We have consulted” or “We have engaged.”

Part of my conclusion can only be that the lives of some of those responsible for delivering the scheme, whether that is contractors or officers of the council, are not as affected by the scheme—perhaps because they do not live in Bromsgrove or they may not travel through the town. I fear that those taking decisions, whether on this or other aspects of investment, are far too often removed from the consequences of what they are delivering. That means that there is a real loss of the voice of the community affected in this process.

To the point that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made about the fragmentation of the state, whether we are talking about BREP or the delivery of all manner of different public goods, we too often see the delivery of projects with far too many stakeholders involved. As a consequence, there appears to be a significant lack of accountability in the process. Here we have a scheme that is largely funded by central Government. Bromsgrove would be incredibly grateful for those funds if there was a genuine sentiment that this was being delivered for the betterment of the town, but I am afraid that the patience and the good will of the public has worn thin. There is probably not much patience left to squeeze out of the very patient and dutiful residents of Bromsgrove. There is a lack of accountability, and a perception that things fall through the cracks and that if it is the responsibility of people from one body, they will tokenistically engage, but they will get on with their lives and not necessarily have to live with the consequences, while, in this case, I am afraid that the residents of Bromsgrove do. It is advertised that BREP is an enhancement, but the reality is that it has made things worse.

We will wait and see at the end of the delivery of the scheme what things actually look like. However, this £40 million investment is due to improve a typical journey along the A38 by just two minutes. That is without taking into effect the 85% increase in the housing target being imposed on my constituency by the Government. That is based on infrastructure and an idea of our society that is arguably already out of date. The compounded effect of growth in future will see this BREP scheme effectively become a white elephant—a complete waste of money. That is the fear of many of my constituents, and I am afraid it is a fear and suspicion that I now share.

It is a bizarre contradiction that we have this multimillion-pound investment—£40 million is not a small sum of money—and if it was spent on something that I believed was truly for the betterment of the town, I would be rejoicing at this. That £40 million could buy a lot and tangibly improve a community in so many different ways. But the question everyone is asking is, “Should it be spent for that two minutes, and will those two minutes even materialise?” I am afraid that from start to finish this entire project has been a catalogue of mismanagement and communication failures. Most of all, there has been a severe failing of all involved to really consult those who will be most affected.

As is probably understood by now, my constituents are fed up. I have appealed to Worcestershire county council to halt all unnecessary roadworks that are over and above the BREP scheme. I believe that BREP should have been delivered in phases rather than there being one large scheme from start to finish. We are seeing hauliers and traffic on the M5 displaced through the town so we have additional heavy and unsafe vehicles and a larger load of traffic. That is in an already relatively crowded area of population.

I have had parents get in touch with me because they are worried about the journeys that their children take, particularly if they are crossing the A38. There has been a complete mess and a confusing mix of signage and road blockages. One constituent got in touch yesterday to say that, because of an unmarked kerb, he had split his tyre, and he showed me a photograph of that. This is having a profound effect. I want to stress that I do not bring a debate of this kind to Westminster Hall or the House of Commons lightly. It is because my constituents and I really are at the end of our tether with this.

I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to an 83-year-old cyclist who tragically lost his life a few weeks ago on New Road in Bromsgrove. I would like to stress I am not linking the two events, but it is unquestionable that traffic and congestion in Bromsgrove have got worse and I would like to pay tribute to him. My thoughts are very much with his family and I support the investigation of the authorities as they ascertain the facts behind what happened.

Since I was elected at the general election two years ago, I have been pretty relentless in holding Worcestershire county council to account over BREP. There needs to be a much more co-ordinated approach to reduce emissions, congestion and disruption, and to minimise community impact. Instead there has been this nonsensical approach.

Let me cite one example in particular that has affected many residents. We have a housing development known locally as the Oakalls and the entrance to that, Regents Park Road, is used by thousands of cars every single day. A large stretch of the road has been narrowed. I have been there multiple times and seen cars flooring it, to be frank—putting their foot down to get through the narrow junction before another vehicle appears. That has undoubtedly increased the safety concerns about that junction. As for Worcestershire county council— well, I have invited the cabinet member to come down and meet with me and residents, but I am afraid I have not had a response in the affirmative. I can only conclude that on that front that Worcestershire county council is not interested in engaging on a junction that it has changed and that is unquestionably more dangerous than it was before.

My constituents are sensible people—they are prepared to put up with reasonable disruption and they expect unknown hurdles to present challenges—but their sensibleness and patience depend on mutual respect and that has been lacking, seemingly throughout the process. I just cited the lack of collaboration at Oakalls. We have recent ministerial communications, which I am grateful for, that say that the programme is now scheduled to end in early 2027, but it is important to put on the record that this BREP scheme, if it is completed by then, will have been delayed effectively twice from its original scheduled completion date.

There are some things that need to be done. On 11 August I sent a letter to the Secretary of State to plead on behalf on my constituents for serious consideration to be given to asking National Highways to intervene in the scheme given the role of the A38 as a key part of our national strategic infrastructure and that pressure release valve that I described. I believe it is pretty apparent that Worcestershire county council lacks the expertise, for whatever reason: this could be a project that is just far too big for it to handle or it may have bitten off more than it can chew. There might be council officers or contractors who are not as invested in delivering a successful scheme for the town because their lives are based in other places. I suspect that that is a factor, even though that is a bold statement to make.

I am grateful to the Minister for coming here today, and I reiterate my plea to him to consider engaging with National Highways on this to take the scheme under its control, and get it completed using its skills and expertise. If the Minister will not do that, I sincerely hope he will support me in gaining answers to a litany of questions—34 in fact—that I recently sent to the Secretary of State on a range of topics around how the scheme is being delivered. This is about who shoulders the burden of additional cost. My constituents want to know how far behind schedule the project is compared with the original tender. It is right that my constituents, who are also taxpayers, and the businesses that are funding the project, not just in Bromsgrove but across the country, should not shoulder burdens that have been brought about by poor contractual timekeeping.

There are so many unanswered questions. I do not want to go through them all now, because I am conscious of time and want to allow the Minister to respond in what I hope will be a positive spirit. I emphasise to him that I do not come here lightly; I come here because my constituents deserve answers. I am prepared to meet him in the search for those answers and to engage with National Highways, if that would help to reach a swift, successful and efficient conclusion for the taxpayer and to get this scheme delivered once and for all.

16:20

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Justin Madders)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Wishart. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) for securing the debate and for the determined way in which he has represented the interests of his constituents. I join him in saying how very sad it was to hear about the recent tragic road collision on the A38 that led to the death of a cyclist and my thoughts and sympathies go out to his family and friends.

I welcome the opportunity to respond to the concerns that the hon. Member has raised regarding the A38 Bromsgrove route enhancement programme and its impact on residents, businesses and road users. He was right to acknowledge that such schemes will inevitably lead to some disruption, but it is clear from what he has said today that both he and his constituents have run out of patience.

As the hon. Member said, the A38 acts as a key strategic link, providing access to the strategic road network as well as serving regional and local traffic. I recognise and sympathise with his comments about the road being a key pressure valve when there is disruption on the M5. My constituency is close to the motorway network and we also see the impacts when there are delays and disruptions there.

As the hon. Member quite rightly pointed out, the programme has been developed and is being delivered by Worcestershire county council. It is the biggest upgrade to Bromsgrove’s local road networks in a generation. Its aims are to reduce congestion and increase journey reliability, support the delivery of housing and employment growth, and improve connectivity for pedestrians and cyclists. It is a critical investment in the town’s infrastructure and has been assessed as providing high value for money for taxpayers.

The hon. Member described the scheme as excellent when it was first announced back in 2023, although from his comments I take it that he is now a little less supportive of the scheme. Whether that is entirely down to the delays or whether the benefits are not as clear to him as they were we will no doubt explore in due course. As he rightly pointed out, since the scheme was approved it has experienced a number of delays. Of course, I understand the frustrations that his constituents have experienced.

The principal cause of delay on the programme has been the discovery of numerous previously uncharted utility assets along the A38 corridor, including complex gas infrastructure. The scale and complexity of these assets have required significant additional investigations and changes to designs and construction plans. As much of that work has involved third-party utility providers, it has not been wholly within the control of the county council or its contractor. As is often the case with major urban highway projects, other factors have also led to delays. Bad weather and the challenges associated with delivering work safely within a live highway environment have also constrained progress.

Worcestershire county council has kept the Department updated regularly. As the hon. Member has confirmed, most elements of the programme are expected to be completed in early 2027. The Oakalls roundabout will be the final section to complete construction and the contractor’s latest plans indicate that the work there will finish in June 2027. However, the council is exploring opportunities to accelerate delivery and it is hopeful that completion of the roundabout could be brought forward to the spring.

The hon. Member has raised a number of detailed concerns through correspondence, in meetings and now through this debate. Of course, I understand why he has pursued those questions on behalf of his constituents, but it is important to be clear that the responsibility for delivering the A38 programme rests with Worcestershire county council as the local highway authority. The council is therefore accountable for project governance, procurement, contractor management and delivery.

The vast majority of issues raised by the hon. Member concern the day-to-day management by Worcestershire county council of the relationship with its contractor. Detailed decisions on the construction programme and the management of delays are matters for the council as the client authority and for the contractor delivering the works. The Department for Transport has provided funding and maintains appropriate oversight to ensure value for the taxpayer and that public money is spent properly. However, I need to be clear that oversight is not the same thing as management: the Department scrutinises business cases, monitoring information and assurance arrangements, but it does not manage contractors, direct operational decisions on site or act as the project manager for locally delivered schemes.

The hon. Member argued that the Department or National Highways should intervene directly and assume responsibility for the project, but neither option is appropriate or, indeed, possible. National Highways is responsible for England’s strategic road network; this programme is a local authority scheme on the local road network and therefore falls outside its remit. Equally, there is no mechanism through which the Department for Transport could take over delivery of the project from Worcestershire county council.

[Bradley Thomas]

I appreciate the Minister coming to the Chamber and responding to my points, but does he accept that this is an example of the fragmentation of the state? The public, including my constituents, are sick and tired of the idea that, “It’s not us, it’s them”. I understand and accept that Worcestershire county council is responsible for delivering the scheme and that it is funded by central Government, but is it not just another example of passing the buck to say that it is nothing to do with National Highways because it is simply a local road when I demonstrated that a key piece of national infrastructure, the M5, is affected by what is going on on this road? It is that fragmentation of the state; we have to do better.

[Justin Madders]

It is not about fragmentation of the state but about letting local areas determine their own priorities and manage their own schemes. That is how local roads have always been run. I listened to what the hon. Member said about the interactions he has had with the local authority, and it seems to me that there need to be some discussions with his elected councillors about where the accountability lies, because from where we are standing, that is clearly where the question should be directed.

We have looked at some of the criticisms and concerns that he raised, and an independent review of the programme was undertaken in 2025, which concluded that appropriate industry standard de-risking activities had been undertaken before construction commenced. It found that many of the delays encountered were “unavoidable” and

“could not have been fully predicted in advance”.

Most importantly, it concluded that the programme remains deliverable. The review also recognised that public confidence has been affected by the length of disruption and recommended improvements to communications. I understand that the council has taken on board those recommendations. The hon. Member mentioned the impact on local business, and I have raised this issue with the council directly; its representatives mentioned recent examples of work on the opening of the new Sainsbury’s and working with Avoncroft Museum to ensure that adequate signage and diversion routes are in place, so it seems that there is some progress in that direction. The council will continue to work with contractors and utility providers to address the remaining challenges.

I will conclude by saying that although this is not the Department’s day-to-day responsibility, I understand the frustrations experienced by the hon. Member and his constituency’s residents, businesses and road users. The Government clearly expect Worcestershire county council, as the delivery authority, to maintain its focus on completing the remaining works, minimising disruption where possible and keeping local communities informed. The Department will continue to monitor whether the council delivers on that. It is important that we do not lose sight of the long-term benefits this investment will deliver: reduced congestion, more reliable journey times and improved connections for pedestrians and cyclists. I am happy to work with the hon. Member and the local authority to see that those benefits are delivered as soon as possible with the minimum level of disruption to his constituents. To be clear, that is not the same as the Department taking on day-to-day management of the project, and I hope that the hon. Member will understand, from what I have said, why that cannot be the case.

Question put and agreed to.

Youth Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Support

Tuesday 13th October 2026 Westminster Hall

16:30

[Liz Twist (Blaydon and Consett) (Lab) [R]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government support for youth suicide prevention charities and mental health support for young people.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Wishart. I am grateful to have secured this debate on a subject that touches every single constituency represented in this House. Last month, I introduced a debate for World Suicide Prevention Day; many of the same hon. Members were present, and there was a strong focus on recognising that we all need to do more. Sadly, in the same week, Papyrus Prevention of Young Suicide, a charity that supported young people and their families for nearly 30 years, went into administration. We are just over one month on from that day, and following the news of this debate, many charities and third-sector organisations have been in touch to ask if they can contribute, not because they want recognition but because they all feel the strain of funding and fear what will happen if no one listens to their pleas.

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

On Saturday, I attended a service of hope and remembrance for World Mental Health Day at St Peter’s collegiate church in my constituency. It brought together a range of organisations dealing with suicide—bereavement, debt advice, drug and alcohol support, mental health services and wider community assistance, all working together to prevent suicide. Does my hon. Friend agree that that kind of joined up, community-based approach is vital for early intervention and preventing deaths through suicide?

[Liz Twist]

I most certainly agree that people coming together and working together can really make a difference. Well done to my hon. Friend’s community for doing that.

[Alex Easton (North Down) (Ind)]

I thank the hon. Member for securing this debate. The Coroners Service for Northern Ireland reported 290 suicides in Northern Ireland in 2024; eight in 10 of those were male and 28% were from the most deprived communities, underlining the urgent need to reach people across our UK. Does the hon. Member agree that we need sustained Government funding targeted at community outreach, prompt counselling and specialist care?

[Liz Twist]

I most certainly agree that we need to do all we can to support young people—in fact, all people—facing ideas of suicidality. I will touch on the issue of funding.

As I was saying, we are just over a month on from that day, and so many organisations have been in touch wanting to contribute. I apologise to those who I cannot mention and whose specific points I cannot refer to. I know that they provide a lifeline to so many people, and I will do my best to do them justice. Papyrus had a national focus and offered hope to thousands of young people across the UK. It offered specialist support for young people, which I am sure the Minister will know was a vital support given that the biggest killer of young people is suicide.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the excellent work she does in this area. I met Papyrus through my constituent Emma Webb, who my hon. Friend knows and who campaigns on suicide awareness among young people after sadly losing her daughter. The fact that rising demand is cited as one of the main reasons for Papyrus’ closure should tell us absolutely everything we need to know. I join my hon. Friend in calling on the Minister to do everything we can to fill the gap left by HopeLine 24/7.

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind hon. Members that we have only an hour and there will be a strict time limit. Interventions will have to be limited and hon. Members will have to be patient.

[Liz Twist]

I most certainly agree with the points my hon. Friend made, and I thank her constituent for the work she does in raising awareness. With its sudden closure, we lost one of the most vital services that Papyrus provided: HopeLine 24/7, our nation’s only round-the-clock help line staffed by advisers trained to support young people experiencing suicidal thoughts. Over the years that that service existed, it helped save the lives of so many young people, and the staff provided an important service unlike any other. I want to take a moment now to thank all those 120 members of staff who worked for Papyrus, on the helpline and in its other suicide prevention services.

For three decades, Papyrus saved lives. When a young person called HopeLine 24/7, they spoke with advisers who understood the pressures facing under-35s. Schools, colleges, universities and GPs relied on its work. Child and adolescent mental health services—CAMHS, as we usually call it—and emergency departments routinely signposted young people in distress to Papyrus, knowing that they would receive safe, compassionate care. My own office and many places of work across the country displayed posters signposting people to the service, with its contact details clearly listed so that any young person or parent struggling with the subject knew exactly where to find immediate help.

When Papyrus went into administration, callers were redirected to Samaritans or to the Shout text helpline—both excellent services, but not a dedicated helpline for young people. We all know that, just because the HopeLine 24/7 service no longer exists, the need to support young people does not disappear. Many young people are worried that there is nowhere to turn, as the option to talk to someone who understands them has gone.

[Tahir Ali (Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley) (Lab)]

The Children’s Commissioner has reported that more than 1 million children have active referrals to mental health services, so does my hon. Friend agree that help and support need to be provided not only to young people but to parents, voluntary organisations and charities, who do good work in this area, to prevent suicide?

[Liz Twist]

I certainly agree with the Children’s Commissioner and with my hon. Friend on the issues he has raised.

The young people who would have reached out to HopeLine 24/7 are still struggling with severe emotional distress. Without that helpline, the pressure falls directly on to overstretched emergency services, NHS 111 handlers, GP surgeries and partner charities such as the Samaritans, Shout and Chasing the Stigma, which are already running at full capacity.

I recently met with the administrators of Papyrus, and they tell me that there is real hope that another charity or service could recreate a helpline dedicated to young people so that they can still access specialist support. They are keen to speak with Government officials about what help can be given to ensure that the helpline, and maybe some other parts of Papyrus’ work, can continue. Will the Minister ask her officials to make that contact and be a part of a working solution for young people? As we have heard, the service is still vital.

The 3 Dads Walking—Andy, Mike and Tim—have spoken forcefully about the loss of HopeLine 24/7. Having each suffered the unbearable loss of a daughter to suicide—Sophie, Beth and Emily—they have walked hundreds of miles across the country and raised more than £1.5 million for Papyrus. They told me that they will get behind whatever organisation is able to pick up Papyrus’s work. Following the closure, the 3 Dads asked why a national service relied upon by NHS trusts and CAMHS was left financially dependent on voluntary donations and charity work. That is a fair question that we in Parliament must answer.

[Gordon McKee (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful and important speech on something she has campaigned very hard on. Does she agree that we ought to learn from countries such as the Netherlands, where they have a much more integrated system to help young people with their mental health, physical health and employment opportunities, all of which contribute to the overall mental health picture?

[Liz Twist]

Certainly, we need to learn from best practice wherever it occurs to make sure that we can look after our young people and keep them safe.

We need to urgently take steps to close the gap in support for young people. There are organisations that are willing to provide a helpline and that have the skills and ability to support young people. The administrators are working with those organisations, but they are keen to speak to the Government about what help might be available to make those plans a reality. The Government have an opportunity to come to the table, create dependable support for people under 35 and set a precedent of care for those who need this vital service.

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

On 27 September, it was five years since my constituent Jess’s son Mason died by suicide. His death was one of several examined in a local safeguarding review, but it took three years of Jess chasing and pressure from my office just to see its recommendations. She has still not seen the full report. Does the hon. Member agree that we should install a national oversight mechanism so that families can see whether lessons are acted on without feeling that they have to fight the system that is supposed to support them?

[Liz Twist]

The hon. Member makes an important point that could certainly be developed further in another debate.

The closure of Papyrus has highlighted the wider financial pressures among suicide prevention and mental health charities across the voluntary sector. That is not new, but Papyrus is an example that has hit hard. Across the country, non-profit organisations are supporting statutory health services without the predictable long-term funding required to keep their doors open.

Over recent years, major Government grant programmes for suicide prevention have reached the end of their funding period. The £10 million suicide prevention grant fund for voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations, which supported 79 charities across England, ended in March 2025. It was a one-off fund and the official evaluation of the scheme showed that, while short-term grants funded helpful community projects, the lack of ongoing funding left charities facing sudden financial cliff edges once the grants ended.

In addition, the £57 million allocated to local areas through NHS England for suicide prevention came to an end in April 2024. The London-based charity Body and Soul surveyed its young service users. It told me that the short funding cycles threatened specialist staffing, the stable referral routes that they have on offer, and the continuity needed to build trust. Short-term funding incentivises short projects and countable contacts over creating the sustained capacity needed by young people whose difficulties do not resolve to a grant timetable.

The north-east based charity If U Care Share, which Members will have heard me speak about before, has raised the precarious nature that short-term funding means for charities trying to create long-term programmes for their communities. I have certainly helped them try to achieve funding in the past.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

On the impact of short-term funding, there is a very human cost. More often than not it is the young people involved who pay the price. I have had casework about people losing probably their only outlet for therapy when funding for their point of contact—someone they had built up a relationship with—has gone, and that has thrown them back into a crisis. Does the hon. Member agree that short-term funding has real-world impacts on young people?

[Liz Twist]

I agree with the hon. Member because we hear that from charities time and again, particularly in this area of work.

I mentioned two charities, but the story is repeated right across the country. It is vital that we tackle the funding issues facing charities that provide preventative work. To prevent suicide among young people we must address the pressures they face. Suicide remains the leading cause of death for individuals under 35 in the UK and the Samaritans report that about 200 school-aged children take their own lives every year. There are so many statistics we could quote about why young people consider suicide, but we already know them too well.

Statutory services, such as the mental health support teams in schools, CAMHS and other NHS statutory services, play an important part in supporting the most vulnerable in our system. The Government must be congratulated on focusing on those areas. However, we must not forget that it is third sector organisations that are able to be adaptable and present in young people’s everyday lives. They can offer a safe, external space where young people can go to feel supported, and they open the doors that young people need to build the foundations of a better life.

The Government have taken positive steps, including the announcement of £343 million in capital funding for new community mental health hubs and emergency centres. That capital investment is welcome, but without people—both NHS staff and, crucially, the voluntary sector—it will not be effective. Hope Haven in Whitehaven, where the NHS and the voluntary sector work together to maximise the quality of care and support for the community, is a good example of where that happens. It is essential that our various strategies work together.

[Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. The Education Committee and the Health and Social Care Committee worked together on this subject and found that the NHS and local commissioners are not taking advantage of the expertise in those third sector organisations. Does she agree that the Government should take note of their report and act on its recommendations?

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

Order. We have about 20 hon. Members waiting to speak with about 10 to 15 minutes available. Is the hon. Lady about to conclude her remarks?

[Liz Twist]

Yes. I am going to skip some things, important though they are, because I know other hon. Members want to come in. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards) for his comment, and I agree that we need to take note of that report.

As we develop the mental health strategy, we must take account of young people’s needs and make sure they do not fall through the gaps between strategies, such as the men’s health strategy. I will go straight to my asks of the Government. Right now, there is growing demand due to the closure of Papyrus’s HopeLine 24/7. That can be remedied at pace, with other charities seeking to fill the gap, but they need support from the Minister. Will she work with the administrators to ensure that can happen as quickly as possible, to prevent a gap in that vital service?

Will the Minister ask her officials to contact the administrators of Papyrus and their specialist adviser to discuss what financial and other support can be offered, to make sure that a properly skilled and specialist young persons’ helpline can be retrieved from the collapse of Papyrus? In the longer term, will she consider the funding needed for our third sector organisations in suicide prevention and mental health to continue to provide open-access support that must be the bedrock of work in mental health? Finally, will she confirm that youth suicide prevention and children’s mental health will explicitly form part of the forthcoming mental health strategy?

Every statistic we discuss represents a young person whose life was cut short, leaving behind a family and a community reshaped by grief. The closure of Papyrus must not be seen as a single charity going under; all our third sector partners are struggling. It is impossible to build a strong mental health system, in which third sector organisations play a crucial part, if we allow the charities keeping our young people alive to close due to financial strain. Suicide is preventable. By supporting our voluntary sector, funding frontline services and acting early when a young person reaches out, we can save lives and give every person in distress a reason to stay.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

As we can see, there is exceptional demand for this short debate. We will have to confine ourselves to a one-minute time limit because the Front-Bench speeches have to start at 5.08 pm. We would have started with Tim Farron, but he has just left. We will start with Dr Neil Hudson.

16:49

[Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) on securing this debate, and I thank her for all the hard work she does to highlight this crucial area. I have been privileged to work with her on the all-party parliamentary group on suicide and self-harm prevention.

I could not make this speech without paying tribute to Andy Airey, Mike Palmer and Tim Owen, better known to all of us as 3 Dads Walking. It has been a humbling privilege to work alongside Andy, Mike and Tim, who tragically lost their precious daughters, Sophie, Beth and Emily, to suicide. United by shared grief, they did something so simple yet so powerful: they walked, they talked and, together, they changed the national conversation on suicide prevention, all while raising over £1.5 million for Papyrus. It was therefore devastating that, in the very week of World Suicide Prevention Day, we heard that Papyrus had gone into administration.

Papyrus provided a vital lifeline to young people. There are three excellent charities providing support in this area: Samaritans; Shout, with its crisis text service; and Chasing the Stigma, which provides the Hub of Hope mental health support directory. But with the loss of Papyrus, we have a huge gap. The three dads showed us that prevention and signposting are a critical layer that helps us to address mental health and suicide. I remind the Minister that there is so much work to do across society, and prevention and signposting have to be at the forefront alongside treatment and intervention when crisis occurs. That will help save lives. I urge the Government to act.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

Given that not everyone who was down to speak bobbed, we are back to two minutes. I remind Dr Hudson that he did get his two minutes.

16:50

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for securing this debate. She is right to highlight the vital work of youth suicide prevention charities and the need for sustainable funding. I pay tribute to Hector’s House, a brilliant charity in my constituency that supports young people at risk of suicide in Hector’s memory.

In Aylesbury, I run a programme for young people on politics, government and leadership called “Your Voice, Your Future”. The young people share their campaign ideas with me, and they often focus on mental health. One group made it their focus project—“Be You, Not Blue” was the name of their campaign. Their point was that, while awareness of mental health matters and is improving, awareness is not the same as understanding, and understanding does not yet translate into the support that young people need nationally or in their communities.

Therefore, while it is so important that we get the support right for people in crisis, and the mental health strategy presents a real opportunity to do that, I reflect the point that young people make to me, which is that we should not be waiting until people are at crisis point to offer support. It is vital that support kicks in early, that mental health is woven through everything that schools do, that brilliant youth mental health charities such as Aylesbury Youth Action and Action4Youth in my constituency are known and accessible to people, and that mental health support is mainstreamed through the Government’s youth services.

Today’s debate presents a real opportunity to get youth mental health support right more broadly. I know the Minister is working hard on that to make sure that we provide support early, as well as for those who get to that crisis point.

16:52

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) on securing this debate and on all of her excellent work in this field.

The closure of Papyrus last month was a devastating loss. Its HopeLine 24/7 helped countless people at the toughest point of their lives for nearly 30 years. I pay tribute to its staff, who will have experienced incredibly tough times while handling very delicate but vitally important calls. While HopeLine 24/7 has been disbanded, the demand for help has not gone away; it will simply move to other already stressed helpline services. Papyrus helped to alleviate the demand on other charities and health services, and the NHS even signposted Papyrus to people looking for support.

I add my words to what the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett has already said about 3 Dads Walking and the incredible work they have done to raise money for Papyrus. It is obviously a great sadness to all of us that the service has come to an end. As the demand for suicide prevention hotlines is growing, I would be grateful if the Minister would consider working with Papyrus’s administrators to restore HopeLine 24/7.

The independent review of mental health conditions, ADHD and autism found that mental distress has increased significantly, especially for young people. Investment in services has not kept pace with that demand, meaning that people wait longer for support, which often exacerbates existing mental health conditions. One of the many recommendations is to close the treatment gap and strengthen specialist services for people with the most complex needs.

My constituency is home to Cassel hospital, a tier 4 therapeutic community for adults with complex multiple diagnosis presentations. Patients tell me that the treatment they receive there is lifesaving and life changing, and although the hospital has proven that its work saves the NHS millions of pounds by reducing hospitalisations and the need for emergency services, tier 4 services are under review by NHS England. Withdrawing funding from a hospital that serves people suffering from the most complex mental health conditions would be a travesty, and I would be grateful if the Minister could arrange time to speak with me regarding this matter.

16:54

[Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for securing this sad but very necessary debate.

In the UK, we are fortunate to have a number of charities that are dedicated to the prevention of suicide among our young people, and I am deeply proud of this Government’s work to tackle the issue head-on. But regardless of that work, the unacceptable reality is that suicide remains the leading cause of death among the under-35s.

Last month’s announcement that the Papyrus Prevention of Young Suicide charity will cease operations was devastating. I was motivated to speak in this debate not only by the recent closure of Papyrus but by the story of Lesley Harris, a constituent who lost her 13-year-old granddaughter Ella to suicide in 2023. Despite presenting at A&E with suicidal thoughts, Ella was ultimately discharged after speaking to healthcare professionals. She did not receive a full suicide risk assessment and subsequently took her own life.

Since their devastating loss, Ella’s friends and family have launched a petition calling for suicide risk assessments to be legally mandatory whenever a young person in hospital expresses an intention to harm themselves. I am pleased to say that, thanks to their hard work, the petition has now achieved 20,000 signatures and will receive a Government response. I fundamentally support their efforts and have written to both the Prime Minister and the Department of Health and Social Care to that effect. I look forward to receiving their responses.

16:56

[Llinos Medi (Ynys Môn) (PC)]

Diolch yn fawr, Mr Wishart. I commend the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for securing this important debate.

I start by expressing my deepest sympathies to all the families, friends and communities affected by suicide. Today, I will focus on two charities that serve my constituency and beyond. The DPJ Foundation was set up in July 2016, following the death of Daniel Picton-Jones. His widow, Emma, established the foundation to support the mental health of those in the farming sector. Ten years on, the foundation continues to provide invaluable support for farming communities across Wales by providing specialist support tailored specifically to those in agriculture, which means that our young farmers receive support in our rural communities. Papyrus has already been mentioned.

The other charity that I will focus on today is 3 Dads Walking. I am privileged that one of the three dads, Mike, is my constituent, and I was able to join them last June in their walk around my constituency of Ynys Môn. On that walk, I had those conversations with family members and friends who have been deeply affected by suicide about the importance of prevention, the importance of having a support network and the importance of 24-hour support. That is why 3 Dads Walking raised so much money for HopeLine 24/7.

The closure of HopeLine 24/7 in September came despite it having just had its two busiest months in nearly 30 years, which shows that the service is needed more than ever. The decision to close HopeLine 24/7 will mean the loss of lives, so I urge the Government to do all they can to support the valuable work of charities such as Papyrus and the DPJ Foundation so that young people continue to have access to essential support in their communities, wherever they live.

16:58

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart.

Any death by suicide is devastating, but the death by suicide of a child is unimaginable. Although suicide rates are highest among the middle-aged, there has been a concerning increase among children and young people in recent years.

One worrying trend linked to the health problems and suicide rate in Portsmouth is the troubling rise in the use of ketamine. In February 2026, Sarah lost her daughter Honor to suicide following a battle with ketamine addiction. Honor was bright and loved, but she was let down by a system that did not recognise the danger until it was too late. She was 23.

Ketamine addiction among young people is a growing crisis hiding in plain sight. Unlike with alcohol or vaping, most parents do not see the signs of it. Most schools do not teach it, and most GPs do not even screen for it. Search engines and information online do not highlight the dangers and the damage it does to a person’s body and mind. Drugs like ketamine are frequently marketed on mainstream social media. The widespread availability and low cost of this substance make it particularly accessible to teenagers, and the class B classification it carries does not deter people from selling or buying it. That is why Sarah set up the H23 Foundation to fight ketamine addiction and prevent more lives like Honor’s from being lost. The foundation aims to reach as many students and young people as possible, to provide support for families and to create a lasting legacy through systemic change.

Efforts by our Government since 2024 to address ketamine addiction have been a welcome start. However, there is more to do. I would be grateful if the Minister could outline any other efforts the Government are making to address the specific challenges rising ketamine use and wider drug addiction pose to young people’s mental health and risk of suicide, and how we can ensure that the truth about the damage this drug does to people is available. Stories like Honor’s show just how devastating the consequences can be if left unaddressed.

17:00

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. A big thank you to the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for setting the scene so incredibly well. This profound and heartbreaking crisis touches almost every community, school and street across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

When we talk about the mental health of our young people, we are talking about our future. The world our young people have inherited is one of intense and inescapable pressure: social media follows them everywhere, there is no place to hide from cyber-bullying, and the continuous distortion of self-worth is pulling our youth into dark, isolated corners. In Northern Ireland, one in 10 have engaged in self-harm, and we have lost 290 to suicide in a single year. Every one of them represents an empty chair at a family table, a shattered home and a life of potential cut tragically short.

Regional figures from Ards and North Down council indicate that the number of suicides in Ards and North Down increased by a shocking 40% over the last four years. Our local youth services and schools are overwhelmed. Grassroots groups are doing an angelic job, but they are fighting an uphill battle against rising demand and unstable funding.

Our young people in Comber and Newtownards, and right down the Ards peninsula, which I represent and where I live, deserve better than a system in which they have to wait months on end just to speak to a mental health professional. That is not satisfactory. Early intervention is not a luxury; it is a life-saving necessity.

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

Order. I am going to have to reduce the time limit to a minute and a half to try to get everybody in.

17:02

[Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for bringing forward this debate. Seeing how many colleagues have attended is a real reminder that no constituency or community is safe from the devastating impact of suicide, or from the very particular kind of grief that comes with the death of a young person.

In Suffolk, we lost 65 people to suicide in 2024, 10 of whom lived in Ipswich. To each of their families, I want to say sorry: sorry that the help they needed was not there, sorry that the signs were not spotted sooner and sorry that they were so badly let down. However, I also want to highlight and thank the local charities that are doing incredible work in protecting our young people. Suffolk Mind, for example, offers a wide range of courses for children and young people, to empower them with the tools they need to look after their own mental health and to help them become more resilient, emotionally aware and well-resourced adults. I am really pleased that the Government’s Pride in Place funding is going towards helping it open a new centre in Ipswich town centre.

We are also very lucky to have a local Samaritans branch—I am sure many colleagues here will attest to that—which has supported our community for over half a century. In a typical year, its team of more than 100 volunteers listens to 20,000 phone calls and spends 4,000 hours on the phone with people who need that support.

However, I want to be clear that charities cannot and should not be expected to carry this burden alone. At the moment, someone experiencing a mental health crisis locally may have to go through a busy A&E department and then wait for specialist support to become available. I am therefore pleased that the Woodlands unit at Ipswich hospital is getting dedicated emergency mental health provision as part of a national roll-out backed by £350 million. We owe it to every young person in Ipswich, in Suffolk and across the country to give them the support they need, when they need it.

17:04

[Juliet Campbell (Broxtowe) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for securing this important debate.

Mental health for children and young people is one of the defining health challenges of our time, because one in five young people has a confirmed or suspected mental health condition. In Broxtowe, I see the scale, the need and the value of community-based support. The Middle Street Resource Centre in Beeston provides mental health support services to young people and adults in my community. I am enormously grateful to the staff and volunteers for everything they do. New referrals to its services have doubled in the last year, yet its staff numbers do not reflect that, even more so now that some of the larger funders have temporarily withdrawn funding opportunities, meaning that the demand for small funders is significantly oversubscribed. Core costs, including staff costs, are the hardest to fund.

Without sufficient funding, these specialist organisations will not be able to help young people who struggle to engage with more formal or centralised services. Young people need services to help them recover, build resilience and, even more importantly, no longer need ongoing care when they are adults. I ask the Government to provide additional funding.

17:05

[Frank McNally (Coatbridge and Bellshill) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist).

In my local authority of North Lanarkshire, we have suicide rates above the Scottish national average, and we know that young people face particular challenges. During 2024, 735 young people registered with the online mental health charity Kooth in North Lanarkshire alone, with 68% of logins outside normal working hours, demonstrating the importance of ensuring that support is available when young people actually need it.

I commend the tremendous work undertaken in North Lanarkshire to confront that challenge. The community partners there have made suicide prevention a priority and are working to ensure early intervention. Just last week, 150 young people at Ravenscraig regional sports centre took part in a netball and football tournament to raise awareness of suicide prevention.

These types of community partnerships can genuinely save lives, but local authorities and voluntary organisations cannot tackle this challenge alone, and often face difficult financial settlements. I encourage the Government and the Scottish Government to provide additional support to local authorities and third-sector organisations to ensure they have long-term certainty and can deliver the support needed as early as possible—long before young people reach that desperate stage.

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

We can get two more speakers in if they take a minute each.

17:07

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

Meur ras, Mr Wishart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for securing this important debate.

Improving mental health services for our young people is deeply personal for me, and one of the reasons I became an MP. Too often, the first support someone receives comes only once they have reached crisis point, either at a busy A&E department or on a charity hotline, so I was extremely concerned to hear that Papyrus had gone into administration. One constituent, Anne, lost her son Toby to suicide in 2011. She told me how Papyrus had given her and others hope for the future. She raised thousands to keep its HopeLine going, including by trekking 50 km across the Sahara in Toby’s memory. She speaks for many when she asks how such a vital service could be allowed to disappear.

I welcome the Government’s investment in new community mental health centres and crisis centres, including in my constituency. They are the right investments—

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Sureena Brackenridge.

17:08

[Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart.

I put on record my heartfelt thoughts and wishes for all those affected by suicide. Because of the constraints of time, I will focus on the number of children presenting at A&E in a mental health crisis and experiencing a complexity of mental health issues. and ask the Minister two questions. First, what action are the Government taking to reduce the number of children reaching crisis point and presenting at A&E, including by improving access to community-based support and CAMHS? Secondly, will the Government consider a children’s health investment standard to ensure that children’s mental health receives a fair share of NHS funding, and ensure that every school can access appropriately trained mental health professionals?

[Pete Wishart (in the Chair)]

Apologies to those colleagues who could not speak in the debate. We shall move to the Lib Dem spokesperson, Danny Chambers.

17:09

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for giving such an eloquent speech at the beginning of this difficult debate.

When I became an MP two years ago, there were half a million children on waiting lists for mental health services—about two months ago, that number has risen to a million. That is a million children needing help and a million families who are probably stressed beyond belief, worrying about the impacts of being on a long-term waiting list. The Darzi report showed that mental health accounts for 20% of the NHS caseload, yet at the time, in 2024, it was receiving only 10% of funding. We are really disappointed that the Government removed the mental health investment standard, which ensured that the proportion of money spent on mental health increased in line with the money spent on physical health. As a result of the standard being broken, NHS mental health services now receive 8% of funding. The proportion is dropping while we have record waiting lists.

The cuts to mental health services are not limited to NHS services. Last year, the Government cut the VCSE grant—a vital fund that contributes to many charities and organisations, such as Samaritans, men’s sheds, young farmers’ groups and youth groups. One such organisation was Papyrus, which many Members have spoken about. It offered support for children and young people experiencing suicidal thoughts, and its loss is devastating. Organisations like Papyrus and the amazing Winchester Youth Counselling in my constituency are vital because they give children support before they need clinical NHS services. That support is early, targeted and often self-referred. They offer counselling and talking therapies, which not only helps children to maintain their mental health but saves the NHS money, because young people are less likely to end up in extreme cases that lead them to A&E, which is probably the worst place for them.

[Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)]

The recent demise of Papyrus was sad. It did amazing work not just in running the HopeLine but in pioneering suicide safety planning for young people and supporting parents. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government urgently need to replace those services somewhere in the mental health ecosystem?

[Dr Chambers]

I totally agree with the hon. Lady. Those organisations are so important.

Some politicians from some parties have been using mental health and children’s mental health as a bit of a political football, such as by calling young people struggling with mental health “snowflakes”. That is absolutely shameful, and those comments affect families who have lost children, and children who have lost brothers and sisters. When there is one less child in the school football team, when there is one empty chair at the dining table and when there is one fewer pair of shoes at the front door, the loss affects families for the rest of their lives—forever.

I pay tribute my constituent Martyn Pond in Alresford, who lost his son Archie at only 19 years old. Martyn got a bench put in, made by an amazing organisation called Legends on the Bench. The bench is solar-powered and has a light on at night time. There is a QR code, through which people can read a memorial to Archie. There is also support and signposting to organisations such as Samaritans, so that anyone who comes across the bench at a time of crisis, feeling alone, can get support. It is an amazing tribute to an amazing young man.

I want to finish by urging the Government to restore the mental health investment standard. Politicians overuse the word “crisis”, but it is really hard to think of another word to describe the state of children’s mental health and mental health services at the moment.

17:13

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I thank the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for securing this debate and for the courage and dignity with which she, and indeed all hon. Members, have spoken.

We know that record numbers of young people in England are asking for help, and too many of them are waiting months, if not years, to receive it. In March, nearly a million under-18s had an active referral. We need to do better. Like so many hon. Members, I pay tribute to the families who have turned their grief into action. My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson) mentioned 3 Dads Walking and the £1.5 million they raised after losing their daughters. I also think of organisations such as Samaritans and YoungMinds, and many other national and local charities. I pay tribute to bereaved families in my constituency, some of whom I have worked closely with.

That brings me to Papyrus. Last month, it entered into administration, its HopeLine 24/7 went silent and 120 jobs were lost. A young person in crisis tonight cannot call the line that was built for them. The administrators cited rising demand, higher costs and falling reliable funding, and the Samaritans and Shout have warned of further pressure on charities working in an “extremely challenging financial environment”. The suicide prevention grant fund, which was launched under the previous Government, gave £10 million to 79 organisations between 2023 and 2025. Papyrus was shortlisted for £625,000 from that, and in the previous round it received over £150,000 for HopeLine 24/7.

The Government chose not to renew that fund, and said they had no plans for another—I know of no replacement of comparable scale. I suspect that the Minister may point to money for suicide prevention pathfinders in the men’s health strategy, but that is much less than the fund provided, and it is not a helpline. Then there are the costs: since April 2025, charities have faced additional burdens, including increases through employer national insurance contributions. The Government cannot withdraw funds and raise costs, and then express surprise when charities struggle. Colleagues from across the House have previously asked whether the Government would consider if their own evaluation of the fund found that it had worked. I ask the Minister: did that evaluation take place, and what was its outcome?

The previous Conservative Government had a record to be proud of: the first Suicide Prevention Minister, the first cross-Government plan in 2019, the five-year strategy, the national suicide surveillance system in 2023 and the Online Safety Act 2023, which requires companies to remove illegal content that encourages suicide and made encouraging self-harm a criminal offence. On 8 September, Ministers reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to a strategy. The call for evidence on the wider mental health strategy closed in July, but we are waiting for an outcome from the Government.

Given the time, I will close closer to home. Following the death of a man in Farnham in 2022, my constituent, Mr Clarke Senior, who served in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, the Gulf and Kosovo and lives with disabilities sustained in the line of duty, got involved with the veterans’ charity Legend on the Bench. In December, I will be attending the unveiling of three suicide prevention benches across Farnham, sponsored by the University for the Creative Arts and the Waverley borough and Farnham town councils, with more to follow in Bordon and Haslemere.

I say to the Minister that the good will of a community and a bench cannot replace a trained and manned help line, so I have four questions for her. First, will the Government restore a dedicated, 24-hour youth suicide helpline? Secondly, will they review their decision to close the suicide prevention grant fund, publish their evaluation and move from 12-month to multi-year funding? Thirdly, what assessment has been made of the impact of higher national insurance contributions on the sustainability of youth suicide prevention charities? Fourthly, what progress have the Government made on the suicide prevention strategy, will they renew it when it expires in 2028, and will the Minister give firm dates for the mental health strategy?

I know that many people watching this debate will be affected by this, and if anyone needs more help, the Samaritans are still available on 116 123. A young person in crisis tonight needs a line to call, and that is what Papyrus gave them. We on this side of the House will continue to support any efforts to improve support and to challenge policies where they fall short.

17:18

[The Minister for Social Care and Mental Health (Alison McGovern)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. I would like to thank Members from across the House who participated in such an important debate, and especially my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for securing this debate. She does a very important job in chairing the all-party parliamentary group on suicide and self-harm prevention, and she will have heard today just how much her colleagues from across the House of Commons support her in that work.

Officials have very kindly drafted me quite a long speech. I am going to try to answer Members’ questions, but given that you diligently tried to get so many people in, Mr Wishart, Members may have things to say that were missed. I think it would be better if they intervened on my speech, if that is acceptable to you, Mr Wishart, but that may mean that I miss paragraphs that officials have diligently written.

[Sarah Hall (Warrington South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Papyrus was actually based in my constituency. Last month, alongside almost 60 cross-party MPs and peers, I wrote a letter to the Secretary of State calling for urgent action to protect these vital services. I have also spoken to the administrators, and they are incredibly keen to find a solution. Will the Minister set out what action is being taken in response to the concerns raised in the letter, and will she agree to meet me to discuss them?

[Alison McGovern]

Through my hon. Friend, I thank Papyrus and all those in her constituency for all their hard work.

I will update colleagues in just a moment on the steps we will take from this point, but by way of context, people have mentioned the suicide prevention strategy for England, which shows that while suicide rates among children and young people are relatively low compared with older age groups, the longer-term trend is really concerning. Right across the House, we share that worry about the increase we have seen in suicide among the young. The strategy requires tailored and targeted support, early intervention and collaboration right across the public sector, which we all want to see.

Before I turn to Papyrus and respond to the questions that my hon. Friends and others have put to me, I want to draw Members’ attention to the publication last week of the Fonagy review, which gave the wider context of rising mental distress, particularly for young people and especially for young women. If Members have not read the report, I strongly recommend it to them, because that is the context against which we will move forward before Christmas to publish the mental health strategy, which will pick up many of the issues that Members have mentioned.

Turning to Papyrus, I hope that all those who have worked for Papyrus, been involved in it and raised funds, including 3 Dads Walking and so many others, will have heard the support for its work today. I want to add the Government’s gratitude. Officials are in touch with administrators to try to work with them in the way that colleagues have suggested. My recommendation would be that Members who are interested meet officials in the Department as soon as possible to be updated on that work, if that is acceptable to colleagues.

Youth suicide prevention and mental health will be a part of the mental health strategy going forward. We need to take immediate steps to make sure that the process through the administration happens. Colleagues will understand that I cannot give more details at the Dispatch Box just now, but as I said, I suggest we have a meeting for colleagues with officials very soon so that they can understand the detail. Then we will need to make sure that the mental health strategy, which the Prime Minister has committed to before Christmas, takes into account all the issues that colleagues have raised today.

[Perran Moon]

On that point, does the Minister agree that, as an absolute base principle of success, no young person should have to wait until the point of criticality at an A&E department or a charity helpline before they get the support that they deserve?

[Alison McGovern]

I wholeheartedly agree with that point. We need to move to a system where children and young people are able to get support quickly, in an open, non-stigmatising way, so that we do not see them reach crisis point. That is the direction of travel that the Fonagy review suggested last week, and we will take it forward through the mental health strategy.

I am conscious that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford), asked me some direct questions, including about funding. I want to respond to his point and the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards). There has been a real problem with short-term funding. Again, we need to think about what principles we should put in place to try to resolve that. We know that the best care and support from a mental health point of view often comes from the community and voluntary sector, and Members have described quite accurately what the funding environment has been like—too short term. I ask colleagues to work with me as we try to get to a better, more long-term arrangement.

[Baggy Shanker (Derby South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Earlier this month, Linking Hope hosted an upstream suicide prevention training event in Derby South. It does fantastic work with voluntary groups, charities and members of the public. Does my hon. Friend agree that the stronger those links are, the better we are all equipped to help young people in this area?

[Alison McGovern]

I agree that connectivity between organisations is really important. One of the things that the suicide prevention strategy has said is that preventing suicide is everybody’s business. We all need to have that in our minds and work together across organisations to support people.

My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) asked me about ketamine use. The suicide prevention strategy identified substance misuse as an issue for suicide prevention, and I will be working very closely with colleagues across Government to try to support their work on substance misuse. The shadow Minister asked about evaluation, and I will write to him with the details on that. He is quite right to point out that it is extremely important that we understand the efficacy of what has been done before, so that we can bring that into the mental health strategy to come.

The hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) asked about the mental health investment standard. I will write to him with the details of how we are taking that forward. Spending forecasts show that we should reach £16.1 billion on mental health in 2026-27, which is a good thing. I have concerns about outcomes, because it is very important that while spending increases, recovery also increases. We want to make sure that we see continuous improvement in outcomes from those spending increases, particularly for some of the conditions that are most stigmatised—schizophrenia, bipolar and other conditions where we have not seen the better outcomes that we have for conditions that people find easier to talk about.

A number of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), asked whether I would meet them to discuss this topic, matters in their constituency or organisations that they have supported. My time for meeting MPs is Wednesday after Prime Minister’s questions, and if a Member of Parliament asks me to meet, I will meet. Please get in touch via the Department, and I will be happy to meet all hon. Members who wish me to. Members have also mentioned Samaritans and its number, 116 123, which is there to support those who need it. The NHS 111 service with the mental health option can also be used when people need that support. I wholeheartedly encourage us all to keep helping people to know where they can reach that support if they need it.

Of course, we do not want children and young people to get to a crisis point. I hear from schools and teachers again and again about how they need support to make sure that they are addressing challenges where they come up for young people. That is why I am pleased with the progress being made through our mental health support teams in schools and colleges. The latest data shows that nearly 6 million pupils and learners are now covered by a mental health support team—about 60% of pupils and learners in England. We obviously have more to do, because we want coverage to be complete by 2029, but we are making progress. We are also investing in early support hubs, which a number of hon. Members have mentioned. They will provide that community-based, destigmatising support. Again, we have more progress to make on that.

I want to finish by saying that it has been good and important to hear about hon. Members’ experiences with their constituents on this issue. We all want to work together to make sure that we can find any possible solution to what has happened with Papyrus. I suggest that we meet again shortly to discuss that, but my final message is really for any young person out there: you are not by yourself. You are not alone; reach out for help and you will be able to move forward, so please do reach out.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Government support for youth suicide prevention charities and mental health support for young people.

17:30

Sitting adjourned.