Speeches by Perteghella.

“My constituents are being forced to travel out of county to Coventry or Evesham to obtain basic NHS dental care. Does the Minister agree that it is a disgrace that access to an NHS dentist has become a postcode lottery? What urgent steps are the Government taking to end this dental desert and restore NHS services to ru…”

“I fully agree with the hon. Member. Turing is not the same as Erasmus, because it is not reciprocal. That is one of the things that limits the opportunities for our students. Erasmus+ is not just about university exchanges; it is a programme that includes opportunities for our disadvantaged young people. Joining Erasmu…”

“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I thank the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for opening this debate and all those who signed the petition. I will start by declaring an interest: I am a product of the European Union project—or the European Community, as it was called when I came to …”

“Absolutely. The Government need to stand up for our British farmers, and that includes during the negotiation of trade deals—which, by the way, should be brought to Parliament to be fully scrutinised. Young people have lost opportunities to study, live, travel, work and fall in love—as I myself did many years ago. Our …”

“Thank you. We heard evidence from young people who came to speak to us about the profound and often negative impact of being separated from their siblings in foster care. How will you improve support to allow siblings to remain in contact?”

“We have heard concerns about families being unable to access support for disabled children due to lack of availability, but also difficulty in understanding their entitlements. We have already discussed about short breaks and respite care for disabled children. I want to focus on personal budgets, which we heard are in…”

“Minister, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill does not contain any measures relating to adoption. This is despite evidence highlighting problems, including a shortage of adopters, lack of support for adopted children at school, difficulties accessing funding, long waiting lists for children to be adopted, especia…”

“Thank you, Minister. We have heard that there is a crisis in recruitment and retention of foster carers because of the inadequacy of financial support and lack of value and respect for the role. Will you increase the financial support available to foster carers to help them stay in the role?”

“Thank you. Will you introduce a national fostering strategy alongside the strategies on adoption and kinship care to show how the role is valued and fundamental to a social care system?”

“There is uncertainty around the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund at the moment, which is causing a lot of distress to adopters and their families. Can you give reassurances to these families that you will continue with that?”

“We also heard evidence that adoptive children do not always receive the support they need at school. Will you review the educational support available to adopted children throughout, so from early years throughout their educational journey, and improve the support when needed?”

“I want to talk about mental health. The care-experienced young people we took evidence from in this inquiry made very helpful suggestions for improving mental health support for children and young people in care. These included mandated mental health check-ins by social workers or teachers, fast track access to CAMHS a…”

“I fully agree with my hon. Friend. I too have heard of women who have had to keep working despite ill health, and who have had to use up all their life savings but still face poverty now. The Liberal Democrats have long stood with WASPI women. We made a manifesto commitment to fight for fair compensation and we will no…”

“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for securing and opening this debate, the hundreds of thousands of people who signed this important petition, and the formidable campaigners. An estimated 6,500 women in my constituency of Stratf…”

“My question is for Annamarie and Margaret. What measures can the Department or individual education settings implement to upskill teaching assistants and other support staff to improve the support for children and young people with SEND?”

“My question is for Annamarie and Margaret. What measures can the Department or individual education settings implement to upskill teaching assistants and other support staff to improve the support for children and young people with SEND?”

“We have heard calls for putting SEN support on a statutory footing. In your view, would this help improve provision in mainstream education settings, and what should this look like in practice?”

“We have heard calls for putting SEN support on a statutory footing. In your view, would this help improve provision in mainstream education settings, and what should this look like in practice?”

“It was about how providers can diversify away from over-reliance on international student fees.”

“I need to declare that I worked as a university lecturer for the past 20 years, although I do not any more. Professor Peck, higher education providers face an existential challenge on funding, and we have seen some of the impact in the large volume of redundancies announced by several universities. What will the Office…”