UK Cuts to Global Education
Britain helped found the Global Partnership for Education and was once its largest donor. Today we have cut our annual support to GPE by 77% from £86m to just £20m. As Chair of the APPG for Global Education, I’m deeply saddened and angry.
Earlier this year, I saw in Malawi what British support delivers: teachers trained, children learning to read and count who otherwise never would. That progress is now at risk. Every pound cut is a child left without a classroom.
Ministers promised aid cuts would be offset through multilateral funding like GPE. This pledge breaks that promise. Fewer children learning means slower growth, more instability, wider inequality – that serves no one. The Government must reconsider.
Lift Trinity School-Based Nursery
Local parents have told me time and time again how expensive childcare is and the impact this has on their ability to get back to work. So, I wrote to local schools asking them to join me in a bid for a new Best Start nursery in our community. This month, Lift Trinity in Bounds Green opened theirs!
It was delightful to visit this morning and see the children having such a wonderful time, singing songs, painting, playing, and building relationships with each other. Thanks to these nurseries and other fantastic Labour childcare policies, the average family is saving £8000 per child.
If you need more information about local services,
Alexandra Gate Visit
I received a lovely tour of the Alexandra Gate Estate in Wood Green by housing association, L&Q. I had the opportunity to stop and speak to some of its fantastic residents, who told me how much they love living there. The visit was a good chance to build a better relationship with L&Q in order to better serve residents, who I know have struggled with issues with service charges and repairs.
Far too many leaseholders have faced unfair costs, poor transparency and an imbalance of power that has left people feeling trapped in their own homes. In the summer, I hosted a meeting between residents from this estate and the housing association to facilitate resolutions, and I was glad to follow up by touring the estate.
Water Sector Debate
Today, I spoke in Parliament about the dire state of our water sector and the impact it is having on constituents of Southgate and Wood Green. Read my speech below:
The current model for our water service is not working for customers and has not been working for quite some time. My constituents have watched their bills rise again and again while Thames Water falls further into debt and water bosses are rewarded with huge bonuses, despite failing to invest in critical infrastructure and allowing more sewage pollution into our rivers, lakes and streams.
These failures in investment, infrastructure and environmental performance have undermined public confidence, and customers have been unable to take their business elsewhere, because the water companies operate through regional monopolies. I commend the Government for trying to tackle some of those issues, but tougher regulation is not enough to deal with a model that is fundamentally broken. Thames Water is in approximately £19 billion of debt, but the rescue deal on the table is a market-led recapitalisation by its creditors that will keep the failing private ownership model intact in exchange for environmental leniency.
Water is an essential service and a natural monopoly, so it is reasonable to ask whether the interests of taxpayers are best served when the ownership of our water is determined by private investors. Bringing Thames Water into public ownership, either permanently or initially through a special administration regime, would allow the Government to write down debt on fairer terms than any creditor-led deal and to direct further revenue toward infrastructure and customers, rather than debt servicing and returns to shareholders.
We must restore public confidence and end the era of profiting from pollution and prioritising shareholder returns over taxpayers. Our water services are too essential to be treated simply as another commercial asset. The water privatisation of the 1980s is a failed ideological experiment that has seen profits plundered into the pockets of hedge funds and offshore investors, while the sector has been starved of investment. Not a single reservoir has been built since 1992, and there has been under-investment in our antiquated pipes and overflowing sewerage system.
Not a single reservoir has been built since 1992, and the underinvestment in our antiquated pipes and overflowing sewerage system is plain to see.
This is not good enough.
That is why public ownership is the only way forward, and why I urge the Government to put Thames Water back into public ownership as soon as possible.
Prohibition of Superintelligent AI
Please read the below letter I have signed with parliamentary colleagues calling for a ban on the development of superintelligent AI.
Royal Mail Delays
I have joined parliamentary colleagues in highlighting the failures and delays of Royal Mail. Please read both letters below:
Palliative Care Roundtable
It was my pleasure to chair a roundtable with Marie Curie UK this week on ensuring effective implementation of the Modern Service Framework on Palliative and End of Life Care. We were joined by MPs and representatives from the Royal College of Nursing, and the Royal College of GPs.
£2.80 of every £5 spent on healthcare for people in the final year of life was on emergency care. A lack of adequate community-based care is resulting in emergency department attendances and hospital admissions due to care not being delivered in the right place.
Not only is this expensive, the experience for many people saying goodbye in hospitals is also difficult and painful. As explained by Nicola Ranger from The Royal College of Nursing, there is a need for the whole system to be realigned and rethought to support both staff and patients. Attraction to social care roles is not working well enough due to low pay, large amounts of student debt and long working hours. Nurses are often the professionals closest to patients in every setting and make the difference between a good death and a poor one.
Dr Azza Elghonaimy, representing the Royal College of General Practitioners, contributed to the discussion on the vital role primary care plays in providing palliative and end-of-life care within the community. The 10-year Health Plan set out by the government in 2024 cannot be achieved if the workforce, information, responsibility and resources are not moved with it. Additionally, earlier identification will be fundamental to improving patient experience. Around half of people in their last year of life in England are currently recorded on the primary-care Palliative Care Register, while the government has set an ambition for 75-90% by 2029. General practices need the data, time, capacity, incentives and support to find people earlier and act on what is found.
Our current system is unsustainable. We cannot afford to sacrifice high-quality palliative care. Investment is needed to scale effective models of care. A better coordinated system would deliver improved outcomes while also being cost-effective. People deserve dignity in dying, the right care at the right time and in the right place.
I am proud to join parliamentary colleagues in writing to the Treasury to call for a transformation fund. This would be a time-limited pot of funding to accelerate the adoption of innovative and integrated models of care in the community.
If you or a member of your family is currently having an experience with palliative care services, Marie Curie has excellent resources available here: Information and support | Marie Curie
Israel and Palestine
I strongly welcome today’s statement by the Foreign Secretary on Israel and Palestine.
Please read my statement below.
Rosebank and Jackdaw
Please read my letter to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero about the possibility of new oil and gas exploration licenses.