Welcome to this meeting of the Backbench Business Committee. We will be considering applications from various colleagues for debates in the Chamber and in Westminster Hall. First up is Lizzi Collinge, with a request for a debate in the Chamber on Ada Lovelace Day. Lizzi, please present your case.

Thank you very much. The importance of this debate cannot be overstated. Ada Lovelace Day is a celebration of women in science, technology, engineering and maths, also known as STEM. The day is 14 October, so we would really appreciate a debate around that time. A report has been published today that shows why it is needed. The 2025 Lovelace report shows that the economy is losing between £2 billion and £3.5 billion through losing women from STEM businesses. That is a huge amount of economic potential lost, a huge amount of innovation lost to the United Kingdom and a huge amount of wasted talent. I and a lot of colleagues would like to speak on those issues around the economic benefits of STEM and making sure women can stay in it. Personally, my interest is more in Ada herself. Ada was absolutely fascinating. She was the estranged daughter of Lord Byron, and her mother was a gifted mathematician. Lord Byron called his wife the “princess of parallelograms”; later, when they fell out, he called her his “mathematical Medea”. Ada inherited the mathematical genius of her mother but also the creativity of her father. In her early teens, she was distracted from her proper studies by designing a flying machine in the form of a horse with a steam engine inside. She is best known for working alongside Charles Babbage on his hypothetical computer, the analytical engine, and Babbage called her the “enchantress of numbers”. Ada was writing computer code before computers existed. She was the first to note the potential to move from calculating to computation. She foresaw modern computers far before it was technically possible, speculating that computers “might act upon other things besides number” and that “the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.” Let me remind you that this was in the early 1800s. Ada also contributed to the wider debate, and I think this will come into our debate if it is granted. We are discussing the possibility of machine intelligence right now—or machine learning, as I prefer to call it, because it is nowhere near intelligent—but she was already discussing this back in the 1800s: “The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform… Only when computers originate things should they be believed to have minds.” That is in contrast to Alan Turing, who later thought that computers should be understood in terms of their ability to appear to be thinking, hence the Turing test. There is a live debate at the moment about how we move forward with that technology. He termed her thoughts “Lady Lovelace’s objection”, which is quite a lovely way to put it. The economic necessity of keeping women in STEM is absolutely unanswerable. As a House, we have a responsibility to discuss how we change that. We also have a responsibility to recognise our history as a country and the importance of what we have contributed to this whole field and to remember fascinating women like Ada.

Thank you, Lizzi. Are there any questions from colleagues? No. You are slightly light on Opposition names for a three-hour debate.

I believe we did get a few more Lib Dems, but I do not know if they have been added.

If you can pass those names to the Clerks, I am sure that that will make your application in order.

Rachel has very helpfully given me her name.

If there are any Conservatives in the room who want to help out, that would be fantastic.

Thank you. The Clerks will be in touch. Luke Murphy made representations.

The next application, from Luke Murphy, is for a debate in the Chamber on progress in tackling climate change.

Thank you very much, Chair and Committee members. I am here to request time for a debate on the motion “That this House has considered the UK’s progress towards achieving the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C.” I am doing so because this is a timely, urgent and important issue. The UK has legally committed to net zero by 2050 and has played a leading role in securing the 1.5°C target, reiterating it at COP26 in Glasgow under the previous Conservative Government and at Paris. It is timely because COP30 will be held in November, so we would like the debate to be held ahead of that. The Government are also required to finalise their international climate finance commitments by March 2026, and recent reports by scientists have suggested that global warming of 1.5°C may have been passed by 2028. We heard clear evidence from the Met Office yesterday that the UK’s climate is getting hotter and wetter, with more extreme events. This spring was the UK’s warmest on record. Meanwhile, warming oceans and melting ice sheets have contributed to sea levels rising. This is having real, tangible impacts on constituents across the country. We know that it affected last year’s harvest, which is the second worst in at least four decades, costing farmers hundreds of millions of pounds. Half of our best agricultural land and more than 6 million properties in England are at risk of flooding. The UK Health Security Agency highlights the fact that there were more than 10,000 excess deaths due to heatwaves over the last half decade, as well as wildfires from Surrey to Scotland, disruption due to trains overheating and hosepipe bans announced in Yorkshire, Kent and Sussex. The debate would be an opportunity to speak for those who seek to slow or accelerate our progress towards meeting our climate targets. It is supported by a number of Members across the House, including Pippa Heylings, Carla Denyer, Afzal Khan, Danny Chambers, Ellie Chowns, Olivia Blake, Wera Hobhouse, Abtisam Mohamed, Seamus Logan from the SNP, and parties representing more than 75% of the House of Commons. The answering Department would be the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Thank you very much. You mentioned the next COP. Would it be preferable to have the debate before that or afterwards?

It would be preferable to have the debate ahead of that, because it would enable Members across the House to hold the Government to account for what they plan to achieve at COP. Scrutinising what they will be doing afterwards may be worthwhile, but there would be more merit in doing it in advance.

Are there any questions from colleagues? No. The Clerks will be in touch in due course when we have time to allocate. Sir John Hayes, Rachel Gilmour, Damian Hinds and Ruth Jones made representations.

The next application, from Sir John Hayes, is a request for a Westminster Hall debate, on either a Tuesday or a Thursday, on the comprehensive acquired brain injury action plan.

As you can see, I have brought my distinguished team, who may wish to add to my imperfect application. Some 335,000 hospital admissions a year are a result of brain injury. It affects every one of our constituencies. It is an extremely common injury, especially for young people—young men in particular—in motorcycle accidents, car accidents, sporting injuries and so on. Chairman, you will know that we have a strong APPG. Chris Bryant chaired it previously; I chair it now. We have produced a really good report on this subject. The first challenge is that the issue covers a lot of Government Departments. Clearly it relates to health, but it also relates to justice. A significant proportion of people in prison are people who have had brain injuries. I have mentioned sport already, so the whole area of culture, media and sport is covered. As the Committee will know, where issues are lateral and cross Government Departments, they often fall into the cracks between Departments. The report that we commissioned and produced calls for a cross-Government strategy. If I may anticipate one of your questions, Chairman, you might well say, “This has been debated before.” It has, and successive Governments, including this one, have welcomed the work of the APPG, but we still do not have the strategy. The Government are saying that they will bring one forward, but it is important that we have this debate ahead of that to ensure that it is sufficient to deal with the issues that we have identified in our report, which I will not bore you with, because it is extensive. I think that there is a really good case here. The Committee can see from the people around me that this is non-partisan; we are not making a party political argument in any way, shape or form. I feel, although of course this is for the Committee to judge, that Westminster Hall works best in those kinds of situation, where people from all political persuasions can make a considered case in a good cause. That is what we are doing today.

Do any of your colleagues want to add anything?

I am in complete support of Sir John. The criminal justice side of things is something that has come to light recently. Shockingly, the number of people who are in prison because of behavioural issues because of head injuries is coming to the fore now. This is an opportunity to explore that side of things, along with all the other things that Sir John has said.

Just to support Sir John’s case, which he put clearly, I think that there will be very wide interest across the House in this debate. My own interest comes not only from the prison side, having been prisons Minister, but from education. I have been struck by the high prevalence of various degrees of acquired brain injury—from mild through to extreme and very severe—and the estimate that by the end of school at year 11, an average of one child per class has an acquired brain injury, of varying degree. That means that for all our colleagues there will definitely be an interest.

I see that this application is for either a Tuesday or a Thursday. You have mentioned a multiplicity of Departments that will be involved. Which would you want to be the answering Department, if it were selected for a Tuesday?

That is a challenge. I have spoken to Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, and I know he is taking a personal interest in this, as did his predecessors. Perhaps it should be led by health, but as Damian has rightly said, we are pretty flexible, which might help you.

It doesn’t, actually. If we allocate the debate for a Tuesday, it has to be a Tuesday when the relevant Department is due to answer. You have to be very clear on who you want to answer the debate so that we can allocate it.

On the basis that you have just set out, that it has to be the answering Department’s Tuesday, and given that we are quite comfortable with its being justice, education or health, we will have any of those on a Tuesday.

Except that they answer in rotation. It is very easy for a Thursday, because it does not matter.

I think one of the big challenges is rehabilitation following injury. After the trauma, the initial treatment is often good if it is a very obvious brain injury—it is less good if the injury is more subtle—but rehabilitation is a huge challenge, and it is very patchy. It is a bit of a postcode lottery, to use the modern idiom. I think we would probably go with health, by preference, but Damian is right about education, and we have also talked to you about justice. You can see where we are coming from.

Are there any other questions? No. The Clerks will be in touch with you in due course.

Thank you for your time. Adam Dance and Adrian Ramsay made representations.

The next application is from Lewis Atkinson, Adam Dance and Adrian Ramsay for a debate in the Chamber on NHS dentistry.

Thank you for this opportunity. Lewis Atkinson, the hon. Member for Sunderland Central, sends his apologies for not being here today. Access to NHS dentistry is still one of the biggest issues that colleagues and I hear about in our constituencies. Somerset and the south-west are basically one massive dental desert. As our application states, official data from 10 July suggests that 14 million people could not access NHS dental care in early 2025. Our application has been supported by 48 other hon. Members and the British Dental Association. We are submitting this application for several reasons. Although a three-hour debate on this issue was granted back in May, other business on that day meant that the time allocated for the debate was squeezed into just an hour. This meant that Members such as myself and others could not speak in the debate. There have also been important developments since the debate in May. On 7 July, the Government announced that they will push for a series of changes to the NHS dentistry contract, to be implemented in April 2026 after a six-week consultation. Dentists are worried that big issues, such as what to do about units of dental activity, are not being addressed. We also heard from the Minister on 9 July that the golden hello schemes have not been as successful as the Government hoped, and that this will be reviewed. There have also been really worrying remarks about funding for the NHS dentistry budget. All that needs urgent clarity and scrutiny from Back Benchers, because the NHS belongs to all of us. With the changes coming to NHS dentistry, I believe our constituents’ voices must be heard by the Government. That is why we need this debate after the recess.

To support what my colleague said, this issue will affect all our constituencies, urban and rural alike. We have all seen a decline in NHS dentistry, and the figure my colleague cited of one in four people not having access to NHS dentistry was reflected when I surveyed my constituents. The results of this are very stark. People just do not have access to dentistry at all in many cases, or they are driving long distances. Children are being admitted to hospital as a result of tooth decay, which is one of the most common causes of children being admitted to hospital. In some extreme cases, and I have had some in my constituency, people are resorting to pulling out their own teeth. I know the Government recognise that this is a problem and are taking action, but there is very good reason to add in a longer debate now—not only because the previous debate was cut short, but also given the need to properly scrutinise what the Government have put forward. They have produced a welcome set of proposals in relation to NHS dental contract reform, but they need to be properly scrutinised, because stakeholders are concerned about whether they will deliver what they say they are going to and whether there will be adequate funding to properly restore NHS dentistry. We need time for that proper scrutiny, and this autumn is a good time for that, because the planned new contract would come in in April next year. In order to influence and shape the Government’s plans and hear the experiences across the country and across parties, now is the right time to do that. This, of course, is not a partisan issue—it is an issue of huge public concern, and we see that reflected in our mailboxes. I hope we can allow time for a fuller debate than was possible last time, and it would be timely to do so after recess.

We are at the behest of the Government in terms of statements and of Mr Speaker in terms of urgent questions. There is always the potential for our debates on a Thursday to be squeezed, which is unfortunate.

Of course, I fully understand.

Are there any questions?

This is an important debate. From a procedural perspective, the only way you can have this debate within six months of the last debate is if you attach a motion to it that we can vote on. It does not have to be a crazy one that will upset the Government. It could ask the Government to look into writing a review on x, y or z—

There is a motion.

Is there?

It is a multi-page application.

It begins, “That this House is concerned”. Okay, you have a motion, so you are fine—or you could change the title of the debate to make it more specific, but this is an important issue. I do not think we would vote on being “concerned”, would we?

That is a moot point. It is a motion. Are there any other questions from colleagues? No. If you actually get the 48 speakers along and it is a three-hour debate, which is more likely to be two and a half hours, the time constraints on those speakers are likely to be three or four minutes at best—it is just one of those unfortunate things.

That is fine, because you can get the important points over in that time. It is important for every Member to have an opportunity to speak, but it is really important we get this debate, because the fact that we have 48 Members shows that there is a lot of support for it.

I am not doubting that; I am just pointing out what is likely to happen.

That is useful to be aware of. Thank you.

Thank you.

The Clerks will be in touch with you. Ian Sollom made representations.

Our final application, from Ian Sollom, is for a debate in the Chamber on online harms and legislation.

Thank you for introducing the topic of the debate, Chair. In 10 days, both the illegal harms and children’s codes of the Online Safety Act come into force, and we have not had a huge amount of opportunity for Parliament to scrutinise that. There have been lots of high-profile and tragic cases involving young people where online safety—access to violent content online and algorithmic harm—has been strongly suspected to be a factor. Research suggests that one person aged 10 to 19 dies by suicide every week where technology has played a role. That is a quarter of deaths by suicide in young people. The Internet Watch Foundation, which is headquartered in my constituency, uncovered 290,000 web pages containing child sexual abuse material—CSAM—in 2024. That is the most it has ever discovered in its 29-year history and is a 5% increase on 2023, so this problem is getting worse. Many organisations, MPs and peers have expressed a lack of confidence in the illegal harms and children’s codes. They do not feel that implementation will necessarily prevent future deaths like the ones I have mentioned. The Children’s Commissioner has said that Ofcom’s children’s safety code proposals “were not strong enough to protect children from the multitude of harms they are exposed to online every day.” This is really important. There has been a lot of interest when this has been raised in the House before, though I would have liked to gather a few more signatures. We put things together relatively last-minute, and I apologise for that. We have had other debates on this: the hon. Member for Darlington had a debate on online safety for children and young people, and the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam had a debate in February on the Online Safety Act implementation. But I think it would be extremely important to a lot of Members across the House to have a very full debate and really scrutinise the Ofcom codes in the way that we should.

As you rightly say, you are a little light in terms of speakers. We would expect 15 speakers for a three-hour debate, and at the moment you have nine. You need to do a bit more work on getting extra contributors and pass those names to the Clerks. It will be some time before this is considered anyway, because of the queue for debates. Are there any other questions?

I am happy to add my name to this. I think it is a really important discussion.

Anyone else? You might end up filling up your list of names if we keep going! The Clerks will be in touch with you. The application is in the system now, and if you add the extra names, we can consider it in due course.

I will get those over to the Clerks as soon as possible. Thank you very much.