Speeches by Beales.

“Will the Leader of the House join me in welcoming the announcement that, after a strong local community campaign, Hayes police station front counter will remain open? Can we make time in the House to discuss the importance of police front counters, such as the one that needs to reopen at Uxbridge, and rebuilding neighb…”

“It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis) for securing this important debate. The housing crisis is one of the defining challenges of our generation. We clearly face a series of overlapping problems: a crisis of poor quality a…”

“4. What recent steps his Department has taken to strengthen partnership working with the voluntary sector.”

“I welcome the covenant and the Minister’s response. Research from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations indicates that the charity and voluntary sector delivers £14 billion of public services annually. In my constituency, Hillingdon citizens advice bureau, Mencap and Mind provide vital advice and support, bu…”

“The Committee has seen in evidence and on a visit capacity being freed up through the channel shift online, but we have had feedback that the increased complexity of the patients being seen has not been reflected in the provision of extra resource or even the level of resource being maintained. If anything, health educ…”

“Looking at the funding reductions, we saw in excess of £200 million of real-terms cuts from 2013 to 2022, as well as quite a substantial drop in the spend per head on sexual health services. The whole health and care system has faced constraints, with increasing demands and budgets not increasing in line. Do you feel t…”

“Why do you think that would be?”

“Do you feel that the challenge of maintaining support—or relative support—for sexual health services would be less if commissioning had been maintained in the NHS, rather than shifting to local authorities?”

“Thank you. Tim, looking at leadership and co-ordination at a national level, what do you think the Government, or the Department of Health and Social Care specifically, could do to better co-ordinate and support sexual health services to carry out their functions?”

“How much of that has flowed to sexual health services?”

“Should the Department of Health and Social Care be clear that that has to reach sexual health services proportionately, bearing in mind what we have just heard?”

“Is it acceptable for one area to close all its services in sexual health? When we visited recently, we heard that Enfield, for instance, was considering closing its last service, on the basis that people could go elsewhere. Is that acceptable?”

“How is the Department holding to account commissioners for meeting population need, and assessing that properly?”

“In terms of meeting that need, are you assured that that process is working, that areas are being scrutinised, and that commissioners and local authorities are investing to meet need in sexual health services?”

“On that assessment and assurance process, we heard from the first panel that they feel that the centre—the NHS or the Department—could take a greater role in commissioning, for example, an online platform. Those things are not about meeting a specific local need, but about common needs, such as the need to access condo…”

“That is a success. Is that not an indication that more co-ordination could be done? We heard about GP testing potentially. The things that have been done have been quite successful. Should more not be done at a co-ordinated national level?”

“Other colleagues are going to come to that. Before I move on, is your sense that more could be done nationally? Have you done any assessment of the efficiencies that could be achieved by nationally commissioning, or at least co-ordinating, online testing platforms? Presumably, the thing that most areas should have is n…”

“On service resilience, Matt and Zara, Mpox was an extra pressure on the system, and the system responded. What is your sense of the system’s resilience and ability to deal with the potential challenges from other new sexual health outbreaks or challenges in the future?”

“Zara, is there anything that you would want to see to make the system more resilient to future outbreaks of Mpox or similar things?”

“I am conscious that that is slightly straying into my colleague’s question; we will come back to workforce challenges, because my colleague is going to ask you about that. Very quickly, I want to ask about your and the system’s understanding of the challenge around chemsex. Tim or Rob, from a leadership and a commissio…”