Labour MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North
@liambyrnemp.bsky.social @LiamByrneMP Facebook UK Parliament Profile
I rise to say a couple of things in support of the Minister, who not only has done a heroic job in laying out the intellectual architecture for the legislation before he got to the House, but is so expertly steering it through the House. I wish him all the very best this afternoon in finishing the job. I want to make three points. First, the measures that the Minister has set out are...
I am grateful for that intervention, because the hon. Lady made my second point for me. It is just not good enough to will the ends and not the means. The reality is that, after all the heroic work of the former Conservative Chancellor, built on ably by the current Chancellor of the Exchequer to advance the Mansion House accord and the Sterling 20, the repatriation of long-term savings into...
I can advance only my own analysis of what will be needed. Indeed, it is part of a wider Business and Trade Committee inquiry, which will produce a report in a couple of weeks, on how we transform the investment environment. The reality is that there is a shared ambition on both sides of the House to ensure that we fix this long-standing paradox. My judgment is that the measures the Minister...
I congratulate my hon. Friend on stewarding the Bill with such expertise, and I very much hope that the cultural change that he is hoping for sticks and that we do not just get an unwinding of the repatriation of UK investment. A necessary corollary of what he is proposing is a fiduciary duty and a fiduciary code that give pension fund trustees real clarity in investing in a wide range of...
The Select Committee recently flagged that small businesses in our country now face pandemic-level pressures. In April, standing charges for energy are set to rise by 60%, with no price cap protection. Now, soaring oil and gas prices threaten to be the final straw for thousands of SMEs. Will the Secretary of State make an urgent assessment of the risk of soaring energy prices, and give a...
This is the most extraordinary country on earth. It is the home of the industrial revolution, and the home of the scientific revolution. It is a country with an abundance of ideas, and also a place that is blessed with trillions of pounds of long-term investment capital. If we in this House cannot put together a shared agenda for ensuring that our rate of growth is faster and living standards...
At the end of a long day, let me express my gratitude to the Backbench Business Committee for providing us with this time to debate the supplementary estimates and the priorities of the Department for Business and Trade. I rise to open this debate and simply make three broad points. This is an important debate because, of all of the supplementary estimates that have been laid before the House...
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The chief executive of Fujitsu came before the Committee to say that Fujitsu did indeed have a moral obligation to make a contribution. That is why we were so surprised when earlier this year, when we asked for him to return, he said that no provision had yet been made. For a company that is making hundreds of millions of pounds out of British taxpayers,...
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what comparative assessment he has made of maternity unit infrastructure quality with infant mortality rates in areas of high deprivation.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential for critical care infrastructure investment to enable whole-system reorganisation of urgent and emergency care.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average ambulance handover time was at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital A&E in (a) 2024-25 and (b) the most recent quarter for which data is available.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of NHS capital investment in 2025-26 was allocated to constituencies ranked in the top 10 most deprived in England.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average A&E capacity utilisation rate is for (a) Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, (b) University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust as a whole, and (c) England.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of A&E departments in England regularly treating patients in corridors; and what plans he has to end this practice.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his planned timetable is for capital funding decisions for critical care infrastructure projects identified as integrated care board priorities in Birmingham and North Solihull.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what criteria are used to determine eligibility for the New Hospital Programme; and whether Birmingham Heartlands Hospital A&E and maternity unit meets those criteria.
