Kirith Entwistle MP: speeches

Speeches

• 27 Jan 2026 · Women’s Safety: Walking, Wheeling, Cycling and Running · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) for securing this important and timely debate. Put simply, women are not safe running, walking, cycling or even just existing. We are not safe in our own homes; we are not safe in pubs, bars, restaurants, at school or at work; and crucially, for the purposes of this debate, we are not even safe at the gym. Girls are at risk, too. How many of us here today have stories that start with our wearing school uniform? When I was at school, men in cars slowed down beside me, men in white vans asked me where I was going, and grown men followed me and asked to wear my glasses; I am not wearing them today. As the daughter of a prison officer, I was educated early, not in confidence but in caution. My dad would say, “Don’t take your phone out when you are walking home. Don’t listen to music on a walk home. Stay alert. Cross the road if a man’s behind you. Walk with your keys between your fingers.” All of that does not just disappear when we grow up. Only last week, when I was going for a run in Bolton, I shared my location with my family over WhatsApp, just in case. “Just in case”—those words tell us everything. I wear a running vest with a phone pocket. I clip my SOS fob to my clothes. I plan my route as if I was carrying out a risk assessment, and that is the point. Men do not make contingency plans to exercise, but we absolutely have to. When it comes to exercise, women are constrained by the hours that we can safely be outdoors. Even in daylight, safer does not mean safe, and after dark many women feel pushed indoors. Here is the bitter irony: a lot of us can only exercise when it is dark, because we are primary caregivers. We do the school runs, and we care for our elderly or disabled relatives, or our children with additional needs. Society relies and depends on that care, and then acts surprised when women’s lives are more restricted and when we are forced to pay for safety. For many women, a gym membership is the price of feeling secure enough to exercise at all. Women-only spaces in gyms are growing, and that is progress, but where is the acknowledgment that many women are paying simply to do what others can do for free—exercise without fear? Let us be clear: this is not a confidence gap; it is a safety gap that is rooted in our environment and systems. In winter, nearly three quarters of women change their outdoor exercise routines for safety, and over four in five say they feel unsafe in parks at night. I know that most of us avoid parks altogether.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Women’s Safety: Walking, Wheeling, Cycling and Running · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes the important point, which I will come on to, that well-lit spaces would make a world of difference for so many women and girls. The safety gap that I mentioned earlier is also written into our transport patterns. In Greater Manchester, women make less than a third of all cycling trips. When women are asked why that is, they talk about traffic danger, harassment and intimidation. One Bolton resident told me that routes can feel pleasant by day but unusable after dark, and that one incident can be enough to stop women from cycling altogether. Women’s participation in outdoor exercise is already lower than men’s, but the safety gap widens again for women from ethnic minority backgrounds, who face higher levels of harassment on the streets. Black, Asian and minority ethnic women are nearly 20% less likely than white women to exercise outdoors regularly, and half as likely to cycle to work. If we bear in mind both the ethnicity and gender pay gaps, we are also less likely to be able to afford a gym membership. In Bolton, I am proud of the grassroots work that is making a difference, including Horwich Ride Social’s women-only rides, Krimmz girls youth club’s glow rides and the United We Run campaign, which gives thousands of Bolton women access to the Her Spirit fitness app. These initiatives, while brilliant, are also a warning sign. Women should not need safety in numbers. It is time that we address women’s safety properly, as we should have done for decades. That starts by building routes that we can actually use—the well-lit, connected routes that were mentioned earlier—and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft said, treating harassment as public safety, making it easier to report and making it clear that it will be taken seriously. Finally, we must put women’s safety into transport planning from day one, and ensure that progress is measured so that we can check whether the gender gap in cycling and walking is closing.

• 20 Jan 2026 · Support for Ukraine · Hansard source

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  11. What steps her Department is taking to support Ukraine.

• 20 Jan 2026 · Support for Ukraine · Hansard source

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  The Bolton branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain is situated in my constituency and helps families to settle and keep community ties strong. As the UK marks the first anniversary of the UK-Ukraine 100-year partnership, what more is the Foreign Secretary doing, working across Government, to ensure that Ukrainians in the UK are provided with the support they need to rebuild their lives?

• 20 Jan 2026 · Domestic Abuse-related Deaths: NHS Prevention · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for securing this important debate, which has crucially focused on the important fact that prevention has to work across the NHS. When domestic abuse escalates towards serious harm or death, what can the NHS do to stop it? For too long, we have talked about domestic abuse as if it happens outside public services—as if it starts and ends behind closed doors—but the truth is that the NHS is already in the story; it just has to connect the dots. The moment someone sits in a GP waiting room trying to keep their voice steady, the moment that someone turns up at A&E with an injury that they cannot easily explain, the moment that someone finds out they are pregnant at a maternity appointment and are terrified of going home, or wants to ask for help but cannot because their perpetrator is sat there with them—those are moments of contact with the NHS and crucial opportunities to save a life. The NHS absolutely has a duty of care to its patients: it must not just treat injuries but respond when someone is at risk. In domestic abuse, risk is not theoretical. The most recent national figures show that there are 108 domestic homicides a year. For the first time, suspected suicides linked to domestic abuse have overtaken intimate partner homicides. That is a flashing warning light for the health service. If suicide is preventable, domestic abuse-related suicide must be treated as preventable too. A duty of care is real only if staff are trained and equipped to carry it out. If someone reaches out in the NHS and gets silence or disbelief back, or if a note is taken but there is no action, that can be the moment that they stop asking for help. In domestic abuse, missed moments can be fatal. For the majority of victims and survivors, health professionals are the first—sometimes the only—person they disclose to. People often assume that a victim’s first call is to the police, but the first brave step for many survivors who disclose is often telling a GP, a midwife, a nurse, a health visitor or even their pharmacist. Our healthcare system is the frontline of support for victims of domestic abuse. Tragically, too many survivors are forced to seek help again and again before the system even responds. In fact, 85% seek professional support about five times before they finally receive help. In Bolton, we see both the challenge and one of the solutions. We operate a system called Identification and Referral to Improve Safety, a specialist training programme that links GP practices directly with domestic abuse support services. IRIS is delivered by Fortalice, a local domestic abuse charity—I am incredibly grateful to Gill and her team for their hard work. Since it began in 2014, nearly 3,000 victims have accessed support, and 274 healthcare professionals were trained in the last year alone. That training matters, because it changes what happens in the room. It helps clinicians ask safe questions, spot warning signs and act so that when someone says, or their face or demeanour tells us, that they are not safe, the response is not panic or paperwork but support. We need that consistently, because Bolton has seen what happens when the system does not join the dots. One case that has stayed with local services is the domestic homicide review of Margaret—not her real name: an 80-year-old woman killed by her husband in 2019. While the husband was in hospital, Margaret disclosed fear and abuse and said that she did not feel safe. Those concerns were discussed in a meeting between hospital staff and social workers, yet once her husband’s physical health stabilised, he was discharged home. Days later, Margaret was dead. If a patient can say, “I am not safe,” and the NHS cannot act, the NHS is not yet safe enough. So how do we make it consistently safe? I have three practical asks. First, we need proper and consistent domestic abuse training—not a one-off e-learning module but trauma-informed training, refreshed over time for the whole team, including reception staff, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud said, who are often the ones who see the warning signs first. The Government have said that they will launch a mandatory safeguarding and learning programme that covers domestic abuse. That is welcome, but it must be embedded in day-to-day NHS practices. Secondly, there must be sustained funding for evidence-based pathways, such as IRIS and the specialist services that it relies on, because referral routes work only if support exists and exists safely. The Government have set out an ambition that by 2029 there will be dedicated referral services for women and girls affected by abuse in every area of England. That is exactly the direction we should be travelling in. However, those routes must cover the whole NHS. Finally, the NHS should establish a universal codeword scheme, so that a victim can ask for support just as easily as we can at pharmacies, a bar, a pub or even a restaurant. The NHS is our frontline and it absolutely needs to be well-equipped to spot, safeguard against and deal with domestic abuse, as it should have been doing for decades. Domestic abuse thrives in silence and isolation. The NHS can be the opposite of that: a place where someone is seen, believed and connected to safety. Bolton has shown what is possible when services work together—when we connect the dots. Now we need our NHS to match that with consistency; every week we delay, more families will be left asking the most painful question of all. They reached out for help, so why were they still not safe?

• 14 Jan 2026 · Northern Powerhouse Rail · Hansard source

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  I welcome the fact that we are delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail—promised by the Tories, abandoned by the Tories and now delivered by this Labour Government. It will make a big difference to my constituents. However, it would be remiss of me not to take this opportunity to put on the record my ask that the Secretary of State work with the Mayor of Greater Manchester on extending the tramline to Bolton North East and ensuring better services on both Northern and Avanti West Coast.

• 30 Oct 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  At a time when communities already feel divided, the leader of the Conservative group on Bolton council recently branded a motion on the horrific suffering in Gaza “sectarian” and suggested that Muslim councillors cared only out of prejudice against Israel. Such language not only threatens and undermines local councillors and groups such as the Bolton Council of Mosques, who have worked tirelessly for community cohesion, but legitimises a divisive climate that goes against our British values. Does the Leader of the House agree that this behaviour is symptomatic of Bolton Conservatives’ complete disregard for the value of community cohesion?

• 29 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  My father is a retired senior prison officer, and I know at first hand the devastation that 14 years of the Tories brought on our prison system. Does the Minister agree that it is incumbent on us as a Government to clean up the mess they left and fix the system urgently through reforms?

• 15 Oct 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q13. I thank the Prime Minister for his strong words at our party conference in calling for unity at a time when many feel that our country is divided, and in rightly calling out racism. I am a second-generation immigrant, born in this country, and people like me and so many of our constituents have every right to be here. No one should face hatred because of the colour of their skin. Does the Prime Minister agree that some of those on the Opposition Benches who seek to stoke division and keep close company with those who accept Russian bribes cannot and should not be trusted to govern this country?

• 15 Oct 2025 · Healthcare: Bolton · Hansard source

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  I thank hon. Members from both sides of the House who have taken part in this debate, and I thank the Minister for her response, in which she touched on a broad range of subjects. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) for highlighting the regional inequalities, which are particularly important, and for touching on the impact of child poverty and the importance of good-quality nutrition. I will not reiterate the impact that the last Conservative Government had on Bolton, but I commend the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for his work on mental health, and specifically men’s mental health, which is such an important area. Finally, I am incredibly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) for her tireless support—the three Bolton MPs have a strong partnership. I was struck by her statement that primary care needs consistency to provide support, not just capacity. That is a strong message. I am grateful to hear that the Minister has met the CEO of Bolton hospital, and I am pleased to hear that we are making progress, which is being felt. However, I will continue to work with my fellow Bolton MPs to ensure that Bolton is not left behind, and to ensure that we continue to make progress in the right direction. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered healthcare in Bolton.

• 15 Oct 2025 · Healthcare: Bolton · Hansard source

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  I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I will come on to GP surgeries in more detail. None of this is from a lack of effort. Our GPs and practice teams are working flat out. What is needed is joined-up care with real accountability. When a discharge is planned, the equipment and care package must already be in place. Families should not have to chase switchboards for what was promised on paper. Neighbourhood teams bringing physiotherapists, pharmacists and mental health practitioners into GP surgeries are part of the answer, and I want to see them fully rolled out in Bolton. It is common sense: if we help people sooner, we prevent hospital crises later. Before I move on, I want to speak about the experience of Leah, a Bolton mum who took her 10-year-old son to the GP twice last summer. Her son was suffering from severe headaches, and Leah rightly asked their GP for blood tests. No tests were done. On the first visit, she was told it was most likely a virus. On the second, she asked again for bloods, but was told the GP needed to refer her son to paediatrics. Then, having taken him to A&E, she was told a referral had been received but that there would be a 28-week wait. Leah tried again and again. Later, while on holiday in Cyprus, Leah’s son collapsed. Doctors there diagnosed acute leukaemia, a life-threatening condition. This 10-year-old had to be treated in a foreign country he did not know, away from home and support, and the family were told he could return only by air ambulance, at a cost of more than £50,000. Leah asked me a question no parent should have to ask: “If basic bloods had been done when I asked, would my son have been spared this ordeal?” I hope the Minister will agree that what Leah and her son have endured is utterly unacceptable, and I look forward to hearing what will be done to ensure that what happened to Leah’s son never happens again. As a mother to a three-year-old boy, I cannot accept a system that makes it easier for GPs to tell a worried mother to wait than to get a same-day full blood count when there are obvious red flags. Parents need to be heard and believed. Leah and her son are far from alone in their experience, which is exactly why we must recognise the critical role and responsibilities of GP surgeries when it comes to preventive care. After speaking with the Bolton Pulmonary Fibrosis Support Group, I fully back its call for more robust regular medication reviews in GP surgeries as well, and I will keep pressing for GP surgeries in Bolton to meet their responsibility to our communities. We must get this right, because families must be able to rely on their GPs. Nowhere is the need for better healthcare in Bolton more visible or urgent than in maternity care and women’s health. In 2023, the crumbling reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete we have all read about was found in the roof of the maternity unit at Bolton hospital. Services had to be decanted, temporary structures went up and mothers and midwives made do. Although I am pleased that significant progress has recently been made in removing RACC, I will continue to push until the work is completed quickly and safely. Mothers and babies deserve a modern, safe environment, and I am determined to ensure that Bolton’s midwives have facilities that match their professionalism. The £4.7 million allocated to Bolton hospital by the Government this year for these repairs is welcome, but it is also a sticking-plaster. We simply cannot deliver 21st-century care in 20th-century buildings. The experiences of mothers in Bolton underline why this matters. Healthwatch Bolton has reported accounts from women who were left alone for hours during labour, while another mother described giving birth in a hospital corridor. Beyond maternity, the gynaecology backlog has been in crisis for decades. Across the UK, more than half a million women are on gynaecology waiting lists, and in Greater Manchester alone around 40,000 women are stuck on a list for over 18 weeks. The average time for an endometriosis diagnosis is nearly nine years, with waits worse in the north than in the south. That is why I strongly support the women’s health strategy, and the roll-out of women’s health hubs. The North Liverpool hub shows what works—menopause, cervical screening and gynaecology triage brought under one local roof, cutting waits, improving access and working for and around women, not the other way around. Bolton should benefit in the same way. I will continue to fight for a fully established and equipped women’s health hub in Bolton, with funding for specialist nurses, imaging and theatre time to match demand. I look forward to the Minister setting out what steps the Government are taking to improve maternity services and women’s health in my town. If we want to see the future of a community, we should look at its children’s health. In Bolton the picture is stark. One in five children starts school overweight or obese, and by year 6 that is 38%, which is well above the England average. Worse still, our infant mortality and child death rates are higher than the national rate, and the wealth gap in healthy life expectancy means that someone born in Breightmet is likely to spend about a decade less of their life in good health than someone born in Bromley Cross. That is an utterly unacceptable level of inequality. Close to 30% of Bolton’s children live in poverty. Poverty drives stress, poor nutrition and overcrowding, and those drive ill health. Bolton also has the highest rate of deaths of despair among young people—particularly young men—in Greater Manchester. We must change that reality. Last week, to mark World Mental Health Day, I had the privilege of training as Bolton’s 100th manbassador. Bolton Manbassadors creates safe spaces for men to talk, connect and seek support, and I am proud that its impact was recognised at this year’s Bolton News business awards, where it won a Heart of the Community award. I commend it and everyone in our community for coming together to support Bolton’s men and boys. For years, dentistry in Bolton has been a crisis hidden in plain sight. Before the election, fewer than half of adults had seen an NHS dentist in two years. Families tried dozens of practices, only to be turned away, and although waiting lists have fallen under the Labour Government, there is still much more to do. One constituent, a full-time NHS worker, wrote to me in April after suffering 18 months of recurring infections and abscesses, all because she could not register with a dentist after moving to Bolton. She pays taxes and national insurance, but cannot get a basic extraction under the NHS. It is indefensible. In Bolton our dentistry problem is structural. We are reliant on the Greater Manchester dental budget, but that fund covers only around 60% of our population’s needs. Dentistry is basic healthcare, not a luxury, and Bolton families should not go without because a funding formula short-changes our town. That structural unfairness is not limited to dentistry. It is pervasive across how our healthcare resources are budgeted. The market forces factor, a key determinant for local healthcare funding, uplifts budgets for high-cost areas such as London, but does little to recognise the higher burden of illnesses in towns such as mine. Public health grants are skewed south. London boroughs receive roughly £105 per head, but the north-west receives only £85. That is the wrong way round when the need is greater there. Bolton families should not be penalised for living outside the M25. Within that national picture, Greater Manchester devolution has brought real benefits to Bolton, such as shared elective hub capacity to cut backlogs, region-wide diagnostics collaboration and practical schemes such as the Greater Manchester dental access programme. When our region works together, it saves lives. But we must also be honest: Bolton can disappear into Greater Manchester averages that mask local pressures, and deficit controls and top-slicing can threaten to stall Bolton-specific plans. Yesterday’s meeting of the Bolton locality board warned that the biggest risk facing the system is the financial challenge facing health, and that a region-wide deficit could derail development plans, with an £800,000 shortfall for Bolton itself. My ask is simple: give Bolton its fair share, and do not leave us behind. When I talk to people in Bolton, they do not ask for miracles; they ask for fairness. They want to know that if their child is sick, someone will answer the phone and give them an appointment, that if their mum needs a scan, it will not take months and that if they work hard and pay their taxes, their town will not be forgotten. For too long, those basic expectations were treated as too much—but not any more. We are now seeing meaningful progress in urgent care, waiting lists and a renewed focus on women’s and children’s health—but progress must be made within Bolton and not around it. We are a proud town with brilliant NHS staff and a community who show up for each other. Bolton must never be left behind again—not in women’s health, diagnosis or the budget lines that can decide our fate. With the determination of our community, and a Labour Government that back us, we will not be left behind. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

• 15 Oct 2025 · Healthcare: Bolton · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered healthcare in Bolton. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I declare an interest as a member of the Women and Equalities Committee. Improving the quality of healthcare is a cause close to my heart, and I am pleased to be joined by my fellow Boltonian, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi). I would also like to highlight the work of my friend and neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell), who is unfortunately unable to join us today, but who I know has been strongly campaigning for a new neighbourhood health centre in Westhoughton, and I pay tribute to that work. For too long, healthcare in Bolton has been treated as a technocratic policy area rather than a vital lifeline. My constituents are not concerned with acronyms or distant targets; they want answers to real, human questions: “Can I get a GP appointment when my child is ill?”, “Will my mum be seen in A&E within hours, not half a day?” and “Will my toothache be treated before it turns into an infection?” This is about fairness; it is about whether towns like mine get our fair share. My message is simple, and I will repeat it: Bolton must not be left behind—not in GP access, not in A&E rates and not in dentistry. Everything I say today is drawn from the lived experiences of people in Bolton. Earlier this year, I held a local consultation on the NHS 10-year plan. The response was overwhelming. Boltonians care deeply about our NHS and, as a result, they brought ideas, energy and hope, as well as far too many stories of delays, confusion and dignity under pressure. I promised I would bring their voices here today and speak plainly about the state of healthcare in our town. Let us be honest: by the time Labour came in last year, Bolton’s NHS was stretched to breaking point, with patients waiting, staff exhausted and services fraying. At Royal Bolton hospital, our A&E was among the worst performing in England-, at one point in the bottom 5%. Local residents were waiting 12 or 13 hours to be seen, with elderly patients on trolleys overnight and small children with high fevers stuck in crowded corridors. That was unbearable, and evidence of more than a decade of neglect. By the time of last year’s election, waiting lists were in crisis, with more than 600 people in Bolton waiting over 65 weeks for treatment—well over a year. Behind every wait was a life on pause: a knee that would not bend, a lump not yet diagnosed, a life put at risk. That crisis did not happen overnight; it came from choices—14 years of underfunding, frozen capital budgets and ignored warnings about staff shortages. Public health budgets were cut by more than a quarter. That neglect hit towns like Bolton hardest, because when you start with older buildings, higher rates of illness and fewer GPs, cuts hit twice as hard. Yet, despite it all, one constant kept us standing: our NHS staff. More than 6,000 people in and around Bolton hospital keep this town going. Nurses, doctors, porters, cleaners, therapists and paramedics turn up throughout winter crises and put up with buildings that are literally crumbling. I want to put on record my thanks to the many fantastic people I have met and particularly to Fiona Noden at Bolton hospital, Amy Rothwell at Bolton Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership, Leigh Vallance at Bolton Hospice, Carol Fielding and Steve Milward at Bolton Pulmonary Fibrosis Support Group and all the teams who care so deeply for their patients. They deserve more than our gratitude; they deserve a system that backs them. Thankfully, because our staff and communities refused to give up, and because we now have a Labour Government repairing those years of neglect, there has been a real shift. Over the past year, Bolton hospital has become one of the most improved trusts in England for urgent care, the second most improved on the 12-hour A&E measure, and among the top 10 for the four-hour standard. Gone are the days of the regular 65-week waits. Cancer services are improving too. Bolton NHS foundation trust is leading the country on the 28-day diagnosis standard—a real credit to our cancer teams. Of course, those gains were not luck; they came from investment, co-ordination and teamwork, and from Government backing alongside A&E staff, social care and our Greater Manchester partners. We have improved because we funded triage clinicians—expanding urgent care so that paramedics are not stuck in corridors—unblocked beds through better discharge planning and used modern data to keep patient flow moving. Improvements such as those show what happens when we have a Government who provide the support and resources we need. When Bolton is backed, Bolton delivers. Of course, we cannot pretend that everything has been fixed within a year. Bolton hospital’s chief executive told me last week that winter illnesses have already begun, and my constituents are still living with the consequences of underinvestment. If we do not keep investing in beds, staff and modern systems, we will slide back. Even in recent weeks, I have heard from constituents about long waiting lists and poor communication. One constituent wrote to me after waiting nearly 10 months for an operation. Week after week brought new calls, promises and deferrals, with no clear explanation and no timeline held. Another constituent, who had received podiatry care for 20 years, found her care plan cancelled without notice after what was later described as “computer error”, leaving her housebound and in pain. That is not good enough. People deserve timely care and straight answers. People also tell me about poor co-ordination across hospital, community and social care, delayed wheelchairs, patchy discharge planning and post-hospital support that does not arrive.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Support for Victims of Rape and Sexual Violence · Hansard source

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  8. What steps his Department is taking to support victims of rape and sexual violence through the court system.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Support for Victims of Rape and Sexual Violence · Hansard source

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  May I welcome our new Minister and Justice Secretary to their places? I have heard far too many stories from constituents who have endured sexual violence and rape. They tell me how isolating and intimidating the court system can feel and how difficult it can be to get the support they need. Will the Minister reassure me and those constituents that this Government are doing everything they can to ensure that victims and survivors of rape and sexual violence are supported in a timely manner?

• 10 Sept 2025 · Occupied Palestinian Territories: Humanitarian Access · Hansard source

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  The United Nations estimates that more than 28,000 women and girls have been killed in Gaza over the last two years. We know from recent events that international pressure is not working. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must go further to ensure that aid is allowed to flow in freely and lasting peace is reached?

• 3 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T6. Parental leave is just as essential for families who adopt as it is for those with biological children, giving vital time for bonding. However, many adoptive families cannot access the same paid leave. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure equal parental leave for adoptive parents?

• 8 Jul 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Does the Secretary of State agree that this Bill puts fans at the heart of where they should be, and that had the Bill been in place earlier, clubs like mine—Bolton Wanderers—would not have come close to collapse?