Simon Opher MP: speeches

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Speeches

14 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source
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My remarks today will focus on the murder of healthcare workers in Palestine and on the tremendous work of Jewish-led organisations that campaign against the illegal occupation. There is one moment that will always stick with me from my last two and a half years as an MP. On 24 June 2025, I was making my way to the Chamber for oral questions when I received a phone call from my colleague, Dr Rebecca Inglis of Healthcare Workers Watch. She told me that a GP like myself who worked in Gaza had just been shot in the head by an Israeli soldier. More than 2,000 healthcare workers and 595 humanitarian aid workers have been murdered at the hands of the Israeli army, and 95 Palestinian healthcare workers remain detained by the Israeli authorities and subjected to the most inhumane conditions and reported torture. Despite even the ceasefire, this goes on. In fact, a UN commission found that the Israeli state had committed the crime of genocide through deliberate targeting of the Gazan healthcare system. The practice is not restricted to Gaza; it took place in Syria and Sudan as well. It has a new name—healthocide—and this British Government must fight against it. Over 90% of the Gaza strip’s healthcare infrastructure has been either destroyed or damaged. Cables have been cut to stop people in Gaza getting proper healthcare. I have heard directly from British doctors in the area who have witnessed the deliberate destruction of medical equipment in front of their eyes. This healthocide extends to the west bank. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley) and I were denied access when we tried to look at the healthcare facilities in the west bank approximately a year ago. The Israelis have withheld billions of dollars of tax revenue from the Palestinian Authority, which means that healthcare workers are not being paid. Some have not been paid for the last six months, so workers are cutting their hours and clinics have had to close. I found out today from Medical Aid for Palestinians that healthcare workers have to wear bullet-proof vests when they go outside because they are being targeted by Israeli forces. Medical staff are regularly harassed, ambulances’ movements are restricted, and checkpoint delays are costing lives when every minute matters in medical emergencies. Things are getting worse. The WHO said that in June of this year there were eight attacks on healthcare workers, and in July there were 37 attacks. Also in July, a four-month-old Palestinian boy died after Israeli forces at a military checkpoint west of Ramallah prevented his transfer to a hospital. I agree with our Prime Minister: our party’s rhetoric and our Government’s actions have been totally inadequate in response to these atrocities, but we are now beginning to right that wrong. We have a Foreign Secretary who has restored dignity and credibility in this Chamber, and we have a Government who are finally acknowledging that war crimes have been committed and that the occupation is illegal, and they have backed it up with meaningful action—a Government who will stand up and not stand by. It is long overdue, and we must go further, but it is such a welcome change. I want to end my speech on a positive note. Amid all the horror of the last few years, there have been people who have refused to give up on the possibility of peace. I pay tribute to two brilliant Jewish-led organisations, Standing Together and Na’amod. Standing Together brings Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel together around a simple belief: that the future of one people cannot be built on the destruction of another. Here in Britain, Na’amod have shown extraordinary moral courage. They are a movement of British Jews campaigning against the occupation for the freedom and dignity of Palestinians. I was proud to be hosting them here in Parliament two hours ago. I am glad that our Government will no longer be bystanders, but we must be bolder and move faster. We must use every lever possible to help to bring this illegal occupation to an end, because history will judge us on whether we did enough when it really mattered.
11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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I am going to carry on; I will be very brief. There has been a lot of concern—quite rightly—about disabled people and people from black and Asian minorities and whether they will be harshly dealt with. In fact, the evidence from other jurisdictions is that these people do not go for assisted dying—it is actually a white, middle-class, able-bodied thing—so in a way we have the opposite problem to deal with. Let me also say, to answer a point made earlier, that studies done in California showed that where people with terminal illness and depression were treated for their depression, it made no difference to their choice on assisted dying. Assisted dying is different because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley) said, it is a choice not between life and death, but between someone’s death from natural causes and death under their own control. I say to all hon. Members that we have a choice to make in five or ten minutes, but we must give other people that choice. Is it our right to deny those people that choice? I will end my remarks as Madam Deputy Speaker is giving me some black looks.
11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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Can I just say that there has not been one confirmed case of coercion in any of these jurisdiction anywhere in the world?
11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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rose—
11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and for making an incredibly strong speech. I was part of the Bill Committee, and we gave about 200 hours of assessment to this Bill, which is much more than most Government Bills get. Indeed, the Lords had an enormous amount of time to consider it, too. Saying that there has not been enough scrutiny is simply wrong.
11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that, even with excellent palliative care, there are very similar rates of people demanding assisted dying? In fact, even in 2010, when we had probably the best palliative care in the world, people still went to Dignitas or took their own lives.
11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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May I praise the House for some fantastic speeches all round, including from my hon. Friends the Members for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton) and for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Claire Hazelgrove), and indeed just now from my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball) and the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer)? I am proud of our House and the way in which we have debated this matter. I have been involved in delivering palliative care and end-of-life care—they are actually quite different—for over 34 years and I continue to do so as a GP. Given the time, I will cut my speech short, but I want to say that this is really about choice. Choice exists for people in France, in Spain, in the Netherlands, in Belgium, in Australia, in the US and in Canada, and indeed in Jersey and the Isle of Man. It also exists for people in this country if they have got 15 grand. However, we do not give access to it at the moment. To all the doubters, I say that this is the safest assisted dying Bill in the world—full stop. That is a fact, because it has got so many safeguards: many more than the ones in Australia or any other place.
11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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Will the right hon. Lady give way?
11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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No, I will carry on if that is okay. It is a great thing to offer end-of-life care and palliative care. In 2010, the UK system for palliative care was at the level of the best in the world, yet still people went to Dignitas. Still, 600 people who were suffering from terminal diagnosis killed themselves. Indeed, in Oregon, 92% of patients who opted for assisted dying were receiving good palliative care. They are different things.
11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source
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Will my hon. Friend give way briefly?
8 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source
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I thank the Foreign Secretary for lifting the mood of the whole House. We are no longer bystanders wringing our hands; we are doing something active, and I thank him for that. I met Dr Nick Maynard this week. He is a surgeon in Gaza, and it is clear that the health professions have been deliberately targeted, with more than 2,000 killed. There is even a new word for it: healthicide. Will the Foreign Secretary meet me and some doctors to discuss how we can prevent this happening?
7 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source
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My remarks will focus mainly on new clause 69, which is in my name. Getting rid of NHS England is one of the best things that this Government have done. As working clinicians, we can at least now get away from so much admin and management. My amendment is a simple one about self-care and health literacy. Demand for healthcare has increased enormously. Since 2019, for example, GP consultations in Stroud have gone up 30%. When I started work as a GP, patients saw me on average three times a year; it is now about eight times a year. Indeed, A&E attendance has gone up 20% over the last decade, yet the health of the nation remains the same. This is the demand side of the NHS that we very rarely discuss, and this is what I am asking the Secretary of State to address. Let me turn to the causes of this increase in demand. There is a concept in medicine called the symptom iceberg. Most of us get symptoms every day, but we do not go to the doctor. We only go to the doctor when we have certain symptoms, and it is a very small number of symptoms, but that has increased over the last 20 years. Then there is the role of something that we call lay referrals; people used to have mums who lived next door, but now they are often much further away. We are socially isolated in an atomised society. We also have a much higher expectation for our health. We cannot fault that, but it means that, for example, people go to the doctor with very minor things. There are also factors such as AI. In my surgery, we use AI, but I believe that creates its own demands. There is also good old Dr Google, who in this country is consulted over 50 million times every year—and those who go to Dr Google usually end up thinking that they have cancer or need an ambulance, so that is clearly driving demand. There are also doctor factors. If we carry on treating sore throats with antibiotics, people will carry on coming back. Earaches generally get better, and people do not usually need to see a doctor for headaches. We are over-diagnosing and over-medicalising everything. NHS factors includes the algorithms for 111 and litigation. I would also like to talk about health literacy. That means knowing about our health, and understanding that we are not always in totally good health, but we do not have to consult the health service just because we are feeling a little bit low or a little bit tired. One of my colleagues in Stroud, Dr Hugh van’t Hoff, started Facts4Life, a school-based education service that goes into schools. In the last 10 years, he has worked with over 200 primary schools. He has shown that if we teach young children about health and how it is normal sometimes to feel tired or have a sore throat—stuff like that—we can reduce consultations in the NHS. We can also teach children how to understand information on the internet, so that when they look at statistics, they know what they mean, instead of thinking, “Ooh, my risk of cancer has been doubled by doing this.” That is really important. We are also over-medicalising patients. In this country, 9 million patients in England alone—one in five adults—are on antidepressants. That is a scandal.
7 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source
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I thank the hon. Member for that comment. He is right. NHS and GP data is a massive resource for our scientists in this country, and I agree with him that it should be owned by the UK. It should be a sovereign wealth issue. I would like to ensure that we realise that over time. I will return to over-medicalisation. I would like to try to divert patients with mild to moderate mental health symptoms to social prescribing, such as access to nature, arts and culture and exercise—and indeed comedy. Let us try to reduce that figure of 9 million on antidepressants, so that people do not have to come back for review. There would be fewer harms, such as suicide, in the first couple of weeks. Let us also look again at neurodivergence, and try to look for a way of not medicalising so many children with the condition. If we are serious about reducing waiting lists and making the NHS sustainable for the future, we cannot focus only on supply; we must address rising demand, too. Giving people the knowledge and confidence to look after their own health will empower them, free up clinicians to care for those who need them most, and ultimately build a healthier population. That is what new clause 69 seeks to achieve. I urge the Government to accept it.
3 Sept 2026 · Lidos · Hansard source
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In Stroud I celebrated the reopening of our lido by making a splash, jumping in fully clothed next to a woman dressed as a lobster. I want to thank Save Stroud Lido, the Friends of Stratford Park Lido and the whole community for working to reopen the lido. As the Secretary of State knows, most of our lidos were built in the 1930s and are in financial difficulty, so I really look forward to meeting the Minister and maybe establishing a lido fund to support our lidos nationally.
3 Sept 2026 · Lidos · Hansard source
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7. What steps she is taking to support lidos.
8 Jul 2026 · NHS Corridor Care · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) for securing this debate and for her years of work in the A&E at St George’s. Emergency care is in crisis in the NHS, and corridor care is just an overspill because we cannot cope. That is because we are doing a few things wrong that we could remedy. I work as a GP. I did a surgery last Friday and actually tried to admit someone. I rang up A&E and they said, “Well, I wouldn’t send them up at the moment, as we’ve got a six-hour wait.” I realised that, quite often, we do not have an operable emergency care service, and this is something we need to work on. I will briefly go through a few causes and then a few remedies, and the remedies could be clinical as well as organisational. First, we have an ageing population. Frailty is increasing. In Stroud alone, in four years, the number of over 90-year-olds went up 29% in just that short period of time. We have an enormous cohort of very elderly and frail people. Secondly, as we have heard, we have a lack of beds due to delayed discharge—I will not say any more on that. Thirdly, we have a lack of care beds in the community to enable discharge. There is also a lack of capacity in GP surgeries for on-the-day appointments. In my surgery, 45% of our appointments are on the day, but we obviously need to increase that so we can absorb the demand in primary care.
8 Jul 2026 · NHS Corridor Care · Hansard source
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That is absolutely true. We need to look at all the ways of reducing demand on GPs and, therefore, on A&E departments—that is what my speech is totally involved in—and pharmacies have a really good role to play. There is another thing here, which was noticed in the doctors’ strike. When we have senior clinicians on the front door of A&E, that makes the department much quieter, because they make decisions quickly and can take a bit more clinical risk as they are more experienced. Perhaps we need to rearrange how care works in A&E departments so that we do not get a backlog. I turn to the remedies. We are beginning to turn the NHS around—that is clear from working in it and from what my patients say. Things are beginning to change. We need to do a lot more, but we are investing a lot of money in it. We must not say that things are getting worse, because I believe they are slowly getting better. As so many have said, we need to fix social care. We could have a system whereby the community is responsible for a patient as soon as they are ready for discharge. Perhaps the community should have to pay for the patient to remain in hospital after that to encourage it to get them out of hospital. We must stop agency working in social care, because that is causing a huge amount of stress to carers. We need care to be based on a community model so that carers cover small areas and do not have huge travel times. We also have to improve GP access. I think we should also make it so that A&E departments see only accidents and real, genuine medical emergencies. So we need a little bit of an increase in funding for primary care. We also need GPs to be assessing emergencies up until 10 o’clock at night to relieve the pressure on A&Es. There are a couple of other things. I have said about getting more experienced doctors involved earlier in the process, but we also need to invest in scanners—so many people in A&E are waiting for tests before they go home. Also, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) said, it is not appropriate to have mental health assessments in A&E; we need mental health assessment units, which I do believe the Government are bringing in. There are a few clinical factors. Perversely, we need not to be so risk-averse. For example, admitting a patient for risk of falling is ridiculous, because they are more likely to fall in hospital than in their own home. Dementia fluctuates, so just because someone has seen a slight increase in confusion, that does not mean that they need a whole batch of tests. We need to treat dementia more holistically. Polypharmacy—that is old people on loads of drugs—causes about 10% of admissions, so let us reduce that. We need good end-of-life care. Some 50% of people with cancer die in hospital—many of them face corridor care—and we need to reduce that, because most of them want to die at home. Every older person needs an advance care plan so that, when they become ill, we know whether they want to go to hospital. That is incredibly important in pathways of care. Corridor care did not appear overnight, and it will not disappear overnight. But, by rebuilding the NHS from the community upwards, fixing social care and investing where it matters most, we can ensure that no patient is left waiting for care in a hospital corridor ever again.
6 Jul 2026 · Ceramics Industry · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) for his excellent opening speech. My remarks today will be at a slightly different level. They are focused on studio pottery—ceramics made on an individual basis, where each piece is unique and handmade. Studio pottery is growing in popularity in this country following programmes such as “The Great Pottery Throw Down”. There are thousands of makers up and down the country, and the industry is worth about £50 million in its own right. Pottery and potters are as old as the human race; although it might not be the oldest profession, it is certainly one of the earliest. Britain leads the world in modern studio pottery, which was largely started by Bernard Leach and the Japanese master Hamada in St Ives in Cornwall. Many of his techniques came from traditional Japanese techniques and favoured an apprenticeship system. More contemporary and well-known potters such as Grayson Perry and Keith Brymer Jones have all grown from that movement. However, making a living from pottery remains tough. The price of clay and energy have increased, and most potters earn well below the minimum wage. The Arts Council could help individual potters, specifically at the beginning of their careers. That would help nurture the industry, while a reduction in VAT on clay would help small producers. Furthermore, the way HMRC treats apprenticeships and mentoring needs a more creative attitude to help the industry. In Stroud, there are long-running potteries such as Lansdown Pottery and the newer Stroud Pottery. The Clay Loft in Nailsworth provides studio space and tuition for this very popular art form, while Stroud markets provide an excellent place to sell the pots.
6 Jul 2026 · Ceramics Industry · Hansard source
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Developing young potters is essential for the ceramics industry in general, and particularly for studio pottery. As a GP, I know that the therapeutic effects of clay are well documented. I introduced arts in my surgery in 2001, using ceramics and clay, led by Karen Hilliard, to relieve stress in patients. I also pay tribute to Jeremy Steward and Petra Reynolds, who work at Wobage pottery and have remained an inspiration. I cannot finish without mentioning my daughter Martha, who makes a living selling her unique pottery in Stroud market. Although she will never be rich, she continues to inspire me and many around her with her functional and exquisite ceramics. This country should be proud of its world-famous studio pottery industry, which brings employment and joy to so many people. We must do all we can to support that industry and its people.
23 Jun 2026 · Puberty Blockers · Hansard source
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Speaking as a member of the political class and the medical class, may I ask the hon. Lady whether she would accept that it is better for politicians to accept advice from medical experts around medical issues?
8 Jun 2026 · Progression of Bills through Parliament · Hansard source
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Will my hon. Friend give way?
8 Jun 2026 · Progression of Bills through Parliament · Hansard source
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Will the right hon. Member give way?
8 Jun 2026 · Progression of Bills through Parliament · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. He is making a very powerful speech. These types of debate are slightly triggering for some of us who were on the Committee. I have absolutely no problem with the House of Lords amending the legislation. In fact, that is its job. What it cannot do is simply block the legislation. I wonder what my hon. Friend thinks of that.
8 Jun 2026 · Progression of Bills through Parliament · Hansard source
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Will my hon. Friend give way?

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