Simon Opher MP: speeches

Speeches

• 8 Sept 2025 · Palestine Action: Proscription and Protests · Hansard source

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  In recent weeks, a number of my constituents in Stroud have been arrested. Many of them are over 70, and the whole situation seems to have become slightly ridiculous. Does the Minister agree that proscribing is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut?

• 2 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  With the removal of first past the post for mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections, is it not time that we gave local government the option of dropping first past the post, as Wales has done? Is it not also time for a national commission on electoral reform?

• 2 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me, then, why Labour keeps getting re-elected to mayoralties?

• 2 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  Just briefly, as my hon. Friend explains about the sporting, economic and social interests, does she believe that environmental interests should also be taken into account? That would allow communities to claim other different types of funds and also to protect the environment.

• 10 Jul 2025 · Children’s Health · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered children’s health. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this incredibly important debate. This Government’s ambition is to raise the healthiest generation of children ever. There is so much about improving child health in the 10-year plan, “Fit for the Future”. I am genuinely quite excited about the 10-year plan—maybe I am sad, but that is the sort of thing that excites me. I have been a GP for 30 years, and I have a special interest in child health and child mental health. I will talk briefly about prevention, mental health and then paediatric services. First, obesity is a massive problem in young people. At the age of five, 10% of children are obese. By the age of 11, 22% are obese—and that does not count the children who are overweight. This starts in pregnancy. We must ensure that pregnant women have really healthy diets, because that reduces obesity. When a baby is born, parents need to be aware that follow-on milks and “hungry baby” milks are basically just milk packed full of sugar. That will not do the child any good. If they are hungry, they need to change their diet and possibly go on to solids. Baby snacks often look healthy—they might have a nice, healthy carrot on them—but when we look at what is in them, they are packed full of sugar as well. Parents need to have a clear idea of what is healthy, so that they can choose the healthiest foods for their children. The Government are going to bring in a watershed for junk food advertising—it was going to be in October, but it is now promised for January 2026. That is incredibly important, because young people are very sensitive to advertising. A recent report in The BMJ found more than 90 different sponsorship deals in football and six other sports with foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar. We need to look at that issue, because young people look up to sports stars and are very influenceable. They have to advertise healthy foods, because otherwise we will continue to have an obesity epidemic. In the 10-year plan I was delighted to see measures in the national planning policy framework about fast-food outlets near schools. We must stop those. They are cynically placed close to schools, and they are particularly prevalent in more deprived areas. A couple of other things that I am delighted about include free school meals for children from households in receipt of universal credit. Free school meals have an obvious relationship to obesity and tend to bring it down. I am also delighted that in the autumn we will look at school food standards, and hopefully reduce the amount of processed meat that seems to be in a lot of school foods. The other part of the 10-year plan that excites me is the mandatory health food sales with supermarkets. That has been evidenced to reduce obesity, so I am delighted about that. Let me move on quickly to physical exercise—I am keen for other Members to get the opportunity to talk—because 50% of children are not sufficiently active, and two-thirds cannot swim 25 metres.

• 10 Jul 2025 · Children’s Health · Hansard source

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  I will not keep hon. Members long; I know it is late on a Thursday and people want to get back to their constituencies. I thank all hon. Members, including the Minister and Opposition Members, for staying and giving excellent speeches. If we get children’s health right, it will bring a whole lifetime of benefits. That is why child health is so important. It is about getting them to do regular exercise, which will continue for life, and to have a decent diet, which will also continue for life, making them the healthiest generation we have ever known, so I thank Members and the Minister very much. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered children’s health.

• 10 Jul 2025 · Children’s Health · Hansard source

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  Absolutely, and I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He is right: clean air is one way to address our five most preventable health risks, and we must do more on that.

• 10 Jul 2025 · Children’s Health · Hansard source

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  I totally agree—indeed, my hon. Friend pre-empts some of my remarks. Another proposal in the 10-year plan involves the investment, through Sports England, of £250 million into such opportunities for children. The Starlight Children’s Foundation promotes play and exercise, and I am a particular fan of adventure playgrounds in urban areas, which allow children to cut loose, particularly after school, expend energy, and have fun in a safe setting. I am also working with colleagues on access to nature. It is incredibly important that every child has access to nature, so that they can explore nature and have that type of exercise. I also stress that 50% of children have active travel—bike or walking—to get themselves to school. Let us increase that; let us try to get more children cycling and walking to school, as that will increase their fitness. Dental care is also in the 10-year plan. I am delighted to see that supervised brushing is already there, and also that fluoride varnish will be applied by people to prevent dental caries from occurring. I will give a quick shout-out on asthma prevention, which is key and all about air quality. I know some young people who, since the ultra low emission zone scheme was introduced, have stopped using their inhalers because pollution has gone down. That is something we must emphasise.

• 10 Jul 2025 · Children’s Health · Hansard source

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  I am afraid that is not my special area, but it sounds like a good idea and I thank my hon. Friend. Because we cannot see clean air, we do not realise what it is doing, but people genuinely need their inhalers less, and particularly for young people with asthma that is incredibly important. I want to talk quickly about early years support. In Gloucestershire, an organisation called Home-Start involves volunteers going into the homes of women who have just given birth to support them. Interestingly, women who have had that support often go on to be volunteers. It is a fantastic organisation. This week I was delighted that the successor to Sure Start, Best Start family hubs, is coming back. Sure Start was one of the most glorious things that the Blair Government did, and it affected the health of young people enormously. I am pleased that childcare is getting much more funding. Furthermore, as set out in the 10-year plan, Healthy Start will be restarted in 2026-27, providing money to pregnant women and children aged one to four whose families are in financial difficulty, helping those who are less well off. Mental healthcare is in a bit of a crisis. Some 25% of young people have mental health issues. We spend only 10% of NHS funds on mental health, but it contributes to over 20% of morbidity. About a million people are on the child and adolescent mental health service waiting list at the moment, and I know that Ministers are doing all that they can to bring that down. To prevent poor mental health, we need to look at exercise, as I have mentioned, and at music in schools, which is proven to reduce rates of mental ill health. I am backing the National Education Union campaign to get rid of SATs, which cause enormous tension and stress in young people. On treatment, I am delighted that we will have mental health support teams in every school—I understand that 60% will be in place by next April, and 100% by the end of this Parliament. We will have 8,500 more mental health workers and a whole-school approach. I particularly endorse the mental health first aid training that has happened in some Stroud schools, and I have also been looking at the Young Futures hubs. With the massive CAMHS waiting list—in my area, people sometimes have to wait for two years—and the sudden increase in neurodiversity, we need to look at schemes that use creative and social prescriptions to deal with those children while they are on the waiting list. Given the right support, I reckon a lot of them will not need specialist psychiatric assessment. I am chair of the beyond pills all-party parliamentary group. Are hon. Members aware that one in eight 12 to 17-year-olds have been put on a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressant? That is scandalous. This year, I hosted a roundtable at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Children are generally waiting longer than adults for care, which we must turn around. As I said, there are often long waiting lists for mental healthcare. Sadly, Harry, the son of my constituent, Louise Turner, had a sarcoma and died at the end of last year. She reports that the nursing staff and doctors were fantastic, but there was a lack of facilities, such that sometimes they would turn up for chemotherapy but there was no bed for Harry, so they had to go away and come back the next day. Going forward, we must ensure that that does not happen. What is the solution? We need to get paediatric care out of the hospital and into the community. We need to get hot paediatrics—feverish kids—seen in the community, potentially by paediatricians or well-trained GPs. Furthermore, during GP training, which I have carried out for about 25 years, it is essential that every single doctor who becomes a GP has time in a paediatric assessment unit. The main feedback from the roundtable at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health was that we must involve children in designing paediatric services, otherwise they will not work.

• 7 Jul 2025 · Fossil Fuel Advertising and Sponsorship · Hansard source

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  I will begin by thanking the 568 people who live in Stroud who signed this petition and made the debate possible. I am an MP and a practising GP, and I chair the all-party health group for health and co-chair the net zero all-party parliamentary group. I therefore bring a dual perspective to this question—and, to be honest, from both positions I think the time has come: we must end all fossil fuel advertising and sponsorship. Primarily, this is a public health issue. Air pollution, driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels, is the single largest environmental threat to our health. The Royal College of Physicians has said that air pollution causes 43,000 premature deaths, as my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Rusholme (Afzal Khan) mentioned—more than smoking does—and is associated with heart disease, stroke, asthma, cancer and even dementia. The Royal Society for Public Health is also strongly against the advertising of fossil fuels. In my surgery, I can see the human costs of air pollution: children living in inner-city areas struggling with asthma; adults with COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is much worsened by poor air quality; and elderly patients often admitted with that problem from more polluted areas. One constituent lived in London in the week and said that he was slightly inconvenienced by ULEZ, the ultra low emission zone, but it was funny that he did not need his inhalers after the legislation came in. That is a very strong sign. Advertising and sponsorship matter. The fossil fuel industry spends millions on promoting itself as green, innovative and responsible, while continuing to invest in exploration and extraction that push us further towards climate and health catastrophe. That is not just misleading, but dangerous. If they have too much money, perhaps we need an extra windfall tax to take it off them. We have been here before—as other hon. Members have mentioned—with tobacco ads on billboards; I remember when even cricket matches were sponsored by certain tobacco companies. When we stop advertising, we reduce consumption; in that way, lives were saved at that time. We are at the same crossroads now. As my hon. Friend the Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) said, it is not just us looking into this; many other countries are also doing so. Spain, for example, is looking at banning advertising for short-haul flights, as a friend in the Public Gallery pointed out to me. We need to be innovative—even if we are not going to totally ban this advertising, we need to ban the worst bits. Let us be clear: air pollution shortens an average person’s life by 1.8 years and disproportionately affects poor and deprived communities, who tend to live in much more polluted areas. Moreover, 82% of outdoor advertising is located in more deprived areas, pushing that harmful message all the time. As a doctor, I know that prevention is better than cure. Banning fossil fuel advertising is a low-cost, high-impact intervention that will save lives, reduce pressure on the NHS—and we need that—and help to build a healthy and more sustainable future for us all. We owe it to the whole country and to future generations—and I owe it to my 568 constituents—to show courage and clarity and to be bold about ending fossil fuel advertising.

• 25 Jun 2025 · GP Funding: South-west England · Hansard source

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  The ARR scheme in my practice at May Lane surgery in Dursley is employing newly qualified GPs who provide a lot of extra appointments for the surgery, so the scheme is working quite well for newly qualified GPs.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Gaza: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source

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  This morning I heard from my medical colleague, Dr Rebecca Inglis, of Healthcare Workers Watch, that a GP in Gaza was killed by Israeli soldiers—shot in the head, Mr Speaker. He is just one of 1,200 healthcare workers who have been murdered by Israeli forces. Countless others have been unlawfully detained and tortured. Israel is deliberately destroying the Palestinian healthcare system. Will the Minister please raise these issues with his Israeli counterpart?

• 24 Jun 2025 · Gaza: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source

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  1. What steps he is taking to support the provision of medical aid in Gaza.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Child Poverty Taskforce · Hansard source

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  In Stroud, after 14 years of austerity, over 4,000 children are living in poverty. A recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report stated that after removing the two-child limit, the next most effective way of reducing child poverty is to get rid of the benefit cap. Would the Minister be willing at least to review the benefit cap?

• 23 Jun 2025 · Child Poverty Taskforce · Hansard source

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  13. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the child poverty taskforce on levels of child poverty in Stroud.

• 16 Jun 2025 · Mental Health Support: Schools · Hansard source

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  In the Stroud area, six schools are now teaching mental health first aid to 16-year-olds. Many students have received a form of qualification, which they can use for applications to jobs and university. At Rednock school, these students are wearing coloured lanyards so that other students can recognise them and ask them for help with their mental health. Would the Minister support and extend this innovative scheme?

• 16 Jun 2025 · Mental Health Support: Schools · Hansard source

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  14. What steps she is taking to improve mental health support in schools.

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will my hon. Friend give way?

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will my hon. Friend give way?

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  It is important to realise that if there are any suspicions around an assisted death, a coroner can still be involved. The new clause does not exclude that, but it stops the automatic referral to a coroner.

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  If my hon. Friend looks at the statistics, he will see that it is usually the better-off in society who choose assisted dying, not the less well-off.

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will my hon. Friend accept one more intervention?

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?