The Opposition Labour Party was granted the 2nd Allotted Opposition Day on Tuesday 9 January 2024. The motions tabled were on NHS Dentistry and the cost of the Government's Rwanda plan and administration of the asylum system.

Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting MP moved the motion on NHS Dentistry: the Motion said:

"That this House recognises that NHS dentistry is in crisis, with eight in 10 dentists in England not taking on new NHS patients and vast parts of the country considered so-called dental deserts, where no dentists are available; regrets that this has led to people resorting to DIY dentistry or attending A&E to access urgent care; is concerned that tooth decay is the most common reason children aged six to 10 are admitted to hospital; and therefore calls on the Government to provide an extra 700,000 urgent appointments a year, introduce an incentive scheme to recruit new dentists to the areas most in need and a targeted supervised toothbrushing scheme for three to five year-olds to promote good oral health and reform the dental contract to rebuild the service in the long-run." 

The motion was defeated by a vote of Ayes 191: Noes 299.

2 The Second Opposition Day debate was on the cost of the Government's Rwanda plan and administration of the asylum system, and Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper moved the motion: The motion called for all the papers on the costs of the Rwanda Plan: 

"That an Humble Address be presented to His Majesty, that he will be graciously pleased to give direction to the Home Secretary that, no later than 16 January 2024, there be laid before this House:

(a) a list of all payments, either already made or scheduled, to the Government of Rwanda under the Economic Transformation and Integration Fund, including the cost of the fourth- and fifth-year payments due to the Government of Rwanda under the fund;

(b) any document provided by his Department to HM Treasury relating to the per person cost of relocating individuals to Rwanda under the Agreement for the Provision of an Asylum Partnership Agreement to Strengthen Shared International Commitments on the Protection of Refugees and Migrants (CP 994);

(c) an unredacted copy of the confidential memorandum of understanding referred to in response to question 20 at the Public Accounts Committee meeting on 11 December 2023;

(d) any paper setting out the cost per person of relocating individuals to Rwanda and the Government’s assumptions about the number of asylum seekers to be sent to Rwanda per year shared with or provided by HM Treasury between March and July 2022; and

(e) his Department’s internal breakdown of the 35,119 non-substantive asylum decisions made between 1 January and 28 December 2023 showing the number of such decisions that were classified as withdrawn asylum applications and the number further sub-classified as either:

(i) non-substantiated withdrawals

(ii) other withdrawals." 

The motion was defeated by a vote of Ayes 228: Noes 304. 

As a member of the Panel of Chairs Select Committee, I chaired 3 Westminster Hall Debates on Tuesday 9 January 2023. 

I chaired the following debates:

2:30 - 4:00 pm: "Increases in anti-Semitic offences" debate led by Nicola Richards MP
4:00 - 4:30 pm: "Cost of living in Scotland" debate led by David Linden MP
4:30 - 5:30 pm: "Future of the Great Western Main Line" debate led by Richard Graham MP.

You can watch these debates by visiting: parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/12e86596-f66e-4a59-9a51-b055051354a9

Westminster Hall debates give MPs an opportunity to raise local or national issues and receive a response from a government minister. 

The Panel of Chairs is made up of those MPs chosen by the Speaker at the start of each Parliament to chair Public Bill committees and other general committees in the House of Commons and Westminster Hall and may act as temporary chair during a Committee of the whole House. You can see the current membership of the Panel of Chairs by visiting: committees.parliament.uk/committee/11/panel-of-chairs/membership/

On Monday 8 January 2024 during Defence Questions, I asked the Secretary of State for Defence Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP a question: "Will the Ukraine Action Plan 2023 ever be published? Better still, will there be a Ukraine Action Plan 2024? And when will that be published?"

The Secretary of State said: "We work hand in glove with the Ukrainian Government to make sure that the action plan is one that can win the war. We have seen huge progress, in particular, in Crimea and the Black Sea, and we look forward, throughout the House, to further progress in 2024 for our brave Ukrainian friends."

The Secretary of State did not answer the question of when he will publish the Ukraine Action Plan 2023. In August 2023 the then Defence Secretary Rt Hon Ben Wallace MP said he would publish the Action Plan for Ukraine in 2023. 

On Tuesday 19 December 2023, following the Minister for Defence Procurement's statement on Ukraine, I asked the Minister: "Will the Ukraine Action Plan 2023 be published before the end of the year?". The Minister did not answer the question and did not say when the action plan would be published or whether it would be published at all. 

On Tuesday 19 December 2023, an Urgent Question was tabled by the Opposition to ask the Secretary of Defence for a statement on the situation in Ukraine, and I asked the Minister a question: "In August this year, the then Defence Secretary said that he would publish the action plan for Ukraine in 2023. Will it be published before the end of the year?"

The Minister answered by saying: "I simply say to the right hon. Lady, as I have been saying throughout, that we are delivering action every week in Ukraine. The amount of ordnance we have supplied and continue to supply—particularly in terms of air defence, which is now increasingly crucial—is huge. I have listed the many numbers. Some of it, of course, we cannot talk about. There are technologies that we are testing out there, ensuring that our munitions are successful. What I can say is that if we look at the work of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, for example—as I say, I cannot talk about the detail—we can see that it has had a huge bearing on the impact of what we have donated into theatre."

The Minister failed to answer the question. His predecessor pledged to publish the action plan for Ukraine in 2023 and we are fast approaching the end of 2023 and yet no action plan has been published by the Government.

Following the horrendous killings in the Church compound of the Catholic Parish of the Holy Family in Gaza City, the Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Vincent Nichols said "The information provided by the Cardinal, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem gives a picture of seemingly deliberate and callous killing by IDF soldiers of innocent civilians: an elderly woman and her daughter in the grounds of a church. This killing has to stop. It can never be justified."

On Tuesday 19 December 2023, an Urgent Question was tabled regarding the conflict between Israel and Gaza, and I asked the Minister for Development and Africa Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP a question: "Does the Minister agree with Cardinal Vincent Nichols’s version of events that took place in the compound of the Holy Family church?"

The Minister answered by saying: "The right hon. Lady will understand that I am not in a position to make that judgment, but I have heard with great respect what the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster has said."

Everyone is alarmed about the events in the compound which is a safe place and provides sanctuary and shelter for those fleeing from the war.