Ben Coleman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure that decision makers progress Mandatory Reconsideration cases in a timely manner; and whether the Department collects data on the number of cases outstanding beyond specified timescales.

Ben Coleman: I congratulate the hon. Member for Leicester East (Shivani Raja) on securing the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) will be aware that measles outbreaks are increasing, not least because of a decline in measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations. The Government told the Health and Social Care Select Committee, on which I serve, that they need to do more...

Ben Coleman: This is a really tremendous statement—I welcome it, and congratulate and thank my right hon. Friend for it. We have touched on the tech companies. Sadly, we can expect them to push back, and they may get support on the other side of the Atlantic. I encourage my right hon. Friend to work closely with our friends in the European Union who have similar aims to protect their children to give...

Ben Coleman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the merits of introducing a statutory time limit for Mandatory Reconsiderations consistent with response time requirements that apply to other public administrative processes.

Ben Coleman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether consideration has been given to requiring the Department to determine Mandatory Reconsiderations within a specified maximum period.

Ben Coleman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Government plans to introduce a statutory time limit for the completion of Mandatory Reconsiderations.

Ben Coleman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment has been made of the impact of Mandatory Reconsideration delays on claimants' financial wellbeing and mental health.

Ben Coleman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time taken to complete a Mandatory Reconsideration was in the most recent year for which figures are available.

Ben Coleman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Mandatory Reconsideration requests were outstanding for more than (a) one month, (b) three months and (c) six months at the latest date for which data is available.

Ben Coleman: I am also a member of the APPG, and I was also at that meeting. On the Health Committee, we raised the point about these short-term pilots, and we managed to get an extra year’s funding. I have to say—I will say this as the person I am—that I feel that if this was a problem that predominantly affected white people instead of black people, it would be taken a lot more seriously. I think...

Ben Coleman: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Ben Coleman: One of my concerns about the abolition of NHS England is that highly specialised services for treating the rarest and most complex conditions—of which there are only 79 in the country—currently sit directly with NHS England. It is not clear whether those services will continue to be commissioned centrally. Does my hon. Friend think it would be helpful if the Minister could clarify that?

Ben Coleman: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) and colleagues on the Health and Social Care Committee for securing this important debate. I am particularly concerned about the fall in childhood vaccination rates and what that means for diseases such as measles, which we had all but eliminated. Before...

Ben Coleman: In my constituency, the care-experienced young people who live in Fulham benefit from the fact that the council recognises care-experienced as a protected characteristic. That means that council housing teams and schools and recruitment processes inside Hammersmith and Fulham have to actively check that their decisions do not disadvantage care leavers. They have to track outcomes, and care...

Ben Coleman: At the moment, the European Union is taking big decisions to address the challenges it faces. Those decisions affect us, too, but we are not at the table—I am thinking of tariffs on steel made in Europe and the Security Action for Europe defence procurement programme. Will the Minister reassure my constituents in Chelsea and Fulham that the Government will press ahead with a summit this...

Ben Coleman: I join the City of London and the British Chambers of Commerce in welcoming this deal—I’m smiling too, Minister! I am sure that the large number of my residents in Chelsea and Fulham who work in financial services will be delighted, too, and that they will have a lot of questions to ask. I wonder whether I could invite the Minister to come and have a meeting with them in my constituency...

Ben Coleman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Pulse’s report entitled General Practice Workforce White Paper, published in January 2025, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of Pulse's conclusion that around a quarter of salaried GPs and locums are looking for a permanent role at the same time as practices are facing a shortfall in...

Ben Coleman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for all that he is doing to sort out this mess. Does he agree that the queues and delays facing British travellers under the EU’s entry-exit system were entirely avoidable? Had Britain kept its seat at the table, we would not be subject to these to checks at all, we would have had a voice in the system design and roll-out over the past five years, and we...

Ben Coleman: I am not a doctor, but thank you so much, Madam Deputy Speaker. Perhaps I am a doctor from the university of life—who knows? I pay tribute to Baroness Amos for this excellent report, and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) for commissioning it. It is a remarkable piece of work. It follows on from Ockenden, and the report on black maternal health done by my...

Ben Coleman: The Ockenden report is shocking and its findings are repellent. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton) said, it is shocking how many of its findings also featured in a report on black maternal health that the Health and Social Care Committee, on which I sit, published last September. As she set out, women were not listened to. There was no accountability,...