Serving in our national Parliament is an honour few receive and even fewer people who look like me, have a background like mine or my kind of surname.

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With all that acknowledged, I keep my constituents at home in Newcastle-under-Lyme at the forefront of my mind every single day.

As I said in the House of Commons in April, no Member of Parliament should be forced to choose between our families and doing our job - honouring the trust of local people who elected us and - importantly - holding Ministers to account. The fact that I was forced to make such a choice on Friday 20 June 2025 will stay with me forever.

My father-in-law died, as I was leaving Parliament, having cast my vote against the assisted dying Bill on that Friday in June. I left his bedside and travelled to Westminster to do my job before - in theory - returning to my wife and family. I didn’t get back in time. No democratically elected representative of the people should ever have to make that choice.

Over the last year, I have argued for change because I am determined to ensure that no other Parliamentarians are placed in the same position as I was. If someone is told a loved one has days or hours to live, as we were, people should be given the support, compassion and decency we would all want extended to ourselves.

That experience of loss, however, also reinforced something else: how significant and valued every person is, even at the very end of their life. Across our wonderful country, people facing death should have access to the best palliative care we can provide, and be able to access real and comprehensive support from a functional and dependable care system. For many, especially those who suffer from the structural inequalities we still see all around us, that is simply not the case. That is why I welcome the Prime Minister's decision to place social and palliative care reform ahead of any renewed debate on assisted dying. That’s........

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