17 October 2026

Can you name the MP? Labour - North East Play now

‘The consultant told us we’d better call a priest’ – Labour MP delivers passionate speech on medical cannabis

Politics.co.uk Staff

Labour MP Andy McDonald gave an emotional speech today during a Private Members’ Bill debate on access to medical cannabis.

Speaking in the House of Commons, the MP for Middlesborough said: “We were confronted with our beloved Rory locked in status. And I recall so vividly calling the ambulance and having him whisked off to hospital, where the consultant told us that we’d better call a priest.

“My wife, Sally, my son Paddy, and my daughter Rosie, holding Rory as he died. I never want to have any of those families suffer such an outcome.”

He finished by delivering a warning to MPs speaking against the bill, as Katherine Fletcher, Conservative MP for South Ribble, had done earlier, saying: “I beg honourable and right honourable members, not to talk this bill out today, as they’ve been instructed to do.

https://www.politics.co.uk/reference/cannabis/

“Do the right thing and help take this small step today to help remove one of the barriers that are placed in the way of people so desperately in need of these treatments and give them access to this life-changing and indeed life-saving treatment.”

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