It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this morning, Ms McVey. I thank the Minister for attending to hear the points to be made. I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on water safety, and I acknowledge the support and co-operation of my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher), who has been campaigning with me on this issue.
The recent heatwave took many of us to the most beautiful spots in our country: rivers, beaches and lakes. Over that May bank holiday and half-term, many sought to enjoy the unusual weather. As we know, what started as days to enjoy with fun in the sunshine, has since been overshadowed by the unprecedented tragedy of new fewer than 19 deaths. I hope this debate provides a timely opportunity to explore the issues we must firmly grip: water safety education, policy interventions, public awareness campaigns, access to swimming and lifesaving skills, and many other actions that Government can and must take, alongside local authorities, emergency services and water operators, to prevent drownings.
I turn first and most importantly to the catalyst for today’s debate. Each year, on average, drowning claims the lives of more than 600 people in the UK. That is nearly 12 people every week of every year. Hon. Members who have seen such tragedies in their constituencies will know that each one is a beloved family member, friend or colleague. Each one mattered profoundly to those around them, and their deaths have caused deep pain to those left behind. Too many of them are children: 196 children drowned in open water in the past six years alone. That is a classroom full of children every year.
What we saw during the recent heatwave was particularly shocking. Many welcomed the early summer weather and went out, across the country, to make the most of it. We now know that in just over a week, 19 people were confirmed dead, the vast majority—13—of them children.
I congratulate the hon. Member on securing the debate. On the subject of young children, many of them school age, there was a tragedy close to my constituency in August 2022, when two teenagers drowned. That is an example of what the hon. Member is outlining having happened recently across England. Does he agree that we need to educate young people about the real dangers that exist, even when they think there are none?
The hon. Member is absolutely right and makes an important point. Following a debate during drowning prevention week last year, I was pleased that it was confirmed that water safety education, including the Royal Life Saving Society’s water safety code, would be added to the national curriculum. We need to see the effect of that in time.
I hope that this will be a pivotal moment for our country to act and do more to prevent such tragedies. Those who died recently are the catalysts for today’s debate, and their names deserve to be heard in Parliament. They are: Declan Sawyer, aged just 15; Reco Puttock, 13 years old; Lillianna Tomlinson, 17 years old; Muhammad Secka, who was just 16; Phil Crow, 68 years old; Junior Slater, 12; David Tita Junior, 17; Rushabh Patel, 28 years old; Samuel Murphy, aged 14; Baltazar L’Quy, 14; Panashe Muchenje, 19 years old; Charlie Noble, 16; Chiedza Nyanjowa, 15 years old; Mackenzie Swift, the youngest at just 11 years old; Greg Howes, 44; George Cuckoo, 15; Palwasha Akbar, 13; and two women who have not yet been named, one aged 60 in Thornton-Cleveleys in Lancashire and another aged 72 who died in West Angle Bay beach in Pembrokeshire. We mourn their tragic loss here. I am sure the whole Chamber will join me in sending our deepest condolences to their families and friends, who have been left heartbroken by their deaths. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
The story the hon. Gentleman tells of his constituent echoes that of mine. In 2023, Ryan went into the sea with his friend, and they both got caught in a riptide. Ryan’s friend knew what to do in that situation—he knew to float—but Ryan did not. He was not discovered until four days later. His mum, Ren, has become a passionate advocate for making sure we teach young people not just how to swim, but what to do in emergency situations and in open water. She tours schools locally, teaching young people about the dangers of swimming even in designated bathing areas. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the strength that these families often show in the face of absolute tragedy is an incredible testament to their bravery?
I am so sorry to hear about that situation. I commend Ren and the many other parents who go far beyond any strength I could ever muster, were this to happen to my family. The hon. Lady is right that they are the most powerful advocates, and we must do more to ensure their voices are heard.
In Vanessa’s words,
“We live on an island; people should know the dangers. You wouldn’t cross the road without thinking about it—don’t enter the sea”—
or the river or the lake—
“without thinking about it.”
We also know that when the weather gets better, drownings sadly increase. With summer coming—temperatures are forecast to get up to 29° again this weekend—I urge the Government, all Members here and everyone watching this debate to engage with Drowning Prevention Week next week, and to tell the stories of what can go wrong and how to be safe in the summer.
Summer comes every year—it is not a surprise to us—but we have to be better prepared for what is guaranteed to happen. There are bound to be risks and the question whether individuals know what to do should not be a lottery.
I thank the hon. Member for securing this important debate. He is right; summer comes around every year. West Dorset is home to the Jurassic coast—a major tourist attraction—and our population increases by 40% over the summer months. Despite the inter-agency working of Dorset police, Dorset fire service, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the coastguard and Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, there is no mechanism in the Government funding formula to recognise that seasonal surge in population. It puts huge strain on the emergency services and volunteers who respond to the kinds of incidents that the hon. Member rightly highlights.
The hon. Gentleman raises some important points about the gaps that still exist in the jigsaw of different services, support and funding; I will return to that later.
The Royal Life Saving Society is producing a report on the last six years of child drowning deaths data, which will be released next week, Drowning Prevention Week, at our APPG meeting. I encourage everyone to look at that report; it will help us to learn the lessons that we need to.
The Government must play their role in preventing further drownings. I recognise the Government’s decision to include water safety in the relationships, sex and health education guidance last summer. I was grateful that the Minister for School Standards, my hon. Friend the Member for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale (Georgia Gould), visited to meet campaigners, including Vanessa. However, as people who spend our time creating laws and guidance, we know that guidance without some sort of enforcement or support is an aspiration, not a policy.
Will the Minister and the Government accept and recognise that drowning is a preventable public health issue? It kills more than 600 people in the UK every year. It disproportionately effects children. It is demonstrably preventable.
A few weeks ago, 12-year-old Junior Slater tragically drowned in the River Ribble in the heart of my constituency. We will cover many things to prevent such senseless losses in this debate, but what struck me most in the village on the day that it happened was the hundreds of young people who were there from surrounding towns looking for something nice to do on a sunny day. Does my hon. Friend agree that, in order to prevent tragic deaths such as Junior’s, we need to ensure that there is also funding for places where young people can go and enjoy the outdoors safely, and will he join me in sending best wishes to the Slater family ahead of Junior’s funeral this Thursday?
Before Mr Paffey replies, I should tell all Members that it is rude to join during a speech and then ask a question first thing. It is not the etiquette of the House. Please come at the start of the debate in future.
I absolutely share my condolences with Junior’s family. I cannot imagine what they will be feeling this week, but I hope this debate will bring forward ideas on how we can prevent drownings.
On the suggestion that my hon. Friend made about providing more for our young people to do, it is partly about that, but it also about having points of contact in addition to school, the family and public campaigns. Youth services, youth engagement and more activities will allow us to perhaps better educate our young people of the risks of drowning and how to deal with the other pressures that they face. By every measure that the NHS uses to prioritise public health action—scale, preventability, health inequalities—drowning prevention belongs on that list.
My second ask is that we take water safety as a priority at the heart of Government. The National Water Safety Forum is preparing to publish updated national drowning prevention strategies in the coming month, but there is no single lead for co-ordinating that work within the Government. Water safety is fragmented across multiple Departments and does not have a single accountable Minister in the same way as, for example, flooding or fire prevention. Ministerial responsibility for water safety and drowning prevention could be added more explicitly into existing roles, or covered by creating a new ministerial brief altogether.
I thank the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) for his very thoughtful words. One of the young women he talked about, Palwasha Akbar, was 13, from the Bronte Girls’ secondary school in Bradford, and she died in Burnsall in my constituency. I pay tribute to her family and friends, who have spoken so eloquently about her. She died in more or less the same spot as Azaz Mohmed Chanda from Blackburn in 2024; I also put on record my thoughts for his family. In that case, there was an investigation and a coroner’s report, and it was a case of misadventure.
I support all the hon. Member’s comments about education, and the specific warnings he gave to people who are swimming in open water. The “Lonely Water” campaign of the early 1970s was very effective. I have certainly had constituents write in to ask me to represent that campaign and the stark truths it laid out.
I want to talk briefly about public bodies. The Minister has been given a series of asks by the hon. Member. I represent a large part of the Yorkshire Dales national park, which has been responsible for, rightly, promoting the countryside to ethnic minorities in Bradford and the surrounding area, and has received quite a lot of money to do so. Following the death last week, I have become increasingly concerned about an issue that has been coming up in quite a lot of the recent Government reports of grey areas between public bodies. Public bodies not meeting their responsibilities or duties is very present with national parks. They have a duty to promote themselves, but also to protect local communities, and they have duties on safety.
What came out regarding the last bank holiday weekend and Eid was that, at an operational level, the Yorkshire Dales national park had not thought about the deployment of personnel in hotspots such as Burnsall in any way that I could see, and had not really thought through its responsibility for safety. That responsibility for safety is obviously as an access authority—they are often not landowners. For the Minister’s awareness, at the weekend I looked through almost all the recent minutes, chief executive reports and risk registers, and never has any issue of water safety come up in any of those writings or meetings that I could see. When there have been two of these deaths at the same spot in the last two years, that cannot be right.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. What we have heard is heartbreaking. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) for leading the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher), and my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) for the work she has done over many years in our city. I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Sir Julian Smith).
First and foremost, the Daily Mirror has done fantastic work on the Save Lives for Sam campaign, and the simple message: “Float to Live”. Sam was just 16 when he passed away in Rotherham, and his dad has shown extraordinary courage. Let me get out of the starting blocks by making a simple request of my hon. Friend the Minister: I would really welcome the Government thinking about whether the upcoming clean water Bill could be the most proximate legislative vehicle to introduce Sam’s law—a relatively simple fix that involves mandating equipment at some of these sites.
I also join those who paid tribute to Palwasha Akbar, who tragically died after going missing in the River Wharfe in North Yorkshire. No parent should have to go through that. As a dad to two young boys, I cannot imagine what it must be like to receive that knock at the door.
I express my gratitude to the emergency services and search and rescue in York. Whether they are patrolling the Ouse late at night or on the hottest day of the year, they are there when we need them the most. In particular, I am grateful to York Rescue Boat, a charity established in 2014 to protect lives on the Rivers Ouse and Foss. It takes a proactive approach to water safety by doing things like going on patrol every weekend, helping to keep residents, and of course visitors to our wonderful city, safe, but from speaking to its volunteers, a clear picture emerges: much of what they deal with is preventable.
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. A big thank you to the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) for highlighting this issue at such a timely moment as we begin—hopefully—to enjoy the better weather and are seeing preventable deaths, particularly of young people, in our waters. It saddens us all greatly when we hear of the unnecessary loss of life.
As we look to the summer, we look for those days of summer fun. I grew up in a different time, but I learned to swim at school, and that probably gave me an advantage. Our school had swimming classes and everybody learned to swim, and it did not do us any harm. I am reminded of the time that I went on holiday to Florida and the three boys were small—aged eight, six and four. We arrived at the villa and they were all excited to be getting into the pool, as we always are when the sun is shining. The youngest boy just walked straight on to the water. I do not know what he thought he was going to do, but he certainly was not going to walk on it. The second boy shouted to him, “Swim, Luke, swim!” but Luke was not swimming anywhere, so I dived into the pool and pulled him out. There is danger in water, wherever it may be—even in swimming pools and ponds. My five-and-a-half-year-old grandchild learned to swim this year in Portugal. The Minister does not have responsibility for education, but she will understand, as we all do, that it is really important that we all learn to swim.
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Now we must act. It is already devastating enough that in an average year about 30 children might drown in open water in the UK, but 13 in one week? What happened? In many cases, we may never fully know. We do know that, understandably, in the intense heat, it is a pleasure to go for a swim, go out with friends, take a picnic, have a laugh and try to cool down. But we also know, as the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) said, that there are risks—hidden risks and risks that are not necessarily well known—that could have contributed to those tragedies.
Even when the air temperature is hot—we got up to 34° in parts of the country that week—water temperatures, particularly inland, open water, are still very cold, especially this early in the year. When someone jumps innocently and enthusiastically into the water, seeking relief from the heat, their body can experience cold water shock, which can cause an involuntary gasp, drawing water straight into the lungs. It can paralyse the muscles and stop the heart. Even the strongest swimmer has seconds, not minutes, to react. It is not just the physical response; it is the lack of knowledge of what to do when they get into difficulty that could have led to such an unprecedented number of drownings during that week.
Joe Abbess from my Southampton Itchen constituency drowned three years ago. He was a strong swimmer, a fit and healthy 17-year-old, swimming in a designated area of Bournemouth beach, but he was caught in a very intense and sudden rip current. His mum Vanessa, who has become an incredible campaigner on water safety since, has said that training and educating people so that they know what they might do in those circumstances can make all the difference.
I am grateful to the Minister for responding today. This is not about her as an individual, because I know that she is deeply committed to these issues—but any occupant of her role would not have specific responsibility for water safety. I therefore ask the Government to consider that proposal urgently. One of the new—or the current—Minister’s first tasks should be to convene an urgent, cross-Government roundtable this month, or certainly before the school summer holidays. I know that the National Water Safety Forum and the Royal Life Saving Society have written to the Prime Minister, and I ask the Minister to speak to No. 10 so that we get a swift response to their call.
My third ask is that we give our fire and rescue services in England a statutory responsibility for responding to water rescue emergencies. We all know that they are likely to be the ones who come out to such a 999 call, but it is not their statutory responsibility. We are asking our firefighters, who are already in the water saving lives, to do that job without giving them all the tools. That must change.
My fourth and final ask is for a public awareness campaign. We need one now. Our media, social media, schools, colleges, universities, councils, charities, landowners and water companies must all get behind it before another summer of drownings hits the country. We also need a year-round public awareness and education campaign. I will not repeat the valid points that others have made on that; we can all see the value that it would bring. I welcome the Daily Mirror’s campaign, which I am sure we will hear more about in this debate, and the way that it is bringing this issue to the public’s attention.
I want to speak directly to anyone watching the debate, because the words of the campaigns that the Royal Life Saving Society, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and others have all got behind could save a life this summer: “If someone gets into difficulty in the water, ‘Float to Live’. Fight your instinct to panic and thrash about. The advice is to roll on to your back and float—it buys you time. If you see someone else in trouble, the advice is ‘Phone, Float, Throw’: phone 999, shout to the person in the water to float, help them to stay calm and throw them anything that might help them to float—a rope, a jacket or anything else that is buoyant. ‘Float to Live’ and ‘Phone, Float, Throw’—please remember those six words this summer.”
In conclusion, I come back to the 19 victims of drowning in just one terrible week in this country. Among the many, I come back to Mackenzie Swift, who was just 11 and the youngest in that spate of drownings—younger than two of my children, and younger than the children and grandchildren of many hon. Members. The summer is just beginning. If we leave this Chamber today without a clear plan to act, we will face another debate like this one and we will read out more names. I do not want that. I know that the Minister does not want that. No one wants that. Let us agree today that drowning is preventable. The tools exist, but action must now follow.
I urge the Minister to listen to the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen, but I also urge her to use whatever powers she has to speak to national parks that have large amounts of water and ask them to fulfil their duties on the safety of communities. We have heard that there are huge volumes of cars and people at peak times. National parks must now take responsibility for the volume of people they have promoted their area to and encouraged to come and visit, and must look at their duties on safety.
We should be honest about something from the start: water safety has become somewhat of a class issue. I am fortunate that I can afford to take my lovely boys swimming regularly and pay for swimming lessons to make sure that they build confidence in the water right from the start of their life, but too many families cannot. Too many children are growing up without access to the very skills that could one day save their life.
Years of austerity, I am sure, have something to do with how access has been hollowed out to those essential services. Water tragedies are not just accidents; they are preventable. Swimming might be compulsory in the curriculum, but long waiting lists for lessons and the closure of pools means that that promise is too often not delivered. Too often, we talk about water safety only after a life has been lost. We really need to explore that.
I want to tell a brief story of my own. My little boy Robin, as Members will know, means the world to me. One day we were in the pool. He was splashing around, a metre and a half away from me, under my watchful eye. He was extremely close, with his float jacket on. For a split second, his face went under the water—a split second of panic. That shock is something a parent will always remember. Of course, I grabbed him, got him out of the pool and built his confidence back up. As parents, I am sure we have all had those feelings, whether at the pool, the beach or even a bath time—even when we are there watching, a metre away, ready to step in—but there will be a time when our children leave home and we cannot be there for them, just a metre away.
We teach the green cross code, stranger danger, and fire and road safety as standard yet, although water is one of the biggest killers of children, water safety is too often an afterthought. It is a compulsory part of the physical education curriculum; every child, in theory, should leave primary school able to swim 25 metres. One in three, though, unfortunately cannot. We must do more for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and ensure that children with disabilities and additional needs receive extra support in learning basic lifesaving skills.
Although it is very easy for politicians to stand up in the House of Commons and say that things should be free or expanded, I really think we need to talk about free swimming lessons for kids in deprived areas of this country. We must go beyond speaking about the curriculum. The House has legislated for seat belts, fire alarms and road crossings. As I say, it is time for Sam’s law too.
In York, we know that this is a particularly acute issue. We teach children about the history of the Minster, the city walls and the railway, but not enough about how to survive in the River Ouse. We should embed swimming and water awareness at a much earlier stage. I want to say something about us being a university city, shaped by our rivers. I did part of my graduate studies in the United States. American universities incorporate water safety in their undergraduate curricula, so I think universities have to do more. I would like to use this moment to open a conversation with Universities UK on that. In Parliament, we often put a lot of responsibility on primary school teachers, but we should look at what universities can do.
Above all, we must make sure that every child, regardless of background and household income, leaves school able to swim and to understand water safety. Is it so much to ask, in a society as rich as ours, that we have kids who can swim?
My summer holidays were spent with my friends, jumping into the quarry and enjoying the cool water on a sticky day. I can probably go back further than just about anybody in the Chamber—my loss of hair and wrinkles are an indication of that. Times have changed, but the joy of cooling off and splashing with friends has remained. We would have jumped into the quarry and off the harbour at Ballywalter, down where we lived when we were younger. I am old enough to remember depth charges: you curled yourself into a ball, jumped into the water and the water splashed everywhere. It was part of the youthful exuberance that we had. We were never alone; we always had friends with us, and maybe that was one of the things that made it all right.
However, the danger appears to have been enhanced, and those simple pleasures can have deadly results. My heart goes out to every family feeling the pain of the recent losses in water. The hon. Member for Southampton Itchen read out the names of those who have died. That was a very poignant moment. It focused our attention on where we need to be, and we thank him for doing it, even though it was hard to comprehend the massive loss of life. My prayers and thoughts are with all those families at this time.
In Northern Ireland, our emergency services and local authorities have been warning that open water sites have hidden life-threatening hazards. Disused quarries are exceptionally dangerous due to unpredictable depths, submerged machinery, sudden drop-offs and stagnant toxic water conditions. The water in quarries does not flow; it just gathers and gets toxic. The water might look refreshing, but jumping into it can have dire results. I understand the temptation to enjoy our beautiful local landscape when the sun comes out, but I cannot stress enough how dangerous unsupervised open water swimming can be.
Quarries, in particular, are death traps. Their water may look calm and inviting on the surface, but underneath lies intense cold that can cause immediate muscle paralysis and shock, even in the strongest swimmers. The hon. Member for Southampton Itchen outlined the theory of floating in the water. That is very easy to say, but it is not easy for someone to realise that they can float, because panic sets in. Maybe one of the things that we need to be doing in schools is teaching people how to have that immediate reaction of letting themselves go completely still and float. That could save their life.
I went to the local press to urge parents to have frank conversations with their children about the risk of trespassing on industrial or abandoned sites, because peer pressure can often lead to tragic decisions. We have seen devastating tragedies across Northern Ireland in the past, and the UK mainland has seen more deaths of young boys and girls in the recent heatwave. It is devastating trying to understand the loss of life. I do not want to see one more local family heartbroken this summer. My plea is clear: “Please stick to designated supervised swimming areas, obey all the safety signage and look out for one another. A split-second decision to jump into a quarry is simply not worth your life. Enjoy the sun and water responsibly.”
More can and should be done. We should make a co-ordinated effort in schools to talk about the danger, and have a social media campaign and a television campaign about it. All those things are important, and they should come in March, April or May, as the summer months arrive and people’s minds turn to water, rather than in December—unless they are targeted at wild water swimmers, of course. I wouldn’t be swimming in December, that’s for sure.
All these tools must be utilised, because we saw 19 people lose their lives during the May heatwave in the UK, 13 of whom were children. The question must be asked: are we doing all that we can? The answer is that we could do more to prevent these deaths, and we must do more UK-wide. We need to ensure that, if residents spot individuals trespassing or swimming in prohibited high-risk areas, they report the activity to local authorities immediately to prevent potential accidents, and that there is an immediate response from a staffed police service that has the manpower to make a difference. In addition, lifesaving rubber rings should be provided in harbours and other potential swimming places. Water safety affects every constituency in the UK and the response must be greater, so that we never again have a month in which so many lives are lost and so many families are broken.
Those families who have lost loved ones are in my prayers—they are in all our prayers—but we must act to prevent more deaths, if at all possible. I look forward very much to hearing the Minister’s response. She always gives us encouragement, which helps us all to deal with difficult situations. I again thank all the Members who have participated in the debate.