Police Funding Settlement
Andrew Murrison Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Hurd
As a fellow Londoner, I say to the hon. Gentleman that there is absolutely cross-party consensus on the absolute determination that we need to bear down on this horrific spike in serious violence and knife crime. I am sure that the whole House will want to pass on through him their condolences to the family and friends of the victim of that tragedy. Through the serious violence strategy and the serious violence taskforce, on which the Mayor sits, as do other London Labour MPs, there is an absolute determination to combine robust policing with a big investment in prevention and early intervention to do just that. The Met needs more resources, as I said. An additional £100 million of taxpayers’ money is going into that system this year. This settlement enables additional investment of £172 million, if Sadiq Khan increases precept flexibility. The hon. Gentleman talks about police officer numbers. I am sure that he is aware—and will welcome the fact—that the commissioner is actively recruiting an additional 1,000 officers. We all wait to see what the result of this settlement will be in terms of updating those plans.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I very much welcome the statement, and I thank the Minister for providing extra resources to deal with the Salisbury and Amesbury incidents. The fact remains, however, that Wiltshire gets £151 per person from the Government to deal with policing. Nationally, the figure is £171 per person. I am sure that he wants to close that gap. Does he propose that that is done through the £161 million that he has announced today, or does he think that Angus Macpherson, our police and crime commissioner, should be raising money locally through the precept using the powers announced today?
Mr Hurd
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Through him, again, I congratulate and place on record our appreciation of the work of Wiltshire police in response to the Salisbury incident. I hope he will welcome the fact that this year, public funding in Wiltshire policing increased by £4 million and that this settlement enables further investment of up to £9 million, of which £2 million will come from additional grant funding. It is for the local police and crime commissioner to consult colleagues and weigh up his options on using the full precept flexibly. I cannot take that decision for him—he must consult local MPs and people who understand the public pulse in Wiltshire—but if he does so, he has the ability to raise an additional £7 million for local policing in Wiltshire.
Salisbury Incident
Andrew Murrison Excerpts(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Leo Docherty
I am very grateful for my hon. Friend’s contribution. Like him, I have enjoyed travelling in Russia—in Moscow, St Petersburg and many other cities—and I have always been very touched by the Russian people’s hospitality and tremendous sense of pride in the magnificent Russian heritage and culture, which we should all enjoy. He is right that our argument is with the Russian state, not the Russian people.
As I have said, our Prime Minister achieved a tremendous diplomatic coup, but our resolve and response must also be in the conventional sphere. I am very pleased, therefore, that we now contribute some 800 soldiers to the enhanced forward presence—a combined NATO presence in Estonia and other Baltic states and eastern countries. That is a very clear signal that we will commit conventional forces to deter Russian aggression on NATO’s borders.
We must also be aware that our deployment to Estonia and our contribution to the enhanced forward presence contains a lesson, which is that we urgently need to relearn our ability to exercise, deploy and sustain military force at scale. We have not done that since the end of the cold war. We must take note of the fact that, this week, the Russian military is conducting a large-scale military exercise—the Vostok manoeuvres—involving some 300,000 soldiers in eastern Siberia. Our NATO equivalent, which also takes place this month, will involve 40,000 soldiers. We need to relearn those lessons urgently, and I hope they will be incorporated into the modernising defence programme. Simply put, the British Army needs two fully manned, fully equipped divisions that can be deployed at reach and sustained for as long as we need them to complete those sorts of operations.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I very much support everything my hon. Friend is saying. Does he agree that, in retrospect, it was perhaps a bit premature to abolish, as part of the strategic defence and security review in 2010, the joint chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear regiment, which was created in 1999? He will have noticed members of our armed forces on the streets of Salisbury recently, and if there were incidents of that sort in the future, possibly involving biological or nuclear devices as an alternative to the chemical one that was deployed on this occasion, we might need the kind of expertise that we thought we were growing from the Royal Tank Regiment and the Royal Air Force regiment in 1999.
Leo Docherty
I agree entirely. We need to maintain the ability to react to chemical, biological and nuclear warfare, and I hope that lesson will be contained in the findings of the modernising defence programme, which should be announced towards the end of the year.
The approach of achieving peace through strength is something we learned in our historical dealings with Russia; it is not new. Indeed, in 1858, our Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, declared:
“The policy and practice of the Russian Government has always been to push forward its encroachments as far and as fast as the apathy or want of firmness of other Governments will allow them to go, and always to stop and retire whenever it was met by decided resistance.”
Lord Palmerston knew what he was talking about, because at that point he had just concluded, in victorious fashion, the Crimean war with Russia.
I will finish by saying that this decided resistance—this resolve—has been exemplified in a superb fashion by our Prime Minister and our emergency services. I hope and am confident that this resolve throughout our Government, our armed forces and our emergency services will be maintained in our dealings with Russia long into the future.
Mr Wallace
The casual 21st century—it is becoming a bad habit! I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.
There are things on which we disagree fundamentally, but my opening speech was not an attack on the Labour party or the left collectively. We can argue about our methods, but I do not doubt people’s patriotism on the left at all. I have served as a soldier with people who voted Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and the rest. Our patriotism has nothing to do with our politics.
The incident in Salisbury was an appalling and despicable act. Operatives of the Russian military and intelligence service deployed an illegal chemical nerve agent on the streets of Britain. This intentional act resulted in the death of an innocent woman and left four others fighting for their lives. Our thoughts remain with all those affected, particularly the family and friends of Dawn Sturgess. I acknowledge once again the dedication and professionalism of the emergency services and the staff at Salisbury District Hospital and of the police and security and intelligence services.
In summing up, I should set out what we have done to return Salisbury to normal. I thank the police and experts from Public Health England for their hard work in ensuring that the public spaces immediately affected by the incident are once again accessible and safe. I extend my thanks to the Defence, Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down, where more than 430 world-leading scientists and experts have been providing specialist advice and assistance to Wiltshire police, the well-led Wiltshire County Council and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I also thank the military personnel for their support in helping to clean up Salisbury and return it to normal as quickly as possible while ensuring public safety. They did this at risk to themselves. Obviously, they were wearing protective clothing, but who knew early on how widely this deadly nerve agent had been spread and the risk posed?
The clean-up work by DEFRA is well under way on a small number of potentially contaminated sites to bring them back into safe use for the people of Salisbury and Amesbury and their visitors. In total, nine sites were identified from the first incident in Salisbury as requiring some level of specialist decontamination. This work is now complete at six sites. The three other sites remain cordoned off so that the clean-up work can be carried out safely.
In connection with the June incident in Amesbury, there are currently three sites of decontamination. In addition, 21 vehicles involved in the response to the first incident, in March—a mixture of emergency response vehicles and private vehicles—have been moved to a hazardous landfill site. The clean-up process on the streets of Salisbury and Amesbury has been comprehensive and exhaustive, and I am content to say that it is our assessment that all the areas that have been handed back after the decontamination process are now safe. Indeed, I visited a number of those sites in Salisbury last Monday, and it was good to see the people of Salisbury back to normal: cafés were full, people were enjoying the park, and children were paddling in the river. We should pay tribute to the people of Salisbury, who have not been put off by this horrendous incident, and who are determined to get that wonderful cathedral city back to normal.
I must, however, echo the advice of the chief medical officer. We must ensure that the public remain vigilant. It is important to guarantee that no other materials are present elsewhere. As other Members have already pointed out, it is vital that the public continue to follow the advice of the chief medical officer, and not to pick up anything that they do not recognise as an item that they themselves have dropped. We must continue to be guided by that advice, and we must give the police, the local council and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs the space and resources that they need to proceed with their valuable work ensuring public safety.
It is with that in mind that I again pay tribute to the patience and resilience of the people of Salisbury. I also pay tribute to the city council and, indeed, to the county council for its response to what was not only an outrageous attack, but a situation that was highly complex and difficult to deal with. Who would plan, who would regularly exercise, for the releasing of a nerve agent on our streets? They acted extremely professionally, and, on behalf of my officials, I must express my gratitude for the way we were able to work together to deliver the right package of decontamination to help to reassure the public—and, indeed, to deliver a package to support the local community and help it to put itself back together.
Dr Murrison
I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend: the resilience of the people of Salisbury is remarkable. One group that he has not mentioned—I am sure that it is inadvertent—are the healthcare workers who were involved, particularly those at Salisbury District Hospital. The rapidity with which an extremely unusual set of symptoms was diagnosed accurately at the hospital was truly remarkable and an exemplar. Had that not been the case, the outcomes might not have been as favourable as they were. My right hon. Friend will recall that the media were talking of the imminent demise of the Skripals, and the fact that that has not occurred is largely due to the expertise deployed at Salisbury District Hospital.
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend may not have been present at the beginning of the debate. In my opening speech, I paid considerable tribute—as did the hon. Member for Torfaen—to the staff and clinicians, and to the paramedics who initially went to the victims’ aid. We were incredibly lucky, not only with the professionalism that we encountered in Salisbury, but because of Salisbury’s proximity to the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and the knowledge that it could provide. Some of the clinicians had, in the past, had expertise in or knowledge of matters of this kind. That was a significant piece of luck. We could have been looking at a worse situation had this happened a long way away from where it did.
Let me return to our support for the council and the people of Salisbury. The Government have committed a £10 million package to support local businesses, to boost tourism, and to meet some of the policing pressures. In the coming weeks and months, we will continue to work alongside the council and businesses to identify further or exceptional cases arising from the incident, to ensure that Salisbury, Amesbury and, indeed, Wiltshire are not adversely affected by events that were completely out of their control.
I also note Members’ concern about the pressure that was placed on Wiltshire’s vital public services, including the local police and NHS. I am happy to commit myself to ensuring that neither will be left financially worse off as a result of the events of March and June. So far we have provided £6.6 million in special grant funding for Wiltshire constabulary, and we will continue to work closely with the local police forces and health services to identify rapidly when and where further funding is needed.
As I have said, painstaking and methodical police investigation has identified sufficient evidence to allow the Crown Prosecution Service to bring charges against two Russian nationals for the attack. These same two Russian nationals are also the prime suspects in the investigation into the poisoning of Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, and both incidents now form a single investigation.
The two suspects were from Russian military intelligence. It was not a rogue operation, and the attack was almost certainly approved at the senior levels of the Russian state. Ultimately, though, how and why this decision was taken are questions that the Russian state can answer. The action we have taken against Russia since April constitutes some of the toughest packages of measures we have ever taken. Many Members contributed today with regard to the next steps and I want to respond to a number of them.
The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) talked about sanctions. I am as keen as he is to use the sanctions mechanism to tackle and push back against Russian activity, including illicit finance. The sanctions he highlighted in respect of Estonia and the other Baltic states relate to travel bans. We have that power already and use it on a case-by-case basis to deter people, stop or exclude people from coming to this country; we have used it and we will continue to use it, not just around this particular issue but around many other issues. Also, there is already in place an EU-wide sanction list covering 150 individuals, including the chief of the general staff and prominent people in the GRU; it is like a “Who’s Who” of the Russian state, linked to both Crimea and the leadership of Russia and its security. It makes for interesting reading: the European Council journal document is comprehensive, with the siloviki—the internal security state of Russia—named in considerable numbers. I do not think that the list would be very different if it were compiled purely on the Salisbury incident; it is a fairly comprehensive list, and so long as we remain in the EU we will press to keep it up to date and in place, not only with regard to Salisbury but in recognition of the fact that Crimea was invaded by another sovereign state.
My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) will know only too well that Russian state activity extends a lot further than just the south-east. Barrow-in-Furness, the home of our submarine manufacturing, is not far from her constituency, and for many years what goes on up there has been of interest to a number of states. We must remember that hostile states are not only concerned about London and the centre; we saw action in a cathedral city in England and we see activity up and down our country. That is true of Scotland as well, and I welcome the strong support of the SNP Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins). He made some clear points about the good influence of Russia in Scotland and vice versa, but about the negative influence Russia could have on the people of Scotland, too. We should note that the SNP support has been extremely strong, and I welcome that.
I heard the discussion between the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) about Russia Today. My instinct is that we are better than Russia. I think RT is like a comic channel—I do not find it sensible at all—but we do not go around banning media outlets. That is the job of totalitarian and other such states. We ask media outlets to comply with the regulation of Ofcom, the regulator, and if Ofcom makes a recommendation, it makes a recommendation; it will not be interfered with by Ministers, and it will not be up to me to tell it to go and pick on people. We believe in that type of operational independence and we should not forget that it is what makes us better than them.
That also goes to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) about soft power: the power of these hostile states to use our open media sometimes to manipulate us and our political systems and spread seeds of doubt.
I am now going to say something rather controversial from the Conservative Benches. I am an incredible fan of the BBC, and one of the things that gives me hope that the United Kingdom is not as vulnerable as some other countries to that type of malign behaviour is that our mainstream media—ITV, Sky, BBC News—usually all start from the point of view of accepting the same facts. They might interpret them differently, but they are a vital reference point in what is in this century a hectic, crowded and shouty social media space. To me, the soft power of the BBC World Service and the BBC’s reputation, as well as of ITV’s main news, is really important, and I hope that it will help to protect us from some of that malign disinformation. If that means that I have to swallow some of the things that the BBC says about me and my Government, I shall just live with it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough also asked what more we could do about internationalising the response and keeping it going, and about reaffirming our commitment to the international rules-based system. I was at the G7 in Toronto discussing these matters. We should not underestimate how supportive the international community is, not only of our response but of our view of the Russian state and where it has got to today. Other countries may express themselves differently, and they may do things in the covert space rather than in the overt space, but there is a genuine recognition not just by the Five Eyes, the NATO members and the European states but by middle eastern and Asian states that this is unacceptable and a dangerous direction for Russia to be taking. Those nations know that if Russia can use a nerve agent here, it could do it anywhere. We have felt no weakening of that resolve, and we will continue to invest in it to ensure that the international response is the way to proceed.
As ever, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) made a brilliant speech. Not only was it proportionate and necessary, but he made the point that we have to respond in a proportionate and necessary way. This is another thing that makes us different from those kinds of regimes. Yes, we could indulge ourselves by going beyond what is proportionate and necessary, and we could appeal to the populist agenda on certain occasions, but what keeps the international community and our free media with us is the fact that our responses are proportionate and necessary. Throughout this debate, we have talked about suspects and people whom we wish to put on trial. We have not convicted them. I hope that justice will catch up with them and that they will face trial one day.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty) talked about the predominantly military activity that we are seeing at the moment, with Russia entering our airspace, the major exercises taking place on some of our allies’ borders and the stepping up of the military rhetoric. That is a matter of serious concern to our allies, because some of the Baltic states are not far away from those large exercises. We question whether their purpose is purely to exercise soldiers rather than making a menacing statement to people Russia disagrees with.
Coming back to a point made by the hon. Member for Aberavon and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who is no longer in his place, I understand the impatience felt by many Members about illicit finance and about locking up or dealing with people they view as oligarchs funded with illicit money or criminals. Carrying out investigations into those types of people is a difficult, resource-intensive and complex thing. In the case of a number of those people, we will get there from around the world, not from one particular country, based on who presents the most threat, who could do the most harm, who has stolen the most money or who is corrupting us here. Those will be the guiding principles, but the biggest guiding principle will be the operational independence of our law enforcement agencies.
Again, what makes us different is that I do not sit in my ministerial office picking up the phone and telling our police to pick on whoever I choose. Of course, Ministers can push, test and question how much resource the police are putting in and how much resolve they are committing. We can ask whether they are picking up on public opinion or on the desire to do something. We can help them with priorities when it comes to the reputation of the United Kingdom. Ultimately, however, it is about the decisions of professionals, coupled with advice from the CPS and others, about how and when we take action against individuals.
This Government could not be clearer. We want action on illicit finance. We passed the Criminal Finances Act 2017 and the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. The Labour party passed the Bribery Act 2010 and we implemented it. We have produced a suite of legislation that allows us to take the matter on and to build Britain’s reputation as a better, more transparent place in which to do business. That is why I was pleased that we moved from 10th to eighth in Transparency International’s rankings. We are moving up, not down. I feel the impatience of others, but things are not easy when we are dealing with people with layers of facilitators and so on.
Many right hon. and hon Members made the point that the Russian people are our friends. We all have the highest regard for Russian culture and the Russian contribution to our history. This is not Russophobia or an attempt at regime change; this is about dealing with unacceptable, reckless, dangerous, aggressive behaviour by the agencies of the Russian state—the GRU in this case—and a direct challenge to our values, not only in the west but around the world, and to the international rule of law. Thanks to our values and perhaps our size, this country has decided that we are going to take a stand. Perhaps that is why they choose to attack us here in our country; we represent the very things they hate.
When I say that we are better than them, that sometimes costs us something. It means that we have a freer media and open travel, which gets abused by people coming to carry out the attack in Salisbury, for example. However, that is the cost of being better. The strongest message that we can send to Mr Putin in response to the Salisbury incident is that we are better than them. We have identified the people whom we suspect carried out this attack. We seek justice, but not summary justice, and we will continue to pursue them. We are not just going to sit back and say, “That’s enough.” We are going to press and push back the malign activity of the Russian state if we see it in our media, the military space, the espionage space or cyber-space, and we will do that using the resources that we have invested in over decades.
I am grateful that the whole House has been united on this issue, on the response and on pushing back against Russia, but my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham was right about our actions being proportionate and necessary because we also have to resolve the situation. There have been lots of outrageous events, but our aim is to have good relations with the Russians one day. It is worth their while reversing some of their actions and their views. We want to get them back into the international order of things. We cannot demonise or act recklessly; our actions must be proportionate and necessary. We will defend our values. We will pursue the individuals involved for justice. I am proud of the work of the people of Salisbury, the NHS, the blue-light services and the intelligence services in dealing with the horrendous incidents in March and June, and we will not let up the pressure.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the Salisbury incident.
Windrush
Andrew Murrison Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
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Ms Abbott
A number of hon. Members want to contribute to this important debate, and I am anxious to make progress.
Ministers now express their concern about the Windrush generation, saying that they came here, were invited and have contributed to this country’s prosperity. I might add that the Windrush generation enriched us in many other ways too, socially and culturally. That is what migrants do. Overwhelmingly, they come to build a better life for themselves and their family—wherever they are from, wherever they are going—and in building a better life for themselves and their family, they contribute to the prosperity of all. That is why it is time that we had a more positive narrative on migration.
As we heard earlier, Government Members and Ministers would far prefer to talk about illegal immigration than the plight of the Windrush generation. As I said earlier, no one on the Opposition Benches supports illegal migration. We are all in favour of the removal of people who are here illegally. We could start with the number of prisoners who judges have directed should be removed at end of sentence, but many are not removed because of an organisational failure by the Home Office in getting the paperwork correct.
For our part, the Labour party has pledged to recruit 500 extra border guards to deal with illegal immigration, people and drug trafficking, and smuggling. We do not want to support illegal immigrants; we want to prevent people who do not have the right to be here from entering the country. This Government and their immediate predecessors cut the border guards, so it is distressing to hear them talk about illegal immigration, rather than focusing on what is happening to the Windrush generation.
The Windrush generation are here legally, yet they continue to be talked about by some Government Members as if they were here illegally. The Government were warned that negative outcomes for Commonwealth citizens who had been here for decades would be a consequence of their hostile environment policy. Many people in the House warned them, including myself, as well as many others outside the House.
Ms Abbott
I am afraid not. I am trying to make progress.
The warnings from the Opposition and individuals such as myself, and from all sorts of stakeholders, were ignored. The Government ploughed ahead regardless, with the consequences that we all see.
I also want to point out to the House that the Windrush generation includes people who came here as children before 1973. They have to be considered. In some cases, a lack of the documentation that the Home Office has only recently begun to insist on under this Government means that grandchildren may be caught up as well. All of this must end.
Ms Abbott
It does not seem that we have moved away from the Windrush situation altogether if somebody is being asked for two pieces of documentation for every year they have been here, as that was the problem for the Windrush generation—excessively rigid demands for documentation and no proper guidance.
Ms Abbott
No.
So the children of people who came here before 1973 have to be considered, and as my hon. Friends have said, the scandal also includes those who came from many other Commonwealth countries, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and countries in west Africa. It is not just about the Caribbean; these cases arise now only because many of those people came here—were invited here—earlier than the others.
In speaking about the Commonwealth, I made this point in my urgent question earlier in the week: this is an issue that has resonated around the Commonwealth—it is front-page news not just in the Caribbean, but in a range of Commonwealth countries. The point I was trying to put over to the Home Secretary is that, when we are trying to build our relationships with the Commonwealth for trade and other reasons—post-Brexit certainly, but I would support it in any event—what has been revealed about the way Commonwealth citizens have been treated is extremely damaging. That is not the most important reason to clear up this mess, but it is a reason to clear it up. I hope that the Home Secretary understands that.
Ms Abbott
As I was saying, Members of the Windrush generation and people who live in Commonwealth countries will be watching this debate, and they will have heard Government Members laugh. They will get the sense that Government Members are not taking this matter entirely seriously.
Dr Murrison
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The right hon. Lady just referred to this as a debate. I seek your guidance on whether this can legitimately be described as a debate given that the right hon. Lady consistently refuses to take interventions from Conservative Members.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Dr Murrison, you and I both know that that is definitely not a point of order. I will repeat what I said at the beginning, which is that it is up to each individual whether they wish to give way. That is how the House works and it is how the House will continue.
Health, Social Care and Security
Andrew Murrison Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Dr Whitford
I am not saying that the local authority was scrimping and saving because it did not have money; it was because it was not spending the money. It used cheap panels and it did not put in sprinklers. Some 600-plus buildings across London and England are covered in panels that clearly contain flammable materials. We hear from Camden that fire doors were missing, despite millions of pounds having been spent. As Ben Okri says in his poem, there has been a focus on surface and appearance rather than on the substance of such buildings and the protection of people who live in them.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I always listen to the hon. Lady with care and respect, but I appeal to her to look at the evidence base before making the remarks that she has. Words are important. We have established an inquiry that will establish the facts and make recommendations. Until then, with the greatest respect, I think that her remarks are premature.
Dr Whitford
The hon. Gentleman may feel that my remarks are premature with regard to Grenfell, but they are not when it comes to Lakanal, Irvine or other terrible fires that were clearly shown to relate to cladding and where sprinklers could have made a difference.
We have been repeatedly warned over the past 18 years and we have not taken action. The people in Grenfell died not only because of fire regulations, but because of inequality. They lived in the richest borough in the richest city, yet they were among the most poor and vulnerable. That tower stands like a black monolith shadowing the whole city and this place. The people in it were not well served.
We see people dying in Grenfell, suddenly—the drama and the horror. Yet people die of inequality, poverty and deprivation all the time. There is a 20-year gap in longevity between the richest and poorest, both in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy. Some 1,400 children under 15 die every year as a direct result of poverty—that is like the roof of a secondary school collapsing on them every year. If that happened, surely we would take action.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
It is good to see you back in your place, Madam Deputy Speaker.
We have been treated to a range of excellent maiden speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Gordon (Colin Clark) and for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami), and the hon. Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams). They obviously have the measure of this place already, because not one of them is left in the Chamber, but in his absence, I reassure the hon. Member for Stockton South that we can never have too many doctors in the House.
I welcome the commitment in the Queen’s Speech to improving social care, and I welcome the plans for a consultation. All of us who have gone through the general election process—certainly on the Government Benches—will be aware of the importance of this issue. We may even recall the 2015 manifesto commitment, on which we stood, to implement something that looked a little bit like Dilnot. Most of us at the time thought that was a jolly good idea.
Our public services are all about pooled risk. That is what the NHS and our social services are all about—in everything, it seems, except for dementia and other chronic and long-term conditions that require ongoing care. For most of us, they will not actually be that expensive. Mercifully, for most of us dementia care will not be expensive. It is a condition that affects us right at the very end of our life and very few of us will require institutional care. For a few of us, however, it will be expensive. For those people and their families it will be a matter of huge importance, as many of us, particularly those of us on the Government Benches, found out a few weeks ago to our great cost. It seems reasonable that we should indeed have a Dilnot-style cap on our liability for these extraordinary costs that affect a few of us—a number of our families. It is surely right that we should do so, and I have no doubt that that will come out loud and clear in the consultation.
I very much welcome the commitment to mental health in the Queen’s Speech. I am particularly interested in mental health so far as it relates to the criminal justice system. It is welcome that we should be revising the Mental Health Act 1983. It has been a good piece of legislation and has served us well, but it is due for revision and updating. Some 10% of women and 30% of men in the criminal justice system have had some involvement with mental health services, or had to access acute mental health services prior to their incarceration. Ninety per cent. of people in the criminal justice system have some form of mental health problem. That is a huge indictment not, I would suggest, of the service, but of all of us. It is absolutely right that in our general attempt to reduce the rate of incarceration in this country, which is far too high, we focus particularly on the people in the prison system who have serious and significant mental health problems.
I very much welcome the focus on general practice articulated by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and his Ministers. The service, it has to be said, is under pressure. It is certainly running hot, and my worry about the medical workforce—GPs, hospital doctors and nurses, and everybody who works in our NHS—is that we risk allowing the well of good will not just to get low but to run completely dry.
It is absolutely right that we should now look at removing the cap on pay for public sector workers, and that we should think in particular about those working in our health services. These people give far more back to the service than we give to them, in terms of the package, and those of us who go into medicine, healthcare or social care understand that. We do it because we want to give something back. We are altruists, but that only goes so far. When we have to support our families, pay the mortgage and deal with everything that bears down on people in their working lives, it is pretty rotten to see salaries increasing, rightly, in the general economy but not in the public service. It is absolutely understandable that the Government, as a big employer, should seek to contain cost. As an evangelist for reducing our deficit, I will support that, but there comes a point—I welcome the Government’s indication that it is rapidly approaching—when we have to look at pay settlement for those who work so well for us in the public sector.
I am absolutely obsessed by outcomes in healthcare; the Secretary of State will know that, because we have discussed it. Healthcare outcomes in this country languish behind those of countries with which we can reasonably be compared, and I do not mean the OECD average. I mean countries such as France, Germany and Holland. On Britain’s disappointing position in the league tables, we must do more to improve on things such as bowel cancer and cervical cancer, on which we are overtaking France and Germany respectively. We need to do that right across the board. I am left with the conclusion that because money, inputs and outcomes are causally related, we have to get the funding right.
I hope very much that the Government will consider again the proposal put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) that we should achieve consensus through a cross-party commission on this issue, so that we can discuss, in the NHS’s 70th anniversary year, how to get sustainable funding for our NHS and make sure that this great national institution is fit for the next 70 years.
Several hon. Members rose—