Manufacturing

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I will give way again.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman has obviously excited a lot of interest with his suggestion. Will he consider the American model of community banks, which have stood the test of time and served their communities?

[Guy Opperman]

My hon. Friend anticipates my next move, which is to say that such matters are already road-tested in other jurisdictions in other countries. Sadly, the FSA is reluctant to change its regulatory system. I have heard other examples of its failing to meet individuals who want to provide local financing—something that would be immensely good for local communities and could provide a flexible approach. Instead of being stuck with a loan from Barclays, for example, people would have a much lower flexible interest rate and adopt a much more interesting way to recuperate their finances at a later stage when the company was in profit. Banking would be local. We all know what happens when we are approached by a constituent when a business is in trouble. The decisions in relation to such financing are made not in Hexham or Newcastle or even in the north-east, but in a place such as Nottingham or Leatherhead or, ultimately, in London. That must change.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Birtwistle]

I am grateful to the Minister for that assurance and I hope that that continues.

When I started in manufacturing some 53 years ago, manufacturing was 40% of the country’s gross domestic product and a balance of payments surplus was delivered every month. What on earth would the Chancellor think of having a constant balance of payments surplus now rather than the negative position we have? As manufacturing was so big, lots of apprenticeships were available through local companies that delivered the products that the country needed. The unemployment rate for young people was very low. When I left school, I applied for many apprenticeships throughout Lancashire. Most young people with whom I went to school achieved an apprenticeship in some industry or other. The vast majority of people in those days did not go to university; many people would have liked to have gone, but they could not, so they spent their time being apprentices and learning skills in the old-fashioned way by making things and having a trade.

I do not want to make this political, but I have to point out that under the last Labour Government, manufacturing fell from 22% to 11%. Even Mrs Thatcher did not achieve such a drop—she only managed to get it from 25% to 21%. Manufacturing has a number of variables to overcome. They include how the industry is perceived by young people, the lack of skills, and the lack of investment and of research and development. One of the biggest challenges to manufacturers in my constituency is finding enough skilled workers to carry out the incredibly technical jobs that are available. More must be done to change the image of industry to make it attractive to young people. I know that those who undertake skilled apprenticeships will end up with great jobs working on interesting projects, earning decent salaries and probably with a job for life.

A lot of damage has been done over the past 10 years to the image of manufacturing and vocational courses. A priority for the Government and for our successful and well-known manufacturers is changing the perception of manufacturing, especially among the young. We have become a country relying on a fragile financial sector and on the service industries. If young people were asked what they thought manufacturing was, they would probably respond that it is dirty and grimy. That is not the case. We need to show young people that there is more to manufacturing—that it is about maths and science, about design and innovation, about robots and computers. Manufacturing and technology in the food industry, for example, are phenomenal. There are so many different areas in the manufacturing sector and they are all innovative and exciting sectors to work in.

Controlling the supply side of our skills deficit is but part of the problem. As important is ensuring that both new entrants and existing employees in manufacturing are sufficiently upskilled to meet the demands of British employers. The preparation work needs to begin in schools. We know, for example, that pupils who take three separate science subjects at GCSE are more likely to study science, technology, engineering and maths later in their educational careers. If we can tackle the problem at source, and improve the rigour of the subjects and the number of pupils studying them, it will have a cumulative impact on the calibre of graduates entering the job market.

[Lorely Burt]

Does my hon. Friend agree that a great way to get youngsters more excited and involved is to have closer collaboration between employers and schools, so that children can see what it is they aspire to do, and therefore choose to take the subjects to which he refers?

[Gordon Birtwistle]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend and I will come on to an initiative in my constituency related to that suggestion.

In my constituency we have Burnley college, a joint FE-HE campus working with local firms to train highly skilled youngsters to be ready for the world of work. We are also getting a university technical college that will bring young people into the industrial life. Burnley college has made huge leaps in changing the perception of manufacturing locally among young people, and if the model the college uses were introduced across the UK, it would go a huge way towards really changing the perception of manufacturing at a national level. More schools and colleges need to start joining up with local businesses to provide youngsters with the knowledge and experience that will help them in the world of work. Too many children do not have any experience of working, or of the personal and other skills required. I will continue to encourage the Government to introduce impartial careers advice from the age of 11. Indeed, we should start careers advice long before young people go to secondary school.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

I draw the hon. Lady’s attention to the fact that the Health and Social Care Bill proposes for the first time a duty on the Secretary of State to have regard to health inequalities, which, I repeat, widened under the previous Government. I also point out to her that the letter to peers signed by Professor Marmot and others welcomed the emphasis on establishing a closer working relationship between public health and local government. I suggest that the hon. Lady gets out more, because she would hear from public health doctors and local authorities on the ground who welcome these changes.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

5. What steps he is taking to reduce the burden on NHS hospitals of (a) PFI repayments and (b) debt.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

A study conducted by the Treasury has identified savings opportunities of up to 5% on annual payments in NHS PFI schemes. The Cabinet’s Efficiency and Reform Group is rolling out a programme of work to secure savings of up to £1.5 billion across the 495 PFI contracts in the public sector in England.

[Lorely Burt]

Contrary to the earlier complacent comments of the Opposition spokesman, some national health trusts are paying up to 20% of their revenue to PFI contracts. What steps can we take to ensure that the payments are reduced and that the same terrible financial situation never happens again?

[Mr Burns]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I, too, recognise the small number of organisations that are reporting financial challenges. The Department is continuing to work with strategic health authorities to ensure that those organisations have robust plans in place for financial recovery, while ensuring the quality of services for patients.

Maternity Services

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I wanted to have today’s debate on maternity services for three reasons. One is the confidential inquiry into intrapartum-related death, conducted by the Perinatal Institute in Birmingham in October 2010. Incidentally, its director is one of my constituents, which, of course, adds to the quality of the report.

Secondly, I vividly remember an article in The Sun during the election campaign in 2010, in which the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) clearly promised 3,000 extra midwives. The third reason is last night’s debate on the Government’s health reforms. The three are unfortunately related.

I will begin with the report. An enormous amount of good work is being done in maternity services and provision, and the Birmingham women’s hospital in my constituency provides excellent care. The west midlands should not feel that it is being singled out. It was simply the first area that took a good, honest look at what is happening and, therefore, has produced figures from which the rest of the country can learn. The west midlands is an area of huge diversity, both in income and ethnic background. Roughly speaking, it has 70,000 deliveries a year, which account for 10% of live births in England and Wales. It also has about 10% of babies who die from intrapartum-related causes—that is, events surrounding labour and child birth.

In 2006, the chief medical officer highlighted the fact that one of his areas of particular concern was intrapartum-related death. In a national report in the 1990s, that was continually highlighted as requiring more attention, but the figures did not show any particular improvement. For that reason, the Perinatal Institute decided to look at that area. We know that in politics to be described as “brave” sometimes means “foolhardy”. However, in this case the institute was brave to look at the figures honestly. It looked at 25 cases that caused concern. The full report is available on the institute’s website. It found that of those 25 cases, in four there was substandard care and different management would have made no difference to the outcome.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

As another west midlands MP—the Heart of England trust covers my constituency—I wonder whether the hon. Lady has noticed any problems with care of parents after neonatal death. I have the charity Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society, SANDS, in my constituency—as I expect she has—and it is most concerned about the quality of care for parents following the death of a baby.

[Ms Stuart]

I have come across SANDS. The Heart of England trust did some work, which I will consider later, whereby it looked at midwives’ case load and found it to be far higher than required. Incidents are spread across an area and each of us probably sees only one or two cases occasionally. The real problem comes when we look across the city and the west midlands. We should pay tribute to SANDS and its work and to the bereavement nurses it has now put in hospitals. They are in east Birmingham and in my patch. However, that is not good enough.

Coming back to the 25 cases, in four cases of substandard care, different management would not have made a difference. In five cases, it might have made a difference to the outcome, but in 16 cases, different management would reasonably have been expected to make a difference to the outcome. In other words, 84% of the deaths were considered potentially avoidable. The overall conclusion that the report reached looking at the west midlands was that many deaths were avoidable and need to be avoided. That is why we need to discuss this report and decide what to do about that.

This is not a particular west midlands problem; it is just that the west midlands has been the first to take an honest look.

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[Ms Stuart]

I am sure the Minister will be grateful for that helpful intervention. However, have we not been told that the NHS is ring-fenced? That is how I understand it. Therefore, the financial argument really does not hold.

I would like to analyse what the Prime Minister said a little more. He went on:

“It doesn’t have to be like this…First, we’re going to create new maternity networks…Second, we are going to make our midwives’ lives a lot easier. They are crucial to making a mum’s experience of birth as good as it can possibly be, but today they are overworked and demoralised. So we will increase the number of midwives by 3,000. This is the maternity care parents want: more local and more personal. And under a Conservative Government, it is what they’ll get.”

[Lorely Burt]

As the Prime Minister said, the aspiration should be for more local and more personalised services. However, in my local hospital at Solihull, the full maternity service has unfortunately been downgraded as a fait accompli, and instead of 2,700 births a year, we are led to expect only 300. Does the hon. Lady agree that that hardly offers the choice, localism and personal service that we should seek to achieve anywhere in the country?

[Ms Stuart]

I will respond to that point before returning to my favourite subject of the Prime Minister’s promises. The hon. Lady is right: there is always a huge tension between local and more centralised delivery. My first Adjournment debate in this Chamber as a junior Minister was about the closure of the William Courtauld maternity unit in Braintree in Essex. It had about 300 deliveries, and there was always a tension about whether services should be offered there or in Colchester. We need both. However, when campaigning to keep local maternity units, we should note that the Royal College of Nursing looked at changes in maternity care. It stated that, apart from the rise in numbers, there are more older mothers with higher rates of complications, and there is a higher rate of multiple births and more obese women who are less fit for pregnancy. More women survive serious childhood illness and go on to have children, and they need extra care during pregnancy and childbirth. There are also increasing rates of intervention.

Therefore, apart from social and ethnic diversity, some births are becoming increasingly complicated. If the hon. Lady were to go to the Birmingham women’s hospital, where women who have had heart transplants give birth, she would see that a safe delivery might require not only the expertise of the women’s hospital, but that of the Queen Elizabeth hospital next door. There is always a natural tension between localism and the best care. The real answer is that we need both.