Air Pollution

Debate between Baroness Gardner of Parkes and Baroness Northover

Monday 22nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord is quite right to give the figure of 29,000 premature deaths per year because of pollution. I will get him the information that he requires from the department.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, the area in which I live in London is considered one of the worst in the UK. Is it not a fact that we have been in breach of the European Union directives for many years and that the EU keeps extending the time before we have to pay the penalty? Does that not seem to be a very unsatisfactory position?

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Baroness is not quite right. There are a number of measures and the United Kingdom has worked incredibly hard to try to meet these; for example, on particulate matter, which is very significant, the UK met EU requirements for the PM10 measure in 2011. In addition, 22 out of 27 states are struggling to meet the nitrogen dioxide directive, largely because of problems with diesel vehicles. So across the board countries are finding this a challenge. We are working very hard to ensure that we comply, aiming for later this decade.

Women: Rights

Debate between Baroness Gardner of Parkes and Baroness Northover

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for what she has done in Wales. She knows how difficult it has been. She will also be aware that there is a better gender balance in the Welsh Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the European Parliament. All of them have a proportional electoral system. That was put to the British electorate and they decided against it for the House of Commons, but she knows that it is more difficult on a first past the post system to get gender balance—and she will know that from looking around the world.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords—

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

Is the Minister aware that this country was one of the first to pass an equal opportunities Act, but it was a long, slow process to move on from there to change the culture and attitudes not only in this country but world wide? Female genital mutilation is an example. Does she not think that progress is being made?

[Baroness Northover]

It is a long, slow process and we have much to do here. As noble Lords are well aware, their disproportionate responsibility for children, caring for elderly parents and so on hold women back in this country. We must make sure that men and women, families and society as a whole ensure that those responsibilities are shared. We are fortunate in many regards in comparison with women around the world. She flags a problem, which my honourable friend Lynne Featherstone is tackling, which afflicts girls in this country and, particularly, overseas and is an indication of the status of women.

Poverty: Developing Countries

Debate between Baroness Gardner of Parkes and Baroness Northover

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord is right. DfID does indeed identify the particular problems of widows in the DRC and has programmes to support them. Again, he is right that widows often lose their land when widowed, and one of the programmes that DfID is carrying out not only in the DRC but elsewhere is to support the rights of women in that situation to land when widowed.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, I think it is a very good thing that the Government are supporting—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

Returning to my point, I was for many years the chairman of the UK branch of PLAN International, which has a programme of helping to educate children and also provides great help to widows in many countries. I am glad that the Minister mentioned that the Government are doing what they can but one very big problem arises in countries where all inheritance goes to a male relative. Women find that they suddenly have nothing because their husband’s brother or one of their husband’s brother’s sons has inherited everything. I hope that she will press the Governments of the world on this matter. I think that Uganda has changed this law and that has made a dramatic difference to women. Will she press Commonwealth countries and other countries in general to look into this further?

[Baroness Northover]

My noble friend is right, and it follows on from the previous Question about equal rights, whether to land or other property. I do not know what hereditary Peers would make of that. Nevertheless, that is what we support.

UN: Sustainable Development and Family Planning

Debate between Baroness Gardner of Parkes and Baroness Northover

Monday 19th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Baroness is right. This is a circular issue: where girls have more access to education you see the birth rate coming down, and where the birth rate is coming down girls have more access to education. When families are able to choose, they tend to choose to have fewer children and to invest more in them, and that certainly includes education.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, is it not a fact that, in these countries where health standards are improving and children live longer, there is no longer any need to have a very large family because so many die very young? This comes back to the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar; that educating mothers, in particular, in health processes and in how to care for their children and for their health will have an effect.

[Baroness Northover]

My noble friend is right, and I emphasise again the importance of investing in education, which then has the effects that she is talking about. I note also what are described as the demographic dividends: if you have fewer children who are dependent and therefore an expansion of the working-age population, there is an economic benefit to the countries in question. That is regarded as one of the factors in the development of the east Asian countries in particular.

Health: Cancer

Debate between Baroness Gardner of Parkes and Baroness Northover

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

Pancreatic cancer is an extremely difficult cancer to diagnose. As the noble Lord knows, when it is picked up it is often very advanced and survival rates are very poor indeed. The Government are well aware of the problems here. My honourable friend Paul Burstow in the other place is meeting Pancreatic Cancer UK shortly. I hope that the noble Lord will feed into that. If he has an association with that organisation, can he put his questions to it so that they can be fed to Paul Burstow, or alternatively to me?

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, is it not a fact that the great improvement in cancer treatment is due to early detection? It is important to keep people trained in that, particularly for the rare cancers that I am always talking about. Do the Government not feel that we owe a great deal to the cancer and research charities that are continuing to do very useful work in alerting people to the need for early detection?

[Baroness Northover]

My noble friend is absolutely right. We owe a huge amount to the organisations in the United Kingdom, not least Cancer Research UK, which is a major player internationally. She is also right about early diagnosis. That is how you start to bring deaths down; you make sure that you diagnose early enough so that you can intervene in a way that is going to be much more effective. Noble Lords might like to know that there will be a first ever national cancer campaign on bowel cancer to flag up the symptoms to people in the hope that they seek diagnosis at a much earlier stage, because if it is caught early it is completely curable.

NHS: Joint Replacement Procedures

Debate between Baroness Gardner of Parkes and Baroness Northover

Tuesday 5th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

I note what the noble Lord has to say. Of course, he will know that my right honourable friend in the other place, Vince Cable, has recently put a considerable amount of money into health research. Looking forward over the next few years, real-terms spending on health research will increase. The National Institute for Health Research will be co-ordinating this and it supports research in this area. As for the noble Lord’s question about new arrangements in the health service, it is of key importance that research is carried on within the NHS. The NHS has led in clinical research and we are very committed to ensuring that under the new arrangements that continues to be the case.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

Is my noble friend aware that the construction and production of joints have improved enormously? In earlier days, many failed and had to be replaced a second or even a third time. Does she agree that it is a false economy to use anything but the best now? Have any records been kept of how many people on the long waiting list are waiting for a second replacement rather than a first?

[Baroness Northover]

I am aware of the failure rate of earlier replacements and the trauma of having to go through such a procedure again, often with all sorts of additional health complications. It is very welcome that the improvements to which the noble Baroness referred have come about. I do not have the figures here showing how many joint replacements are second replacements and I shall write to her about that.

UN Women

Debate between Baroness Gardner of Parkes and Baroness Northover

Monday 10th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

I pay tribute to what the noble Baroness has done in this field. The Government very much agree with her point that supporting women and girls is central to development, as 70 per cent of those in dire poverty are women but only 30 per cent are men. Therefore, one can see that efforts to redress the balance have not yet worked. A lot more needs to be done, and supporting women and girls is central to that.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

Will the Minister clarify whether this body replaces the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, on which my noble friend Lady Trumpington and I served—I followed her—and whether it replaces UNIFEM or is an entirely different body? I do not think that many of us are very clear about exactly what this body is.

[Baroness Northover]

This body takes into itself both those organisations, and others. UNIFEM will operate within it. Because it is clear that the position of women has not been properly addressed, it was decided when reforming the United Nations that this umbrella organisation was required, and that the existing organisations overlapped; they were rather fragmented and needed to be brought together under UN Women—and they will be. That is why this new organisation was supported. There is cross-party support for its development and we very much support its future development.