Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to tackle childhood obesity.

[Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to tackle childhood obesity.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)]

We are committed to halving childhood obesity in England by 2030, and the 2020 strategy takes decisive action to help everybody to achieve and maintain that healthier weight. We have five trailblazer sites working to create a healthy environment for our children. We have laid regulations for out-of-home calorie labelling. We have put £100 million into funding for adult and child weight management, and announced the introduction of some of the toughest advertising restrictions—both on TV and online—regarding children’s exposure to high fat, salt and sugar products. This is about the cumulative effect of several policies.

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning that wide range of measures. May I also encourage her to work closely with colleagues at the Department for Education and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on an expanded children’s sports and activity plan, both in and out of school, to try to make 60 minutes a day as much a norm as five-a-day fruit and vegetables by bringing in the power of sports clubs and the governing bodies, and finally getting more school facilities available for out-of-hours use?

[Jo Churchill]

My right hon. Friend’s question is music to my ears. He will be pleased to hear that, last week, along with Ministers from DCMS and the DFE, I was in front of the Lords National Plan for Sport and Recreation Committee talking about doing just that—about how we can build on the DFE’s £10.1 million contribution, so that we can unlock the 40% of facilities that lie on school estates and help to get children active for 60 minutes a day. We will be publishing our cross-departmental update to the school sport and activity action plan later this year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ian Levy (Blyth Valley) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to reform mental health treatment.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to reform mental health treatment.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

What recent assessment his Department has made of changes in waiting times for mental health treatment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Dorries]

I thank my hon. Friend for his years of service working in mental health. Mental health is one of this Government’s top priorities, and I assure him that we are doing our utmost to ensure that mental health services are there for everyone who needs them. Through the NHS long-term plan, we are expanding and transforming mental health services in England and investing an additional £2.3 billion a year in mental health services by 2023-24.

In addition, we have published our mental health recovery action plan, backed by a one-off targeted investment of £500 million in addition to the £2.3 billion, to ensure that we have the right support in place this year. The plan aims to respond to the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of the public, specifically targeting groups that have been most impacted. We have set up a cross-Government ministerial group to monitor progress against the actions listed in the plan, and the group will also identify areas for further action and collaboration.

[Damian Hinds]

I welcome the priority put on young people’s mental health, which is perhaps more important now than ever. Will the Minister give an update on progress on implementing the proposals in the children and young people’s mental health Green Paper, particularly on mental health support teams in Hampshire and nationwide?

[Ms Dorries]

We are making good progress on implementing the Green Paper proposals, and I am pleased to say that we have established 11 mental health support teams in Hampshire. Nationwide, there are currently 180 mental health support teams, covering around 15% of pupils in England. Over 200 more are in training or being commissioned, and we expect to have around 400 in place by 2023-24, covering 35% of pupils. We recently announced £9.5 million to train thousands of senior mental health leads among school and college staff.

Public Health

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con) [V]]

It would be an understatement to say that people have restriction fatigue. I, like others, hate having to have the sorts of curtailments on people’s freedoms that a lockdown means. It is right—indeed, it is essential—that these regulations be time-limited, and I welcome the stipulations on regular reviews. I support the regulations because the contrast and choice before us is not between having curtailments or not; it is about the very difficult things that we do now as a country and a society, against even harder things that we would have to do in the future.

The data are startling in Hampshire, as elsewhere, with a dramatic growth in case rates since the start of December. Without truly stringent measures, there is a real risk of overwhelming the NHS. “Overwhelming” and “overtopping” have become commonplace phrases, but we need to stop, pause and reflect on their true meaning and implications far beyond covid.

The difference now, of course, as the Secretary of State has said, is vaccination. We can see, ultimately, a way through. It has been impressive to see the speed with which the Hampshire vaccination programme has got off the ground. Clearly, all hands now have to be put to the programme. I was pleased to hear what the Secretary of State said about the removal of red-tape barriers to volunteering. Clearly, close attention needs to be given to every stage of the vaccine’s production, distribution and administration.

As well as business support during lockdown, we are clearly going to need a sector by sector plan for how to come out of this, including for pubs, hotels and so-called non-essential retail, which are essential to our high streets and to the events business. We are going to need a national effort and mission on the return to school—preparing ahead of it, repairing the impact that this period will have again on children’s lives, and trying to get them back on track. It will need different approaches for different age groups and different individual children. Some will have fallen back in some subjects, not others. Some, of course, will have had truly terrible experiences in this time, and that will also put a strain on children’s services departments, which we need to recognise. More generally, more attention than ever before will need to be given to the mental health of children and young people, and to a return to physical exercise in some cases.

There will need to be specific interventions in schools. The tragedy, of course, is that some of those had already started. The £1 billion fund is in place and, obviously, needs to be kept under review. I very much welcome what the Prime Minister said earlier about one-to-one tuition, but we also need to think about what needs to be done to overcome the constraints on that. In some places it is already hard to find supply teachers, let alone one-to-one tutors. There will be a more important role than ever before for volunteer readers, mentoring programmes and strengthening links with business. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State can assure me that that is being considered across Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to increase covid-19 testing capacity.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to increase covid-19 testing capacity.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

We are processing coronavirus tests on an unprecedented scale and expanding capacity further, having already met our testing capacity target of 500,000 tests a day by the end of October. We now have five Lighthouse labs operating across the UK, with two more announced yesterday, and significant progress on next-generation testing technologies.

[Matt Hancock]

We have discussed many times in this House the importance of the use of testing because of the terrible dilemma of wanting to keep people safe in care homes, yet also wanting to allow visiting. Testing can help to resolve that. The pilots are ongoing in some parts of the country, and I very much hope that we can get to a position where we can offer testing to enable visiting across the country before Christmas

[Damian Hinds]

I welcome the testing pilots that are happening, including in Southampton. How will the Government be able to support local authorities and public health teams with the logistics of mass testing, particularly in large rural areas such as Hampshire?

[Matt Hancock]

Increasingly, the test itself is only one part of getting a high-quality testing system. The logistics around it are also vital. We are already funding local authorities across the country to support them to roll out mass testing, but we will learn from the pilots, including in Hampshire, to see what extra might be needed.

Covid-19

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Those are both very important points. Children who receive free school meals often receive their best or, in some cases, their only meal at lunch time at school, and it is an issue that I discussed with the Education Secretary over the weekend.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) talked about the importance of information consistency, but some constituents are seeing competing messages which look like they come from credible sources and are then passed on in good faith. In the worst cases, not only do they mislead, they can even be dangerous. May I encourage my right hon. Friend to continue his work with the platforms not only to ensure the primacy of the official information, but to actively work against that which disinforms.

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, my right hon. Friend is absolutely right.