Childhood Obesity

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I should certainly be happy to do so. It is worth pointing out that that document and others have informed chapter 2 of the Government’s obesity strategy, which was published recently. Because the problem is not yet being dealt with, as we know, and we have an ambition to halve obesity, we are determined to act on things such as banning promotion of sugary foods and further restricting advertising.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the report today from BBC News which shows that, while information has been provided that 600 calories is a decent meal, fast-food providers provide 750 or so on average, but chain-food suppliers provide 1,500 calories? What will the Government do to encourage those providers to provide lower-calorie-option meals for the public and for young people?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

The noble Earl makes an excellent point. That is why in chapter 2 of our strategy, as I mentioned, we propose mandating consistent calorie labelling in out-of-home settings; indeed, the consultation on that has just closed and we will be publishing our results shortly.

NHS and Social Care Services: Parity of Esteem

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Thursday 5th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I recognise that staff work under a great deal of pressure and there are two ways we can help alleviate it. One is obviously to have social care and NHS staff work more closely together, and that is a stated ambition that we all want to achieve. The other is making sure that there are more resources, both to pay people better and to make sure that there are more people. That is what we are focused on delivering.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister concerned to hear that, when speaking recently to a mental health nurse, I was told that she had received only four of her monthly supervision sessions in the last eight months? Does he agree that to ensure high-quality care across health and social care, all professionals and carers need their entitlement of regular supervision? Will he discuss with his colleagues in the education department whether there might be clinical supervision in some schools, to allow the mental health of children in schools to improve?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I am concerned to hear the story that the noble Earl has raised: I am sure that he will write to me with specific details. We know that at the moment only 25% of people with a mental health problem are seen. That needs to rise. We want to get that up to 33%, but clearly that is not enough. To do that we need more staff at every level. We have committed to training another 21,000 mental health workers to provide exactly the kind of leadership and support that he describes.

Health: Endoscopy and Bowel Cancer

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I will not be rummaging around in my pocket to reveal something; nobody wants to see that. My understanding is that FIT will be introduced from the autumn and the intention is to get national coverage. I do not believe that it will be achieved immediately, but I will write to the noble Baroness with the specific timeframe.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister look at access to mental health services, so that referrals can be made early on for patients who are identified with bowel cancer where that is helpful? Does he not agree that patients will make better recoveries if assessments are made of their mental health and emotional well-being, along with support groups and other services to help them with these aspects of their recovery?

Agency Nurses

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

On the issue of flexible working there is an important distinction between agency working and bank working. Bank working provides a degree of security and familiarity, in that the nurses employed by nursing banks often work in the same hospitals. That is one of the most important ways that we can provide the flexible working which, as the noble Baroness quite rightly said, nurses want.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

Can the Minister reassure the House on the supply and retention of psychiatric nurses, and that they are getting the excellent support that they especially need? He might wish to write to me on that.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I will certainly write to the noble Earl specifically on psychiatric nurses. He will, I hope, be aware of the plan to recruit many more mental health staff as we seek to radically improve outcomes and delivery in that area.

Young Women: Self-Harm

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Thursday 16th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I know this area is of great interest to my noble friend and he has done very good research on it. He is quite right to highlight the impact that, unfortunately, parental conflict and breakdown has on children. The Department for Work and Pensions, in a cross-government approach, is doing particular work on supporting parents. I also know that the best schools and community health services work to provide that kind of parenting support. There are a number of parenting programmes out there. I assure my noble friend that that evidence takes a proper place in the mental health strategy that we will be publishing for children and young people.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of the Brent Centre for Young People—a mental health service for adolescents which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Does the Minister agree that adolescence is a hugely challenging part of human development and that we put far too much pressure, far too often, on adolescents and interfere with their successful development, with the outcomes described in this Question? Will he look at Lucy Crehan’s work Cleverlands, an international comparison of the best performing schools, and her criticisms of the British and American systems? She finds that we put far too much pressure on head teachers through Ofsted inspections. It is a punitive, rather than a supportive, act and we should review it to see whether we could be more supportive of head teachers and get a better, supportive atmosphere for children in our schools.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I congratulate the centre the noble Earl works for on its anniversary. He is absolutely right about the pressures of adolescence. Unfortunately, the causes of self-harm are not well understood. One of the hypotheses is that the motivation appears to be stress relief, which is an incredibly disturbing idea. I am aware of Lucy Crehan’s work from my previous work in schools. I do not think you can link school accountability with the kind of pressures we are describing today and how they manifest in self-harm. We want schools to be successful. It is vital that children are well educated. It is also true that that can be done in a number of ways. The best schools, including ones that I have been involved with in the past, practise something called positive education which emphasises not only the academic aspect but also character and well-being. I think that is the approach that we need to follow.

Health: Obstetrics and Gynaecology

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Monday 17th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I shall certainly give that consideration. There may be specific reasons why, in particular instances, that might not be possible or even desirable, but I shall certainly look into it. Take one of the instances: the tragedies at Morecambe Bay. It was found that there was a lack of objectivity in investigations and that that—along with other problems such as a lack of good data—led to the kinds of tragedies we saw, not happening once but over and over again. I completely take the noble Lord’s point, and I will look into it.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

Is the Minister aware of the excellent work of the charity Best Beginnings, of which I am a patron, which provides perinatal support to families? The charity has, for instance, created videos to support families with very premature children, helping them to bond with their children. With the Royal College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians, it has developed the Baby Buddy app, which gives parents exactly the information they need during and after pregnancy, so that they can have the safest pregnancy possible.

Nursing and Midwifery: Student Applications

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

That is a hypothetical situation. Health Education England remains confident that we will fill the places. Critically, the universities—I mentioned the Council of Deans of Health—also think that we will still fill them.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the increasing concern about perinatal mental health for mothers and the great importance of this to the future well-being of their children? In this context, is he concerned that there should be continuity of care for such mothers and that we therefore must avoid at all costs finding ourselves in a situation where there are not enough midwives to give that continuity to these mothers?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank the noble Earl for that question. He is quite right that continuity of care is important. That is why we have brought about these changes to lift the cap on the number of places and become less reliant on foreign nurses filling those positions. It is also the reason, as he knows and I hope would welcome, that the Government have introduced a mental health strategy and are spending considerably more on it, with a Green Paper to come later this year.

National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th November 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

My Lords, this is a subject about which people feel very passionately, and it has been a very passionate debate. Perhaps your Lordships will bear with me as I talk about something with which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is very familiar, as his grandson goes to one of the schools that I founded—Floreat Wandsworth. The development of character is central to what we do at our schools. Included within that is what we call “civic virtues”, of which participation is obviously one, as is service to others, and that is one reason that I am so passionate about this area.

I completely agree with the idea that developing a sense of citizenship, participation and civic virtue should be a fundamental part of education, but there is a question about the compulsory nature of this. One of the arguments is whether PSHE—sometimes with a C or various other bits of the alphabet added on—should be compulsory. That is a conversation that we have sporadically in the House. For me, that should be part of education but it should take place within schools. Just because we think that this is an important issue, it does not mean that this is the right vehicle for it. Just because this tree is with us does not mean that we should hang the bells on it.

I strongly agree with the sentiments behind my noble friend’s amendment and those of other noble Lords. I would welcome a broad debate on service, citizenship and character development. The DfE has a character development programme. It is slightly in stasis at the moment as we have had a change of Secretary of State, but it may be one way to rejuvenate this whole process. However, to me, this is not the right vehicle for those absolutely correct sentiments.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I should like to express some sympathy with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. I am very concerned about the increasing number of children—boys and girls—who are growing up without a father in the home. This scheme might offer some of those children a step towards having a father figure in their lives, especially if it connects with other services, such as the Girl Guides and the Scouts.

Back in 2011, OECD research led by Professor Melhuish at Birkbeck, University of London, found that a fifth of children in this country were growing up without a father in the home. That compared with a quarter in the United States. However, the research also predicted that in future years we would overtake the United States, and that by—I think—the 2030s a third of our children would grow up without a father in the home. This is a terribly important fact for us to keep in mind. The evidence shows that low-income boys are more likely to get involved in the criminal justice system if they grow up without a father in the home. We need to think of all possible means to keep fathers, as far as possible, in the home, and to fill the deficit—for girls and boys—when there is no father figure there. One rationale for rolling out the scheme nationally is to meet the needs of those boys and girls for some positive father figure. It is obviously a short-term intervention, and I hope very much it might lead them to other interventions such as the Girl Guides and the Boy Scouts.

I do not wish in any way to disparage lone parents. Just recently I was speaking to a father bringing up three children on his own who works very hard, washes his children’s laundry, cares for them—he says he has no time for a social life. I do not intend to disparage those parents at all; I merely say that from the point of view of so many boys and girls it is a real challenge for them to grow up without a father in the home.