The National Health Service

Debate between Geraint Davies and Matt Hancock

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It was incredibly moving to meet, in my office downstairs here in the House of Commons, some children with Batten disease who needed access to world-class drugs. They are expensive drugs, but we needed to get them at a price that was affordable to the NHS. I met the parents and some of the children, and it was incredibly moving. I met some siblings—one had access to the drug and the other did not—and I saw the difference in their development. We negotiated with the company and got the drugs on the NHS. That is how we should be providing world-class drugs. That is how it has been done under sensible Labour Administrations, and I urge the Opposition to reconsider, because even if it may sound good when they look in the mirror, it is not sensible to undermine our world-class life sciences in this way. I hope they think again.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State has been talking now for nearly half an hour, yet he has not really referred to the amendment in respect of the relationship between public health and trade, particularly the ability of tribunals and companies to sue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

No, it is not a point of order if I say it is not a point of order.

I encourage the Secretary of State to make progress. I appreciate his generosity to his colleagues, but we will have to make some progress.

[Matt Hancock]

Quite right. I am voting for you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), to whom I will not give way—

[Geraint Davies]

rose—

[Matt Hancock]

I am not going to give way after that nonsense, but on his point, perhaps he was not here at the start, but on the first page of my speech it says that

“the NHS is not, and never will be for sale under this government. The Prime Minster and the President have made it abundantly clear that the NHS will not be on the table in any trade talks.”

How many times do I have to say it? I will say it every day of the week.

Health

Debate between Geraint Davies and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend anticipates my very next point. It is important to get value for the extra taxpayers’ money we put in. I always try to refer to it as taxpayers’ money, because there is no Government money or NHS money. Every single penny we put into the NHS—rightly, in my view—comes from the taxes that people pay, and it should be treated with the respect that that deserves.

[Geraint Davies]

The thesis of a strong NHS is based on a strong economy, yet will he accept that under this Government since 2010 overall debt has gone from 45% of GDP to nearly 90% of GDP? It is not about tax; it is just borrowed money from a failing economy.

[Matt Hancock]

No. I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of clean air, but I gently point out that dealing with the deficit—the annual amount by which the Government was overspending—is, and must be, the precursor to getting the debt down. Now, thankfully, the debt is falling relative to the economy, but there has been an awful lot of hard work to get us there.

Let us look at some of the things the NHS is delivering. The entire population now has access to evening and weekend GP appointments. More than a million GP appointments a month are now booked online, and consultation increasingly takes place online. More than three million repeat prescriptions are done online. There are more than 2 million more operations a year than in 2010, and we see 11.5 million more out-patient appointments than in 2010. Since last year, more than 500 extra beds a day have been freed up in hospitals.

When it comes to the future, only yesterday we announced that a new treatment aid for brain cancer can be rolled out across the country, benefiting up to 2,000 patients, all because of the extra money we are putting in. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) is quite right that in return for the extra taxpayers’ money we are putting in, we must get extra out, too.

[Matt Hancock]

The public health grant is settled in the spending review. The NHS settlement has come before the spending review, and the public health grant is only one part of the approach to public health. In 2015, this House agreed, with broad acceptance across parties—I know the hon. Gentleman was not in the House then—that local authorities should take responsibilities for public health, to ensure that the entirety of local authority activity could be focused on better public health.

Public health is not just what happens in the NHS, with councils or in GP surgeries or hospitals. For instance, the Government have taken a global lead in getting social media companies to remove suicide and self-harm content online because of the danger that poses to people’s mental health, and in particular that of children and young people. That is a public health issue. Likewise, the efforts we are making to reduce air pollution in the environment Bill—a broader piece of legislation than just a clean air Act—are about a public health matter. It is not in the public health grant, but it is a public health matter.

[Geraint Davies]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

I respect the right hon. Lady’s work as Public Health Minister—she was excellent in that role—and I was going to turn to this point. It is very important that we understand the base we are starting from, but we also have the spending review, in which these budgets will be settled, and that is clearly an important cross-Government question that we will be addressing in the coming months.

Smoking cessation services have been mentioned. Now, the smoking rate has fallen since 2010 from 20.1% of the population to 14.9%, which is excellent, although it is part of a fall over a generation, not just the last 10 years. Likewise, the drug use rate has fallen from over 10% to 8.5%. We have to provide the services for those we still need to get off smoking and to support people to stop using drugs, but the number of people smoking and using drugs has fallen too.

On clean air, the World Health Organisation has called the clean air strategy we published an example for the rest of the world to follow, so I think in this area the necessary action we are taking should be being welcomed across this Chamber.

[Geraint Davies]

I know the Secretary of State accepts that the environment Bill is the vehicle to deliver cleaner air, but is he aware that, as it stands, it does not include indoor air quality? Given that we spend 90% of our time inside and that the medical research now shows a cocktail effect of outdoor dirty air conflating with indoor air that has poisons in it—from sprays, cleaning products, chemicals in furniture and all the rest—if we are to properly tackle the problem of dirty air causing 64,000 deaths a year, indoor air quality has to be included in the environment Bill. Will he press the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to ensure that it is?

[Matt Hancock]

The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and I are working incredibly closely on this because clean air is a public health matter. The challenge is that, although measuring outdoor air quality is essentially a public matter and in public buildings it may well be a public matter, inside most people’s homes it is far harder to make a direct intervention, but I accept the premise of the hon. Gentleman’s point. It may be something we can look at in public spaces. [Interruption.] He mentions schools and hospitals. I accept the premise of that point and I think it is something we can take away. The same is true inside vehicles, but that is a wider question.

Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Geraint Davies and Matt Hancock

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We built the Bill on the basis of the Law Commission report, but we have put some differences into the Bill. For instance, we think the principle of prioritising people over process is important, and we have strengthened that compared with the Law Commission’s recommendations. The Law Commission improves the law but does not make policy decisions. On top of the Law Commission’s work, which is incredibly helpful, we have made further policy decisions to ensure that people are put more foursquare at the heart of the process. It is true that the Bill and the Law Commission’s recommendations are not exactly aligned, but I would strongly defend our further improvements.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have the privilege of chairing the all-party parliamentary group on speech and language difficulties. The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists is concerned about the conflation of mental capacity with speech and language difficulties. It is important we have provision so that people with speech and language difficulties are appropriately assessed and are not banged up because they are thought to be dangerous. There should be enough training in light of the fact that 60% of people in the criminal justice system have speech and language difficulties.

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the importance of getting highly trained social workers to make these judgments and about the importance of making sure such training is provided for and embedded in the Bill. He speaks powerfully, and I agree with how he puts it.

The Bill introduces a new liberty protection safeguards system, and it makes the authorisation simpler and more straightforward. It removes some bureaucracy and duplication, and it makes the system easier to navigate for individuals and their family. People will get their rights protections sooner, there will be greater independence when decisions are taken to restrict liberty, and the NHS and social care providers will be given a bigger role in the decision-making process so that people under their care receive the right care and their rights will be protected. It will introduce an explicit duty to consult the person being cared for and to consider their wishes and feelings.