UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement

Debate between Lord Beamish and Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I will ask the team to write to my hon. Friend about the technical detail, because I do not have those figures to hand. However, really importantly, beyond the question of the opportunities that under-35s on a three-year visa have, being free to choose what they want to do when they go and work in Australia, that shift from a two-year visa to a four-year visa for executives and managers who want to work in any number of sectors—and, indeed, for their families to be able to work in Australia as well—is a huge opportunity for our workforce to go and enjoy Australian opportunities, and also to bring UK expertise to our great friend and ally.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I wish you a happy new year, Madam Deputy Speaker. From the enthusiastic way in which the Secretary of State is selling this deal, she has clearly been drinking a lot of the Prime Minister’s Kool-Aid, but no matter how much positive spin she puts on it, it is a bad deal for County Durham beef and sheep farmers, including those in my constituency. Those people are already struggling because of the restrictions that have come about because of Brexit, so I ask her what discussions she has had with her counterparts in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about support for those farmers in years to come. In many cases, they are marginal anyway, and if they are opened up to worldwide competition from Australian lamb and beef, that will make their job 10 times harder.

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I cannot speak for my colleagues in DEFRA, but I know that progress on the environmental land management schemes framework is developing at pace. That framework will be a really important tool to help our farmers make the right choices, not only about the food production that they choose to do, but about managing the environment that they are stewarding on our behalf as we move forward and—to the question of the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) earlier—make sure that we look after the biodiversity and the nature that surrounds us.

However, I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman that this deal is bad for his farmers, because there are great opportunities coming. As I mentioned earlier, the release of the lamb imports plan for the US is opening up a whole new series of markets, and as we continue to do more trade deals and with the opportunities in Asia-Pacific, our amazing farmers will have opportunities to move into new markets that they have not had before. However, as I will continue to say and as the right hon. Gentleman knows, there is nothing like eating local. Our farmers continue to advertise and very successfully sell their products to the British markets too, and I know that my colleagues in DEFRA work very closely with farming groups to help ensure that happens.

Defence Spending

Debate between Lord Beamish and Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) on the use of the word “efficiency”. It is a fact—there is no reason to hide from it—that the Conservatives in the coalition Government cut the defence budget by 16%.

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments.

The challenge is that the premise of SDSR ’10 was not just financial; it was that there was no longer an existential threat to the UK. It said that Russia was no longer a nation that we had to watch and fear. That has turned out to be a false premise, if it was ever anything other than an excuse to reduce defence spending. We were told that, owing to the sudden outbreak of global neighbourliness, we could return our Army from Germany. The freedom to move safely around international waters was assured because the middle east had become stable and unthreatening to the 20% of the UK’s energy requirements that travels by sea through the strait of Hormuz, so a reduction in the size of the ageing fleet was a perfectly sensible idea. Global airspace was going to be full of fluffy clouds and rays of sunshine, so there would be less need to patrol the skies or deliver force from the air to those who wish our allies harm, and we could reduce the number of airframes we would need. All that has, perhaps not surprisingly, turned out to be a false premise.

The Government seemed to make a conscious choice conveniently to forget that new equipment, recruitment and high-tech training takes time and money if we are to maintain our military advantage by having the best and most advanced equipment with the best-trained men and women in the world. I am afraid that SDSR ’10 was allowed to set out that false premise due to financial pressures. There was a realignment, as those in post realised that the position that was set out was not right. The work done for SDSR ’15 started to assess more honestly the instabilities across the globe and their risks to UK safety and prosperity, but the cash needed did not follow that strategic assessment.

It is a pleasure to see the Minister for the Armed Forces in his place; it is not him whom I challenge, but our Treasury Ministers. The pertinent question is, after setting out what was eventually understood to be required to meet minimum security risks in SDSR ’15, why have we not funded it properly to get the outputs that we know we need? We must be able to look our constituents in the eye and promise them that we can defend them. This is about not just the level of GDP that we use to invest in a larger force, but whether we are meeting future need.

In SDSR ’10, the MOD declared that we should reduce RAF aircraft numbers substantially while pushing forward with the aircraft carrier class of warship, but by SDSR ’15, those decisions had evidently proved incompatible, given that we need to increase aircraft numbers once again. We need to think holistically about transformation—the time it takes, the training requirements to achieve it and the best value-for-money methodology for doing it. As the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) said, that is the invest-to-save model, and the Treasury needs to help the Department. Short-term decisions for annualised cash-flow rules simply do not work for our defence programme and produce an output that meets our defence needs or our value-for-money rules.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The hon. Gentleman shakes his head violently. I have talked about the CASD repeatedly in the House since I was elected in 2015. It strikes me as bizarre that the long-term nature of that critical weapon of peace is stuck in a funding framework that stubbornly refuses to allow long-term planning and flexible funding. All credit to the former Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson), for persuading the Treasury last year to bring forward £600 million of funding—not additional funding but simply to reduce future financial risk—to assist in making efficient decisions to move the Dreadnought programme forward a little more effectively. Deferred cost is always increased cost. I speak as an accountant who has done this many times.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The money the hon. Lady refers to was already in the contingency budget. Does she agree that the delay under the coalition Government in making a decision to build the Dreadnought class of submarines not only delayed the programme but added cost to it?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I agree completely. Deferred cost will always be increased cost in such big projects. We need more financial flexibility to get better value for money. Why did we have to battle so hard last year to get the Treasury to move on that £600 million? Why is the Treasury not doing its long-term cash-flow thinking in a rational way? If we are going to keep the CASD—there is overwhelming support for that across the House and the nation—it would make financial sense to allow a multi-year rolling financial commitment so Ministers can make rational decisions.

Transport Secretary: East Coast Franchise

Debate between Lord Beamish and Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), who always speaks wisely on all things engineering and technical. I long to be as knowledgeable as she is.

I wish to thank the Secretary of State for taking this difficult decision to bring the east coast main line back into public control while we find a long-term, sustainable solution for the train line that takes me and my constituents up and down the length of our great nation, week in, week out. As he knows well, I am the MP for the northernmost English constituency, which lies some 350 miles north of us here, and so I am well aware of the crucial importance of good transport infrastructure to ensure business investment can flow into my constituency. That will help to grow strong, long-term successful businesses, which create great jobs for my constituents. This is one of the most vital investments the Government can make.

I have talked endlessly, and partially successfully, about why dualling the A1 from Morpeth to the Scottish border—[Laughter.] I heard that! I have talked about why that is so vital for economic growth and inward investment. Indeed, the Department for Transport based its financing decisions on that economic development model, which was so important to justifying why a rural county needed to address 40 years of lack of road investment. The Secretary of State has listened patiently to me over many years and has supported driving forward that investment. Obviously, we wait with bated breath for the sight of diggers, as they get closer in the months ahead. The Department can be assured that my constituents and I will not rest until the whole road is invested in, because that is a crucial way of linking up north Northumberland to Edinburgh, Newcastle and the rest of the UK.

It is not only road investment that is vital; the east coast main line, linking Edinburgh to London, is an efficient and speedy service, and it has two key stopping points at Berwick-upon-Tweed and at Alnmouth, which is Alnwick’s railway station. With recent and continuing improvements in parking provision at both those stations, we have seen substantial increases in usage by my constituents, who travel north and south for business, study and pleasure. It is a crucial rail transport link for my constituents, of all ages, so it is of the utmost importance to me that this train line is run sustainably and that the long-term security of the east coast line’s investment in rolling stock and the management of fares to ensure a competitive and effective train line is assured.

With the Ministers here, it would be remiss of me if I did not highlight the continuing campaign by my constituents to reopen the Belford station, which sits between Berwick-upon-Tweed and Alnwick, to create more opportunities for investment in that 1,000 square miles of rural constituency. Good rail links bring investment and economic growth, and we must continue to be able to invest in the line.

I remember our nationalised railway systems of old; one of my granny’s Sunday afternoons involved seeing whether we could get a train that went somewhere and could get us home in time for tea—it did not always work. The Labour’s party’s vision for train provision, which does not put the customer at the centre—

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am sure the hon. Lady remembers British Rail, because we are still travelling on some of the 125 rolling stock first introduced by British Rail.

[Mrs Trevelyan]

It is not so much the rolling stock that I remember as not necessarily getting back for tea because the train just did not go—that used to cause my grandmother and I some disconcertion. The railway timetables were more an idea than a reality a lot of the time. That is a childhood memory, and the Labour party’s vision for train provision, which does not put the customer at the heart of all policy, will not work. The customer pays the fares and must be at the centre of those decisions. So I believe the Secretary of State has taken the right, difficult decision to use his operator of last resort powers to get the London North Eastern Railway—that lovely brand, which I believe is on a poster in one of our bookshops in Alnwick—up and running to ensure that my constituents and I can rely on it and we invest for Northumberland, knowing that our train service will be sound.

North East Ambulance Service

Debate between Lord Beamish and Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

I represent a very rural seat in north Northumberland, where, in January 2015, we had the tragic case of the entirely avoidable death of a young man because an ambulance did not get there in time. The Secretary of State instituted a national review on the back of that to look at the issues that triggered that tragedy. I am grateful for that, and we have made progress.

Some issues have come out of that, and the North East Ambulance Service should be commended. In my area, ambulances go to Northumbria hospital—our new emergency-only hospital. Some colleagues have already mentioned that we have been seeing the queuing of ambulances as they arrive at the various hospitals. I am not familiar with the wider north-east hospital framework, but at Northumbria it was quickly evident that that was a problem. To its credit, the North East Ambulance Service sent a paramedic to help in the triaging process, along with a specialist nurse who was diverted from other duties, to improve the process when the ambulances arrive—the hospital knows when they are going to turn up because they phone ahead—and to do a better job in ensuring that patients were removed from said ambulance and that the kit was returned to paramedics so that they could crack on with the next case.

That has been working well. We have seen a much speedier process, so I would commend that to colleagues, who could encourage other hospitals in the region to look at doing that. That has been an investment, but without doubt the cost-benefit not directly to the hospital but to the overall health package for our constituents has been hugely improved, because ambulances are back in the system. We were also then able to ensure that Northumberland-based ambulances were coming back up into Northumberland and not being taken to 999 calls elsewhere in the region, leaving paramedics working 14 or 15-hour days to get the ambulance back to Berwick or Alnwick. I commend the ambulance service for listening on the challenging problems we had and trying to make improvements.

At Northumbria hospital, the figures for urgent and emergency attendances read like this for the past three months: January had 12,911, which was a 12% increase on 2015; February had 13,731, which was a 30% increase on 2015; and March had 15,146, which was a 24% increase on 2015. However, only 24% of those cases needed emergency hospital admission. Something is broken. We are overloading our ambulance service with calls that demand an emergency ambulance, but, once at the hospital, only 24% needed emergency care.

My concern is twofold, and I ask the Minister to look at how we can make progress on this. First, the algorithm that the 111 and 999 systems demand that staff in the call centres use is dramatically risk-averse. I do not want anyone who is having a cardiac arrest to be told they have heartburn and not be sent an ambulance; quite the opposite should happen. However, a few years ago, the North East Ambulance Service built the lower-level 111 system and tested it before it was rolled out around the country.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I hear what the hon. Lady says, but is not the real problem that 111 was rushed in and relied on technology? When it originally started, we had trained paramedics in the call centres who could categorise cases. There is clear evidence, which I will present, that, if something is not deemed life-threatening or someone is not having difficulty breathing, the case is categorised as green. The figures produced are meaningless.

[Mrs Trevelyan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comment. Quite a few of my constituents were among those experienced staff. Some were retired midwives or had worked as nurses and then moved into the call centre framework. There was a big shift a few years ago to downgrade the medical qualifications required for those staff. We are starting to see a change in that, because the new chief executive is mindful that the huge increase in demand is partly down to staff’s inability to assess cases correctly. If they took another 30 seconds, they could assess properly the situation on the end of the phone.

Will the Minister work with the people who are writing the algorithm and building the system to get it right? The ambulance service personnel would then have a better tool to work with. That would also encourage ambulance services, and not just our own in the north-east, to go back to higher-value trained personnel who can ask the right questions and get the right answers, so that we do not end up with over 70% of emergency calls ending in someone getting to hospital and finding that urgent care was not needed.

The other side of this issue, which I have been campaigning on with St John Ambulance, is the need to help families to be better educated so that they can assess their own medical conditions. Other than for cardiac arrests, strokes and such evidently dramatic changes, it is often not emergency care but urgent care that is required. We need to encourage people and build their confidence in assessing for themselves whether they should go to the pharmacy or the doctor or call for an emergency service. We need to do that across the board, focus on it and drive it forward.

St John Ambulance wants to get into every single school, so that we are teaching young children the difference between what to do if they burn their finger on the kettle—put it under the tap, instead of dialling 999—and what to do in an emergency, such as if granny falls down the stairs. The next generation would then have confidence in knowing the difference between when emergency care is needed and when they can manage and find the right care over a longer period.

Our paramedics will not be able to continue meeting the demand, much of which is inappropriately placed on the ambulance service. We should make much better use of our amazing paramedics and ensure that retention is higher, because they are valuable members of our community.