Oral Answers to Questions

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman has already spoken to his integrated care board, because he will know that responsibility for local investment decisions rightly rests at local level. I can say that, as a Government, we have very much invested in hospital upgrades, including £4.2 billion going to integrated care boards this financial year. I hear the timetable he cites, but I encourage him to go to his integrated care board to ask what more it is doing.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform UK)]

6. What steps she is taking to tackle medicine shortages for type 2 diabetes.

[The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Andrew Stephenson)]

It is vital that people have access to the medicines they need. The Department has been working with the suppliers of medicines used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes to seek commitments from them to address the issues, expedite deliveries and boost supplies. As a result, the position is now much improved compared with a few months ago, with new patients now able to receive these critical medicines. We continue to work with industry to address remaining issues as quickly as possible.

[Lee Anderson]

We know that obesity in this country is costing the NHS about £20 billion a year, and it is a major contributory factor to type 2 diabetes, which is preventable in a lot of cases by having a healthy lifestyle. What more can we do encourage people to eat healthily and therefore save costs in the NHS?

[Andrew Stephenson]

The hon. Member raises a very important point. Obesity is linked to many health conditions, including type 2 diabetes. We are delivering an ambitious programme of work to create a healthy environment to support people in achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. This includes restricting the placements of less healthy products in shops and online, calorie labelling on food sold in restaurants and a tax on the sugary drinks industry, which has removed the equivalent of 45,000 tonnes of sugar from soft drinks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that matter, which shows the cynicism with which the tobacco and vaping industry is approaching these landmark public health reforms. On vapes, we have committed to consulting on the powers that we are adopting in the Bill precisely because we want to ensure that the regulations, when they come to the fore, address the realities of the market and the cynicism of the companies behind it, and help to ensure that our children do not continue being plied with these horrible items to get them hooked on nicotine.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform UK)]

T7. I was disappointed to see the chair of my local hospital trust and the east midlands Labour mayoral candidate use my hospital as a political campaign prop by inviting the shadow Health and Social Care Secretary and the Leader of the Opposition to canvass patients and staff. Can the Minister please explain to me how we can rein in this type of gutter politics and prevent my local hospital being used for Labour’s dog-whistle politics?

[Victoria Atkins]

This is a very serious matter, which I have raised with the chief executive of NHS England, and asked her to raise with the regional director and Nottinghamshire integrated care board. We have done so because we believe that it might be a breach of the Nolan principles.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Andrew Stephenson)]

I understand the hon. Lady’s concern. As she knows, we share a local NHS hospital trust. I am very keen to work with her on this issue. Of course, this Government are the first to introduce a long-term workforce plan for the NHS, which will deliver thousands more clinicians for a range of services across the NHS in the years to come.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

Last month, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence said that Kaftrio, Orkambi and Symkevi are effective treatments against cystic fibrosis, but are too expensive to put on the NHS’s list. CF is a death sentence, so what can the Secretary of State do to make sure that this medication is put on the shelves to save thousands of lives in the future?

Cystic Fibrosis: Living Costs

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

I do not have that in my notes, so I thank the hon. Lady for her knowledgeable intervention. That issue is hard to comprehend. If we have a decent wage, energy is not a big problem. On the minimum wage, it becomes a problem. When someone is disabled, it becomes an even bigger problem. She is right and I thank her for that reminder. We are all making points that we look to the Minister to respond to. Those with prepayment meters are under especial pressure and we look to the Minister to respond to that.

Removing VAT from energy bills would benefit not only CF families but all of the poor, as they spend a larger percentage of their income on energy bills.

Hospitals should provide free parking. I call on NHS England hospitals to provide access to free hospital parking for people with chronic medical conditions. Most hospital car parking charges are already abolished in Wales and Scotland, and Northern Ireland is set to abolish them in 2024. For once, the mainland needs to catch up with the regions. However, there are worries about potential delays to that coming into effect, given that there is currently no sitting Northern Ireland Assembly.

The guidance from the Department of Health and Social Care for NHS trusts in England makes it mandatory for parking to be free for those with blue badges, those attending as an out-patient three times a month for at least three months, and parents of sick children staying overnight, but it is rare that those with CF meet those criteria. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) referred to the assessment process, and that has to be addressed.

I am on to ask No. 5. Some 80% of people with CF are pancreatic insufficient, meaning they require a higher calorie diet. During hospital appointments and in-patient stays, it is vital that they have access to affordable food. However, NHS England’s national standards for healthcare food and drink do not refer to a need to ensure that affordable food is available in hospital cafés and canteens. That must change because there are people who cannot afford the right sort of food, but who need it.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a passionate speech, but I want to pull him up on one point. The City Hospital in Nottingham has its own cystic fibrosis unit. The in-patients get a personal chef who cooks them whatever they want 24 hours a day. They have access to snacks, cakes and all the junk food that CF patients need, so what the hon. Gentleman says is not correct in my neck of the woods, where they have their own chef and can eat whatever they want, whenever they want.

[Jim Shannon]

I am really pleased to hear about that initiative in the hon. Gentleman’s hospital. That is a model for the rest—well done! We look forward to that scheme being taken on board by the Government.

The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) made a point about ending prescription charges for people with cystic fibrosis in England. I am on my last page, Ms Harris—I am conscious that I committed to a timescale, and I will try to keep to that. I am thankful for the exemption in place in Northern Ireland, but I cannot in all conscience leave it out of any debate on this issue for my fellow British citizens. As everyone knows, I am a great supporter of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I am pleased that my friend, the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day), who will speak shortly for the Scots Nats party, is part of this great United Kingdom as well.

The list of medical conditions that are exempt from prescription charges was written by the Government in 1968, so I think it is time to look at that again. The reality is that, at that time, children with CF were not expected to live to be adults, so CF was not included in the list. However, there are now more adults than children living with CF and it continues to be one of the few chronic, life-shortening conditions where people pay for their prescriptions. One of my asks of the Minister is for that to change.

[Lee Anderson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being very generous with his time. Is he aware that there is a loophole in the system? Although people with CF cannot get free prescriptions, if they have diabetes caused by CF, they can. It is crazy and unacceptable that they have to rely on getting another disease before they can get a free prescription.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Harris.

I have an interest in this subject because, as hon. Members will know, I am part of the CF community, in that my wife has cystic fibrosis. She was not diagnosed until she was 18 years old, so her journey was a little bit different from that of most CF patients, who are diagnosed at birth using a simple test. Obviously, at the age of 18, having just finished school and done her A-levels, she was getting ready to head off to university and start her new life, so it was a shock to be told by the doctor, “You’re not going to live beyond the age of 30.”

However, she did live longer than the age of 30. With medication and care from our health service, she has led a decent life. Six years ago, she had a double lung transplant at Royal Papworth Hospital and she is doing all right—she is getting about and going about her business. We are forever grateful to the NHS. So I know a little bit about cystic fibrosis. I know what it is like to live with somebody who has CF and about the extra challenges and costs involved.

There are costs—just little things—that you would not even think about if you did not know someone with CF. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is quite right that heating your home is crucial. It is also the food: my wife has to eat about 4,000 calories a day. She is basically like a stick insect, my missus—she is ever so thin. She cannot put weight on; she has to eat 4,000 calories just to maintain that weight.

Pre-transplant, my wife had to stop in the house to keep warm. If we went out for food, as we did on many occasions and wished we had not, the cold air made her sick—it made her cough. People with CF cough and cough until eventually they are sick. That messes up their diabetes, and then they have to eat more food to keep the weight on. It is a 24-hour challenge.

When you wake up in the middle of the night, your partner can be coughing. It is not just coughing; there can be a cup full of blood at the side of the bed, because blood is coming out of their lungs. You think, “My goodness, this is horrible. They’re going to die.” But they are not, because that is normal for a CF patient; that is what they do. You have to spend the night pounding their backs and giving them percussion, to make sure the mucus comes up.

But since I have been here we have made great leaps with this new drug—Trikafta—which we agreed to fund a couple of years back. That is a game changer, and although there are challenges for CF patients, and they have the extra costs involved, we are also seeing great innovations in medicine, which are making sure that they live longer and have a better quality of life. CF patients nowadays can have—if not a more normal life—a good quality of life compared to what they did 20 or 30 years ago. As I said, Trikafta is a game changer. When it was introduced a few years back, I got lots of emails from families with little children saying, “We’re over the moon.”

In Ashfield, we have a little CF warrior called Amelia Rose Ratcliffe. She was a lockdown baby and was born on 12 October 2020. I have been to see her. She is a gorgeous little girl and dead clever. She lives with her mum and dad and her brother, Alfie. To be told, as a parent, that your kid has CF—I really don’t know you cope with that. At one time, it was a death sentence, but now, with innovations in medicine, it is a lot better.

The family is a middle-income family, and they are really feeling the pinch. Like I say, keeping the house warm is so important. Then there are the nappies: CF patients, whether children or adults, go to the toilet more—it is as simple as that. So if you have a CF baby, the nappies are another extra cost. There is other equipment you have to buy; you can buy these vibration vests, which shake the chest and clear it of mucus. People have to buy them privately; they are about four or five grand —they are a lot of money, but if you have the money, I am sure you would do anything for your children.

There are the constant trips to the hospital—it is a lot of trips. The hon. Member for Strangford mentioned parking fees. We are lucky at our local CF unit, because the patients can park for free, so that is not a problem, but I wish other trusts would take a leaf out of their book. Blowing machines and percussion machines are other stuff you can buy—the NHS is pretty good at supplying them. Parents are always looking for lots of stuff to make their child’s life more comfortable and to prolong it, and to give their child a better quality of life.

That is what it is about: having that quality of life. Since my wife had a transplant, her quality of life has been a lot better, and we thank our donor’s family every day. That is another thing we do not really think about in these discussions: eventually, without the right medication, some patients will need a transplant, and that is a matter of life and death—my wife would not be here now without a transplant.

I spoke to Amelia’s mum, Holly, last night and asked her if she wanted me to say anything in this debate, because she cannot be here and obviously cannot speak here. She wrote a few words down for me, and I want to read them out:

“Being a cf parent is one of the hardest things I have ever had to go through. Not just physically, but mentally too. Dealing with the condition in itself is hard enough, having no cure available. Endless physio, daily routines, no days off, hospital stays, hospital trips and constant need for medications just to keep her… well… and … it’s sometimes not enough to keep her well. The constant worry for the future and what the future holds for Amelia, really plays heavy on our minds. But we try and stay as positive as possible, as we have no other choice but to take every day as it comes. It’s draining physically, from running around finding the medication, as there are a lot of shortages for certain cf medicines. So going to a number of pharmacies to find medication is a strain. There is no break, and it is a full-time condition 24/7. The price increase on everything with the cost of living adds extra strain and other things in life have taken a back seat.”

She finishes by saying that she wishes the Government could help the whole CF community as much as possible, and she thanks us for discussing these matters today. That is quite good coming from Holly.

I spoke briefly about prescription charges. My wife was diagnosed with CF at 18. She obviously had to pay for her prescriptions, but then, when she got to 23 or 24, she was—not fortunately—diagnosed with diabetes. Because she had diabetes, she then got free prescriptions. The two diseases are so contradictory: for one disease, CF, you have to eat a lot of high-calorie junk food such as burgers and chips, which is a dream for most of us, but that totally contradicts diabetes, so regulating your insulin is a constant struggle. My wife always says to me that she would sooner have CF than diabetes, even though CF can be a killer. That is the struggle people have to manage, and it is a constant job.

We have talked about free prescriptions. The hon. Member for Strangford said that the cost would be £200,000; that is about the average wage of a premiership footballer, so I do not think it is too much money. But we have to be careful, because not every CF family is poor; there are a lot of CF people who go to work and have good jobs and careers, and any support should be targeted at the most vulnerable families, because there are some very vulnerable CF families out there who do not have much money. For a CF family like mine, I am prepared to pay a little bit more and not have a benefit to make sure that my neighbour, who does not have that money or that support, gets a little bit more.

I know that the Minister is listening, and that she has a big heart. There are lots of little Amelias all over the country, and there will be lots of CF families watching this debate—I know that Amelia’s family is watching. There are lots of people in the CF community and from the Cystic Fibrosis Trust who will be encouraging people to keep tagging me on Facebook and making a nuisance of themselves, but I am glad they do, because we need to debate this important issue in this place; if we cannot change things here, I am in the wrong place. So thank you, Ms Harris; this is a great debate.

NHS: Long-term Strategy

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I find it astonishing. The hon. Gentleman’s position seems to be this: the Government have a plan, after 13 years, and apparently that plan is in progress. So why is it that so many Conservative Members just this week have stood up to talk about the fact that their constituents cannot see a GP, they cannot get an ambulance when they dial 999, and they are waiting hours on end in A&E departments? I know they like three-word slogans, but is the latest Conservative slogan on the NHS really “Crisis, what crisis?”?

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

I have received several emails from Labour party members in Ashfield asking me to back the Labour party’s fully costed NHS plan. Could the hon. Member please send me a copy?

[Wes Streeting]

I would be delighted. I can barely believe it. Honestly, I can barely believe it. This is the second time this week that Conservative MPs have said, “We need to see Labour’s plan, because we haven’t got one.” I would be absolutely delighted. The hon. Member can even sign it and put it in one of his party’s fundraisers—God knows he is going to need it at the next general election. I will tell him what the plan is: it is a fully funded, fully costed plan to deliver the biggest expansion of NHS staff in history—doubling the number of medical school places; 10,000 more nursing and midwifery clinical training places; 5,000 more health visitors; and doubling the number of district nurses. That is my plan. Where is their plan?

The Government amendment refers to funding and states that they are putting in an extra £14.1 billion. I wonder how much of that will be swallowed up by the inflation caused by their catastrophic mismanagement of the economy. People are not just paying the Truss and Kwarteng premium; this is the price of 13 years of low growth, low productivity, high taxes and stagnation. Every penny will be swallowed up by higher inflation. That is the truth. Why do people talk about 13 years of underfunding? It is because they know it did not need to be like this, and because they saw what the last Labour Government did. With Labour, per capita spending on health increased by 5% each year, and we were able to do that because we grew the economy. Under the Conservatives, spending per capita fell during the coalition years, fell in the following two Parliaments, and even the increases that the Government promise today will not match the investment that Labour put in. That is the price of Tory economic failure.

NHS Industrial Action: Government Preparations

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

Now then. In 2014, the shadow Health Secretary said that he would support strikes within the NHS, even if there was a Labour Government in power, but he is remarkably quiet today about whether he actually supports the strikes—unlike the RMT strikes, which I am sure that he supports. Does the Minister think that the shadow Health Secretary and Opposition Front Benchers are playing politics with this issue?

[Will Quince]

I am not one to cast aspersions on the shadow Secretary of State, other than to say that I and the Secretary of State refuse to play politics with this issue. This is all about patient safety and ensuring that if industrial action goes ahead—[Interruption.] The shadow Secretary of State again shouts “Negotiate” from a sedentary position, but he knows that we have an independent pay review body, process and mechanism. It is important that we respect that.

Ambulance Pressures

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

I recently had the good fortune to spend a few hours with an ambulance driver from Ashfield who drives for the East Midlands ambulance service. He told me that he is so frustrated, because a lot of the time, the ambulance gets to the caller, and the person simply does not need an ambulance. He raised this with his bosses, but they are scared to admit that. Is it not about time that somebody from the Department of Health and Social Care had an honest conversation with the people who actually do the graft—the drivers and the ambulance staff?

[Steve Barclay]

I know from conversations in recent days that there has been significant work around dispatch, the assessment of calls and the role of clinicians, particularly in 111. There is further work with frequent callers. I went out with the London ambulance service, and one of our visits was to someone who had had 140 ambulances visit him over the past year and a half. There are initiatives, and work going on, on how we assess calls and get dispatch right, but I am very happy to take forward the comments that my hon. Friend makes.

Cystic Fibrosis: Prescription Charge Exemption

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) for securing this debate today and for the very passionate speech he gave.

There are 2,500 people in the UK who suffer from cystic fibrosis; my wife, Sinead, is one of them. My wife was really poorly through childhood and up until the age of 18. She never got diagnosed with a condition; it was just considered a bad cough and a few digestive problems. In fact, a local GP thought she was a bit of a nuisance as she kept going back. At the age of 18—imagine this—she was just about to finish her A-levels, go to university and start her journey through life, when she was finally diagnosed with CF. She was told by a GP and people at the hospital that she probably would not live until she was 30. That was a good outcome, back then.

Undeterred, my wife carried on, went to university, did her studies, took her medication, did her physio—she did all the right things—in the hope of becoming a schoolteacher. She qualified with a degree at university and then went on to become a teacher. This was way before I met her. She has told me that paying the prescription charges was a struggle for her, because she had her student loans to pay off and she wanted to buy a house to live independently; she had dreams of living independently because she was fighting against time. She only had a few years to live; she did not think she would be here by the age of 30, so she had to plan her life out. She struggled—she really struggled.

Then, in a sort of blessing in disguise, my wife’s illness took a turn for the worse: she got CF-related type 1 diabetes, which meant that she could get free prescriptions. The irony is incredible: she has a life-limiting condition such as cystic fibrosis, which—let us be honest—is an early death sentence, yet the only way to get free prescriptions is to get another condition that is not as life threatening. I know diabetes is serious—my wife said that, actually, she would sooner have CF than diabetes, because it is a nightmare taking her insulin. However, our brilliant NHS has sorted that: she wears a patch with a sensor that tells her when she needs insulin. That is really good. Nevertheless, it was a real battle.

Living with someone with CF is a struggle. I met my wife 12 years ago. She is the best thing that has ever happened to me, if I am honest. I saw her at night, when she was getting really bad. When she was 32 or 33, she was told she had only a couple of years to live, and she was put on the list for a double lung transplant. We went down to the Royal Papworth Hospital, had the assessment and did all that stuff. I used to be awake with her at night—giving her physio, patting her back—while she was coughing up cups and cups of blood and throwing up.

Sometimes, we would go out for a meal and, as soon as we went out into the cold air, she would throw everything up. Because of the coughing, there is a big struggle for a CF patient to keep their food down. Most people do not know that—I did not even know what CF was before I met my wife. There is a constant struggle to keep their weight on. The heavier they are, the healthier they are and the better their lung capacity. My wife had to eat 4,000 or 5,000 calories a day. That is a lot of food. She had to eat lots of junk food—pizzas, chocolate, chips; every bit of junk food—which totally contradicted her diabetes. It was a battle between two illnesses to keep her fit and healthy.

My wife was on the transplant list for about two years. We had six calls; five were false alarms. We would get the call and get blue-lighted down to Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire. She would get ready for theatre, they would tell us about the donor and, then, about half an hour before surgery, they would come to us and say, “I’m sorry—it’s not a match. You’ve got to go home.” We would have to drive two and a half hours back up to Ashfield—that is a long journey of about 100 miles. There would be deathly silence in the car. We would not talk to one another; we were both upset, thinking, “Well, that’s it. You’ve got just a few months to live.” That happened five times.

On the sixth time, in December 2019, we got to Papworth and they said, “It’s a goer. We’re going ahead.” We got there at about 1 o’clock in the afternoon and she had the surgery that night. The lady whose organs she was receiving was still on a life support machine; she was still alive, but was, sadly, brain dead. When they turn the machine off, they disperse the organs all around the country to wherever they are going. It is a wonderful thing that our NHS does.

When the doctors told my wife that she was going to have the transplant, she broke down in tears and said, “I don’t want it.” We had to have a conversation, which was pretty blunt: “If you don’t have it, you won’t be here in a couple of months.” It did not take long to make her mind up. She is a braver person than me, and she had the surgery. She went into theatre at about 7 o’clock. Halfway through, the surgeon came out and said that they were really struggling; they had got one lung out and one lung in, but they could not get the other lung out. It was not looking good. Her mother and I were there, at Papworth.

Anyway, a couple of hours later, the surgeon came out again and said that they had got the lung out. They were fighting against time, because they only have a short amount of time. After about 14 hours, he came back down and said they had done it and were just sewing her up back up. She was fine after that, although it was a struggle. I think that people do not realise that a patient can get over the physical part—although it is a lot of pain, a lot of painkillers and a lot of medication—but the mental part is very tough. For my wife, knowing that she had somebody else’s organs inside her body, with the fear of rejection, was tough.

I hope that gives hon. Members a little insight into what it is like for a CF patient. It is hard to sympathise and empathise without having been there. That is the journey my wife went through. She always says that she cannot understand why she has this horrible condition but she cannot get a free prescription. Our spare bedroom is like a chemist’s. There are thousands of tablets. She takes over 50 tablets a day and now her transplant tablets as well, and the only reason she gets a free prescription is that she has diabetes. It seems absolutely crazy. I understand the argument that people get PIP or disability living allowance, and I understand that they should use that for extra living costs—I get that—but lots of CF patients out there do not get DLA or PIP. It is a real struggle, and we should take that into consideration.

I read this morning that the Cystic Fibrosis Trust says the cost to the Government would be about £270,000 a year if they waived prescription charges. To put that into context, it is similar to a premiership footballer’s weekly wage or the salary of a newsreader on the BBC—my favourite channel. That amount of money is what we are talking about.

We are limiting chances for people. Obviously, my wife went on to be a primary school teacher and make a fantastic contribution to society. For 10 years, she taught lots of children and made a real difference. She was able to do so not because she was financially secure, but because she did not have the extra debt of prescriptions. Fortunately, or unfortunately, she got diabetes, which made it less expensive for her but resulted in more hassle and more tablets.

However, we have new drugs such as Trikafta, which I thank the Government for introducing about 18 months ago and which, by the way, is a game-changer. A number of parents have contacted me to say, “This is brilliant. My child is going to live a near-normal life.” My wife did not get that chance. She had to have a transplant, so she is on limited time.

It seems now that we have done all this brilliant work and got these brilliant drugs that extend lives and let people live a more normal life—but living longer costs more money. I do not think that is fair, but I get both sides of the argument. It is not “one size fits all”. There are plenty of people with CF who have a few quid in the bank. We are comfortable in my household. My wife and I are all right—I get a decent salary—but there are people with CF who are a lot worse off than me, and I know from experience and talking to the CF community through social media that there are people out there for whom every penny counts and who skip their medication. If people with CF skip their medication, there is a good chance that could put them in hospital. Even worse, it could end up killing them, because skipping medication for a condition like this literally kills people.

I ask the Minister to have a serious think about waiving prescription charges. Like I say, it is not “one size fits all”. I do not personally think that everybody should get free prescriptions, because some people get extra benefits—the DLA, PIP or whatever—that are supposed to help them, but the Minister should take into account that it is a very costly job being a CF patient. They need extra food, and there is all the travel to the hospital and the doctors to have their blood done. It is an absolute nightmare. My wife has many trips to the hospital every single month, and there is the added cost of going down to Papworth once every three months for check-ups and stuff like that. The CF community is very small in this country, and not many people know much about it. I am fortunate that I know a little bit about it through my wife, so I can tell that story. I hope the Government listen, and I hope there can be some compromise.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

We will endeavour to respond swiftly, but if the hon. Gentleman would like to meet me about capital funding for those sorts of projects, I am always happy to meet him.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

Now then: the Health Secretary will be aware that King’s Mill Hospital in Ashfield was built under a disastrous private finance initiative deal under the last Labour Government. It now costs us about £1 million a week to service the debt—money that could be spent on social care in Ashfield. Will he meet me to discuss how we can rid my trust of this crippling debt of £1 million a week and spend it on social care?

Covid-19 Update

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

But why? Why on earth would you say, “I’m going to rule out doing something in two weeks’ time,” when we know that the extra data that we will get over the next week will help to make a more refined and more careful decision? I do not understand this argument that has been put by the SNP and the Green party that we should just make a decision now, when we will know more in a week’s time, so that is what we are going to do.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

Now then, I see that our NHS has published its very own woke alphabet, which includes terms such as “white fragility” for the letter W. Not only is this a load of nonsense, but it is very divisive. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the vast majority of our brilliant NHS staff are more interested in keeping the nation healthy than in learning the ABC of wokery?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend. He puts it well. This so-called glossary appeared on the NHS website. I have raised it with the NHS and it has been taken down.

Covid-19

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I absolutely join my hon. Friend in that, because I see it up and down the country all the time. I spoke earlier about the Dunkirk spirit, with people coming up and saying, “I want to be counted. I want to be part of this.” We demonstrated it to the world a little bit in the 2012 Olympics. This is a whole other scale of operation. Nevertheless, we have delivered on it and will continue to deliver on it, and I stand on the shoulders of the real heroes and heroines of the NHS family, our armed forces and local government.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

The vaccine works—it prevents serious illness and helps to prevent transmission—but I read in the papers this morning that even if someone has had two jabs, if they come into contact with someone who is positive after 21 June, they will still have to isolate for 10 days. Could my hon. Friend confirm whether or not that is correct?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I answered a question on this issue earlier. Obviously if someone contracts covid, they have to isolate and quarantine, but in terms of their contacts, we are looking at regular testing to see whether there is an alternative. I am afraid that my hon. Friend will have to wait a little longer before step four, and we will say more on this on 14 June.