Health and Social Care Committee

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his own really important role in the course of our inquiry. He highlights the point about the CQC. The CQC has no powers of entry into our prisons. We now know that it can carry out unannounced inspections just about anywhere else, but it cannot in prisons. The other challenge that it faces is being able to take a whole-system approach to the way services are commissioned. We heard from it again, in relation to a separate inquiry, earlier this week that it would like to have the powers independently to look at a whole-system approach, rather than just very narrowly looking at one aspect of it. It was very clear to us that a whole-system public health approach needs to be taken to the commissioning and provision of healthcare.

The hon. Gentleman’s other point was about the conditions in our jails. Keeping people in conditions where there are broken windows, cockroach infestations and so on is wholly unacceptable. No one should be living in those conditions in Britain today.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The Select Committee on Welsh Affairs is undertaking an ongoing inquiry into the prison estate in Wales, and one issue that has been raised is the fact that health is of course devolved, but there appears to be relatively little consideration of how health is managed differently there from how it is managed in English prisons—of the difference between Wales and England. There is a particular anomaly with the only private prison in Wales, the question of answerability to the health ombudsman, and to whom actually that prison is answerable. Has the hon. Lady made any assessment of accountability between the Welsh and English regimes and to what degree we should perhaps be measuring the difference between health provision in prisons in Wales and that in England?

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. We did not look at devolved issues, because the remit of the Health and Social Care Committee is England only, but the hon. Lady makes a very important point. As the Justice Committee has an ongoing interest in this issue, there might be an opportunity for that Committee to take the matter up more quickly than we would be able to, but I would be very interested if the hon. Lady wanted to write to me about it.

I again thank all those who contributed to the inquiry, and I look forward to hearing the ongoing thoughts of the Justice Committee.

Phenylketonuria: Treatment and Support

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I thank the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) for securing this important debate and for her cogent argument. I am here on behalf of Mark Edwards of Llanegryn, Tywyn in Gwynedd. We have heard much about the impact on families and children, but the most effective thing I can do is talk about how Mark, as an adult, deals with this condition; how he manages from day to day; and what would make a difference to the quality of his life and the lives of others living with PKU.

Mark first contacted me about the sugar tax, which I had blithely thought to be a good thing. The sugar-sweetened drinks issue sums up how people with PKU struggle to strike the excruciatingly difficult balance between a medically essential specialist diet and fitting in with society’s rigid norms about food and drink.

Our social lives revolve around food and drink, from children’s tea parties to teenagers’ fast-food binges to adults’ restaurant dates. I have been told time and again how difficult it is for people with PKU to cope with the stigma of being “difficult” and “different”, especially over something as integral to our lives as food. If they cannot enjoy cake, jelly, burgers and chips, at least they can enjoy a fizzy drink—Irn-Bru or whatever the brand—like everyone else. Now, however, it costs more, because aspartame is on the red list. People with PKU are being taxed on one of the few social drink and food experiences that they are able to share with everybody else, simply because of their condition.

Mark is keen to stress how much he appreciates Wales’ policy on universal free prescriptions, which allows him to receive the special food and medical dietary supplements that he needs through Tywyn health centre’s dispensary, when he needs them and for free. That means that people with PKU in Wales have a much better arrangement, he said, than those in England. None the less, Mark still faces public prejudice towards his invisible condition. He has had to explain to people that he is not “freeloading on food”, as though it were a matter of lifestyle choice, and not medical necessity.

A number of us in this Chamber have committed to the PKU “diet for a day” on Thursday. A great number of people in Wales have also done so, and they deserve a shout out. They are: Alex Jones of Cambrian News; Janet Davis, the supervisor of Brighter Foods, where Mark works; school friends Carys Hughes and Nicci Hughes; and Tywyn solicitor Andre Bright, who has committed to keeping to the diet for a week. He deserves respect, even if a week is nothing compared to what the families face. I am only brave and organised enough to do it for a day; I apologise. We are doing this in solidarity with PKU families, but we also know that this in no way fully reflects or replicates the reality of their lives. Most of us will do this by being fussy and awkward—I anticipate living off aubergine for a day—but we are only doing it for one day. We will not face this fraught, potentially toxic relationship with food, and the stigma associated with it, every day of our lives.

PKU affects every aspect of one’s life. Controlling the condition by diet alone causes immense strain, and any possible medical intervention will make an immense difference to the quality of people’s lives. Wales is alert to England’s NICE guidelines, and I urge the Minister to do all he can to press NICE to move ahead, so that his Department can recommend Kuvan. I also urge that other drugs, such as Pegvaliase, be considered. I ask the Government to consider the health implications of the wider use of aspartame, which is associated with the sugar tax, and the way that it affects a number of other health conditions as well. Diolch yn fawr.

NHS Outsourcing and Privatisation

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

Absolutely. I wish the Labour candidate in Lewisham East well and will be campaigning with them. We will be sending a firm message to the Tories that privatisation of the NHS will end. The NHS is not for sale.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

It is not about my patience, but about Back Benchers.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I have only one question: will the hon. Gentleman explain why the Welsh Labour Government have outsourced dialysis services at Wrexham?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

We have always said that there is a small role for the private sector. This is what I said earlier—[Interruption.]

Drug Addiction

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that Wales is disproportionately represented? Wales’s population is 5% of the United Kingdom’s, but 10% of those drugs deaths took place in Wales. Will he join me in asking the Minister whether changes to UK legislation are needed to allow devolved Governments to introduce harm-reducing measures, such as safe injecting facilities, in areas with a high concentration of injecting drug users, such as Wrexham?

[Craig Mackinlay]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. She has put that issue on the record, and I am sure the Minister will address it later. I will provide some data for Wales that may assist her.

My concerns are somewhat summed up by that old adage, which is usually used in relation to financial markets: when the US sneezes, the UK catches a cold. I am concerned that we may be on the brink of a fentanyl epidemic here in the UK. I want to highlight both the human costs and the financial costs of drug addiction to the UK economy and to the people of this country.

The human costs are fairly obvious. Everyone will have their own points to add to this list, but they include: physical and mental health issues; disruption to families; the effects on children and their life chances, including the increasingly clear link between drug use during pregnancy and various autism spectrum conditions and physical deformities in children; the obvious spread of disease; the often desperate measures that people take to try to raise cash, resulting in prostitution and all manner of human degradation; forgone opportunities and the essence of all that someone could be in life being extinguished; and, of course, premature death.

NHS Pay

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock]

No.

Those Governments must give nurses the cash to bridge that gap with Scottish nurses and then match the pay rises from the Scottish Government—and make it new money. This has to be new investment, not current resources and not freed-up efficiency savings—those infamous, mythical beasts. It must be new money that is put into the service to keep it viable. Squeezing current resources simply starves the whole service. Please, let us also have no more of the pretence that paying workers a decent wage would bankrupt the economy or that a couple of per cent. on the wages of the lowest-paid would be some sort of spiral of economic doom.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Will the hon. Lady join me in asking why the Welsh Labour Government have not raised the pay cap where they could in Wales? That would have cost £60 million and would have relieved the situation for 30,000 nurses.

[Deidre Brock]

I thank the hon. lady for that important intervention. Austerity, wage cuts and in-work poverty are political choices—this is policy not necessity. The poverty facing public sector workers, including NHS workers, is a choice made by the Government—a choice made by millionaires, making ordinary workers poorer. An “increase” of 1% in someone’s wage while Brexit takes food prices through the roof, heating bills rocket, public transport fares are up by a quarter—more in some cases—the costs of childcare grow faster than the children, and rents soar is simply a pay cut. That makes the effects of the Government’s inhumane austerity policy worse. These workers are suffering the effects of cuts to public services.

In the Tory’s June manifesto, the Prime Minister wrote that she would deliver a

“Britain in which work pays”

and a mental health Bill

“to put parity of esteem at the heart of treatment”.

Last year, the Mental Health Foundation found a causal link between poverty and poor mental health, just like dozens of studies have shown before. That means that Tory Government austerity is increasing the incidence of mental health problems while promising to make it better. That increases the pressure on the NHS and betrays the patients who need the help. We cannot solve the problem in England’s NHS with new laws; it needs new cash. A responsible Government would be finding that new cash and funnelling it into the NHS and other public services.

English police forces have been saying that they cannot afford pay rises without additional funding. Some forces have clearly already reached and exceeded capacity, judging by the stories of crimes being ignored because no officers are available. For some unfathomable reason, the Government have let police numbers drop by around 20,000 since 2010. That is not a public service in a serviceable condition; that is a public sector breaking down.

If austerity continues, England’s public sector will cannibalise itself, and when that happens, Scotland’s public services will be damaged as well. Tied to this place, Scotland gets damaged time and again, but public services in England have reached fracture-point and are disintegrating. At this point, England’s NHS is not struggling but dying, and it is being helped on its merry way by Ministers who would rather it was gone. Breaking down the fabric of public services renders them irreparable, and breaking down the workers who deliver them does the same. Decent pay for decent work is not an outrageous demand, and decent funding for society’s infrastructure is a matter of respecting one’s own self-interest as well.