Business of the House

Debate between Lord Lansley and Andy Slaughter

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend asks for a debate before the European elections, but it seems to me that the European elections are about who we send to the European Parliament. The debate between now and the European parliamentary elections should be about sending Conservative Members of the European Parliament, as we have in the past and will again in the future, who will go there and fight for British interests, vote against measures that are not in this country’s interests and promote competitiveness and deregulation in the European Union. That is what the European parliamentary election is about. At the same time, we might have a further opportunity in the course of the next Session in this House to debate through a private Member’s Bill how the people of this country can have their say in a referendum. That is a critical issue in getting such a debate to happen.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust is bidding for foundation trust status so that it can take advantage of the Government’s hospital closure programme and sell off half of Charing Cross and Saint Mary’s hospitals, which the people who pay for the NHS, my constituents, do not want. May we have a debate on NHS land sales, and may we have it before 22 May and the local elections? Since Labour made this an election issue, the decision to close Charing Cross has unaccountably been put back to the week after the poll.

[Mr Lansley]

One might imagine on hearing the hon. Gentleman that foundation trust status had been introduced by this Government when, of course, it was introduced by the previous Labour Government. It certainly gives freedoms but, as it happens, it does not give a trust any greater freedom to sell property than it would have as an NHS trust. I am quite sure that the hon. Gentleman’s description of the purposes of acquiring foundation trust status does not match up with what Imperial College Healthcare itself believes. Many other trusts, including Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in my constituency, have used their freedoms to enable them to invest in additional capital, including new buildings, to improve the quality of the service they provide for patients.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Lansley and Andy Slaughter

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I will not go on at length, but my hon. Friend and other colleagues from the south-west have—quite rightly—stressed the need for resilience and improvement in connections through the south-west, both road and rail. The Environment Agency is currently considering a number of studies on that rail route, and the Department for Transport and the Highways Agency are considering a number of expediting studies relating to the route from the A30/A303.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

May we have a debate on how the Metropolitan police investigates fraud? That will allow Members to contrast the cosy relationship between the Met and big business—whereby it assists private prosecutions in return for a share of the compensation—with the treatment of my constituents who have to report even substantial frauds online to Action Fraud. Its pro forma response is, “It’s not possible for the police to investigate every report they receive.” People only hear from the police now if they are able to progress the investigation further. The rest is silence.

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman might like to initiate an Adjournment debate on that subject, although I suspect we have just heard the speech.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Lansley and Andy Slaughter

Thursday 16th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Not only Sir Michael Wilshaw, but The Times Educational Supplement has made it clear that there has probably never been a better time to be a teacher and to join the teaching profession, and the quality of teachers in our schools is at one of the highest levels it has ever been. That is partly because of the reform of initial teacher training, and 74% of graduates entering initial teacher training now have a 2:1 degree or higher—that proportion is the highest on record.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

May we have a debate on education, particularly on the refusal of Tory councils to support or invest in community schools? That would give me the opportunity to raise the case of Sulivan school in Fulham, one of the best performing primaries in the country, which on Monday Hammersmith and Fulham council will decide to close and demolish solely so that its site can be given to a free school.

[Mr Lansley]

I cannot comment on the particular case, but I will of course ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education to look at the matter and respond. I will discover more about the circumstances then. In my experience, there is an undoubted determination on the part of councils—I know Hammersmith and Fulham as a council pretty well—to ensure improvement in the provision of schools.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Lansley and Andy Slaughter

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I will not repeat what I have said previously, but in the light of the points that my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) have made, I will talk to Ministers at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who fully share the concerns of the House and are working with our partners, pressing for the political progress necessary, including the implementation of the agreement in April. Time is not on our side, and our concerns increase day by day.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

May I say how much I will miss Paul Goggins? I was looking forward to working with him this year on holding the Government to account on the promises they made to mesothelioma sufferers in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012—an issue that I know was very dear to his heart.

Has the Leader of the House seen The Times’ letters page, particularly the letter from the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, who complains that in interviews this week the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), who has responsibility for legal aid, has exaggerated barristers’ average earnings by more than 300%? Is not the problem that, while making the biggest attack on the criminal justice system in a generation, the Government have allowed no legislative time or debate? Will the Justice Secretary now table a debate in Government time so that at least we can get to the bottom of some of these dodgy statistics?

[Mr Lansley]

I know that my hon. Friends would never use dodgy statistics. At nearly £2 billion a year, ours is one of the most expensive legal aid systems in the world. I understood there to be consensus across political parties that savings needed to be made. That is why we are taking these steps. Previously, the Leader of the Opposition said that his party supported cuts in the legal aid budget. If he and his hon. Friends are changing their position, it would be helpful if they would explain how they would pay for it. It is of course open to the Opposition—and to the hon. Gentleman to tell his Front-Bench team this—to raise these matters: they have two Opposition days in the next two weeks, and if they wish to raise these issues, as they have done before, they can do so.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Lansley and Andy Slaughter

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

The House will have been shocked, as my hon. Friend no doubt was, by the report. The House, through the Backbench Business Committee, was able to debate child sexual exploitation last week. The issue has been debated, but we must press forward, and my colleagues are doing so with the tackling child sexual exploitation action plan and other measures. The interim report made a number of recommendations that we must pursue. We must also look at the recommendations from phase 2 next year, but be ready now to take all the action we can, as illustrated by my hon. Friends’ response to last week’s debate.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell), during a statement earlier this week, called for a full debate in Government time on the situation in the middle east. The response of the Leader of the House today was as incoherent on the issue as the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary were in trying to justify not supporting Palestinian statehood. This is a serious situation with a fragile ceasefire, the threat of a ground attack and 160 dead. May we have a debate as soon as possible?

[Mr Lansley]

We will of course consider that. I had a conversation with my right hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell) and he was clear in encouraging us to consider having a debate on the middle east. I have not been able to find time now, but it is open to hon. Members to seek such a debate using the time available to the Backbench Business Committee. Likewise, it is open to the Opposition, which has time for a debate next week should they wish to use it for that purpose. I think what I said was simply a reflection of what has been said many times by the Government and was repeated by the Foreign Secretary on Tuesday: what we want to do is secure the best possible progress in negotiations and use the ceasefire to make progress quickly. His response illustrated that urgency and the Government’s view that precipitating a vote at the United Nations was not necessarily the best way of making progress.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Lansley and Andy Slaughter

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I would be grateful if my hon. Friend could convey my best wishes to the Countess of Chester hospital, which I visited just before Christmas, and my appreciation of the work of the West Cheshire CCG. I can confirm that discussions between officials in the Welsh Government, my Department and the NHS Commissioning Board are under way to extend and renew the protocol for cross-border commissioning for 2013-14 and beyond.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

If the Secretary of State believes that the reconfiguration of hospitals is clinically rather than finance led, will he ensure that NHS North West London publishes full risk assessments of its decision to close four accident and emergency departments and replace them with urgent care centres?

NHS Annual Report and Care Objectives

Debate between Lord Lansley and Andy Slaughter

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I could not agree more. It was precisely because Professor Sir Mike Richards undertook an inquiry and produced a report identifying a lack of access in this country to new cancer medicines in the first year after their introduction that we instituted the cancer drugs fund. It is a matter of considerable regret to many of us that that example was not followed in a similar way in Wales.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

What message does the Secretary of State have for the 2 million people in west London, four of whose nine major hospitals are set to lose their A and E departments, including both Hammersmith and Charing Cross, in my constituency? That is the Secretary of State’s policy. He cannot pass the buck to the NHS on this or, indeed, on the threat to the Royal Brompton hospital’s children’s services; he has to answer for it.

[Mr Lansley]

No. Let me reiterate to the hon. Gentleman the point I have just made, because what he describes is not my policy. If there are proposals, they are proposals that have been generated in north-west and west London, and the safe and sustainable review is an independent review. It is not establishing the Government’s policy; it is an independent review in the NHS, looking at how services can be improved.

The review was not in any sense about costs; it was entirely about how we sustain the highest quality of excellent care for patients. The same will be—needs to be—true in relation to services in west London for emergency care. I will not go through this all again, but I reiterate that, if people object and say that such an aim will not be achieved, it is open to a local authority to refer the matter to a mere Secretary of State on the basis that the tests I have set down have not been met.

Contaminated Blood

Debate between Lord Lansley and Andy Slaughter

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

May I say two things to my hon. Friend? My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has met those groups and will continue to meet them, because we want to ensure not least that those who are now eligible for enhanced payments and so on make proper applications. We have looked very carefully with the clinical expert group at the support that we ought to give. It is not compensation as such; it is an ex gratia form of support. We have made judgments, and if we were to go further, there would be significant additional costs. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and I have made it clear to the House in the past that to provide payments on the scale of the Republic of Ireland might involve up to, or perhaps even in excess of, £3.5 billion a year, so I am not in a position to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) that I expect to go beyond the support that I have set out today.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is to be regretted that the review’s terms of reference were so narrow, as it did not consider overall levels of compensation or HIV. If the Secretary of State believes that the Republic of Ireland case is simply too expensive, will he please say so and not rely, as the Department has, on either the idea that the Taintedblood campaigners and others are asking him to look at that and tying us to the Irish system, or the idea that they are asking us effectively to look at those levels of compensation because negligence was involved? That was not the case in Ireland. Is not the result likely to be more litigation? The levels of remuneration are still far too low.

[Mr Lansley]

With respect to the hon. Gentleman, in response to previous questions I made it very clear that the question was not simply about the amount of money. The situation in the Republic of Ireland is unique in respect of its determination of liability because of mistakes made by the Irish Blood Transfusion Service. To that extent, we are making ex gratia payments. The nature of our payments stands comparison to other countries, particularly now, in respect of hepatitis C and my announcements this afternoon.