Business of the House

Debate between Lord Lansley and Helen Jones

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes a point that I know concerns many Members. Where there is a lack of demand for particular services, it is obviously for local authorities to decide how best to use their grants to support bus services in some of the most rural areas. He rightly raises that point, and I will refer it to my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department for Transport and seek more details for him.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Today a report on the police’s handling of domestic violence cases has shown appalling failures and some horrifying treatment of victims, yet when we have raised in the House the fact that reports of domestic violence are rising and fewer cases are being passed to the Crown Prosecution Service, those concerns have been dismissed. Now that the Home Secretary has announced to the press that she is taking charge of the police response, will the Leader of the House arrange for her to make a statement to the House on what she will do to address the appalling failures that have taken place on her watch?

[Mr Lansley]

Many Members will have been very concerned by the report Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary published this morning. I certainly was, as one of the four police forces identified as failing to meet the standard required was Cambridgeshire constabulary, which serves my constituency. I will talk with the Home Secretary, but I would not characterise her response in the way the hon. Lady did. I think that the Home Secretary has been foremost in her handling of the matter, for example in the way she has brought forward or strengthened action plans for dealing with violence against women and girls. I will ask her to find an opportunity to update the House by means of a statement of some description before too long.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Lansley and Helen Jones

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I cannot promise a statement, but I know that my hon. Friend is concerned about this, and that the Secretary of State for Justice feels very strongly about these issues. He will be answering questions in the House on Tuesday, and perhaps my hon. Friend will be in his place at that time to ask him about this.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Following the passage of the legislation earlier in the week, will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the future of district general hospitals? Warrington and Halton hospitals have already lost their vascular services; a review of maternity services is now under way; and nearby Whiston hospital continues to have financial problems. My hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) and I would like some reassurance from the Minister that our local hospital will not have its services downgraded or removed, as we have seen previously under this Government.

[Mr Lansley]

The legislation passed earlier this week does not threaten district general hospitals. It secures a commitment to the fullest consultation to enable us, if necessary, to reconfigure services on the basis of clinical quality as well as finance. Under the 2009 special administration regime of the previous Government, the process was finance-driven, not quality-driven. I am astonished at the effrontery of the hon. Lady getting up to talk about a vascular services review that started under her Government—as far as I am concerned—and about Whiston hospital, which was one of a number of unsustainable private finance initiative projects put in place by the previous Government. They had no idea where the money was going to come from to pay for that from within the local economy.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Lansley and Helen Jones

Thursday 21st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Could the Leader of the House find time for a debate in Government time on taxation policy? Many of us would like to debate the unfulfilled promise that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister made to publish their tax returns, so that we can see exactly how much they have gained from cuts in the top rate of tax and work out how much they might gain from the current proposals to impose VAT on food and children’s clothing in order to cut taxes for the rich.

[Mr Lansley]

On the last point, I do not think the hon. Lady listened yesterday when the Prime Minister said that we had no such proposal. On other tax matters, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will, of course, deliver his autumn statement at the Dispatch Box on 5 December.

Lobbying

Debate between Lord Lansley and Helen Jones

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I have no idea of the specifics of what the hon. Gentleman talks about or of what precisely he means by what he said, but what I would say is that transparency is important. If Members of this House have financial interests in companies, they should be very clear about them in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and they should be very clear that they do not act in Parliament in a way from which they could personally benefit through their relationship with those external interests.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Lansley]

Let me try the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones). Would she, in the interests of transparency, like to volunteer on behalf of the Labour party to publish the meetings that her shadow Ministers have with external lobbying companies?

[Helen Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman should understand that he is supposed to be answering the questions. Let me put this point to him. Will the Bill that he proposes include regulations on in-house lobbying, such as the type associated with Fred Michel? Yes or no?

[Mr Lansley]

I thought I had made it clear on many occasions that what we are setting out to do in the Bill is to create a statutory register of lobbyists in the context of seeking to make absolutely clear where a third-party influence is being exercised in relation to Ministers. I used to be Secretary of State for Health, as Members will recall. We published our diaries of meetings and when the British Medical Association came to see me, nobody was under any illusions about why it did so. That applies, too, to the Royal College of Nurses, other royal colleges, the Patients Association, the NHS Federation—the list is endless. There was no doubt about the nature of the representations from people associated with many of these organisations. Where a lobbying company is seeking to influence Ministers, the permanent secretary or whomever it might be, the issue is knowing who their clients are. That is where the gap lies, and that is what we are focusing on. [Interruption.] I do not know about Fred Michel in that sense.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Lansley and Helen Jones

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am sure that the whole House will share my hon. Friend’s sadness at the loss of his constituent and express our condolences to her family. Considerable strides have been taken in palliative care, particularly in relation to teenagers. I have met the youngsters at Christie hospital and University College London hospital, which, not least with the support of the Teenage Cancer Trust, have done a tremendous amount to improve the age-appropriate character of care for teenagers with cancer. There is more that we can do, absolutely, especially in support of the hospice movement. I hope that, following up on the Tom Hughes-Hallett report, we can introduce a system where money follows the patient so that the hospices that provide care that would otherwise be provided by the NHS get the support they need to provide the very high-quality personal care that they specialise in.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Now that we have had a chance to digest the latest report on children’s heart surgery and the flawed decision making to which it draws attention, may we have a debate on the quality of decision making in the NHS as a whole? That would give us an opportunity to debate further issues such as the removal of vascular services from Warrington hospital, on very flawed evidence, and the constant pressure for a merger between Warrington and Whiston, which would no doubt take away Warrington’s accident and emergency provision.

[Mr Lansley]

I will not comment on the particular instances that the hon. Lady mentions, though I have been aware of them in the past. The previous Government used to tell us that all these decisions were being made locally, but some of the evidence shows that they were, in effect, being made on a national basis but were not accountable on a national basis. Accountability will now be much clearer. Following what my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary said at the Dispatch Box yesterday, it is clear that in future NHS England will have a responsibility for commissioning these national specialised services across the country instead of the joint committee of primary care trusts from all over England that did it in the past. That is much clearer and much more straightforward, and I hope that NHS England will demonstrate a greater degree of consistency in decision making as a consequence.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Lansley and Helen Jones

Thursday 18th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I had the privilege of speaking at the reception for Whizz-Kidz in the later part of last year. I saw how it takes the opportunity to put children in the right wheelchair in a day, bringing fantastic improvements in the availability of the right wheelchair support for children. It is precisely because of that sort of evidence of how charities, as well as private sector organisations, can add value to the NHS that the section 75 regulations are going through as they are. They are not about privatising services; they do not do any privatisation: what they do is give those responsible for commissioning these services the opportunity to look at how they can deliver the best possible service to their patients.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

North Cheshire hospitals are set to lose hundreds of posts, yet the Department of Health is paying £2.2 billion back to the Treasury and is spending millions on a totally unnecessary reorganisation. May we therefore have a debate on the competence of the Department of Health, which is hitting front-line services while not spending its full budget?

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Lansley and Helen Jones

Thursday 28th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

In the interests of equality, I advise my hon. Friend to approach the Backbench Business Committee in the same way that hon. Members who secured the debate on violence against women and girls did.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

May I return to the Health and Social Care Act 2012? I remind the Leader of the House that the then Health Minister, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), assured the Bill Committee that there was no intention to impose compulsory competitive tendering. Those assurances were repeated by the Leader of the House and by Earl Howe in the other place. Will the Leader of the House arrange not only for the regulations to be debated on the Floor of the House, but for us to have a debate on ministerial standards and accountability, so that we can discuss how those assurances came to be given by Ministers when something completely different has happened in the regulations?

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Lansley and Helen Jones

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point and I entirely agree with him. Our Government’s reforms to curriculum, qualifications, teaching and the schools system will support better science and technology education. They include: a strengthened mathematics and science curriculum; more rigorous key stage 4 qualifications; and, not least, attracting more graduates with the appropriate qualifications into teaching by offering bursaries of up to £20,000. We all know that the ability to teach science and maths effectively for students often depends on teachers having the appropriate specialist qualifications.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

As we do not appear to be overwhelmed with Government business, will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the plight of disabled people under this Government? Like many other hon. Members, I am now receiving letters from disabled people who are in despair at the cuts they are facing. One gentleman wrote to me last week saying that he believes the answer for him is the introduction of voluntary euthanasia. Is it not about time we had a proper debate on these issues?

[Mr Lansley]

I am sorry if anybody should ever feel that, because it is absolutely not necessary. As the Prime Minister has clearly said, and as I have reiterated, the changes to benefits for disabled people, including the personal independence payments, will focus more resources on those most in need with disabilities. I also dispute what the hon. Lady said about the business. This week five Government Bills are being considered in this House and five are being considered in the other House—that is a busy programme.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Lansley and Helen Jones

Thursday 1st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I fear, Mr Speaker, that I am at risk of repeating a number of times that there is an opportunity to raise issues with the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. It is examining a very important area, and it could consider the topic my hon. Friend raises. I will also make sure that we take it into account as we look at opportunities for discussions relating to banking, perhaps as legislation on banking reform comes forward in the new year.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on transparency in pay and taxation, because I am sure the House would like an opportunity to debate recent reports that the interim chief executive of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is being paid off the books through a company, thus, one assumes, saving a great deal in tax and national insurance contributions? Could we also then debate why IPSA, an organisation dedicated to transparency, refuses to publish details of these arrangements and say to its press officers that no matter how many stories they then leak, we will keep raising this issue?

[Mr Lansley]

I remind the hon. Lady that we will—not immediately, but at a future date—have an opportunity to discuss the appointments of further lay members to IPSA, which might enable her to raise such issues. On the specific point about the temporary chief executive, I should point out that it was very much a temporary appointment, with a contract for a short period of time, and those are precisely the circumstances in which, as is the case in business life, one would tend to have a special contracting procedure.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Lansley and Helen Jones

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I hope my hon. Friend will not be surprised to learn that we in the Government have been working actively over the last two and a half years to ensure that common sense is at the heart of the way in which we apply health and safety regulations. It must be evidence-based, common-sense and proportionate. Measures have been taken, but I will certainly draw my hon. Friend’s comments to the attention of my colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills so that they can continue the process.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

This week, in Westminster Hall, Members held a debate on the shambles that is Atos. When will the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions come to the House to make a statement on what is going on in that organisation? In my constituency I have seen a woman undergoing chemotherapy passed as fit for work, and a veteran who was classed as being more than 40% disabled for the purpose of industrial injuries benefit lose his disability living allowance following an Atos report which referred to him as a woman throughout. When are we going to get some answers in relation to what this organisation is inflicting on disabled people?

[Mr Lansley]

In terms of business, the hon. Lady is right. The House had an opportunity to debate Atos Healthcare, and I think that she may have received replies from the then Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling). I personally know that the work done as a consequence of the Harrington reviews, and what we announced in July about the recording of tribunal judges’ reasons for overturning decisions on appeal, will enable us continuously to improve the process.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Lord Lansley and Helen Jones

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. Many of the issues that have been the subject of some of the most heated debate on the Bill have been raised because Labour never addressed them. He is absolutely right that one result will be that in future, it will no longer be possible for £250 million to be paid to the private sector for operations that never take place.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State explain why he is prepared to get into further discussions with the Liberal Democrats to help them to save seats in May, but not to do so with doctors, nurses and midwives, who all oppose the Bill? Is he engaged in patching up the coalition rather than in providing proper health care?

[Mr Lansley]

I think I made that perfectly clear not only in the course of the initial consultation on the White Paper, but then through the NHS Future Forum. Many thousands of NHS staff contributed their views to the NHS Future Forum, which made many recommendations and we accepted them all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Lansley and Helen Jones

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

My responsibility is to lead the NHS in delivering improved health outcomes in England, to lead a public health service that improves the health of the nation and reduces health inequalities, and to lead the reform of adult social care, which supports and protects vulnerable people.

[Helen Jones]

Is the Secretary of State aware that plans to remove vascular services from Warrington hospital will threaten services such as diabetes care, renal cancer care and the co-operation on stroke that has been built up with Whiston hospital? What will he do to protect those services, or is this part of the plan he discussed in February with NHS North West to reduce the number of acute beds and increase competition?

[Mr Lansley]

I am glad that on Monday the hon. Lady will have an opportunity for an Adjournment debate where this subject can be—

[Helen Jones]

Answer the question!

[Mr Lansley]

I will of course answer the question. The answer is that this is entirely driven by clinical issues in a local context. I can tell the hon. Lady that it is very much about trying to improve vascular services, and the judgments being made are local and clinical.

NHS Future Forum

Debate between Lord Lansley and Helen Jones

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

As my hon. Friend knows, much can contribute to that change of culture, not least making safety one of the central domains for measuring outcomes in the NHS. In addition, it must be personal to each member of staff in the NHS that they have that responsibility. We have too often seen cases in which people have been professionally responsible but have not acted in line with that responsibility. A central part of what we need to do is not about organisations and structures but about creating that sense of personal responsibility in professionals across the service to look after their patients and those for whom they care and to blow the whistle if there is harm or abuse; and we must protect and secure that whistleblowing when it happens.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State promised to reduce bureaucracy, but he has now spent more than £760 million on a botched reorganisation that gives us commissioning consortia, senates, a whole host of national quangos and PCTs being abolished to transfer their staff somewhere else. Is it not time he accepted that this is a botched reorganisation and withdrew the Bill?

[Mr Lansley]

Most of that was pure invention, including all the numbers. We are going to save money with these changes to the NHS. We are going to transfer resources from bureaucracy, management and administration into front-line care. Through clinical commissioning groups we are going to empower staff in the NHS, and abolishing two tiers of management in the NHS will save us, in total, a third in real terms out of administration costs.