Operation Jasmine (Care Home Abuse)

Debate between Nick Smith and Jessica Morden

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Nick Smith]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. All the evidence collected by the police in this long-running case must be brought to the public’s attention, so that it is open and available for them and they can form their own views about what happened.

On 1 March, at Cardiff Crown court, the key prosecution collapsed, when the director of care home owners Puretruce was deemed unfit to stand trial. Relatives have been left angry and despondent. In the meantime, the human cost has been devastating: there are 103 alleged victims, 60 of whom have died since 2005. That cannot be the lasting legacy of the inquiry, or the legacy for those who died and their families.

In a former job, I was a National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children campaigner, and I saw terrible images of child abuse. The pictures that I have seen from Operation Jasmine are no less terrible. I was shown graphic photos of pressure sores that proved fatal, and of sores that were so infected that the bone beneath was visible. They were sickening, and in the words of one expert, the worst that they had ever seen.

A senior employee in one home has told me that the director sought tight control of the business. If full-time staff were off, no agency staff were brought in. Budgets were squeezed across the board, and even food and incontinence pads did not escape budget cuts. Six Puretruce care homes were investigated for alleged neglect. In my view, there was a systemic failure across many of the homes, with residents’ care being compromised. It led to what police have called “death by indifference”.

In July 2007, the director was arrested on charges covering both neglect of residents and financial irregularities, but the charges of neglect faltered as the bar for conviction was said to be very high.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate for the families, the police and the Health and Safety Executive who have worked so tirelessly on this case for many years. The central issue here is that proving deliberate acts of harm is relatively straightforward, but proving deliberate neglect is hard, so does he agree that that is something the Minister should consider urgently?

[Nick Smith]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and it is one of the direct questions that I intend to ask the Minister.

In 2011, the Health and Safety Executive became involved, too, in the hope that its additional evidence would be the final push over that bar. Sadly, that did not happen. Instead, the charges against the director, who had a GP practice and 26 care homes across south Wales—a profitable empire—will lie on file.

A small number of convictions have been secured in relation to the neglect of elderly people, but no one served a custodial sentence. We have to ask ourselves whether that sorry conclusion could have been avoided. MPs have been told that a change in the QC part way through the case brought a different perspective as to the likely success of the case. We know that the Crown Prosecution Service decides the charges and the standard of evidence it requires, but given the enormous quantity of evidence collected, it does beg questions about the evidence threshold, how Operation Jasmine progressed and the management of the operation. It is clear, as others have said, that local police worked very hard on this case, but the results do not match that fine effort. Was there a well founded and unified understanding between the CPS and the police about what evidence was needed?

Given that the case took seven years, did anything slow down the operation and how could such roadblocks be avoided in the future? What advice does the CPS give to the police and others investigating abuses in care, and does it have a plan for lowering the bar for prosecutions in the future? Were high-level project management tools brought to bear on this investigation from the start, and is the legal definition of “neglect” fit for purpose in cases such as this?

England-Wales Transport Links

Debate between Nick Smith and Jessica Morden

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Morden]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Obviously, the Welsh Assembly has expressed an interest in running the bridges when the concession ends, and I would be happy with that, as I suspect would many of my constituents, if it pledges in advance to reduce the tolls. It would be helpful if the Minister told us what discussions are ongoing with the Welsh Assembly Government.

The Severn tolls are the highest in the UK. It is true that we have to pay the tolls because the bridges had to be built, but the situation is now out of control. The Government stepped in for the Humber bridge and the Dartford crossing, and they ought to do the same for the Severn bridges and give us some reassurance for the future.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

I agree with my hon. Friend that the Severn bridge in south-east Wales is seen as an opportunity for the company to fleece motorists. Is the toll not also a real economic difficulty that places the Welsh lorry and logistics industries at a competitive disadvantage?

[Jessica Morden]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The logistics and haulage industries, many of which are based in our constituencies, are hit hard by the toll because they cannot pass on the extra costs that their competitors do not bear.

On train connectivity, many of my constituents travel to work in places such as Bristol. Constituents at the Monmouth end of Newport East have for years faced ill-thought-out connections, which the hon. Member for Ceredigion mentioned, and a decline in the number of train services stopping from places such as Severn Tunnel Junction. A local campaign group, the Severn tunnel action group, have fought a tremendous and successful campaign to bring back many of the services that that station lost. The group has highlighted the local demand for commuter services. The station’s footfall has increased substantially recently—by about 14%—and it is ideally placed to be a major park-and-ride station, with investment.

Even after winning back services that were due to be axed, STAG pointed out that the station’s potential was not being fully realised. STAG highlighted the ill-thought-out timetable, which failed to recognise the importance of connecting commuter trains to services coming from places such as Lydney, Chepstow and Caldicot. For example, Arriva Trains Wales eliminated a service at Severn Tunnel Junction that connected to the First Great Western service and that STAG had negotiated and won back only six months earlier. The replacement Arriva cross-country service leaves Severn Tunnel Junction just minutes before the First Great Western service arrives, so passengers must wait hours for connecting trains, as the hon. Member for Ceredigion mentioned. That is not acceptable. Moreover, peak trains are often so full that passengers must stand for the whole journey or wait a few hours until the next one.

All those factors, particularly cross-border connectivity, put commuters off local train services. I ask the Minister to bear those points in mind when he talks to train operators, and perhaps to agree to meet the Severn tunnel action group—a fantastic example of a local group campaigning for rail services.

Electoral Registration

Debate between Nick Smith and Jessica Morden

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

As a Newport MP, I very much enjoyed my hon. Friend’s earlier reference to the Chartists. We put a huge burden on our electoral administrators and, as he says, electoral registration is not immune to the big local authority cuts. Does he agree that, with more elections than ever before and given that burden, it is even more important that we resource election administrators properly?

[Nick Smith]

I agree. Election administrators rightly complain about the amount of resources they are given to do their important job. They should be supported both locally and nationally.

I believe that it is the responsibility of the state, not of political parties, to secure maximum voter registration, so I hope that the Minister will commit herself to that and give priority to those hard-to-reach voters, particularly the young. Voting is a habit best acquired early, and one that we should all strive to promote. The Government need to show much more ambition on voter registration. Let us get the 6 million people who should be on the electoral register signed up and able to vote in the future.

Severn Crossings Toll

Debate between Nick Smith and Jessica Morden

Thursday 19th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

It is good to see the Minister here to respond to the debate. I thought that his evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee was frank and that he seemed very engaged in the matter. As someone who has been talking about the Severn bridges for some time, I appreciate that.

Like the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), I obviously have a strong constituency interest in sorting out the issues surrounding the Severn bridges. I commend the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he chairs the Welsh Affairs Committee and for deciding that this should be one of the first inquiries following the election. The evidence that the Committee has received backs up what I have heard from my constituents for many years, which is that the crossings are too expensive, inflexible and inconvenient.

As I said in a Westminster Hall debate last year, until very recently people could not pay by credit or debit card, and they cannot pay online or travel off peak. There are no concessions for people who live locally. Yet the tolls continue to rise year on year, even though the service is outdated. I do not apologise for raising the matter again because, although Severn River Crossing has a responsibility to its shareholders—as has been mentioned—I feel a responsibility to my constituents, who are the customers. I would like Severn River Crossing to pay a little more attention to the customers.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), on covering the topic, which is certainly important to my constituents. I want to take up my hon. Friend’s point about a permanent system not yet being in place for credit card payments. It seems mad that, in 2011, there is not yet a permanent system in place for people to pay their toll with a credit card. That is absolutely bonkers. If someone goes to the bridge on a Friday evening, there are massive queues. Often people arrive there and they do not have enough cash. That has happened to me on my way home. I have not had enough cash and I had to get off at the service station beforehand to get some. Getting cash in that way can cost money, as people might have to use one of those machines that charge. Would it not be much easier if commuters, hauliers and others could use a credit card easily to cross the Severn bridge?

Newport Passport Office

Debate between Nick Smith and Jessica Morden

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Jessica Morden]

It has not, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point.

Let us be clear: what is being offered is the loss of the regional passport application centre and its replacement with an interview office. That would be a downgrading of the service, which leads me to my final point. Staff and the PCS have real concerns that if the proposals were to go through, reduced staffing would make the passport a less secure document. British passports are regarded as the most secure in the world, and the basis of that confidence is the integrity and skills of the staff involved. The loss of staff will mean that the work will have to done by fewer people, and there will be an inevitable impact on customer service and security. Is the Minister really confident that the loss of jobs will not have an impact on security?

Only this weekend, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions said that people from the valleys should get on a bus to find work. Perhaps the Minister could tell us what town he is expecting the people of Newport to get a bus to if he proceeds with this proposal.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that remark about people getting a bus to work was outrageous, not least because in Blaenau Gwent, not very far from Newport, there are seven people chasing each job?

[Jessica Morden]

It was an outrageous remark. Hon. Members are here in numbers tonight precisely because their constituents do get on a bus to Newport, to work at the passport office. I hope that the Minister understands that this is not just a paper exercise; it is about people’s lives. The workers at Newport passport office deserve to have the Government consider their plans in depth during the consultation period and change their mind.