Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Nadine Dorries

Thursday 7th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I am sure Mr Speaker has a response on Westminster, but as of July 2022, London has 81% gigabit coverage. It is an urban area: it is easier to cover and easier to reach homes. Birmingham is at 93%. Those figures are up from just 14% and 21% respectively in November 2019.

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

T3. York is ambitious to make it on to the UNESCO world heritage site tentative list. We will certainly display our many heritage assets and our social history, encouraging inbound tourism to the UK. However, it is a very expensive process. What support will the Department give to help cities like York to make it on to the tentative list?

Russia’s Attack on Ukraine

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Nadine Dorries

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

What a fabulous statement—well said. What can I say? I can only agree. I cannot top that.

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

We are all completely indebted to our British journalists in Ukraine who are serving not just us but the Russian people who are tuning in to hear the truth—often for the first time—about what is happening. For that to continue, we need to ensure that the digital and telecoms infrastructure is intact. What is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that we make our contribution to keeping that infrastructure in place?

[Ms Dorries]

My officials have been holding conversations day and night—many operators are based in the US, not the UK—since Putin launched his horrendous war on Ukraine. We are doing everything that we can to assist both with telecoms structure and with ensuring that the messaging gets through to the people in Russia as people in Ukraine about what Putin is actually doing. As I said, as a result of some of those conversations, WhatsApp has launched an end-to-end encryption service that the Ukrainian people can access to find out what is happening in their location on a minute-by-minute, real- time basis and where they can get emergency support and help. All such services happen as a result of international discussions that are ongoing on an hour-by-hour basis.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Nadine Dorries

Thursday 18th November 2021 Commons Chamber

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

After the Owen Paterson scandal, where the Government did not like the fair process that was set up and just ripped up the rules, now the Government have changed the job description for the chair of Ofcom to give failed candidate Paul Dacre another go and put a lobbyist whose firm has represented Facebook, Apple and Sky on the panel to scrutinise candidates. Will the Secretary of State restart the process with the original job requirements and an independent panel free of any conflict of interest, and confirm that she will accept the recommendations of the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport when it reports on the prospective candidate?

[Ms Dorries]

As the hon. Lady knows, the appointments process follows due process, is in line with the governance code for public appointments and is under the auspices of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. We are very careful to follow that code to the letter, and that is exactly what we are doing. As the process has already been launched and is under way, as the hon. Lady knows, I cannot comment further.

[Rachael Maskell]

It seems that theory and practice just do not add up. As we have repeatedly heard, Government corruption is not restricted to this place. The public appointments process has led to a litany of political appointments, notably Tory peer Baroness Tina Stowell as the chair of the Charity Commission after the DCMS Committee rejected her appointment. Her tenure was marked by political manipulation rather than independent governance. The current process for a replacement is being led by John Booth, who donated £200,000 to the Tory party. Will the Secretary of State recommence the appointment process, removing all political interests and ensuring full independence of the appointment panel, and then—

Ockenden Review

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Nadine Dorries

Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for not only his work at Watford General Hospital—he is probably there more often some of the patients—but his commitment to mental health in his constituency. He has launched a programme of 1,000 mental health first aiders, which is a tremendous boost to his constituents. I am aware of his work, and I thank him for it.

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. Midwifery leadership has been strengthened this year by the appointment of seven regional chief midwives, working with local maternity services to ensure the provision of safer and more personal care for women, babies and their families. I am sure that the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) had the same thoughts that I did on reading the report. There is a lack of collegiate working—“Let’s not let the doctors have this. Let’s keep this for the midwives”—and a lack of team working. The recommendations in the report put forward solutions to end that culture and to introduce one where doctors, nurses and midwifery champions work together, as a team, with the mother, who is in control of and owns her birth plan, because that is what it should be about.

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

It is devastating to read about the families involved in this. We have been here so many times. I think back to the publication of the Robert Francis report in 2013, which particularly talked about the duty of candour and the way that those issues are addressed. Clearly the system is quite passive; it is dependent on people raising concerns. What is the Minister doing to ensure that it is more interrogative of families and those involved in order to draw out people’s concerns at what is perhaps their most vulnerable time, as is the case for many women when giving birth?

[Ms Dorries]

The hon. Lady is right: there is a theme. Whether it is Paterson, the Cumberlege review or Morecambe Bay, central to all this is women, and so much of this report is familiar in that women are not listened to. The way some of those mothers were spoken to when they were delivering their babies or during the most tragic hours and days afterwards is just appalling. It is about women being downgraded almost, as though their complaints, their voices or their concerns, and the awful circumstances in which they find themselves are not worthy of the same consideration as patients in other hospitals in other situations.

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We already have national guardians—they immediately spring to mind. We have 600 national guardians in hospitals. NHS workers wear lanyards and, when people want to highlight something that they have seen going wrong in terms of patient safety, they may speak to that person, who will assist them and raise their concerns. It is quite something when we need that, when patients need such assistance. It is also for staff to raise patient concerns. She is absolutely right—it is about listening and treating the complaints and issues of women seriously.