Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Barclay and Rupa Huq

Thursday 14th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

10. What recent estimate he has made with Cabinet colleagues of the cost to businesses of “Not for EU” labelling.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Barclay)]

The Department engages regularly with UK industry to understand the impact of the Windsor framework, and we encourage businesses to respond to the consultation, which is still live.

[Steve Barclay]

First, let me say that there is a consultation taking place, so there is discussion on this. Secondly, £50 million has already been allocated as transitional support. Thirdly, particularly for colleagues in Northern Ireland, it is important that, far from restricting choice, we maintain it. That is exactly what the Windsor framework, which the House as a whole agreed to, is designed to do.

[Dr Huq]

A correctly labelled shipment for Going Nuts, a firm in Park Royal, made it to Felixstowe on 2 January but, shockingly, it has only just been released from being impounded. That was due to a customs staff shortage at the border, so will the Government fix that? The company incurred a three-figure sum for 40 days’ storage, plus VAT. The Government are throwing small business under the bus—albeit a Sadiq Khan bus with low emissions.

[Steve Barclay]

I will leave it to others to deduce the link to Sadiq Khan’s bus. I think the hon. Lady prepared her question before the previous answer, because I just set out that we are giving £50 million of transitional labelling support. Of course, a consultation is live and we are working with businesses on it.

Oral Answers

Debate between Steve Barclay and Rupa Huq

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

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

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Barclay)]

The Government support the right to take industrial action within the law, but equally the law is there to protect patients and NHS staff alike. Following legal advice, NHS Employers and my Department are confident that the proposed strike action by the Royal College of Nursing goes beyond the mandate it secured from its members, which expires on 1 May at midnight. While NHS Employers has sought to resolve the issue through dialogue, the RCN’s failure to amend its planned action has led NHS Employers to request my intervention. Even as we work to resolve those issues through dialogue, I can tell the House that I have regretfully provided notice of my intent to pursue legal action. None the less, I am hopeful that discussions can still be productive, especially those between the RCN and NHS England on patient safety, and that they will continue to be guided by the imperative to keep people who use the NHS safe.

[Dr Huq]

The right to choose sounds attractive, but when diabetic eye disease and glaucoma seriously threaten the sight of millions, the fact that any qualified provider can and does cherry-pick reversible cataract work leaves the NHS with astronomical bills and all the complex cases. Will the Secretary of State praise award-winning clinicians Christiana and Evie at Central Middlesex Hospital and visit to see for himself how effectively writing a blank cheque for private treatment is destabilising NHS budgets and jeopardising the NHS’s ability to do award-winning research and to train junior doctors, who need routine work?

[Steve Barclay]

I am always happy to praise the brilliant work of clinicians up and down the NHS, who do a formidable job. Given the huge scale of the backlogs we face as a consequence of the pandemic, it is important that we not only use the full capacity available within the NHS, empowering patients through patient choice and technologies such as the NHS app to better enable that, but maximise the capacity in the independent sector.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Barclay and Rupa Huq

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

It is. As my hon. Friend will know from another of my visits, which was with him to Kettering, the enabling works are progressing. That is in no small part a tribute to the work that he and neighbouring MPs have done to strongly make the case for Kettering. I know that he will continue to do so, and I look forward to working with him on that.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

6. What steps he is taking to help tackle health inequalities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Barclay and Rupa Huq

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the issues in Shropshire. I draw her attention to the fact that we have more doctors, more nurses and more funding going into the NHS, and more people are being treated.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Ind)]

T9. In the light of the Government’s welcome announcement of the Strathdee rapid review of in-patient mental health services, can we revisit West London NHS Trust’s decision to make the covid closure of the Wolsey wing permanent, which leaves Ealing, the third biggest borough in London, with no acute mental health beds for under-65s?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Barclay and Rupa Huq

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Ind)]

A respected woman pharmacist in my constituency, with a lifetime of NHS experience, went solo with her own practice in the hope and expectation of an NHS licence, which she has been denied. Will the Secretary of State look into the opaque decision-making process? Our increasing population otherwise means increasing demand, and my constituent cannot survive on private alone.

[Steve Barclay]

I am very happy to look at this case.

Areas with Additional Public Health Restrictions: Economic Support

Debate between Steve Barclay and Rupa Huq

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I am happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance about levelling up. It is at the core of the Government’s mission. It is a key priority of the Prime Minister and consequentially of all Ministers. We are actively working in the Treasury to accelerate under Project Speed our infrastructure investment to ensure that it is better targeted in terms of place as well as scheme.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

London, which is now on a watch list, is not only our financial centre but our cultural capital. [Interruption.] I believe so. It is the nation’s beating heart. Despite the £1.57 billion arts rescue package, freelancers and the self-employed in the sector in my constituency have not seen a penny since March. Established venues such as The Questors in Ealing face a record loss this year because the panto is off—oh yes it is! Will the Chief Secretary not be a villain and sort this out now?

[Steve Barclay]

I shall resist pursuing the panto theme, although I am not sure too many villains have allocated £1.57 billion to the industry in addition to the other package of support that the Chancellor has announced. The hon. Lady speaks of a real concern, which we are acutely aware of. The House has debated at length the issue of that subset of the self-employed who were beyond the date of the initial package and I do not think we need to rehearse that argument, but I recognise that it is an issue of ongoing concern. By international standards, the self-employed income support package that we have put in place is extremely generous, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor extended it further in the winter plan.