Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Laura Trott

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

15. What steps he is taking to help ensure value for money in public spending.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Laura Trott)]

My hon. Friend is rightly very focused on making sure that every single pound of taxpayers’ money is spent wisely, and I can assure him that the Government share that goal. In June, the previous Chief Secretary to the Treasury launched the public sector productivity programme, and we will provide an update at the autumn statement.

[Laura Trott]

My hon. Friend is right that public sector productivity must be improved. That is exactly what the review is looking at and what we will address. I look forward to talking to him more about it in due course.

[Alex Cunningham]

I welcome the fact that the taxpayer has spent hundreds of millions of pounds on remediation work at the Teesworks site in Redcar. I do not welcome the fact that the assets, including 90% of the operating company and tens of millions of pounds of scrap, have been handed over by the Tees Valley Mayor to two private companies, whose owners are laughing all the way to the bank. Is that really good value for taxpayers’ money?

[Laura Trott]

I think these claims have been addressed by the Mayor, and I will not have anything further to say about them.

Health and Care Bill

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Laura Trott

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham]

It is exactly that; I could not agree more. I am sure that Ministers will work hard to try to find ways in which we can make the polluter pay—that is a polluter who pollutes the bodies of our people.

Achieving the smokefree 2030 ambition is the most effective way to achieve the health missions in the Government’s levelling-up White Paper to reduce the gap in healthy life expectancy between top performing and other areas by 2030 and to increase healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035. Becoming smokefree will also improve my constituents’ employability by reducing levels of sickness, disease and disability.

I am pleased that tobacco control is not a party political issue, and I am pleased to work closely on it with the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). We have very different political views on many things—he has heard me say this—but we are as one on this issue. It was a Conservative Government who committed to making England smokefree by 2030, but that ambition is shared by all political parties in Parliament. It is also supported by the public, but, like the all-party parliamentary group, they recognise that this ambition needs substantial funding to be delivered.

A survey of 13,000 people carried out last month for Action on Smoking and Health found that making tobacco manufacturers pay for measures to end smoking was supported by more than three quarters of the public, with little opposition—I think that 6% of people were opposed. Let us remember that, over the last 50 years, smoking has killed an average of 400 people a day year in, year out, which is far more than covid has or will. It is only right that big tobacco, which has lined its pockets from the human misery caused by polluting the bodies of our people, is forced to pay the price of ending this lethal epidemic. I urge the Government to accept the amendments as a step on the track to achieving the smokefree 2030 ambition that we all share.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham). I will speak briefly to Lords amendment 84 and to the Government amendment in lieu of Lords amendment 92.

On Lords amendment 84, on the licensing of cosmetic procedures, I just want to thank the Government for putting this in. Non-surgical cosmetic interventions such as Botox and fillers are the wild west of the healthcare world. We do not expect something that we can easily and legally get done in the safety of our own home to be able to blind us, but that is the case. It is high time that this was sorted and it is a huge step forward for women’s health, so I thank the Government very much.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Laura Trott

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 25th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Laura Trott]

Q I have a quick follow up to that. In terms of the formulation of questions, with the sex offender work that has been done so far, how has that worked most effectively? What lessons can be learned from that when we think about applying it in terrorism offenses?

Professor Grubin: It is very similar. In sex offender testing, the majority of questions relate to their licence conditions and they are asked specifically about those conditions. You have to remember in a polygraph test and a screening test you get, at most, three relevant questions, so if they have 15 licence conditions you are only going to be able to test three of them. You can ask about all of them during the pre-test interview and, of course, the examinee won’t know which ones he will be asked on the test, which is why you get disclosures.

By and large, they are about licence conditions, and I would think that with this group that is what they would be. The things you would be interested in are undisclosed internet devices, have they been in contact with certain individuals, have they travelled to certain places and those sorts of question. The sex offenders are also asked about fantasies, but I am not sure that you would be particularly interested in that with this group.

[Alex Cunningham]

Q My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth talked about people with disabilities in relation to polygraph testing. You said that the success rate goes down to about 60%. Is that a fair success rate to be used as part of the evidence for a recall to prison?

Professor Grubin: Either I have either misunderstood you or you have misunderstood me. Were you referring to intellectual disability?