Crime and Antisocial Behaviour: Stockton South

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Paul Williams

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to have secured this, my first Adjournment debate. I wanted the debate because there is a problem in my constituency, and I am sure that the problem I hear about from my constituents is echoed in other parts of the country. As the representative of all my constituents, whether they voted for me or not, I want to put to the Government the problems they are describing to me. I hope the Minister is in listening mode for a while.

It is difficult to imagine what it is like to live in a community where residents are woken at night by people loudly bashing on the door looking for somewhere to buy drugs or where people are frightened that if they take their dog for a walk somebody will break into their home. It is difficult to understand the impact that being a victim of crime can have and how it can sap somebody’s confidence. It is also difficult to understand the impact it can have on entire communities when people feel that their streets are not as safe as they used to be.

The area I represent is not one homogeneous area. Stockton South is a mixture of many different communities, some more affluent, some with higher levels of deprivation. Each community has its own characteristics, but there are common concerns. I have held several public meetings in response to the concerns of constituents and people have contacted me directly. Our local newspaper, The Teesside Gazette, is full of stories and, as in many other parts of the country, there are virtual communities on social media. An overwhelming number of people are describing what they perceive to be a rising tide of crime and antisocial behaviour.

First, I would like to tell some of those stories, look at what the numbers tell us, talk about what the police have told me about their response, and perhaps touch on the local authority response. I then want to put some specific asks to the Government to help the communities I represent.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on what I am sure will be the first of many Adjournment debates he leads in this place. Mine is the next-door constituency, and what he describes is replicated there. As a group of Tees MPs, we wrote to the Home Secretary on 13 February asking to meet him to discuss these issues, and he has yet to reply. Is my hon. Friend surprised that the Home Secretary is ignoring the MPs in Cleveland and does not seem to care about the people we represent?

[Dr Williams]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for drawing attention to that. The fact that we did not receive a response to what we collectively thought was quite a reasonable request was one of my reasons for initiating the debate. I wanted to ensure that the Government were listening to people throughout the borough of Stockton-on-Tees who have a common set of concerns.

In Thornaby, there is a real public awareness of the rising levels of vandalism of public property. There has also been a spate of attacks on individuals in parts of the town, which have made people really frightened. A 90-year-old woman told me recently that she had become frightened to leave her home. There are increasing numbers of burglaries and break-ins. Residents describe groups of young people who are being deliberately provocative, throwing stones and driving quad bikes around. Some of that is clearly antisocial behaviour, but some of it crosses the boundary into criminal activity.

[Dr Williams]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. Of course there is not just a criminal justice response to crime and antisocial behaviour. Many people, including those in voluntary and community sector organisations and schools, are working to build the capacity of our communities. However, there is also a need for an adequate police response.

In Ingleby Barwick, a great deal of attention has been paid to antisocial behaviour. Again, there have been attacks on individuals. People shopping at the local branch of Tesco have been subjected to unacceptable levels of intimidation and abuse. I recently met the Low Hartburn residents group. People are so concerned about the rising levels of property theft in that area that a group of concerned residents—who stress that they are not vigilantes—have formed a strong residents group. They organise activities such as playdays and community capacity-building, but they also have a rota, taking it in turns to patrol their estate at night. These are hard-working people who have jobs during the day. They are not doing this off their own bat—they are working with the police, and are taking plenty of necessary precautions—but they are having to enhance the community’s response by organising their own street patrols.

In Parkfield and Oxbridge, I have heard testimony from the excellent local councillors, including Louise Baldock. She has told me about intolerable levels of antisocial behaviour. People have referred to a lot of abuse in the streets, many residents are worried about the high level of drug dealing in the streets, and there is street sex work. Even in the more affluent area of Hartburn, where I spent time with residents on Friday, there are high levels of car crime and shoplifting. I am sure that all that is being echoed in many other areas in Stockton South.

What I have related so far is a series of anecdotes, but the data is quite shocking. I asked the House of Commons Library about the figures for reported crime. I know that it has increased throughout the country—there has been a 31% increase throughout England and Wales, although that may be due partly to increases in crime and partly to better reporting—but in Cleveland there has been a 55% increase, and in my constituency there was an 83% increase between 2011-12 and 2018-19. The perceptions of people on the street are clearly borne out by that data. That may be because there are some unique problems in Cleveland. We have the highest level of reported antisocial behaviour in the country, the second highest levels of domestic violence and the highest levels of drug abuse. We are an area of very high deprivation and have some serious and organised criminals involved in the supply of drugs. There are some serious urban problems in our area and a serious response is required, but in the period since 2011-12 there has been not just a real-terms cut, but a cash-terms reduction. Cleveland police force is £34 million worse off, and that is including a slight increase in funding last year, although for the area with the fourth highest reported crime rate in the country we had the second lowest level of increased funding. Since 2011-12 there has been a cash-terms reduction of £17 million in our police budget. That has meant that in a time of increased crime—an 83% increase—our police numbers have been slashed from 1,700 to 1,200; there are 500 fewer police and 50 fewer police community support officers.

Unfortunately, we have had several chief constables. One retired, one suddenly left, and we now have a brilliant new chief constable in Richard Lewis. I have listened to all of them and they have said that uniquely in Cleveland—many of them have worked in other parts of the country—the police just do not have the resources to respond to the levels of demand.

[Alex Cunningham]

We are very proud in Cleveland of the partnership work between the local authorities, voluntary organisations and others and our communities in trying to deal with some of the issues, but of course they need resources. We have seen tremendously large cuts to local authority funding in our area—50% in Stockton’s case—and I know that my hon. Friend understands why our constituents are feeling so angry and frustrated when they do not see the action that they need in our communities.

[Dr Williams]

Again, my hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. We are seeing a great response from the local authority antisocial behaviour teams, but they tell us that they just do not have the resources they need to deal with this significant increase in crime and antisocial behaviour in our area.

I did not initially want to air some of this in public. One of the reasons why we wrote to the Home Secretary privately is that—I hope the Minister understands this—there is a genuine concern about keeping confidence in the police locally. I do not want to undermine public confidence in the ability of the police to do their job, but when the police are telling me that they do not have enough officers to police our area safely, and when we approach the Home Secretary privately to try to get a response and do not get one, I am afraid that there is no other way open to MPs than to air some of these problems in a public forum.

I want to compare Cleveland to some other areas. Nationally, police forces are funded at an average level of about £2,400 per crime; in Cleveland we get £2,140. Let us compare areas of similar sizes. Some might say that Cleveland is an area with a particularly small population and that therefore it will not be funded at the levels of other areas, but Warwickshire is a similar size force and it gets £2,494 per crime as opposed to our £2,140. Let us compare areas with similar budgets. Gwent has a similar budget to the Cleveland force. It has to contend with 54,784 crimes a year and we have 61,982, so we have more crimes for a similar budget. Whichever way we cut the numbers, I believe the chief constable and the police when they say that they just do not have the resources to do the job that they need to do.

We have levels of crime that are 21% higher than the national average and that figure is rising, but even with the recent very small increases in funding—according to the House of Commons Library there has been a 3% increase in funding in real terms nationally—there is a 0% increase in Cleveland. Local people just do not understand why we are not getting the resources. There must be something wrong with the formula.

I have challenged the police and asked them what they are doing to reform. I have asked them what they could do to use their money in a better way. They have given me a long list of things that they are trying to do better. They have put extra resources into the force control room to try to get more timely responses; they have tried to get more police on to the frontline; they have tried to improve the levels of community policing and intelligence; they are trying to use technology; and they are trying to have a named police community support officer for every council ward. They are also conscious of the fact that, because of the rising levels of crime and the rising pressure on the police, their levels of sickness are very high. Around 100 of the 1,200 officers are off on long-term sick leave at the moment, which brings extra pressure.

The force is in a spiral of increasing problems but, despite that, all the police I meet are doing a remarkable job. Despite the historical problems with Cleveland police, there are high levels of trust in the police among the community. The individual police I meet are doing a brilliant job. I have to pay particular tribute to our Labour police and crime commissioner, Barry Coppinger, whose levels of engagement are phenomenal. He has attended hundreds of public meetings and gatherings and is a fine spokesman for the work of his team. He is doing the very best he can with the resources that he has.

I am afraid that I have to be a bit party political about this as well. We have a Tory Tees Valley Mayor. Oversight of the police is not the responsibility of the combined authority, but our Tory Tees Valley Mayor has taken it upon himself to make public pronouncements about Cleveland police, and his response to the woefully inadequate funding and the rising levels of need in the community has been to suggest that we abolish Cleveland police. That shows that he is really not listening to our communities. Our neighbouring forces in Durham and North Yorkshire have to contend largely with rural crime, but we have unique levels of urban crime, including serious organised crime, and our police have developed a unique level of expertise. It is clear to me that any kind of abolition or merger would split my constituency in two, with one half being policed by one force and the other half being policed by another. It would completely dilute the police’s effectiveness. Such a split would also mask the fundamental unfairness of the funding. Taking away the expertise of Cleveland police by following the Tory Tees Valley Mayor’s suggestion of abolition would be a criminals’ wet dream on Teesside. It would dilute the police’s effectiveness and be entirely the wrong strategic response.

What would we like to see happening? We wrote to the Home Secretary to outline the rising levels of crime, the rising demands on the police, the increases in sexual offences and in children missing from home, and the massive increase in homicides, in the levels of domestic abuse and in the number of robberies. We know that this is not just about a criminal justice response, however. Indeed, there are some brilliant organisations working in my constituency to provide a community response. A lot of young people there have a very difficult start in life. Many of them are in households where they are exposed to adverse childhood experiences, including parental mental health problems, domestic violence and substance misuse. We have to invest in those young people and I try to bring representatives of the organisations making that investment to every public meeting that I go to. I must give a real shout-out to Nicola Garrett and Darren Iveson from the Five Lamps organisation in Thornaby, and to the Corner House Youth Project, which works across into the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and does brilliant, sterling work helping vulnerable young people to find alternatives to crime. The work that our schools do is fantastic as well. There are many other organisations working hard in our community.

However, we have to face the facts here. The biggest problems felt by our communities are the lack of an adequate police presence, the fact that the police are not there to gather the intelligence that they used to and that the police response is not sufficient. I have challenged and listened to the police on that. I do not think that any force in the country would be able to deal with a 55% increase in crime over the past eight years—the statistic for Stockton South is 83%—given the massive cuts that Cleveland police have faced, which have led to the loss of 500 police officers and 50 PCSOs. Beyond anything else, I as the local representative of my community and the other Members of Parliament in the Tees Valley, particularly Labour Members, are asking the Government to consider the particular local issues and to see whether the police funding formula is the right one to deliver sufficient resources to help my constituents and my community to feel safe.

Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Paul Williams

Thursday 17th January 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Alex Cunningham]

I have no experience, however, as a health or medical practitioner, so I bow to my next-door neighbour in the north-east of England, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South, who is a medical doctor and knows about these things—probably a lot of things that I will never have any understanding of myself. However, I do not need to be a medical expert to know that if I were to suffer a heart attack, a cardiologist would be involved in my treatment and care. I hope my hon. Friend will nod his head to say I am right.

[Dr Williams]

indicated assent.

[Alex Cunningham]

He does. I know that if I were to develop cancer, oncologists would be involved. I know that medical experts should be and are involved with that level of illness, which requires ongoing treatment and observation. They are the experts, and they know the field; we have to trust what they say and follow their instructions on what is best to do. It just strikes me as ludicrous that anybody could disagree with the notion that people carrying out medical and capability assessments must have the skills to do so. We have already seen in our country in recent years the terrible mess that is the various capability assessments for employment and support allowance, personal independence payments and, lately, the discredited universal credit system.

[Dr Williams]

I wondered whether to refer to the work capability assessments, but it is certainly true that in my experience as both a medic and a Member of Parliament, people have often described the inadequacy of the assessments, particularly when their conditions fluctuate, and how they are often judged on the day rather than anyone really listening to what their condition is like. One of the things that that greater level of skill, experience and knowledge brings is the ability to take a step back and ask the right questions about things such as fluctuation.

[Alex Cunningham]

Indeed; that applies to this Bill as well. We are dealing with the most serious issue possible—the right of the authorities to deprive someone of their liberty—so we must get it right. We have seen failure time and again in the areas I mentioned. When people with inadequate knowledge carry out assessments of various things, they get it very badly wrong, and the client ends up winning their appeal. More than half of them, in some cases, win their appeals, but only after many weeks and even months, so they are often left without the support they need.

I wonder what happens in this sort of situation, when we are dealing with the deprivation of people’s liberty. We cannot allow those types of failure to be repeated in the system set up under the Bill, because the consequences are so far-reaching. It is taking somebody’s liberty away. It will not just be a decision to deprive people of their welfare benefits; it will actually take away their freedom.

I agree with my colleagues who have spoken in the debate that assessments should be undertaken by people who have the knowledge, skills and experience and hold the appropriate professional registration. If we do not put that into the Bill, the Bill will simply not be strong enough. It is far too important to be in the follow-up code of practice. We have heard a lot about the code of practice, but of course we have not seen anything that is in it. It is far more important than that. We must ensure that there is a sufficient level of scrutiny within the legislation.

I wonder what the Minister would tell Dr Haider Malik, a consultant psychiatrist who provided written evidence to the Committee. He said:

“In current Bill there is complete oversight of mental health assessor’s role. Though DoLS is considered complicated and bureaucratic piece of legislation but in my view Liberty Protection Safeguarding…would fail the stress test.”

The evidence we have received from a number of stakeholders is very clear. There is a clear demand out there, from people who know what they are talking about, for us to ensure that those carrying out the assessments are qualified to do so. Anything short of that is a betrayal not just of the individual, because it could lead to them wrongly losing their freedom, but of our duty to legislate to protect them.

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Paul Williams

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

The financial health of industry in my area is absolutely critical. The attempts yesterday by the Chancellor to bury the bad news for industry, in particular energy-intensive industries, did not help at all. He did not mention it, but he did not bury the news very deep either: it is there for all to see on page 47 of the Red Book. If the changes in carbon taxes materialise in response to Brexit, it will cost individual firms millions of pounds. The carbon emissions tax is significantly higher than the average emissions trading scheme price over the past 12 months, which was just £12.30. This would increase the cost of carbon for UK installations across the country, currently covered by ETS, by 30%.

The Chancellor acknowledges the increasing high total carbon price, but proposes to freeze it at £18 a tonne of carbon dioxide for 2021. He might think that that is an ambitious move, but these plans come with little notice and a particularly high cost for industry. Firms like CF Fertilisers in Stockton are significantly exposed to the additional extra costs. The EU energy trading scheme is a market-based instrument for which companies had developed a strategy over time to ensure they were able to comply. Now, on top of the perfect storm of high electricity and gas prices, this carbon tax, coupled with the doubling of the gas climate change levy, is a very real issue for energy-intensive industries.

The Government did publish a document on this last night. It betrays a fundamental change in policy since the Brexit vote, with no consultation with industry along the way. In the worst Brexit scenario of all, EIIs are being given an expensive fait accompli with no notice, no discussion and no impact assessment. This makes industry very nervous. Rolled together, all this serves to make the UK an unattractive place for EIIs to do business in the future.

The Chancellor could have helped an industry facing such a dilemma by giving some indication of Government support for carbon capture, use and storage, but he did not. As I have said on numerous occasions, Teesside is ripe for investment in carbon capture, use and storage. The industry needs some indication that the Government are capable of making the right call on this matter. Perhaps once the task group on CCS reports we will hear something more positive from the Chancellor in the new year.

This is my ninth speech in a Budget debate, and in every single one I have talked about health inequalities in my area and the need for a 21st century hospital in Stockton to help tackle them. Stockton was promised a new hospital, but in 2010 the coalition Government scrapped it while making sure that similar plans went ahead where there just happened to be Government MPs of both the blue and yellow. Let me outline why we need to solve the social care crisis and build a new hospital in Stockton.

Nationally, on average, a boy born in one of the most affluent areas of England will outlive one born in the poorest parts by 8.4 years. In Stockton, where life expectancy for a man in the town centre ward is 64, that gap is around double at 15 years. Incidentally, that life expectancy age is the same as in Ethiopia. Our children in these inner-city areas are living in poverty. They are more likely to be undernourished, more susceptible to all manner of illnesses and more likely to end up in care. Older adults are more likely to be ill, given a lifetime of hard work in the heavy industries. One in five babies in Stockton is exposed to cigarette toxins in the womb because their mother smokes while pregnant. That was in 2015-16. That year, there was a significantly higher rate of hospital admissions attributed to smoking than the national average. According to the British Lung Foundation, people in the north-east have the highest chronic obstructive pulmonary disease mortality ratio in the country. The English average for children achieving a good level of development at five years old is at 60%. In Stockton, this is just 50%.

[Dr Paul Williams]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the cuts to public health funding have had a significant impact on Stockton Council’s ability to deal with some of those health inequalities, and is he as disappointed as I am not to have heard about increases in public health funding in the Budget?

[Alex Cunningham]

Most certainly. My hon. Friend and I represent between us some of the most difficult areas in Stockton, with high levels of smoking and drinking that make the national average pale into total insignificance. We desperately need that additional funding, so I most certainly agree with him.

Our local North Tees hospital does an exemplary job in the most difficult circumstances, yet it could do so much better in a modern building with services that are required cheek by jowl and where people can be treated in wards rather than converted corridors. That is why we need a new hospital in Stockton and why I will mention that in every Budget speech I ever make until I get it.

Still on health, the police and crime commissioner for Cleveland has been doing excellent work on the introduction of heroin-assisted treatment in neighbouring Middlesbrough—a project that the experts believe will help to save lives and money and reduce crime across Teesside—but he needs Government support to make it the best that it can be. I hope that there will be a full Government commitment to that initiative.

On policing, I am really worried, like my colleague next door in Stockton South, about policing in our area. Like most others, the Cleveland police force area has been short-changed by this Government over many years and the police know that they can no longer deliver the full service that is needed. As my hon. Friend said, over the last eight years, the Government grant for policing and crime in Cleveland has been cut by around 24%. He also outlined in detail why we need that extra money, yet Cleveland is harder hit by cuts than most other forces because of how it is categorised. The county is largely rural, but the vast majority of the population is in inner-city areas, with the same challenges of the cities, yet we do not get the same level of funding. Let me be clear: there will be severe repercussions for public safety and criminal justice in Cleveland if the people do not get more funding.

On education, the Chancellor announced some one-off funding for schools to pay for little extras, but it is teachers and action on pay that they need. Stockton’s branch of the National Education Union visited my surgery on Friday. It wants to see the Government fund the full pay award rather than leave schools to do it. It also wants all teachers treated fairly, which the pay award fails to do. I hope that they will hear something better from the Government in future.

I simply plead again with the Chancellor to do the right thing by Stockton: help us to tackle the health inequalities that we have; help us to deliver the public health programmes that help to educate people about the choices that they have in life; and please find a way to build us a new hospital.

GP Extended Access Services: Privatisation

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Paul Williams

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered privatisation of GP extended access services in Stockton, Hartlepool and Darlington.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie, as we explore the important issue of the privatisation of local health services. Before I begin, may I bring to your attention my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests? I have worked in the local extended access service. I have been employed as a GP since my election to Parliament, and before that I was chief executive of Hartlepool & Stockton Health, which is a GP federation established by all local GPs as a non-profit-making venture to allow collaboration between practices and other parts of the NHS. I resigned my position when I was elected, and I served my notice. My partner, Vicky, is a nurse in the local NHS and she derives some income from the GP federation.

As the Minister will know, the Government’s ambition is for all patients to be able to access evening and weekend GP appointments, which is a good thing. It is difficult for each individual GP practice in any area to open every evening and weekend, but it is achievable if GPs work together. In Stockton South in April 2017, Hartlepool & Stockton Health started to deliver extended access appointments between 6.30 pm and 8 pm on weekday evenings, for three hours on a Saturday, and for two hours on a Sunday. Local GPs did that as a collective through their federation.

The federation was set up as a private company—there is as yet no NHS GP federation organisation that it can belong to—but it was designed as a not-for-profit organisation because local GPs insisted on it. They did not want to make any profit out of collaboration. All the money earned by the organisation is reinvested into local primary care—I know the detail of that because it was my job before I came into Parliament to set up and run the organisation.

Evening and weekend GP services have now run for 18 months and they have been a success by all measures. Patients like it:

“Every aspect of my visit was excellent…it was prompt and professional…a lovely experience”

are three of the many comments received as feedback. During the past year, there have been 26,000 extra GP and nurse appointments for routine care. That has not just been good for patients; it has also reduced pressure on local practices. Teesside has one of the highest patient-to-GP ratios—we are an under-doctored area.

Down the road in Darlington, Primary Healthcare Darlington has run an extended access service in the evenings and weekends since 2015 when it received Prime Minister’s Challenge funding. According to all the reports I have received, it has run an equally good service for the people of Darlington. So far, so good. However, in September this year the local clinical commissioning group launched an invitation to tender with two lots—one to run an extended access service in Darlington, and the other in Hartlepool and Stockton. The tender documents requested that organisations bid to run one and a half hours of general practice each evening and a bit longer at the weekends. The bidding process is under way and I am sure the Minister will not want to say anything that might prejudice the process.

I have initiated this debate to ask some big questions. Biggest of all is this: how does privatising this service benefit local patients—the acid test for any NHS change? When local GPs work together to deliver this service, and when the local NHS has all partners collaborating so well, how can it possibly be right to bring in a new private sector provider?

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend, my next-door neighbour, on securing this debate. One thing that concerns me is the potential loss of good will from GPs across the Tees valley who are currently delivering the service. Does that concern him too?

[Dr Williams]

I will come later in my remarks to some of the reasons why the system works well at the moment, and to some of the potential threats that could arise from introducing a private sector provider.

Before I expand my point, let me establish my position so that there can be no confusion or misinterpretation. As I said, extended access services are a good thing. I worked hard before my election to establish them, and they are good for patients and for the NHS. I congratulate Hartlepool and Stockton-on-Tees CCG and Darlington CCG on delivering extra GP services for local patients over the past few years in Darlington and for the past 18 months in Stockton. They have done a good job. I also know that most GP practices are technically private organisations with a contract with the NHS, but there is an important difference between a local GP who is doing the work and making money from that, and a private corporation whose shareholders profit from the NHS.

Having said that, I am on the record as having said that GPs should be employed by the NHS, and I believe that the time has come for the NHS to set up community providers to integrate GPs, community nursing, social care and community health services. GPs should be offered employment in those organisations. The farce that I am describing today makes the case for that type of organisation stronger.

While setting out my credentials, I am also pragmatic and not dogmatic about private and voluntary sector provision within the NHS. Our local counselling services in Stockton are better for having multiple providers. Patients like getting hearing tests on the high street at Specsavers instead of going to the hospital audiology department. What I am describing today, however, is privatisation for privatisation’s sake. It is privatisation because the “rules” say privatise, and not because anyone thinks that privatisation is good for patients. It is probably even privatisation by accident.

For me, the most important test of any change in the NHS is: how does this benefit patients? The NHS is there to improve health. I have huge respect for all the staff who work in our NHS, and I thank everyone for their efforts, but fundamentally local health services must meet the needs of local patients. How could bringing in a private GP company for an hour and a half each day possibly make things better for patients in my constituency? If there were a list of 101 things to do to improve the NHS in Stockton South, finding a new provider for GP extended access would not be one of them.

Children’s mental health services are in crisis and health inequalities in Stockton are the most stark in the whole country. Our local authority is struggling to deliver effective public health services because of the cuts, and waiting times for autism diagnosis for children have been four years, even though our health and wellbeing board, council and CCG have good plans to reduce that. For general practice, in some parts of Stockton South patients tell me they have to wait four weeks for a GP appointment. Fixing those things should be the priority for our CCG, not being forced to spend time and money on an unnecessary privatisation.

GP extended access is one part of the local NHS that is working well. The model has energised local GPs and, to an extent, local nurses. Eighty-five doctors and 25 nurses have worked in the service. Three years ago, before I was in Parliament, I led a workshop for GPs, and the No. 1 thing they asked me not to introduce was an extended access service. However, working together with the CCG, a model was created that people wanted to work for—one that works for staff and patients. Since GPs own the organisation that they work for, the things that matter are prioritised. The GP federation has a culture lead—an employee of the federation whose job it is to promote a happy, healthy working environment and reduce the pressure on frontline GPs. GPs working in that service are not motivated by profit. They are working as a collective and taking responsibility.

Extended access has also allowed new models of care to be tried, and pharmacist, physiotherapist and counsellor appointments are directly bookable at the weekend. The scheme is popular with patients—96% of GP and 70% of nurse appointments have been used. In short, the service works well. Although most people said at the start that it would not work, the service is popular with patients and well led. Why privatise it? What on earth could be gained? One and a half hours a day of private general practice—it is ridiculous.

More good collaborative things are happening in Hartlepool and Stockton. The local GPs are already working in partnership with the local hospital and the local ambulance service to run the local urgent care centre. Local services are integrated, everyone is talking to each other and most people are happy. Most areas would be delighted to have such a level of engagement and co-operation and such leadership. The service has been put out to tender simply because of the law. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 mandates competitive tender for certain contracts worth more than £615,000 a year.

In this case, I contend that the law is not working. It does not work for patients, it will not work for doctors or NHS leaders and I suspect it is probably not even what the Minister wants. There is hypocrisy here—a fundamental difference between what the Government are saying and what they are doing. I will quote from NHS England’s “Next steps on the NHS Five Year Forward View” document, published in March 2017, which says that it will:

“Encourage practices to work together in ‘hubs’ or networks. Most GP surgeries will increasingly work together in primary care…hubs. This is because a combined patient population of at least 30,000-50,000 allows practices to share community nursing, mental health, and clinical pharmacy teams, expand diagnostic facilities, and pool responsibility for urgent care and extended access.”

That is what the NHS five-year forward view says will happen: GPs will work together to pool responsibility, which is exactly what is happening in my area. If private companies are invited to competitive tender for that, every GP has something to fear from the collaboration. They will do the work of setting up the services and somebody else will then come in and run them.

The Minister’s colleague, the Minister for Health, the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay), recently gave evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee inquiry into integration in the NHS. When he was asked about privatisation, he said that

“there are a number of checks and balances in the system in the requirement for CCGs to consult their local populations, their health and wellbeing boards and their oversight and scrutiny committees. On top of that, there are safeguards at a national level of CCGs going through the integrated support and assurance process. Actually, there are a lot of checks and balances as to the fact that this is not privatisation.”

I ask where the checks and balances were to stop the CCG having to put these services out to tender. Why did the Minister not intervene, when it is plain to everybody that it is a ridiculous idea to bring a private company in for an hour and a half each day?

[Alex Cunningham]

What concerns me is that this tender document sounds as though it will lead to a reduction in service, and the working people who access those extra clinics and appointments will not have the same level of service that they currently do. The Minister must intervene to ensure that we at least have the level of service that we have now.

[Dr Williams]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the potential risks to local patients. This is not about defending the interests of the staff who work in the service, however important they are; it is about ensuring that it is the best service for local patients.

Finally, I quote from the 2017 Conservative election manifesto; I am afraid I do not keep my own copy, but it is still available online. It says:

“We expect GPs to come together to provide greater access”.

It also says:

“If the current legislative landscape is either slowing implementation or preventing clear national or local accountability, we will consult and make the necessary legislative changes. This includes the NHS’s own internal market, which can fail to act in the interests of patients and creates costly bureaucracy. So we will review the operation of the internal market and, in time for the start of the 2018 financial year, we will make non-legislative changes to remove barriers to the integration of care.”

I ask, then, what the Minster has done and how he has acted to remove barriers to integration of care in Stockton.

GPs in the NHS in Darlington and in Hartlepool and Stockton are doing everything they have been asked to do by this Government and the NHS. They have organised themselves into collectives, and together they are delivering social prescribing and pharmacists in practices, promoting nursing in general practice, introducing new technologies, helping physicians’ associates and training. Those are all good things that I am sure the Minster would support. Integration works. Integration is the right strategy: collaboration, not competition.

Why privatise now, and what is the risk of a private company running this service? The tender encourages competition on price. The lower an organisation’s bid, the more likely it is to win the contract. Cutting costs means less money to pay for things such as the culture lead I mentioned, so the kindness, the looking after staff, the encouragement and the “thank you” cards go, and with them much of the goodwill they bring, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) talked about.

Would local doctors and nurses want to work for a private organisation motivated by profit? Remember, I said that most local GPs were opposed to extended access only three years ago. Their participation has been carefully nurtured; they have ownership of the organisation delivering the service and they now really care about making it a success. How will the tender process take account of that? Today, we have doctors and nurses working in a service motivated by patient care. How can a for-profit company answerable to remote shareholders recreate that ethos? We have seen this Government’s privatisation failures over and over again, with Circle, Serco and Carillion. This Government are saying one thing about NHS collaboration, but doing another.

I have three questions for the Minister, and I will give him plenty of time to respond. First, why did he let this happen and why did he not intervene to stop it? Secondly, what is he going to do to stop this happening again in other parts of the country? What changes to the law does the Minister think would be helpful? Thirdly, how can he expect the public to trust the Tories on their new integrated care system idea if he cannot guarantee that these new multi-million pound contracts to run all the local health services will not be put out to tender in exactly the same way?

In the Minister’s response, I ask him to either defend this ridiculous privatisation of 1.5 hours of GP services a day, risking a great service being taken away from local GPs and given to a private company, or perhaps to concede that this type of privatisation—a consequence of the Conservatives’ 2012 Act—does not help patients and runs counter to the aims expressed in his party’s election manifesto, the stated aims of his ministerial colleagues and the strategy of NHS England. Maybe he will agree that the law needs to be changed. I look forward to his response.

Carbon Capture and Storage

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Paul Williams

Thursday 19th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, and to the hon. Members who persuaded it to do so. It is a particular pleasure to follow my co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on carbon capture and storage, the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous).

My interest in the Government’s new approach to CCS in the clean growth strategy goes wider than Teesside, but I am pleased that new colleagues from our region are present, including the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill). They join the work that many of us have been doing for years to persuade the Government to get serious about CCS. I am surrounded by no fewer than five Teesside MP colleagues; 100% of us are here, and we are 100% behind the debate.

I hope my new Tees colleagues recognise that the Government’s reaffirmed commitment to CCS, two years after withdrawing £1 billion in funding, is only a small step along what will be a very long road if our country is truly to reap the benefits of carbon capture. We need more than tens of millions in investment; we need billions. We need big leaps, not tiny steps. Nevertheless, this new recognition of CCS is testimony not only to the impressive body of evidence that continues to emphasise the key role of CCS in delivering least-cost decarbonisation, but to the energy—no pun intended—and enthusiasm of the industry, which has kept up a steady drumbeat on CCS since November 2015. I pay tribute to the Carbon Capture and Storage Association for its work and for its support of the APPG.

In the clean growth strategy, the Government have recognised what the industry has been saying for years: CCS is vital to broad sections of the UK economy. Power aside, key industries such as steel, cement and refining are increasingly looking for ways to remain competitive in a low-carbon world. CCS offers the only solution for deep decarbonisation in these industries that helps to enable their sustainable future, which is crucial for regions such as the Humber, the north-west and Teesside.

[Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)]

CF Fertilisers is based in my hon. Friend’s constituency, Stockton North, but also employs people in my constituency and in Middlesbrough. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) has a long-standing commitment to carbon capture and storage, but cannot be present because of a Front-Bench commitment.