Dietary Advice and Childhood Obesity Strategy

Debate between Alistair Burt and Philip Davies

Monday 23rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I am sure the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, will be able to pick up a number of issues that the hon. Gentleman has raised, but let me respond to some.

First, in relation to the report, as I emphasised by quoting the remarks from Public Health England, any advice that goes into the public domain which is to have credibility and upon which people should want to rely must be fully evidence based and as thoroughly researched as possible. If there is any doubt about that—if the evidence appears to be scant—it is right that such advice should be dismissed as irresponsible. We should continue to urge people to look at far more in-depth studies and internationally accepted views on health, diet and wellbeing. I made that point and I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman agrees.

In relation to the Government’s activity, the childhood obesity strategy will come forward in due course, but it cannot be said that nothing has been done in the meantime. The sugary drinks tax has been taken forward, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that advertising, labelling and promotion definitely come into the strategy and will be looked at. Having spoken to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, I am sure that the intention is to get the report out at a time when the House will be able to consider it. There is little likelihood of the House not having an opportunity to discuss and debate such an important matter, but it is important to get the report right. It is important that it meet exactly the challenges that the hon. Gentleman made from across the Dispatch Box. If it is not seen to be thorough, well researched and well evidenced, it will fall foul of the concerns raised by the irresponsible report today. I am grateful for his support. The outcome is something we all want to see, and I can assure him that my hon. Friend the Minister will be studying his remarks carefully.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

In the hope that the Minister has doubled up his bets with the Secretary of State, may I join my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) in urging him to curb the Department of Health’s natural nanny state instincts when it comes to a childhood obesity strategy? If the sugar tax is part of that childhood obesity strategy, can he explain why the tax is being directed at a certain number of products, when other products with far more sugar in them will not be covered by the tax? Will he abandon this policy and encourage the Chancellor to abandon it before it becomes the new pasty tax policy?

[Alistair Burt]

Tempting though it is to use my temporary position for a whole range of announcements in relation to this area, I think that would be unwise. I can inform my hon. Friend that I have him on an accumulator with my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall); I am not saying who is the final part of it. No, the Government will stick to their declared policy in relation to sugary drinks. Perhaps my hon. Friend might welcome the fact that all the money from that is going into physical activity through sports in schools, which I know he is really keen on as well. Perhaps that mitigates any concern he might have.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alistair Burt and Philip Davies

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

T10. A number of my constituents are unable to access an NHS dentist. May I ask the Minister to look at the availability of NHS dentists in my constituency and use his good offices to ensure that there is enough capacity for all of my constituents who want to use a good NHS dentist to be able to access one locally?

[Alistair Burt]

Overall access to NHS dentistry is good, but it does vary from area to area, and West Yorkshire, as the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) well knows, is one of the areas that worries us and that we are trying to do something about. Work is being undertaken in the West Yorkshire area to look at issues around NHS dentistry. I have met a number of hon. Members to discuss this matter. It has my attention, so I will be monitoring it closely, and my hon. Friend was right to raise it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alistair Burt and Philip Davies

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I think it is a case of wishing the hon. Gentleman a happy birthday.

[Philip Davies]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker—much appreciated.

Children who have suffered the trauma of abuse may benefit from a range of therapeutic services, but there is a lack of consistent data about the number of abused children in need of therapeutic support and the number of services available. Can the Minister assure me that as part of plans to transform children’s mental health, the needs of abused children will be properly monitored and considered at every level?

[Alistair Burt]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend not only for his question but for previous questions in relation to this area and his obvious interest and concern about it. He is right. Nationally, the numbers of looked-after and abused children in the new prevalence survey—the first since 2004—would be relatively small. We have therefore asked the statisticians to look at different ways of assessing the data and the numbers so that we can address this issue. I hope to be able to report further on that later in the new year after I have had that meeting.

Junior Doctors Contract

Debate between Alistair Burt and Philip Davies

Friday 20th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

No, I do not think it possible to make that sort of estimate or assessment, but the longer that doctors go on working under an unsafe contract that includes long hours, consecutive nights and long days, the more that will add to the pain and pressures of those working in the NHS. That is why a new contract with safer hours is a better option. Encouraging the BMA to return to negotiations and settle this issue, so that the threat of strike action is not hanging over us, is also important for morale.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this strike action is completely irresponsible and that such action is never an acceptable substitute for the kind of negotiations offered by the Secretary of State? Will he guarantee that the Government will not give in to this strike action, as that would be a terrible precedent for the Government to set?

[Alistair Burt]

My hon. Friend reflects well the feelings of Chief Medical Officer Professor Dame Sally Davies, who urged junior doctors to think again because the severity of the proposed action is a step too far. I find it difficult to conceive of a circumstance in which I would support a medical practitioner withdrawing their labour, and I hope that anyone would think that such things should not happen. The Secretary of State is doing everything he can to make clear the terms of the contract, the safety principles on which it is based, and to deal with misleading information. Even at this stage, he urges the BMA to come back and sit round the negotiating table and—I repeat—he has not ruled out conciliation after that.

Male Suicide and International Men’s Day

Debate between Alistair Burt and Philip Davies

Thursday 19th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Philip Davies]

Me too.

[Alistair Burt]

And so is my hon. Friend.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and picking the topic. I thank CALM and the other charities that backed the debate, as well as all the colleagues who have spoken. I will come to everyone’s speech in due course, but a couple of colleagues—my hon. Friends the Members for Worcester (Mr Walker) and for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately)—have been in here for the whole time and have not made a speech. It is sometimes unusual for colleagues to sit and listen because they are interested in the debate, without feeling the need to contribute. We all appreciate their presence. I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) for her comments, which I will come on to. I am only mildly annoyed that she said some of the things I wanted to say, but I can say them again. She either read my mind or had a look at my speech in advance.

I will spend the bulk of my remarks dealing with the suicide element of the debate, but I want to start with International Men’s Day because I recognise its significance and because it is why we are here. I have previously referred to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) as “the Member for grit and oyster”, and he proved that to us once again today. This place is used to rough speeches. If any hon. Member wants to get anything done, say anything mildly controversial or challenge people, there is the chance that they will not only challenge but put some people’s noses out of joint in doing so. My hon. Friend is particularly good at both those things. We all have to take the rough with the smooth—we have all sat in the House of Commons and heard things from both sides that we do not like, but that is all part of it. That is what this place is about and we do not get things done by always going along with the status quo. Today, I heard from my hon. Friend things that I appreciated and things that that I thought were profoundly wrong.

I echo the feelings of those who said today that the purpose of International Men’s Day is to highlight the fact that gender equality is not a zero-sum game. It is not one thing to be gained at the disadvantage of another. The Department of Health’s approach to illnesses and conditions that might specifically affect men or women is that both deserve equal attention and neither is supported at the expense of the other. That is important. There is a strand of that argument on both sides that occasionally expresses itself in challenging ways. The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) made brave reference to the row at the University of York to say that it is right and important to think about International Men’s Day, and for a university to censor it and prevent something from happening frankly looks rather silly. There is a lot of stuff in the United States at the moment about the prevention of free speech that is getting into that area. Academic institutions need to be particularly careful about ensuring that they do not shut down debate just because they do not like it. The hon. Lady was quite right to say what she did.

I think our debate today has emphasised that this is not a zero-sum game. There are particular issues on which men are specifically challenged. It is important that they are raised as issues in their own right and that it is not suggested that they have arisen because men have been disadvantaged by women. The underachievement of boys, particularly white, working-class boys, is a real issue that any of us would be concerned about. It does not need to be considered in the context of whether girls are doing better. It is just a fact for those boys, and what can we do about it? My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley was right about that.

The difficulties of family problems, separation and other such matters are particularly hard because the courts have as their primary objective the interests of the child. It is not about the interests of one party or the other; the paramount duty of the court is to have the interests of the child as the basis of what it does. How that is interpreted can be tough in contested situations. The pain felt by men who suffer separation is real. That is not to suggest that pain is not suffered by women in similar circumstances, but the facts are as they are and not to raise them and not to regard them as important would be to miss something. My hon. Friend was also right on that.

As for the issues my hon. Friend raised, some of his challenges to put things on the record were right and some of them, I feel, are wrong, but I am grateful to him for being prepared, as he always is, to confront issues that some others might shy away from. That is what this place is all about.

The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) made a quite excellent speech, again demonstrating to people outside this place that some colleagues here get so immersed in a subject that they really know their business and are able to speak authoritatively on it from years of experience and practice. The hon. Lady gave us an object lesson in that. She was right about language. When she said that the phrase we should use now is not “to commit suicide” but rather “to take one’s own life”, that was not designed to chastise my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley or anyone else. I had a conversation on this subject this week with Jonny Benjamin, who I am pleased to say is here and following the debate closely, because I had also used the former phrase. I did so because it is a common phrase, but it is right to challenge its use, because, exactly as the hon. Lady said, it suggests that to take one’s own life is similar to committing a crime. That was not my intention when I used the phrase and I understood entirely when Jonny suggested that the right wording is “taking one’s own life”. As the hon. Lady said, the feeling of loss experienced by affected families is considerable; that the language used could add to that a sense that their loved one did something criminal had not occurred to me, but on reflection I certainly understood it. Her remark was not meant to chastise anyone. I have corrected my way of looking at the matter as a result of what I was told. That is just sensible sensitivity.

The hon. Lady also mentioned the importance of coroners. In case Members do not know, because I did not know until I took on this job, I can tell them that coroners write to me if they feel that there is something in a case that has a wider governmental impact that relates to my Department. It is an important part of the process that coroners indicate when they feel that they have uncovered something in a particular case that has a wider implication and the Government can do something about. I appreciate the work of coroners and I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to them and thank them for their thorough work in investigating deaths. It is much appreciated by Government.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) spoke about attitudes and the importance of gender equality not being zero-sum game, which I appreciate. I also recognise that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley quite rightly challenged gender stereotypes in his contribution. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke mentioned parental leave, which is dealt with by the Department for Education, so we will get an answer to her on that. It is an issue, and it is strange, although perhaps not surprising, that it is handled similarly around Europe and around the world and that men do not take the opportunities that are given to them, but I suspect that that attitude may change over time. I will ensure that the Department for Education gives her an answer.

My right hon. Friend also made reference to living in a multi-generational household. I too live in such a household, but there are only two males in mine. All the rest are women. There is me and Mr Darcy, my darling daughter’s pug. We are the only two blokes in our house, and I depend on him for male company when I get home. Multi-generational houses can be a lot of fun, and I appreciate living in one very much.

I have mentioned the hon. Member for York Central challenging the University of York, but she also made reference to the issues at Bootham Park hospital, in which we are both well versed. I appreciate her work on this and that of my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy). It is a particular situation that has arisen owing to the closure of that hospital because of the risks that she mentioned. It exemplifies the fact that work has to be done as swiftly as possible to replace the facilities that have been lost, and she is entirely right to say that the trust must have a good eye on where people are being treated now and how we can get back to local facilities as soon as possible. She knows that my door is open if she wants to see me when the moment is right, and we are pressing the local authorities to bring forward their plans.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall)—may God continue to bless his constituency and all its wonderful people—spoke of the need to challenge stereotypes. He also made reference to something that I want to highlight because it is absolutely central to the problem—the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree also mentioned it. This is what has been so wrong: the acceptance. My hon. Friend gave every impression of being outraged that we have sort of accepted that there is a figure for suicide in this country and a gap between men and women; we have sort of got used to it. He is right, and that will be at the heart of my remarks about how we deal with the matter. He has looked hard at the statistics to examine the gap between men and women and found that it is not only consistent, but widening. I thank him for his work.

I visited the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway) a few months ago to meet a group that she brought together to deal with a variety of mental health issues. She can take my kind regards back to them, because I found the meeting to be very instructive. In her contribution, she spoke of her difficult personal experience and made reference, as several colleagues did, to the issue of men’s feelings about their place in society, their feeling of inadequacy should they admit to any sense of failure, their worry about not fitting in, banter and everything else. That brought to my mind the relatively recent tragedy of Gary Speed, the Welsh international manager, and the impact it had on the sporting community that someone seemingly in full command of his life and everything else could have such things going on to lead him to do what he did. Along with other celebrities and colleagues in the House talking about such things, it is those occasions that wake people up and make us say, “This is a bigger problem than we realised.” That is probably one of the reasons why we are all present today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Derby North and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree referred to the good that can come from sports clubs, associations and so on. In my constituency I am lucky enough to be a member of a number of organisations—for example, I am president of Biggleswade athletic club and I regularly go to see matches at the football clubs. They are places where people can go, gather together and form associations. Bearing in mind the difficulties we have been discussing, including feelings of loneliness and isolation—for men in particular—the more people can be scooped up by and remain part of groups and organisations the better. They are a vital link. Perhaps women do such things differently from and better than men, but perhaps sports clubs and other such places can do something more for men. In that connection, I commend the work being done at Everton.

My hon. Friend the Member for Derby North commented on asking people how they are and getting the reply, “Fine.” Are they really fine? Most of us leave it at that, because we do not want to get involved in the conversation, but it is important to take such opportunities.

May I make another point? It is a bit personal, but not too harrowing as it turned out. It is an important point. Last year my old school magazine reached me and in the obituaries column was the name of one of my classmates, someone I had also been at university with. I was completely horrified. We had been in touch reasonably regularly over the years, but perhaps not for a year or so. I thought, “My friend has died and I don’t know anything about it.”

In actual fact, fortunately, it turned out to be a mistake. My immediate reaction had been to hit the last number I had for my friend to find out what had happened, and I had discovered that the magazine was wrong. It had shocked me, however, and I remember saying to him, “Do you know what this teaches me? We have a number of friends we haven’t been in touch with for a while—we don’t always know where they are—and we will end up seeing each other’s families at each other’s funerals.”

At my sort of advanced age, if we have not been in touch with friends for a bit—I have a lot of school friends I remember well, even if I have not spoken to them for a while—we might simply miss something. Again, I think blokes do such things worse than women. If it were not for my wife keeping up with friends using Facebook and so on, my social life would be much worse. That is something for men to think about. If we have not been in touch with friends for a bit, we should do it this weekend.

The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Dr Monaghan) made reference to Scotland’s suicide strategy, and I was pleased to hear about it. The strategy goes back a long time, to 2002, so it is a long-term strategy to combat the brutal fact that the suicide rate is higher in Scotland than in the rest of the United Kingdom. Any lessons to be learned from a falling rate are important. It is right to focus on what might work.

My hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan), too, talked about the underachievement of boys at school and the particular issues in her constituency. She mentioned Twitter—she need not be worried about being attacked on it, because she has nothing to worry about—and I will speak about social media later. The importance of her remarks, however, was in talking about the issues.

Although the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) did not make a speech as such, she intervened with particular pertinence, as she always does on such occasions. It is good to see her in her place and taking a strong interest in the debate throughout.

I have a little more to say, given the time and the opportunity. I hope to be pertinent. I want to put on the record some of my own thoughts on the subject—although the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree has anticipated some of my views. I want to see the ambition of our society and of the Government changed in relation to the issue of suicide. Fundamentally, I want our position to be that we challenge the inevitability of suicide. As far as our statistics are concerned, our rates are mid-range for societies such as ours, but that is not good enough.

Do we need to know more? How do our strategies compare with those of others? Have we identified the right drivers, and are our local and national strategies flexible and dynamic enough to respond? Why, in a world where gender equality is encouraged as the norm, must we speak specifically about men because this affects men more than women?

Since I have been in office, I have been much moved by those I have met in relation to suicide. I have met those who help in prevention and counselling, those who work clinically, those who campaign and, most of all, those who have been touched by the tragedy of suicide in some way. I am fortunate. I have not personally been affected through the loss of a close friend or a family member, but I have known others more tangentially who have. I have met people whose children have taken their own lives, and others who have come close to it themselves.

The other day I met Jonny Benjamin, as I said, whose story of having been persuaded against suicide by a stranger on a bridge led to his extraordinary efforts years later to find, successfully, the man who saved him. He is taking a close interest in the debate today. He spends much of his time taking his story, and the issues surrounding it, out there to help others. Other people around the country are also doing such things—I commend their work, and I deeply appreciate what Jonny is doing. The shock and emptiness left by suicide is excruciating to behold, hard to listen to and desperate to feel.

We have a new challenge. What must we do to have the best suicide prevention strategy in the world? To be mid-range is no longer good enough for any of us. With that in mind, I assure the House that mental health is a key priority of the Government, and I set our work in that context. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree raised that issue. We want to do all we can to build on our momentum and to ensure that people get access to the services they need when they need them. We have done a certain amount towards fulfilling that commitment, and the hon. Lady was generous enough to praise one or two of the things that have been done.

Jonny Benjamin and others have done a great deal of work on making people more aware. His #FindMike campaign has captured many hearts and minds. We have legislated, for the first time, for parity of esteem between mental and physical health, through the Health and Social Care Act 2012. We were the first Government to include access and waiting times for mental health. Last year we gave the NHS more money than ever before for mental health services, with an increase to £11.7 billion, and we have invested more than £120 million to introduce waiting times standards for the first time.

I am conscious that when I say such things, people say, “Well, not in our area.” There is an issue with how the national money appears in local clinical commissioning groups, but we are on to it—there will be better monitoring this year, and we have made it clear that CCGs must use a proportionate amount of an increase that they receive for mental health services. We are watching out for that, because it is a fair criticism.

We have also helped to extend the accessibility of successful talking therapies, in which field we are a world leader. We invested more than £400 million in recent years in the improving access to psychological therapies programme, to ensure access to talking therapies for those who need them. That has led to real improvements in the lives of people with anxiety and depression.

We have also invested more than £33 million in crisis care. We launched the crisis care concordat in 2014, and every local area now has in place a crisis care action plan to support people experiencing a mental health crisis to receive the right help and support when they need it. I welcome the Care Quality Commission report of some months ago, which we commissioned. Although it was a bit tough in places, it provided a sort of baseline for where we do well and where we can do better. I recognise that accident and emergency did not come out well, and we need to strengthen the relationships there. I noticed that police and ambulance services did well when responding to people in crisis, but best of all were the independent and voluntary agencies involved with such people.

There are lessons to be learned, such as the need to build on all that work through street triage and so on. I shall mention that later, but it has been one of the most interesting outcomes. The crisis care concordat is not found universally, and some local areas that I have visited might want a different approach, but there is no doubt that the concordat and what the Government have sought to achieve through it have made a real difference. It is certainly being monitored locally and nationally—the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree is right about that—and I take a keen interest in it. I expect to see the CQC reports improve as times go on, because we want to look at the areas where concerns were found.

One of the ways in which we can better look after people with mental health issues is to recognise that they often have physical issues as well. Sometimes that has been poorly regarded in the past, and it can add to feelings of depression, isolation and not being considered and so play into the issues that we are discussing. It is important to address premature mortality in people with mental illness, and we have committed NHS England to doing so through the NHS mandate,. One way in which we can do that is to look at the person behind the illness and provide treatment and care for the whole person, so that we also address the physical health and social care needs of people with mental illness.

Let me say a brief word about children, because this starts early. I am particularly keen to ensure that we get the right support in place for young people. We have committed to invest an additional £1.25 billion over the life of the Parliament to improve the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people. We know that, for many people, mental illness can manifest itself early in life, and that the first experience of psychosis is often during adolescence. We are using that additional investment to improve awareness of mental health issues in our children and young people and to improve the information and support they receive at school on mental health and wellbeing.

There cannot be enough warning about the dangers of peer pressure and social media and the ways in which they can induce depression and harm among young people at a sensitive age. My hon. Friend the Member for Telford referred to Twitter, and we see that what young people face on Facebook and other social media can be immensely damaging. New technology is a boon, but it has risks and dangers and it is important to talk about that.

May I commend the report issued just this week by the British Youth Council’s youth select committee on young people’s mental health? It made this recommendation:

“Cyberbullying and sites which promote self-harm can have a significant impact on the mental health of young people. Hoping that children will simply stop using social networks is not a solution. We recommend that the Government should facilitate a roundtable for charities, technology companies, young people, and the Government to work together to find creative solutions needed to help young people stay safe online”.

The Government will issue a full response from both my Department and the Department for Education, but I commend the Youth Council and that select committee for the hard work they have put in, which will certainly be taken seriously.

About a month or so ago I got a letter from a young lady not in my constituency—she had written to the Prime Minister. She said:

“I am writing to you to express my ideas on new legislation…The topic I have chosen is extremely personal to me. I have lost a friend to suicide, and I feel as though if he had had a better understanding of his own illness, he would not have felt the need to take his own life. Not only this, I also feel that if the people surrounding him at his time of suffering were better educated on the topic, it would have helped him to feel less alone and unaccepted in today’s society.”

It was a good, brave letter and I hope to see the young lady at an event we are doing to combat stigma. She made the point that the problem starts early, and I am pleased that the Government now have a Minister in the Department for Education, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), who is devoted to mental health issues in schools. I appreciate his work. We are working together on that, which demonstrates the Government’s determination to work across Departments on these issues.

Finally—I appreciate the House’s indulgence—I turn to talk about suicide and men.

Hospital Parking Charges (Exemption for Carers) Bill

Debate between Alistair Burt and Philip Davies

Friday 30th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Community and Social Care (Alistair Burt)]

It is a pleasure to respond to the debate. I want to make some general comments before I go into the details of the Bill and before time beats us, but let me first congratulate the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) on her success in the ballot, and on using it to present this Bill. I am very grateful to her for discussing it with me in advance—we have met twice—and for prompting others to take an interest in it.

I think I have made it clear to the hon. Lady from the outset that the Government cannot support the Bill, for reasons that have been mentioned by my hon. Friends in connection with the discretion that we need to give to hospitals. I shall say more about that shortly. I think that I also made it clear to the hon. Lady—and she was very generous in remarking on this—that we were willing to change our guidance principles, which I shall read out later in order to show where the changes have been made. Those changes are amendments, and as far as I am concerned, they are the “Julie Cooper amendments”, because if the hon. Lady had not presented them to us, we would not have had them. Although I cannot support a change in the legislation, a material change will be made, and I hope that trusts and hospital authorities will take advantage of it when they feel that that is in their interests and also the right thing to do.

Let me now say a few words about carers. The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) knows a great deal about the subject, having spent considerable time dealing with carers’ issues over the years in her previous role as consultant to the Princess Royal Trust for Carers and on the local council. She understands the carer’s world very well, and I pay tribute to her for that.

Although I will say a little bit about carers, I want to say something about the car parking aspects of the Bill as well. There is no dispute between anyone in this House about the value associated with carers. I felt it was reasonable for me to mention the support I believed carers had from the Government at present. I did that not only because of what we say about valuing what carers do but because of our recognition that the system could not exist without them. However, the system could not exist if it had to compensate carers for every particular cost; that just cannot be done.

The 2011 census identified 5.4 million carers in England. To put that in context, the state spends £16 billion each year on adult social care. The total market is estimated to be worth £22 billion. The Office for National Statistics has valued informal care at about £61.7 billion. Whatever the actual figure may be, it is immense and this could not be done without the voluntary contribution of carers.

[Philip Davies]

If it is the case, as the shadow Minister seems to be indicating, that the only way one can show recognition towards what carers do is to support this Bill on hospital car parking charges, does the Minister agree that the shadow Minister ought to explain why in 13 years of a Labour Government they never passed legislation to exempt carers from hospital car parking charges?

[Alistair Burt]

My hon. Friend, who made a strong contribution to this debate, makes a fair point. The difficulties of life are such that, no matter that we have a string of things we would like to do, the finances do not enable us to do them. It is amazing that when we are in opposition we find things we were unable to do when we were in government.

One or two colleagues also made the point about the basic economics of this. It is tempting to add up a cost and say that because the value given by carers to the national economy is as it is, therefore everything can be netted off against it and it is a benefit. The economics just do not work that way. As hospitals would have to find the money to maintain their car parks and everything else, it is not netted off by the benefit to carers. So tempting though it is, and an understandable argument though it may be, it does not actually work. It only works when we do the difficult things that some of my colleagues have pointed out today, which seem to be very tough. After all, who would not give free car parking to carers? Indeed, who would not give free car parking at hospitals to everyone, which the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) went down the road of saying? That ignores the fact that it was not done when her Government had a chance to do it, and it ignores the fact that trying to find something like a quarter of a billion pounds when the NHS is stretched is going to be very difficult. These things are lovely to talk about, but they cannot always be done. It is much better to concentrate on what we can do.

Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Assessments

Debate between Alistair Burt and Philip Davies

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Alistair Burt]

The hon. Lady, in her concluding remarks, suggested that there might be a legal challenge to the Chief Coroner, but at this stage, I am not persuaded that that would be the best way forward. Perhaps we might leave it at this: depending on the Chief Coroner’s response to my letter, I might seek a meeting with him, so that I might have the opportunity to talk to him in a slightly different manner about some problems that the hon. Lady has raised and get an opportunity to take things further. I ought to get the Chief Coroner’s written response in the first place, but I appreciate her point of view.

We want to encourage an approach that minimises relatives’ potential distress, which, as the hon. Lady set out, can be severe. The key to best practice is good communication and information exchange between partners in the system. Leicester City Council is indicative of a local authority that has worked closely with its local coroner. Together they have designed a shared protocol that includes the clear steer that, unless there are suspicious circumstances, notification of a death can wait until office hours, negating the need for distressing out-of-hours visits from uniformed police officers. In the vast majority of those cases, police involvement will not be necessary. Certainly, 999 calls are not appropriate.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for stressing the importance of this issue. The Law Commission, which I will refer to in a second, is also looking at the issue of coroners’ investigations, and I want to see the results of that.

Let me say more about the Law Commission, having dealt with coroners to an extent. The Government’s policy is twofold in dealing with the significant challenge that has been given to local authorities and health and care providers now charged with implementing DOLS. First, we seek to understand whether legislative change can provide a system that is sustainable in the long term and that better balances the protection of individuals against the need for minimum bureaucracy to ensure that existing limited resource is maximised. Secondly, we are seeking to provide practical support and guidance to manage the challenges in the interim.

The case for a thorough review of the legislation in this area is unambiguous. The legislation underpinning DOLS was introduced by the then Government in 2007. It was criticised by Select Committees of both Houses, even before the implications of the Supreme Court judgment became clear. Following the judgment, the Government are funding the independent Law Commission to review the legislation underpinning DOLS. It will launch a four-month public consultation on a proposed new scheme on 7 July 2015.

Following the hon. Lady’s intervention, it has occurred to me that she and other parliamentary colleagues may appreciate a dedicated consultation event with the Law Commission on the parliamentary estate. If she agrees, I shall endeavour to make arrangements for that. I will contact the Law Commission to suggest such an event and I hope that it might want a session here so that it can listen to the expertise of colleagues. I am sure the commission would benefit from such expertise, and I will write to her and let her know what it makes of that suggestion.

Given the criticism of the current DOLS legislation, and bearing in mind the likelihood of unintended consequences, I strongly believe that it is important for the Law Commission to be given the time to consider the entire legislation in the round and, if appropriate, propose a comprehensive solution. It would be unwise to rush into specific legislative changes, the repercussions of which might not be clear, so I am not tempted at the moment to make any changes to the regulations.

However, I agree with the hon. Lady on greater urgency. The Law Commission’s review was scheduled to be completed, in the form of detailed policy proposals and a draft Bill, in the summer of 2017. I think, having taken up my duties, that that needs to happen quicker. Accordingly, I have proposed, and the Law Commission has agreed, an acceleration of the review to ensure that it will now be completed, in the form of detailed policy proposals and a draft Bill, by the end of 2016. I know that that is still some time away, but bearing in mind the complexity of the issue, I do not think we can afford to get the next bite at this wrong, so I hope that the hon. Lady welcomes that news.

In the interim, my Department has been working with various partners to support the system’s response to the Supreme Court judgment. I reiterate now that the response to that judgment must be rooted in the principles and values of the Mental Capacity Act. Our efforts have to be focused primarily on realising real benefits for individuals. DOLS are about people, not paperwork. My Department has issued clear guidance that has emphasised the importance of a proportionate Mental Capacity Act-centred approach, and emphasised that so-called bulk applications for all the residents of a care home are not acceptable. DOLS apply only to those who lack the specific capacity to consent to their accommodation. Many in care homes and hospitals will have that capacity and so not be eligible for DOLS. That must be made clear.

We recognise that the scale of the challenge set by the Supreme Court means that some local authorities will be unable to process DOLS applications within the 21-day legal timeframe. The Care Quality Commission has been clear that providers will not be unfairly punished for such technical breaches. However, the CQC has been equally clear, quite rightly, that a do-nothing approach is unacceptable, so providers and local authorities must have a plan in place for ensuring that those who stand to benefit most from a DOLS assessment receive one in a timely manner.

The Department has funded a reduction in the non-statutory bureaucracy accompanying the DOLS process, reducing the number of application forms from 32 to 13. The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, which delivered that project, deserves particular praise for the support it has provided to its member organisations since the Supreme Court judgment.

The Department has funded the Law Society to produce excellent comprehensive guidance, in collaboration with practitioners, to assist in identifying a true deprivation of liberty, and in March this year, the Government announced that they would provide local authorities with an extra £25 million to support their efforts on DOLS in 2015-16.

I reassure the hon. Lady that I understand the concerns that some local authorities have about the cost of DOLS, and I praise the hard work of local DOLS teams. However, I am aware that there is considerable variation among local authorities as regards the number of applications that they have been able to process. Clearly, it is important that we identify and learn from current best practice, so my officials are in close contact with providers and local authorities, and I have instructed them to make further visits across England this summer to continue to understand the local response.

Although some may baulk at the idea of 100,000 DOLS applications a year, we should remember that every one of those applications represents a person having their care independently scrutinised. DOLS can help to shine a light on care that is unnecessarily restrictive and does not put the person’s views first and foremost. Therefore, we should strongly back the principles of DOLS. Our shared challenge now is, through the Law Commission review, to understand how those principles can be better applied in the day-to-day reality of the health and care system and after the unintended consequences of the judgment.

I thank the hon. Lady for raising these important issues. My Department and I would be grateful for any further insight she may have, conscious as we are of her expertise in the social care field. I hope that we have touched this afternoon—

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Order.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Middle East and North Africa

Debate between Alistair Burt and Philip Davies

Thursday 17th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Regarding not taking our eye off the ball in the middle east and the Gulf, the United Arab Emirates has certainly made great strides in working with the Kurdistan Regional Government; and our Government issued the first formal invitation to the KRG’s Prime Minister a month ago, and that relationship is developing. However, there are issues and I hope my right hon. Friend will address some of them. The Kurds now find themselves with a very long border with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. They are also cut off from Baghdad because their budget has not been delivered since March. And of course, they have a strong bilateral relationship with Turkey and are attempting to sell their oil through the pipeline to Ceyhan and to Turkey, but that in itself has come up against a number of challenges. I suspect that our Government will remain neutral on this matter, but can he address some of those issues—

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions should certainly be shorter than that one.

[Alistair Burt]

Unsurprisingly, I have a short passage in my speech relating to Kurdish issues, and I think my hon. Friend will find that I address one or two of those points.

I have a particular relationship with the UAE through my current chairmanship of the all-party group on the UAE, and through a connection with my very good friend, the deputy Foreign Minister of the UAE, Dr Anwar Gargash; I commend such a relationship to my hon. Friend the Minister. The UAE belies some of the easy and rather lazy descriptions that the uninformed make about the Gulf. This is a state where women hold very senior positions; for example, the ambassador to the UN and the Minister in charge of the extraordinary Dubai 2020 Expo are women. It is also a state where people can go to church; I went to church on my last visit to Abu Dhabi.

The UAE is also a state whose prosperity relationship with the UK is singularly important. We will contribute to British firms going to Expo 2020. There is also investment by the Emirates in the UK: the £1.5 billion investment by Dubai’s DP World in London Gateway; Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s energy company, is investing more than £500 million in the London Array, the world’s largest offshore wind farm; and the Abu Dhabi United Group is working beyond London in Manchester, through its connection with Manchester City football club, to encourage the regeneration of the city. Again, I profess a special interest, having been the Minister with responsibility for Manchester and Salford many years ago; seeing the regeneration of that great city has been one of the great highlights of the past 20 years. All that activity shows that the UAE is working with and investing in the UK, which enhances the relationship between the two countries.

Wherever we look around the Gulf, particularly in a state such as the UAE, we see a close partner working together with the UK. I emphasise that point because whatever direction the FCO now goes in, it is very important that the middle east and the Gulf remain uppermost in its mind. I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister will be keen to ensure that that is the case.

Briefly, please do not forget the middle east. Stick with those states that are working through the Arab spring and working with the Arab Partnership. Stick with Libya—it is difficult. Stick with Egypt, which will be a key partner, even though it will inevitably go through difficulties. It has serious human rights and judicial issues to overcome, but its economy needs support if the country is to get anywhere with its democracy. Egypt’s parliamentary elections later this year will be keenly scrutinised to ensure that they are fully inclusive. Certainly, the state has questions to answer, as we all know, but it will be a key partner for the future and in increasing the prosperity of the region as a whole.

In a final point on the values that we hold dear, let me mention that throughout the region religious intolerance and ensuring that there is greater freedom of worship and conscience is another important issue that I am sure the FCO will address. I know that one or two colleagues here today will talk about that specifically

I had the honour yesterday of meeting two young women from Iran who had been imprisoned in Tehran in 2009 for being Christian believers. Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh are now free in the United States. They have written about their experiences and make the point that although a rapprochement in Iran in many ways has advantages for all of us, to neglect human rights issues in Iran would be a mistake. They also make the point that it is not only Christians who are suffering; so are Baha’is and others. We know that across the region the agonies caused by differences between Muslim sects have been reflected in the pressures on those of other faiths and of none. I am certain that a greater sense of religious tolerance throughout the region is a value that the UK and this Parliament would strongly profess, and again I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to make that a key part of his work in the region.

Before I sit down, I will address two major issues briefly: first, Syria and, secondly, Gaza. With Syria, it seems that we have a very short attention span for tragedy. One has to do a little bit of searching now in the newspapers to find out that the agony of Syria is continuing. In three years perhaps 160,000 people have been killed, although there are estimates of many more. There is a need to ensure that the truth of what is happening in Syria comes out, rather than a narrative produced by the Syrian regime.

In short, Assad would have us all believe that right from the beginning he was challenged not by his own people but by foreign extremists. That is untrue. There were no foreign extremists on the streets of Damascus when the first brave people asked not for his overthrow but for reform. They were met with torture and violence, and with a deliberate campaign to ensure that more extremists came into the country from outside, because Assad knew that his greatest chance of staying in power was to convince the outside world that he was threatened by terrorists from outside and not from his own country. Sadly, that narrative has had all too much opportunity to succeed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alistair Burt]

I hear that. If I was sitting at the other end of this desk, in the Minister’s place, I would be equally cagey in my response. I will not ask my hon. Friend the Minister for a definitive answer at this stage. There would be ramifications. Ultimately, the independence of the Kurdish people is a matter of self-determination—my hon. Friend is correct. Bearing in mind all that the Kurdish people—a people subject to chemical attack and the like— have been through for so long, it is important that people listen. This matter should not be dealt with suddenly; it should be worked through with neighbours and friends and the surrounding territories. The Kurdish people deserve to have their voice heard, of that there is no doubt. There is plenty that the UK can still continue to do.

Let me make one last point, because I am conscious that I have taken up a lot of time. I want to finish by talking about Gaza. I have become passionate about the region, and colleagues throughout the House have been kind enough to recognise that. I appreciate what colleagues have said over the past few months. If there is one issue on which that passion has been allied to grief, it is the continuing failure of the middle east peace process and the inability of both Israelis and Palestinians to live in the peace and security to which both are entitled and which both are being denied. What we are witnessing now in Gaza is just the latest instalment of this awful tragedy, which has been far too long-running for all of us. I welcome the news over the course of the morning about possible ceasefire prospects, because the matter is urgent and the kinetic action there needs to stop as quickly as possible on both sides.

Over many years I was solely associated with the Israeli cause, and I appreciate greatly how in office this was never raised against me by Arab interlocutors, who I think guessed rightly that such a background gave me the opportunity to speak with great frankness to my many friends in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, which I did. My last four years have therefore brought me much closer to Arab and Palestinian leaders and provided greater exposure to the impact of the failure to conclude an agreement on their side. Whether it is the economic and humanitarian difficulties of Gaza or the grief of the Tamimi family in Nabi Saleh, or the parents of an Israeli schoolchild killed by a bomb, I have, like all the rest of us in this Chamber, seen too much despair from too many. I do not need to be told by either side whose fault it is or to listen any more to a catalogue of mutual injustice. For the record, I get it. Both have right and wrongs on their side. They are both my friends. Like the vast majority of those who live in the region, I just want this to stop.

The present round is sadly no different from the rest: it solves nothing on either side. As long as Hamas keeps re-arming, Israel will need to act to remove the threat. As long as Israel does so and as long as the suffering of Gaza and its people—from their Hamas Administration as well as the restrictions of Israel—continues, there will be new recruits, because the political end to the struggle is not co-ordinated with a cessation of hostilities. So it goes on, endlessly, and it is pointless because it does not achieve the objects of either of the protagonists. It just kills.

Israel has a right to protect its citizens from the unique terror of Hamas, condemned by the UK Government as we urged EU partners to proscribe the military wing of Hamas last year. It targets Israelis—actually, it targets Jews; let us be frank—anywhere in the world, contributes to incitement and fires rockets indiscriminately at them, or fails to prevent others from doing so. Israel’s reaction to this is proportionate to the threat, but there is an imbalance in the suffering as a result. Every child killed or hurt and every civilian killed wounds Israel and calls into question the method it is employing to bring security and peace to its people at such a price, just as dreadful injuries condemn those who place children in harm’s way. We cannot go on like this.

My optimism for the excellent efforts of John Kerry, and the quieter work of Tony Blair, has not yet been realised in a result, but might I ask my hon. Friend the Minister not to give up and to ensure the FCO plays its full part in urging that, after this round of conflict is done, we get back to the negotiations for the comprehensive solution, which is the only answer? It is truly not impossible to solve the problem if the will is there, as countless people have said.

I commend the article of 7 July in Haaretz, by His Highness Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud of Saudia Arabia, making the point that the 2002 Arab peace initiative still provides a template for a just solution to Israel’s conflict with Palestinians and the Arab world. He writes about the opportunity for both sides in the economic development and political opportunities that would result from an agreement. That the positives of a solution in that area so outweigh the negatives still leaves me gasping that it cannot quite be grasped. However, I hope that, after this round of hostilities, everyone will pile in on both sets of leaders to say, “We dare not have this happen again, in a region where we have learned that things can spiral out of control very quickly.”

The middle east has not been more volatile in recent years. From Lebanon to Yemen, there are latent threats to add to those more obvious, about which I have spoken, but there is still a vibrancy of populations who promise, and deserve, much more. I hope therefore that the UK long continues its historical relationship, for we still have so much to offer our friends throughout the region in terms of peace and prosperity.

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, I want to let hon. Members know that I do not intend to place a time limit unnecessarily at this stage. However, at least 10 hon. Members wish to catch my eye, so to ensure that everyone gets a fair crack of the whip and has a fair opportunity to have their voices heard, perhaps Members could look to speak for about 10 minutes each.