Burton Magistrates Court

Debate between Andrew Griffiths and Heather Wheeler

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Griffiths]

While there might be a letter or two between my hon. Friend and I, there is nothing between us in our view of these consultations and the validity of the evidence they contain. They are riddled with mistakes; he is absolutely right. If the Minister and her colleague are to stick to their word, and if this consultation is to be based on fact and on evidence, they must reconsider the glaring inaccuracies in the proposals.

[Sir David Amess in the Chair]

Let me move on to the reasons why I think there are mistakes in the proposals for Burton. First, Burton magistrates court’s closure would require court users to make impossible or unreasonably lengthy journeys. The utilisation figures that the Tribunals Service has used to assess Burton magistrates court are incorrect. Burton magistrates court is, I believe, one of the best and most efficient in the country. According to the Tribunals Service’s own statistics, Burton magistrates court is performing better than the local and national average in terms of providing justice swiftly and effectively. The Tribunals Service has mischaracterised the quality of Burton’s facilities, which are much better than Cannock magistrates court, which is set to replace it.

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. As the people of South Derbyshire also use Burton magistrates court, will he assure me that in his strong defence of keeping the court open, he will bear in mind the importance of South Derbyshire folk’s not having to travel to Cannock, which would be utterly ludicrous?

[Andrew Griffiths]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and her strong support for this campaign. She, like me, understands the impact of this court closure on our constituents. It is true that closing Burton magistrates court would leave nowhere in the south-east of Staffordshire that is suitable for, for instance, family work, which I know she is particularly interested in.

Let us get down to the nitty-gritty of the facts that the Ministry of Justice is using to defend this proposed closure. The proposal contains travel times for each court. The Tribunals Service has included a chart detailing what percentage of people will have to travel 30 minutes, 60 minutes and so on. In order to work that information out, it is necessary to know where each individual is travelling to and from. In other words, it is necessary to know what the new local justice areas will be and where the replacement court will be. Of course, the new local justice areas are not established in the proposals. That information is not there, so the Department is sticking its finger in the air and guessing.

It transpires that many of the estimated times are completely inaccurate. The Tribunals Service has included estimated times from Burton magistrates court to each of the replacement courts. As the proposal itself admits, not everybody lives in Burton town centre. For instance, my constituents would have to travel into Burton town centre and then get another bus to the replacement court, which would add a considerable amount of time. For the purposes of today, I have worked out travel times simply from the centre of Burton, where the magistrates court is.

Let us look at the travel times we would be considering for my constituents to reach Cannock magistrates court. By car, it would be 45 to 55 minutes, but of course, only 52% of my constituents own a car. That means that almost half would be forced to use public transport. The Minister will be shocked to learn that we are talking about a travel time by bus of one hour and 56 minutes to get to Cannock, including two changes, and one hour and 53 minutes to return. That is a total travel time of three hours and 49 minutes. It is hard to see how that is access to local justice. By train, it is little better; it is one hour and 51 minutes to get there, including one change, and one hour and 49 minutes to return—a round trip of three hours and 40 minutes. That includes, importantly, a 60-minute walk time, because there is no other way of accessing the court. Derby, of course, is much quicker, with a total travel time of one hour and 32 minutes. The other proposal is to send court work to north Staffordshire justice centre, which is in Newcastle-under-Lyme. By car, that would be a 45-minute trip each way, but by bus, it would be three hours and eight minutes to get there and two hours and 57 minutes to get back.

Beer Duty Escalator

Debate between Andrew Griffiths and Heather Wheeler

Thursday 1st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffiths]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head.

We need to understand that the beer and pubs industry employs 1 million people across the country, 50% of whom are under the age of 25. We have a problem with youth unemployment, so surely supporting such a dynamic industry is the right thing to do.

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my neighbour on introducing the debate. We rely greatly on jobs in the industry in South Derbyshire and Burton. We have some fantastic local brewers such as Tollgate Brewery in Shardlow, John Thompson in Ingleby and of course the Burton Bridge Brewery, which has opened its fantastic pub, the Brickmaker’s Arms, in Newton Solney. They all create jobs, and we are asking Treasury Ministers to understand the cost-benefit analysis and bring the price down.

[Andrew Griffiths]

I thank my hon. Friend; nobody does more to support the brewing industry than she. I am astounded at the level of understanding shown by right hon. and hon. Members. Clearly Parliament gets it, and our job today is to ensure that the Treasury gets it, and that it scraps the tax and does more to support Britain’s beer and pubs industry.

Mental Health Unit (Burton)

Debate between Andrew Griffiths and Heather Wheeler

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffiths]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. He has been vociferous in campaigning on behalf of his local residents—as I am attempting to do—and I share his concerns. None of us is a backwoodsman, and none of us wants to ignore the facts, but the facts that are being presented to us by the PCTs are not the facts. When we dig down and look at the assertions that the PCTs are making, they simply do not add up. I shall give the House further evidence of that later.

For the six months during which we were able to examine the occupancy rate, we found that it was already more than 90%. In June 2010, it exceeded 100%, yet the PCT is telling us that it can safely remove those 18 beds from Margaret Stanhope with no impact on mental health provision in my community. I simply do not accept that.

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and getting the Minister here to listen to it. I also want to praise the campaigning work of Dr Long, Mr Chatfield and the Burton Mail. My constituency of South Derbyshire is a neighbour of east Staffordshire, and we do not have a hospital. My constituents have to travel either to Derby or to Burton, and my southern villages are covered by the South Staffordshire PCT, which is why my hon. Friend and I have come together on this important issue. It is outrageous that one of the excuses that the PCT is putting forward is that people want care in the community. What people want is respite care, and that is why it is so important that the unit should stay open.

[Andrew Griffiths]

My hon. Friend has been brilliant and steadfast in standing alongside me in my attempt to keep open this valuable facility, and I pay tribute to her for that.

Time is moving on, and I want to get to the facts. We extrapolated what the occupancy rates would have been if the Margaret Stanhope centre had been removed. We found that there would have been an average of 113%, and that in June 2010, it would have been 130%, which is a third more than the 100% that I just mentioned. The PCT tries to argue that in-patients can be cared for in their own homes, but I can prove that that is simply not tenable. In an interview in the Burton Mail, the consultant psychiatrist to the PCT, Abid Khan, who is also the clinical director of adult mental health services at the South Staffordshire and Shropshire NHS Foundation Trust said that he had reduced in-patient stays “by a third”. That is a direct quote. He also cited an independent report undertaken by Staffordshire university.

As my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) will know, that same report was cited at a passionate public meeting held at the Pirelli stadium in Burton. The report stated that the crisis resolution team could reduce in-patient stays by a third. I asked to see that report. It was also requested by Dr Matt Long, and, after a great deal of fighting, Dr Long managed to get hold of it. We discovered that, far from being independent, it had been produced by Professor Eleanor Bradley, who works not only for Staffordshire university but for the NHS trust. The PCT was claiming that the report was independent, yet it had been produced by someone who was on its payroll. Abid Khan talks about the one third reduction in patient stay, yet when we examine the figures we find that stays over 91 days have been reduced from 39 to 23 days—a reduction, even according to my maths, of about a third—but those between two days and 90 days, which are the vast majority, went down from 524 to 518, a reduction of only six. One-day admittance went up from 48 to 50.

The PCT claims in aid an independent report that is not independent, which states that in-patient stays were reduced by a third, when it is clear that they were not. The PCT expects people to accept the closure of this much-loved facility on the basis of dodgy figures. I put it to the Minister that a PCT cannot be allowed to conduct a consultation in this way, because the consequences are too dangerous to contemplate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has spoken about the impact on families. We all know that families are hugely important in helping people back into mental health well-being and can act as a huge tonic and support. For those who have to go to St. George’s in Stafford, it is a 27-mile trip one way. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire says from a sedentary position that there is no bus from South Derbyshire. That is true. It is 47 minutes by car from Burton. It is an hour on the train, costing £13.50 for a return ticket; then there is a seven-minute bus ride, costing a further £3.50, and a seven-minute walk. A family member wanting to visit a son or daughter, a husband or a wife would face a two and a half hour round trip. It would cost £117 a week or £470 a month. These are some of the most vulnerable people in society, but the PCT thinks it can overcrowd the beds, force people to travel those distances and still provide mental health care that is adequate. I say no—and, more importantly, the people of Burton and South Derbyshire say no.

As a result of the work of Dr Long and of the Burton Mail, 7,500 people have signed a petition to keep the Margaret Stanhope centre open. I have cross-party support for my efforts. East Staffordshire borough council passed a resolution in which every single member united in support for the Margaret Stanhope centre, with Labour councillor standing next to Conservative councillor and the mayor of East Staffordshire, Patricia Ackroyd, manning the battle lines in cold, wet and miserable weather to get people to sign the petition.

I want to make one last point that relates to other services. We all know that people experiencing mental breakdown can often be a danger to themselves or to others. We recognise that the police are at the forefront of dealing with people—it might be a small number—who experience the most acute breakdowns. People often break down in the middle of the night and at the most inconvenient times; they can be a danger to themselves and a danger to their families. Currently, if the police are called to someone at 2 am or 3 am on a Friday or Saturday night, they will try to calm the person as best they can and take them to the Margaret Stanhope centre because they know that the person will get the proper care and support that they need.

I believe that if the Margaret Stanhope centre closes, the police will be faced with two options. Two police officers—they have to travel in pairs—will have to travel all the way to Stafford or Tamworth to drop off a vulnerable person and then come all the way back, which will probably take them out of action for two or three hours. Even worse, however, a vulnerable person might be put in a police cell overnight until the crisis team can come to them. We cannot allow vulnerable people in acute mental breakdown to spend a night in the cell. That is simply not acceptable.

I am hugely grateful, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to bring this debate to Parliament. I know—I had a text earlier from someone saying, “Andrew, will you straighten your tie?”—that people are watching this debate on television in Burton. I know that there is interest in the issue, because I know that the people of Burton and South Derbyshire care passionately about it. The Margaret Stanhope centre has saved lives. It has rebuilt lives. People throughout my constituency owe a debt of gratitude to the magnificent people who work in this institution, and I owe it to them—and the House owes it to them—to ensure proper consideration.

I will leave the House with the words of one of my constituents, who came up to me on one of those mornings when we were collecting signatures in the high street in Burton in the pouring rain. She said that she had had cause to go to the Margaret Stanhope centre, and that when it happened she was married and had two children. She did not know where she was when she arrived at the centre. She did not know whether she would live through the day, and she did not know whether she wanted to live through the day. But she now knows that the care and compassion of the people in the centre, and the love and support of her family who were able to visit her every day, allowed her to rebuild her life, to go back to society and to work, and to go back to being someone of whom her family could be proud.

It is people such as that whom we are here to support today. I hope that the Minister will accept that, and will help us in our campaign to keep the Margaret Stanhope centre open.