Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Gwynne Excerpts(9 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: sustainable planning must be at the heart of our planning system. That is why we are committed to meeting the needs of communities by building homes in the right places and, as he says, making best use of brownfield land. We have made it clear that that is what the priority should be and we have put extra funding aside to unlock those sites. Our recent changes to the national planning policy framework provide clearer protection for the green belt, making it clear how future housing supply should be assessed. That is the clear difference between our two parties: the Conservatives will protect the green belt and Labour will concrete all over it.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I do not think that would be proportionate or appropriate. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] No, I do not think it would be proportionate for all Ministers to publish their tax returns. In keeping with long-standing tradition, I voluntarily published my tax returns, as did the Chancellor. That is the right balance and I have been completely transparent about that as I have done it.
Support for Kinship Carers
Andrew Gwynne Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers, and to follow the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell), who made some important points that I wholeheartedly support. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for securing the debate and all the cross-party work that she does on the issue. She works incredibly hard in this area. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the time.
It would be remiss of me not to welcome the new Children’s Minister to his post. I hope that he enjoys his time in the Department for Education, dealing with some important issues. Today it is kinship care, but there is also the wider issue of how we improve children’s services across England, because in too many parts of our country, children’s services are not just underperforming but letting children down. I hope that the Government take a close look at those local authorities that could and should be doing better for our children and young people.
I wanted to speak in this debate because not only am I the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care, but, as many Members know, my wife Allison and I are kinship carers to our grandson Lyle. We never planned on becoming kinship carers, but life can be unpredictable. Sadly, Lyle’s mum and dad were unable to care for him, and social services knocked on our door. We did not think twice—of course we would take him in; of course we would care for him. It was, and it is, one of the best decisions that I—that both of us—have ever made, probably apart from getting married, as otherwise the rest would not have happened.
We love Lyle to pieces. He is a little ball of energy and joy. He is four now, and has just started primary school. He is kind, caring, incredibly funny and just the right level of mischievous. That is why being a kinship carer is such a strange conundrum: on the one hand, you are given this gift, whom you love more than anything in the world. Every Thursday evening I race home from this place back to Manchester, because spending time with Lyle is the thing above all else that I look forward to.
Caroline Ansell
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because in my contribution I focused on the issues, challenges, setbacks and disasters, but I should also say that all the kinship carers I met spoke about love. That is how the conversations started: they spoke about their motivation to reach out and to protect the child, and how they would do anything and everything in their power to look after them.
Andrew Gwynne
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I can speak from experience. Mondays and Fridays have now got even better for me because I get to take Lyle to the local primary school. He is loving his time there, especially now he has worked out that he gets fed—last week was the first week he was there all the time, and it came as a revelation to him that they fed him at lunchtime.
On the other hand, as we have heard in the previous two contributions, kinship care is also exceptionally hard. Kinship carers are essentially picked up and dropped into a legal and emotional labyrinth, with precious little support from anyone. Like many carers, Allison and I had to go through the family courts to obtain a special guardianship order, which gives us parental responsibilities so that we can make active decisions about Lyle’s upbringing and about precisely the things the hon. Member for Eastbourne mentioned—healthcare, school and passports. We have parental rights and can make those decisions for Lyle. We had to undergo hours and hours of assessment—really intrusive police assessment of not just me and Allison, but my children and my friends. It is a gruelling system that demands an extraordinary amount from all those involved.
There are also wider family implications. Children are raised in kinship care for a variety of complex reasons, including parental mental health problems, substance misuse or illness. A kinship carer often has to manage a sensitive family situation while fiercely protecting the health and wellbeing of the child they are caring for. They are given absolutely no formal emotional support. It is only thanks to organisations such as Kinship and the Family Rights Group that Allison and I have been able to speak with other kinship carers, build support networks and access advice. It is amazing, because you find that you are not alone and that virtually every other person in the system has, to a lesser or greater extent, gone through the things you are going through, which you think are incredibly traumatic and a massive upheaval.
Then there are the financial implications. Allison and I have spent thousands of pounds in legal fees since we became kinship carers, and we continue to do so. There is always the threat of being taken back to court umpteen times. That puts a carer under such stress, trauma and emotional and financial pressure while they are trying to care for and protect their loved one. Allison and I are lucky because we are in a financial position to be able to pay these fees, but over the years I have found myself asking pretty basic questions: What if we did not have that money? What if I lost my job? What if I did not have a platform? What then?
The answers to those questions are as depressing as they are concerning. Last year, the APPG on kinship care found that 38% of kinship carers surveyed had received no legal advice about their rights and options in relation to their kinship child. Where carers had received legal advice, just 16% had received part or full payment through legal aid. Of the kinship carers who ended up in court, almost a third had to represent themselves. Some 53% of carers have made personal contributions of above £1,000, with 9% accruing costs of £10,000 or more. To be frank, the system treats kinship carers as an afterthought. They are a convenient solution in a time of crisis, and then they are left to drift in a buckling system that does not seem to recognise their existence, let alone the love they have for the children they care for.
Studies consistently show that kinship care, where possible, is in the best interests of the child. It certainly is for Lyle, and it is for hundreds of thousands of children across the country. Research from the parliamentary taskforce on kinship care shows that behavioural, educational and emotional outcomes for children in kinship care are, on the whole, better than for children living with unrelated foster carers. Kinship care allows children to develop a strong sense of their own identity and a feeling of belonging that comes from the stability of living within their wider network of family and friends. Kinship care placements are 2.6 times more likely to be permanent than unrelated foster care arrangements. It is essential that we embrace the opportunities that kinship care offers and that we make it easier for families who want to be kinship carers to do so.
It is estimated that around 100,000 children will be in care by 2032, and we must prioritise things such as kinship care if we want to avoid that reality. However, without even a legal, inclusive definition of kinship care in legislation, there is a long way to go. I am glad the Government have committed to publishing a national kinship care strategy by the end of the year. I sincerely hope Ministers will listen to the voices of kinship carers and organisations such as the Family Rights Group and Kinship and develop a system that gives kinship carers not only the support they need but the recognition they deserve.
I get uncharacteristically nervous when this subject is debated in Parliament. It sometimes feels a bit too exposing and personal to speak publicly about it. The reality is that there are hundreds of thousands of kinship carers in the same position as Allison and me. We owe it to them to get this right. Above all, we owe it to the children being cared for—children such as Lyle, who deserve all the love, care and stability the world can give. Kinship care makes that possible, so let’s make it happen.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank all the Members who have played a part in this well-informed debate today. I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on securing this debate and those she has secured previously. She says it is traditional for those in my role to resign a few days after she has had her debate; I will try my best not to do so, but it probably partly depends on how this debate goes. I also commend her staff member Andrew, who is soon to depart, for all the work he has done in supporting her on this. It is such an important issue, and I too am pleased to have kinship carers in the Gallery—Wendy and others—with whom I hope I can have a little chat at the end of the debate.
I wholeheartedly share the hon. Member for Twickenham’s commitment to championing the important role of kinship carers. They play a vital role in the children’s social care system and in the lives of children up and down the country. Too often, they play that role without people knowing or appreciating it. I think we all agree that too little attention has been paid to this area of kinship carers for far too long. We are determined to change that.
About 17 years ago, I did some mentoring through an organisation that helped primary school children who were showing behavioural problems in the classroom as a result of what was going on at home. I was matched with a nine-year-old boy who had been removed from his parents due to what was going on at home and placed on the child protection register. He had been placed with his gran. In this mentoring capacity, the mentor would take the mentee out each week to do fun activities—football, ice skating, swimming and things like that—while trying to work with them on the behaviour they were exhibiting in school.
When I picked the boy up at the beginning of the day and when I took him back at the end of the day, I got a glimpse of the incredible role that his gran was playing. She was in her 60s, she had raised her children and this was not what she had expected to be doing—a number of Members have said this—and yet, through boundaries, discipline, nutritious food and stable bedtimes, she was transforming the little boy’s behaviour far more than was the weekly session I was having with him. That was my first experience of the incredible role that kinship carers play, so I am determined that we should do as much for them as we can.
I will now set out the steps that the Government are taking to improve the position of kinship carers. Towards the end, I will try to answer as many of the questions as possible; for any I do not cover, Members should feel free to intervene, or I will write to them afterwards.
When a child cannot remain with their parents, wider family and friends can offer a safe and loving alternative to being looked after and having to move in with strangers. We have discussed how many people are in kinship care, and at this moment in time about 110,000 children in England are being brought up in kinship care, many of whom would otherwise be in local authority care if members of their extended family network had not stepped in. The census data was mentioned, and our 110,000 figure comes from the 2021 census information, which was published in July. I am happy to show Members the source of that after the debate.
Living in kinship arrangements can offer a stable and permanent option for children. Maintaining connections with family and the people they love can contribute to a healthy sense of identity and belonging. Hon. Members will know that I am passionate about social mobility and closing the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers, and, as has been touched on in part, children living in kinship care, on average, achieve better GCSE results, have a greater chance of being in employment and experience better long-term health outcomes than children who grow up in foster care or residential care. For example—this has been quoted already—in 2021, it was found that 69% of adults who experienced kinship care were in employment, compared with 59% or 48%, respectively, for those with a history of fostering or of residential care. The average attainment 8 score for those with a special guardianship order was 33.5, compared with 22.2 for looked-after children. The data therefore backs up the experience that Members have been sharing.
Not only does kinship care offer better outcomes for children—which is the primary concern of everyone present—but it makes better economic sense. Investing in kinship care is considerably more cost-effective for local authorities than paying for residential care homes, for example. I therefore want to create a system that not only helps kinship arrangements to take place, but actively supports kinship families to thrive. What I do not want to hear any more of is the gruelling system that the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) is having to go through with Lyle.
The independent review of children’s social care highlighted the lack of focus on kinship care from successive Governments. It has been a problem for some time. The review made a number of ambitious recommendations, which we hope will increase the number of children who can remain within their family networks. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) touched exactly on the Government’s focus, which is that children should remain with their families if they can, although that will not always be possible. Where possible, that is our primary focus: we want children to be with their immediate or extended family, before they have to go into care homes or other less desirable situations.
The strategy sets out six pillars of action, including unlocking the potential of family networks. In July, we announced that we will start implementing family network support packages through the £45 million Families First for Children pathfinder and family network pilot. Family network support packages will look at how to use financial and other practical means to unlock barriers to family networks being able to provide support for children to stay safely at home. As has been touched on—this is perhaps more relevant to the debate—we have also made a commitment to implement or explore the recommendations on kinship care. I stress to Members that, as I said to my team as soon as I was appointed, we will have no slackening of the timetable. We will publish the strategy before the end of the year, whatever it takes. It will set out a long-term vision for kinship care and how we can better support carers and children. I will not be able to set out all the details of the strategy today, but I will set out some of the progress we hope to make.
I wholeheartedly agree with right hon. and hon. Members who have highlighted that kinship carers need more support than is currently available to them. We have developed a twin-track system, whereby there is much more support for foster carers than there is for kinship carers. There is no great logic to that; it is just where successive Governments have focused their attention. We are trying to bring the two together. Part of that is about helping people to connect with other kinship carers, which is why the Department has supported kinship families through our £2 million partnership with the charity Kinship, whose good work has already been commended, to deliver high-quality peer support groups for kinship carers. Those groups are already supporting kinship carers, and we hope that 100 peer support groups will be established by January 2024. Also to come will be a whole host of face-to-face and online training, and useful resources—some of the things that Members have talked about—to provide access to the type of independent guidance and support that people can get in other areas already.
The independent review of children’s social care recommended a financial allowance for special guardians and carers looking after children under a child arrangement order. I think we all recognise the strain that many kinship families are under, and we are exploring the feasibility of mandating a financial allowance for kinship carers in every local authority. I chaired the national implementation board this week, and some of the local authority representatives said that a number of local authorities are already providing such an allowance. Part of our limitation here, which I will come to, is about data, as some Members have touched on. Part of exploring the feasibility is to get a picture on exactly who is doing what already, but I agree with the hon. Member for Twickenham and my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne that finance should not be a barrier, particularly when we want children and young people to remain with their families.
We recognise that there has been a lack of a consistent, recognised definition of kinship care, which can make it difficult to know whether people are in a kinship arrangement and what help they are entitled to. In “Stable Homes, Built on Love”, we published a draft definition of kinship care and sought the views of people with lived experience, as well as those of professionals and charities, on whether the definition helps to create an accurate understanding of kinship. I am grateful to those who have responded to the consultation, and the definition has been pretty well received. I cannot commit to introducing legislation at this time, but the feedback we have had so far has been positive.
Legal support has been mentioned. Again, kinship carers sometimes have to pay extraordinary amounts of money to get the legal advice they need, even though they are doing something that society should want them to do and should enable. From May this year, the Ministry of Justice extended legal aid entitlements to prospective guardians making applications for special guardianship orders in private family law proceedings. We predict that that will benefit thousands of potential kinship carers.
On workplace entitlements, it is important to recognise the employers who are already providing paid leave and so on, and have been doing so without the Government mandating them to do so. Wherever that is possible, we welcome it. The kinship strategy will provide an update on our commitment to explore workplace entitlements for kinship carers.
On pupil premium, which my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne touched on, at the moment, children who live with special guardians and were previously looked after by the state are eligible for pupil premium plus, a non-means-tested, non-income-tested benefit. Kinship children who were not previously looked after but have been entitled to free school meals can get pupil premium in the usual way that other children can if they have been eligible within the last six years. We constantly review and assess the effectiveness of pupil premium to ensure that it is supporting the children most in need of it.
Briefly on admissions, in 2021 we introduced changes to the school admissions code to improve in-year admissions. That enables kinship carers to secure a school place for their child in year if they cannot do so by other means.
Finally in this area, children who are living with special guardians and have previously been in state care can access therapeutic support via the adoption support fund. Last year, we made that support available to children who live with relatives under child arrangements orders. We are looking to improve local authority engagement with the adoption support fund, to increase the proportion of eligible kinship carers—
Andrew Gwynne
I am grateful to the Minister for covering this point. It is not quite as simple as he is making out, because a number of local authorities—my own included—make it very difficult for people to access those services through that fund, unless they have gone through all kinds of hoops and loops with other statutory services prior to making an application. Will the Minister ensure that all local authorities understand that the message coming from him is that those services should be available to kinship carers?
David Johnston
I am grateful to the hon. Member for that point and I will certainly do that. He made a point about assessments, which I will come to. Again, they should be simpler than they have been in his experience.
My Department is also working with Ofsted to improve the visibility of kinship care in inspection reports. Through updated guidance and inspector training, Ofsted will make it clearer that reports should refer to the quality of support being provided to kinship carers and children in kinship care arrangements.
Let me try to rattle through as many of the questions as I can. We have touched on data. I have given the 2021 census figures, but data collection is something that my officials are really working on, because there just has not been enough. Not having that data is inhibiting our ability and some of the things that we want to do in the strategy.
I was asked whether there will be an equalities impact assessment. Yes, there will be a thorough equalities impact assessment as part of the forthcoming strategy.
On the bureaucracy that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne referred to, part of the setting of the definition is to ensure that agencies are better able to provide the right support and remove some of the hurdles that kinship carers experience. We hope that the peer support groups will support that work as well.
I just touched on the point made by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish about assessments. LAs have the statutory responsibility for assessing kinship carers, because they have the legal duty to safeguard vulnerable children, but those assessments should be proportionate and prioritise the best interests of the child. I encourage local authorities to think about how their assessments could be adapted to be more supportive, and we will reiterate that in our strategy.
I need to leave a little time for the hon. Member for Twickenham to wind up. I thank her again for securing the debate, as well as previous ones, and I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. The debate has rightly focused on the issues that all too many kinship carers face. I put on the record my thanks and admiration for every one of those kinship carers—including Members of this House—for their selfless contribution to the lives of the children they care for. It is a huge commitment, but such an important one. I am proud of the progress that we are already making to support kinship carers, but I know there is much more to do, and that is what the strategy will contain.
I am fully committed to reducing the barriers to kinship care where it is in the best interests of the child and can offer a safe, stable and loving alternative to their becoming looked after. I look forward to publishing our kinship strategy before the end of the year. As I set out, that will be an opportunity to begin to make meaningful and lasting change in the lives of kinship carers and their children.
2.55 pm
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Gwynne Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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David Duguid
Not only will we commit to a comparable financial commitment, but the recent spending review committed to spending £12 billion on green measures to support the 10-point plan and boost the UK’s global leadership on green infrastructure and technologies, not just ahead of COP26 this year, but beyond as well.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Iain Stewart)
The United Kingdom is and will remain a research superpower, with research and development spending at the highest level for four decades. The Government have committed to investing nearly £15 billion in R&D in 2021-22, much of which will be used to fund the work being led by our world-class universities.
Andrew Gwynne [V]
Both Aberdeen and St Andrews universities stand to lose £2.5 million each as a result of official development assistance cuts. Among the ongoing projects at risk at Aberdeen is a £1.8 million research initiative into the spread of infectious diseases between rodents and humans. Given that we have recently been reminded of the importance of long-term, well-funded research in responding to a global crisis, what steps are being taken to ensure that these cuts do not impair Scotland’s ability to respond to future crises?
Iain Stewart
The first point I would make to the hon. Gentleman is that I am always willing to discuss individual programmes with specific universities and I have done that through the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) in the case of St Andrews. The second point is that all the universities that he has listed have benefited from significant investments either directly through UK Research and Innovation or through our city and regional growth deal programmes, looking at R&D initiatives such as clean energy and sustainable farming.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Gwynne Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
David Duguid
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. Like me, although on a much larger scale, he has a rural constituency—I believe it is one of the largest rural constituencies, if not the largest. Pooling resources and using the strength of the UK economy enables the UK Government to support jobs and businesses, but the decision making on public health of Ministers in those devolved Administrations has been fully respected. There are examples of UK-funded measures that have been delivered but managed locally by the devolved Governments: we have six UK-funded drive-through testing facilities; four, or five as I believe it is, walk-through testing facilities; and up to 22 mobile testing facilities, some of which have been used to effect in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.
Andrew Gwynne [V]
Covid-19 has been rising rapidly in many parts of Scotland and, indeed, across much of the north of England, including in my own constituency, leading to the introduction of tighter restrictions. Given the impact that these restrictions are now having on the economy, particularly on those hardest-hit sectors, will the Minister ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to revisit his previous refusal to continue the furlough scheme with a sectoral-based approach in those nations and regions of the UK that are worst affected?
David Duguid
The UK Government have provided a host of measures to support tourism and hospitality businesses throughout this crisis. As well as the job retention scheme, which has already been extended to the end of October, new measures announced in the Chancellor’s winter economic statement include the new job support scheme, the extension of the very welcome reduction in VAT to 5% for hospitality and tourism, the deferral of VAT and other tax payments and greater flexibility in the paying back of Government-backed loans.
Public Finances: Scotland
Andrew Gwynne Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Ian Murray
I agree with my hon. Friend. This seems to be very much the way in which this Government operate. We have just had a debate about taxation, and we have also discussed the devolution settlements that the Communities and Local Government Committee’s report mentions. It is important that we have transparency, because the only way to carry the public with us on the fundamental issue of devolution to local communities is to ensure that the arrangements are transparent, robust and democratic.
That brings me to my second concern in this Opposition day debate, which is the need to agree the framework so that the Scotland Bill can be passed in time for the Scottish parliamentary elections in May. For months now, the negotiations in the Joint Exchequer Committee have dragged on behind closed doors, shielded from public scrutiny. According to Scottish Government sources, agreement is as far off as it has ever been, while the tone of the Secretary of State suggests that he is straining every sinew to get a deal. There was always a danger that, away from the spotlight, the two Governments would fiddle and fixate and that the momentum to reach a deal would be lost. And so it has proved. This relates to the concern raised earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman).
At first, agreement was going to be reached by last autumn. The Scottish Secretary consistently referred to an autumn deadline, as did the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Deputy First Minister in Scotland, but no agreement materialised. Then the deadline was moved to mid-February. In mid-December, the First Minister talked up the prospect of a Valentine’s day deal, but come January her deputy, Mr Swinney, struck a downbeat note emphasising the big gap between the two Governments. He also introduced an arbitrary deadline of 12 February for a deal on the fiscal framework. If negotiations were not concluded by then, he would not table a legislative consent motion prior to the Scottish Parliament’s dissolution before the elections in May. I have yet to find out why that is the case, because the Scottish Parliament does not dissolve until late March. If no agreement is reached, the Scotland Bill will effectively be kicked into the long grass. That would mean no new powers for the foreseeable future.
For all that, I remain confident that if the political will exists, a deal can be reached. To test that political will, however, we need to bring the negotiations out into the open and allow the public to see whether this is brinkmanship or a proper negotiation. From the very beginning, I have bemoaned the absence of transparency at the heart of these negotiations. It is simply unacceptable that the process of redrawing Scotland’s fiscal terrain is taking place behind closed doors in vapour-filled rooms.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that a key reason for the deal to be done before the Scottish parliamentary elections is to give the Scottish electorate some confidence in the promises being made by the political parties on spending and taxation? Does he also agree that there is great interest in this matter across the rest of the United Kingdom because of the asymmetric nature of devolution? We want to see how Scotland uses these powers.
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Without having the Scotland Bill on the statute book and available to be used from 1 April 2017, there will be obfuscation about what can go into party manifestos come May, and we will be having a constant debate about the constitution rather than about the transformation of Scotland. He is also right to suggest that this is not just about a fiscal framework for Scotland. It is important for these negotiations to run in parallel with the Scotland Bill, but they also have significant implications for the rest of the United Kingdom. The no detriment principle for Scotland works both ways; it is also a no detriment principle for the rest of the United Kingdom. That point is often lost in these discussions.
As I was saying, I have bemoaned from the very beginning the absence of transparency. It is simply unacceptable that the process of redrawing Scotland’s fiscal terrain is taking place behind closed doors. David Bell, the respected economist, has noted the secretive nature of these discussions. He said:
“These discussions are taking place behind closed doors with little information publically available about the options being considered and the effects of these options.”
Asked to offer his thoughts on these proceedings, Professor Muscatelli said:
“I will be honest, it is difficult for anybody on the outside to see what exactly the stumbling block is”
in these negotiations. Even the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee—this might be the second time we have agreed—said that the negotiations and the transparency at their heart are “not good enough”. I also warmly welcome the Scottish Affairs Committee’s in-depth inquiry on this issue, which it will publish soon.
I ask why both Governments refuse to publish papers and minutes, as requested. On 9 September, I wrote to the chairs of the Joint Exchequer Committee, John Swinney and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, with the perfectly reasonable request to publish papers and minutes from the meetings, but they refused to do so. I also tabled written and oral questions to ask that we be kept updated on the progress of the negotiations and that substantial details of the discussions be placed in the public domain, but, once again, my request was rejected. Both Governments said that they would not provide a “running commentary” on the negotiations, while providing the very same running commentary through the media. Meanwhile people in Scotland are very much in the dark. That has allowed politicians on both sides to seek to exploit the secrecy, rather than getting on with finalising the deal.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
It is not fashionable these days to describe oneself as British, but I am proud to be British. I was born to a Scottish mother, which is where I get my name Andrew, of Welsh parentage, which is where I get my surname Gwynne, and I am proud to be English, Mancunian and Dentonian.
The powers being extended to the Scottish Parliament and Government have far-reaching implications for the rest of the UK. I want the asymmetric nature of devolution evened out across the UK, and I want the Scottish Parliament within the UK to succeed using its fiscal and welfare powers, because that is exactly where the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the Mayor of Greater Manchester want to take devolution in my city region. I call on the Government to press ahead with the deal. Let us challenge the Scottish Parliament to use those powers, and let us extend them to the rest of the UK.
Scotland Bill
Andrew Gwynne Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Angus Robertson
I am making the point that it would be very difficult for people to go back on legislation with the express wording proposed in the amendment. It is not that difficult a concept to grasp.
The Scottish Government noted in their response to the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee interim report that both the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee—I am looking at the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who served with great distinction as the Chairman of that Committee—and the House of Lords Constitution Committee raised concerns with those aspects of the UK Government’s clause.
The Scottish Government’s alternative clause and the SNP amendments address more minor issues with the UK Government’s clause, using the definite article “the” instead of the indefinite “a”, as that is the language used in the Scotland Act 1998. That was picked up by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael).
Angus Robertson
I want to make some progress, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me. I have given way to Members on both sides of the Committee.
The SNP also suggests using “constitution” rather than “constitutional arrangements”, because the former term is already straightforwardly used in the 1998 Act. “Constitutional arrangements” is a term most commonly used to refer to the governing arrangements of bodies and offices, and is therefore inappropriate for describing the governance of Scotland. That is politically important for both the Conservatives and the Labour party, given that the very first words of the vow were:
“The Scottish Parliament is permanent, and extensive new powers for the Parliament will be delivered”.
In his foreword to the Smith commission report, Lord Smith made the position clear by saying:
“The Scottish Parliament will be made permanent in UK legislation”.
The main body of the report, however, had a slightly weaker formulation:
“UK legislation will state that the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government are permanent institutions.”
The fact that the cross-party Scottish Parliament devolution committee—including the Scottish Conservative party, and now, as a result of amendments to this part of the Bill, the SNP, the Liberal Democrats and Labour—has sought to deliver a stronger legal protection for permanence suggests that the Westminster Conservatives are the only partners in the Smith deal who hold the softer interpretation of what Smith was proposing.
John Redwood
If Scotland wishes to impose higher taxes, the Union has less of a problem with that—unless it chooses to impose higher tax rates which collect less revenue, because those could be a problem for the Union as a whole—but it would be a problem for Scotland if it had to collect higher tax levels and it did not get all the money back; I would have thought it would want to get all the extra money back that it was collecting. Full fiscal autonomy means it would take responsibility for both raising the money and spending it. If Scotland wishes to spend more under fiscal autonomy, she can do so if she has a magic way of getting more money off people through either higher or lower tax rates, whichever work in the particular fiscal circumstances.
We need to have working papers on how full fiscal devolution might work and whether it is truly full fiscal devolution, because if we are going to full fiscal devolution, England will want guarantees that we are no longer acting as a buffer or subsiding the Scottish settlement, just as Scotland will want guarantees that she has got a fair deal and is capturing the benefits of her fiscal independence. If we go for a mixed system, which is where we currently are with the real debate between the Smith commission, the pro-Union parties and the SNP, there is a lot to be worked out, and I hope that at some point those on the Treasury Bench will share some of their thinking with the Committee.
Andrew Gwynne
I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with much of what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. Do not these arguments illustrate the asymmetrical nature of the devolution settlement across the four nations of the United Kingdom? Does he agree that whichever funding model we go for in relation to Scotland, there will be implications for the finances of the other three nations? Does he not think that we need a constitutional convention to put that right?
John Redwood
No, I do not think that we need a constitutional convention, because that would create endless delay and complications. I agree with previous comments that we are here to try to solve this problem for our respective constituents. I spent quite a lot of my time during the election speaking for England and saying that I wanted to ensure that England got a reasonable deal out of this. SNP representatives clearly did the same in relation to Scotland, and we both achieved similar levels of success in attracting lots of votes for what we were saying.
Mr Allen
It is always good to knock off a quick anti-Westminster point, so I will join the hon. Gentleman and say that everything that he resents about Whitehall, I resent at least as much in so far as it impacts badly on one of the 10 poorest constituencies in the United Kingdom, so—I mean this in a friendly way—he does not need to lecture me about how inadequate Westminster and Whitehall are at freeing up and liberating people to get better jobs, improve skills and improve their schooling, all the things that all of us hold in common as we move forward.
What I am saying is that we need to figure out how progress that has been made in Scotland—massive progress, which I fully support—can be replicated, not just in a narrow sense of “This is good for us”, but if it is so good, how it can be good also for Wales, Northern Ireland and England.
Andrew Gwynne
I commend the work that my hon. Friend and his Select Committee did in the previous parliamentary Session. Although we are talking today specifically about the Scotland Bill, is this not also about how we re-engage the debate across the whole of the United Kingdom about how we bring powers down to the very local level so that what happens in Scotland today is valid for Nottingham, Manchester, Durham and other parts of the Union tomorrow?
Mr Allen
If we have now breached the principle and the wonderful idea of devolution—giving power away, not decentralisation, where Westminster and Whitehall can suck it back—let us look at devolution that is entrenched and can stand the test of time. I agree very much with getting the words right. My Select Committee was clear about the words reflecting the permanency of the Scottish Parliament.
The question is how we achieve permanency in an unwritten constitutional environment. We do it in two or three possible ways. One suggestion in one of my amendments—I tabled new clauses 6 to 9—is that the Scottish Parliament is protected behind the ingenious mechanism of the Parliament Act, which requires both Chambers to agree to any change in the status of those things that are protected. The other idea is related to Magna Carta, which is being celebrated today, and calls for a new Magna Carta—a written constitution. I commend the Scottish Executive for the work that they have already done on that. [Interruption.] If any hon. Member has something to say, please stand up and correct me. I am happy to take a correction.
Mr Allen
We might not yet be a federal Parliament officially, and we might not yet have the right words for it, but there is absolutely no question but that our Union is moving towards a federal basis, rather than the alleged parliamentary sovereignty referred to earlier. I hope that I live long enough to see parliamentary sovereignty in this House, because I have not seen much of it over the couple of decades I have been here.
The other thing that I think is really important to have clarified—this is also in the interests of my friends in the SNP—is the role of local government. If we have an overarching, federal structure in the United Kingdom, there are certain things that that structure needs to define. Human rights is a classic example, and I would argue strongly that so too are the rights of the sub-national tiers of government. Otherwise, all we would be doing is transferring state power from Whitehall to Holyrood. Some people say that that is precisely what has happened in Scotland, but I am sure that is a false accusation. However, in order to ensure the freedom of those who work at the grassroots, in our communities and neighbourhoods, defining the rights of local government, which is commonplace in every other western democracy, and to do that in our Union while it exists and is flourishing, would ensure that no such accusation could be levelled at my newly elected friends in the SNP.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend will remember that in the early 1990s there was a word that was in vogue in what was then the European Community: subsidiarity. Although it is a horrible word, it has a very serious meaning, which is that decisions should be taken as closely to the people as appropriate. Is not that just as relevant to the devolution debate? We should be talking about handing powers from this place not only to Holyrood, Cardiff Bay and Stormont, but even to places such as Manchester city region, and to local communities beyond.
Mr Allen
I think that devolution is so good that it should apply to everybody in the Union. I welcome the breakthrough that has been made in Scotland and hope to see a similar settlement for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. I often say—my hon. Friend will have heard this before—that subsidiarity is the ugliest word in the political lexicon to describe the most beautiful concept.
Stewart Hosie
We need to get trend growth up and we need to operate within a framework that will see the deficit begin to come down. I do not remember the previous Labour Opposition ever coming up with a cast-iron figure—2.75%, 3%, 3.25%, 4% or 5%—for trend growth. No one would be so silly as to put a figure on it, when it is dependent on so many external criteria.
Our political opponents dismiss the Scottish economy, saying that it is all about oil. They seem to forget that in two of the past four years our deficit was smaller than that of the UK. In the past 34 years, tax revenue per person has been higher than in the UK. Indeed, in the last full year, including our geographic share of the North sea, it was more than £10,000 per head compared with £9,700 in the UK. Even without North sea oil, output per head is almost identical to the UK. We remain the third most prosperous and productive of the 12 so-called regions of the UK, and, including a geographic share of oil and gas, our output per head is higher than the UK average, even today.
Andrew Gwynne
I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s argument. It is clear that amendment 89, which is in his name and the names of his colleagues, would enable the Scottish Parliament, at some stage, to legislate to allow for those powers to be drawn down, either in part or whole. What timescale does he envisage for the Scottish Parliament to move to full fiscal autonomy, rather than, perhaps, partial fiscal autonomy? What does he envisage being the interim arrangements were it to draw down only some of those powers?
Stewart Hosie
I would like the Scottish Government to be in a position to draw down the powers as quickly as possible. Obviously, to draw them all down and use them would require transitional arrangements to be in place.
Mr Jones
What the hon. Lady has said is not unusual. It is part of the blame culture. Apparently, if things do not happen in Scotland, it is because wicked Westminster—meaning parliamentarians, among others—is somehow preventing them from happening. At the time of the independence referendum, the SNP stood on its platform arguing that Scotland could be a separate, independent nation in 18 months. What has changed?
Amendment 89 is rather mealy-mouthed. As I have said, the Scottish Government will draw down the powers when they want them. There will be what the hon. Member for Dundee East described as a transitional period, and we all know what that means. It means a period during which the Scottish Government could draw down powers that would enable them to make changes in Scotland, while retaining elements such as the Barnett formula. Well, I am sorry, but that will not happen—and the hon. Member for Dundee East, and the rest of the SNP, will blame big bad Westminster because it has prevented them, or the Scottish people, from being given those powers. The proposal from the hon. Member for Gainsborough is very simple. It means full fiscal autonomy along with all its consequences, rather than a “drip, drip, drip” process over a period during which the rest of the United Kingdom would be expected to fill any gap resulting from the Bill.
Andrew Gwynne
I suspect that my hon. Friend is right in his analysis of where amendment 89 would lead us. To be fair to the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), he was very candid about the transitional arrangements that he envisaged, which would involve the Westminster Government, the Scottish Government and, perhaps, others sitting around a table with the aim of agreeing on a framework for the drawing down of partial powers. But would we not expect the framework to be specified in the Bill, so that people in all four parts of the United Kingdom could be certain about what those transitional arrangements would be?
Mr Jones
I entirely agree. If we are to give the Scottish Government more powers over entire areas of taxation, including the raising of money that they will actually spend, we cannot do that twice. They cannot have the ability to raise revenue and, in addition, a top-up power allowing them to make some of the difficult decisions that they will have to make. The hon. Member for Dundee East seems to think that, overnight, Scotland will be turned into some beautiful paradise on a par with Switzerland—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I must say that, in terms of beauty, it already is.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is making an important point. We must focus on the nature of the transitional arrangements that would lead to full fiscal autonomy, and I am none the wiser about what the SNP is proposing. Is it proposing a proportionate change in the Barnett formula, aligned with the amount of tax that they will draw down in their move to full fiscal autonomy?
Mr Jones
I agree with my hon. Friend that the position is not clear, but I think that the SNP wants to move to full fiscal autonomy while retaining the majority of Barnett, and I am afraid that that is not going to happen. Of course, when a United Kingdom Government say no to it, we will hear what we usually hear from the Scottish nationalists: wicked Westminster is preventing Scotland from getting what it needs. That is the nub of the problem. That, I think, is why the SNP has retreated from its 18-month target for full independence, and now wants a fudge that will get them through the next few years.
The real issue, for me, is this. I support the people of Scotland in their wish for more devolution, but I do not support a system that is not good for individual members of the Scottish public, and is also unfair on my constituents and others.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North raised the broader issue of whether we need to have a debate about devolution in this country. I think that we do. I do not take his dewy-eyed approach; I think that there are times when, in any type of organisation, responsibility must stop at a certain level. If we did not take that approach, we would be devolving power to something like a French commune, and creating a system of street-level decision-making. However, it could be argued that in a country such as ours, which has a very centralised system, there is a need for a movement towards the devolution of powers.
What we saw in the north-east in 2005 was a clear decision by the people that they did not want another tier of government when they rejected the regional assembly approach, and I have to say I think most places do not want more politicians. The Chancellor’s proposal is to devolve certain things to the north-east of England only if it has an elected mayor whose jurisdiction stretches from Berwick all the way down to the Tees. Again, that is looking at the structure of things, rather than asking people. The Conservative party machine in the north-east has gone into overdrive this weekend with Mr Jeremy Middleton, a failed Conservative parliamentary candidate who cannot get elected anywhere in the north-east under the Conservative banner, now leading 60 business leaders saying the north-east’s elected councillors and others need to sit up and listen to the Chancellor and get on with having an elected mayor for that huge region. Well, I am sorry but we in the region need to have a debate about how we devolve those powers and I gently say to business, “Do not be used by someone like Mr Jeremy Middleton who clearly has a political agenda of his own. Get involved and work with local councillors and others to determine and support the future.” [Interruption.] There is a cynical side to the Government’s approach to the devolution debate, which is—[Interruption.]
Mr Jones
I would not want to insult my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North in that way.
There is a cynical side to the Government’s approach to devolution and it goes like this: “You devolve powers because you devolve responsibilities, but you don’t devolve the funds to actually undertake them.” The Government want to contract Whitehall but they are not going to devolve the money to the English regions; they are going to devolve the responsibilities and then say to the various local bodies concerned that they are responsible for the failure to deliver at the local level.
Andrew Gwynne
We are here today primarily to debate the Scotland Bill, which we support, but my hon. Friend is right to point out that it has far-reaching consequences for every part of the UK, including his constituency and, indeed, mine as the Government are proposing quite extensive devolution powers to Greater Manchester. Is that not precisely why we need to have a proper debate within the framework of the constitutional convention to decide what the English answer to the English question is, as well as deciding what this place is going to do on the UK-wide question?
Mr Jones
I am not sure what the point of that intervention was. I am talking about an amendment proposed by the hon. Lady’s party, and I think it is deficient. The onus is on the hon. Gentleman who moved it to explain to the Committee what its reference to the United Kingdom’s constitution actually means. He clearly does not have a clue what that means, and the danger is that there could be a challenge and that would lead to lots of work for lawyers—and as Members know from me of old in this place, I am not one for feeding lawyers.
This Bill is a major move forward.
Mr Jones
No, as I am about to finish.
My hon. Friend made the point about the rest of the United Kingdom and there is a need for that convention. If we do not get that, we will have this patchwork quilt of so-called devolution which will not be in the interests not only of all of our constituents but of the UK as a whole.
Scotland Bill
Andrew Gwynne Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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David Mundell
No; let me make a little progress.
The devolution of income tax on earnings and the assignment of VAT revenues, when taken together with the devolution of air passenger duty and the powers under the 2012 Act, mean that the Scottish Parliament will have important decisions to make. The Scottish Parliament is now responsible for raising about only 10% of what it spends, but under the Bill Holyrood will be responsible for raising more than 50% of what it spends. It will truly be one of the most powerful devolved legislatures in the world.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
May I take the Secretary of State back to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) and the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) on the impact of changes on the rest of the United Kingdom? Air passenger duty is a case in point. Regional airports in the north of England will undoubtedly feel the impact of any changes to air passenger duty in Scotland. Is that not yet another reason why, as we proceed with devolution arrangements, we need to have a proper constitutional convention so that all measures can be considered across the whole of the United Kingdom?
David Mundell
I have made my views on a constitutional convention known. Other hon. Members have raised the issue of air passenger duty. The Treasury has established a group to look at the impact any changes to air passenger duty in Scotland could have on airports in England.
On welfare policy, there will also be a highly significant transfer of responsibility. While the social security reservation remains in place, part 3 of the Bill means that the Scottish Government will be responsible for welfare, which last year accounted for around £2.5 billion of spending in Scotland. The Scottish Parliament will be able to make provision for a number of types of social security benefit, discretionary payments and employment support. The Bill also contains provision to transfer executive competence to Scottish Ministers to allow them to vary certain aspects of universal credit. It will give the Scottish Parliament more responsibility for benefits paid to carers, disabled people, those who are ill, those who require help with winter fuel costs, funeral payments and maternity payments. As a result of the Bill, when people most require help the Scottish Government will be able to tailor that help to particularly Scottish circumstances.
Ian Murray
We are debating the Scotland Bill on Second Reading, and I am making the Labour party’s position clear. We will fight night and day to prevent full fiscal autonomy because it would be bad for the Scottish people. That is our job as a credible Opposition, and we will amend the Bill to make it better for Scotland, regardless of what other parties want to do in this place. If the hon. Lady is so confident about full fiscal autonomy I look forward to her tabling an amendment so that we can debate it on the Floor of the House.
Only last year, we were told that independence could be delivered in just 18 months. A 300-year old Union could be disentangled in a year and a half. We could apply to be an EU member state in 18 months. [Interruption.] I am sure that we received legal advice on that from the person who is chuntering behind my left shoulder again. We could set up our own treasury and foreign office; establish our own navy, army and air force; create intelligence and security services.; develop a separate welfare state; and write a new tax code. All of that, we were told, could be achieved in just 18 months, but we are now being told that full fiscal autonomy is not achievable in the short term. [Interruption.] Again, the chuntering says, “Oh yes, it can be achieved”. Well, if it can be achieved in the short term, we look forward to amendments being tabled, and we can debate them on the Floor of this political House.
There is another danger: the Conservative Government having a clumsy and short-sighted approach to the wider constitutional issues of the United Kingdom. They talk of one nation, but I am not sure which nation they are talking about. As the sun was rising over Downing Street on the morning after the referendum, the Prime Minister linked the question of English votes for English laws with the referendum result. He said that just as the Scottish Parliament would vote separately on issues of tax and spending, so too would England. Linking these two issues could have unintended and undesirable consequences, weakening the very Union that Scotland voted to maintain. Devolution of power to England and its regions is essential, and we proposed a radical approach during the election. However, we must make sure that reform is coherent and that we understand the consequences.
It was rash and unwise of the Prime Minister to use the referendum result in Scotland, not to reach out, but to continue to divide the nation. It was equally dangerous for the Prime Minister to stoke division and grievance between the nations of our United Kingdom during the election campaign.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is making the case for a UK-wide constitutional convention, which is important for my constituents in Greater Manchester, where we are being offered a form of devolution by this Government. Is it not also about the city regions in Scotland? Should there not be devolution from Holyrood to the cities and regions of Scotland?
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend is right. Over the past eight years or so we have seen the Scottish Parliament become one of the most centralist Parliaments in the world, sucking up power from local authorities and ensuring that local authorities cannot raise their own taxation. What we want to see—we will table amendments to this effect—is double devolution so that we will devolve powers from Westminster to Holyrood and ask Holyrood to devolve those powers out to local communities, which are best placed to deal with the problems facing Scottish communities.
I was talking about the clumsy way in which the Prime Minister has dealt with the UK constitutional settlement. In our manifesto we called for a full and proper constitutional convention which would be able to examine some of these issues so that we could have a more coherent and sustainable approach to the way that the UK operates.
We will not oppose Second Reading today. We will seek to improve the Bill in Committee and I have set out some aspects of it where we will try to do that. This is a real opportunity to provide a stable and durable devolution settlement to create a fairer, more prosperous Scotland. When this Bill is passed and these new powers make their way to the Scottish Parliament, we look forward to the debate moving on to how the powers will be used, rather than who will use them. That is the real debate and the one that the Scottish Labour party will relish in its historic fight for social justice, fairness and equality both in Scotland and across the United Kingdom.
Mr Jones
No, I will carry on.
The important point is that we need a system that is not only fair to the people of Scotland but, as the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) said, fair to the people of the United Kingdom. We cannot have the devolution in Scotland that the Bill proposes without it affecting my constituents in North Durham and the constituents of many other Members.
Devolution raises many practical issues. One example is air passenger duty. Newcastle airport is a great example of the local council, five local authorities and the private sector working together to ensure for the region a vibrant airport with international links. It employs 3,500 people directly, with a further 8,000 people employed in the region.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend’s point about Newcastle airport could be made equally about Manchester airport and many other airports in the north of England. Is this not precisely why we need to have a UK-wide look at the devolution settlement? We need to ensure that parts of England, particularly those in the north which are closest to Scotland, are not adversely affected by devolution?
Mr Jones
We do. I am not holding out a great deal of hope, however, because the Government seem to think that somehow, with this power being devolved to Scotland, competition will ensue. I do not think that is going to work. I agree with my hon. Friend totally, but it goes beyond that issue. On landfill tax, a commendable initiative—the zero waste strategy, which has been much trumpeted in Scotland—aims for 70% of waste to be recycled by 2025. That is a very good policy; indeed, it is the only progressive policy I can think of that the SNP has introduced.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Gwynne Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I will look very carefully at the case that my hon. Friend has raised, because I think it important for this reform to be carried out properly. I think that all of us, as constituency MPs, receive two sorts of complaints. Some are from those who have seen people who have the blue badge and do not merit it, while others are from those who want the blue badge and deserve it, but cannot obtain it.
While I am at the Dispatch Box, let me pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his long-standing work on educational standards and his belief in true rigour in schools. He has seen many of his ideas put into practice, and that is what we come into politics to achieve.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Q6. The Adam Werritty affair should have taught Ministers important lessons about becoming too close to their outside advisers. Now it appears that the Prime Minister’s climate change Minister, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), may be making similar mistakes. Given media reports today, does the Prime Minister have the same complete confidence in his climate change Minister as he had in his former Defence Secretary?
The Prime Minister
The climate change Minister is doing an excellent job; I want to put that on the record. I have consulted the Cabinet Secretary, and both he and the permanent secretary at the Department of Energy and Climate Change have examined the issue, and I do not see the need for a further inquiry on that basis. The key point I would make is that the individual in question was hired by civil servants after a properly run competition.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Gwynne Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an important point. If you do not have credibility about your plans to deal with your debts and deal with your deficits, whether you like the markets or not, they will not lend you any money. That is what we are seeing in countries like Greece and now, tragically, in Italy, where the price of borrowing money is reaching a totally unsustainable level. It is a lesson for all of us to have sustainable plans to get on top of our debt and our deficits. In terms of Europe, the problem of contagion is that as we agree a decisive write-down of Greek debt, people inevitably start asking questions about other countries. As that happens, you need to have in place the biggest possible firewall. That is what the European Financial Stability Facility is all about, and eurozone leaders urgently need to put flesh on the bones and put figures on the size of that firewall, to stop this contagion going any further.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Q15. Last year youth unemployment in Tameside stood at an unacceptable 20%—one in five. Today it stands at 34%, which is shocking. In light of that, does the Prime Minister still believe that the decision to scrap the future jobs fund was the right one?
The Prime Minister
Let me just make the point that under Labour youth unemployment went up by 40%—and the evidence that we received on coming into government was that the future jobs fund was three or four times more expensive than other job creation schemes. Indeed, in many parts of the country, including in the west midlands, the percentage of future jobs fund jobs that were in the private sector was as low as 2% or 3%. It was right to scrap the future jobs fund and put in its place apprenticeships, the Work programme and work experience that will make a difference to young people.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Gwynne Excerpts(14 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
Opposition Members do not seem to think it is serious that we now have trade union leaders who actually say that there is no such thing as an irresponsible strike. There is such a thing, and those who are bankrolled by the unions ought to speak up about it.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Q13. Every year, about 25,000 people die from thrombosis in hospitals, which is two to three times greater than the number of people who die from hospital-acquired infection, yet many of those deaths are avoidable if hospitals follow the NHS guidance on blood clot risk-assessment. What are the Prime Minister’s Government doing to ensure that the UK’s No. 1 hospital killer becomes the NHS’s No. 1 health priority?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely important point, and I know that he is chair of the all-party group on thrombosis. In answer to his question about what we are going to do, the first thing is to make available more information. It was a freedom of information request by the all-party group that showed that only 14 acute trusts in England were even close to meeting the goals for risk-assessing patients submitted to hospital for the dangers of thrombosis and blood clots. He is right, and the best thing that we can do is provide more information. That will help us to ensure that hospitals are coming up to the mark.