Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Helen Whately(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
It was the Minister’s party that promised to fix the crisis in social care “once and for all”. With vacancy rates almost three times above the national average and turnover rates for new staff at more than 45%, it is clear that the Government failed. Labour’s plan for a national care service with clear standards for providers and a new deal for staff will give social care the fundamental reset it needs. The Government have done it with our workforce plan, and they have half-heartedly tried it with dentistry. Does the Minister want to copy our homework once again?
Helen Whately
Let us be honest, Labour has no plan for social care. Whatever the shadow Minister says, it is unfunded. There is no funding committed to it and it is not meaningful. Those of us on the Conservative side of the House are reforming adult social care. We not only have a plan, but it is in progress.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Helen Whately(10 months, 1 week ago)
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Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Mike Reader, Labour’s candidate for Northampton South, shared with me the horrific experience of Stanley, who had severe abdominal pain and called an ambulance, only to be told it would take hours and to go to A&E. There, he was told to wait for assessment on a patio chair outside. It was 3°. Who is to blame?
The Minister for Social Care (Helen Whately)
I am very sorry to hear of the experience of that specific constituent. Because of challenges that the NHS faces, particularly our urgent and emergency care services, almost a year ago we set out our urgent and emergency care recovery plan, to speed up care for people in A&E and reduce waits. That plan is working. We are seeing ambulances get to people quicker, and people treated quicker in A&E.
Andrew Gwynne
That is not a one-off. Why will the Minister not take a shred of responsivity for the chaos that her party has caused our NHS? The last Labour Government achieved the shortest waits and the highest patient satisfaction in NHS history. The Conservatives have delivered the longest waits and the lowest patient satisfaction in history. Let us have that general election, so that she can defend her abysmal record to the public.
Helen Whately
The hon. Gentleman obviously was not listening to my answer; in fact, he was reading aloud. Our urgent and emergency care plan is working. It is reducing rates in A&E, and ambulances are getting to people faster. Meanwhile, I am sorry to say that in the Labour-run NHS in Wales, more than half of patients are waiting more than four hours in A&E.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Helen Whately(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The whole purpose of integrated care systems is to join up social care and NHS services in a better way. We know, for example, that fracture liaison services keep 100,000 people out of hospital, but only 50% of English NHS trusts have them, and despite the commitment given by the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care—the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield—to providing more, nothing has happened, and Lord Evans has walked back from her commitment. I realise that I am pushing at an open door in directing this question to a Minister whose leg is strapped up, but when will the Government finally deliver for the “back better bones” campaign to help older people to survive and thrive?
Helen Whately
As the hon. Member has mentioned, I have a broken ankle, and I am taking my responsibility as Minister with oversight of urgent and emergency care very seriously in making use of several of those services. As for my oversight of integrated care systems, what I am seeing is that they are making a very good job of enabling the integration of services. For instance, we are seeing real success in the growth of virtual wards—or “hospital at home”—which bring together acute and community services to look after people in their homes and help them to be discharged earlier. The NHS has achieved its target of having 10,000 “hospital at home” places ready for this winter.
Car Parking: Care Workers
Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Helen Whately(1 year, 8 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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The Minister for Social Care (Helen Whately)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Damien Moore) on securing this debate on free parking passes for care workers. I know it is an issue close to his heart and I commend him on his speech.
Improving adult social care and supporting care workers is one of my highest priorities, and I am delighted that my hon. Friend shares my enthusiasm, particularly for supporting domiciliary care workers. In his compelling speech, he spoke about the difficult job they do and the skills necessary for their work, as well as some of the practicalities of the job, such as the many short journeys that some care workers will be making and the challenges that result, including parking. He also spoke about the vacancy rate in social care, particularly in domiciliary care.
Recruiting and retaining staff is a particular challenge for many care providers, especially following the reopening of the economy after the pandemic. Many people had come from the hospitality or travel sectors to work in social care during the pandemic, which was hugely helpful in those difficult times, but many then often returned to those sectors. Not all did; some had found their vocation in social care, and that has been wonderful, but others, understandably, returned to their previous sector, making it harder for the social care sector to retain and recruit staff as the economy opened up. I am hearing some positive news about recruitment at the moment, but that does not mean that it is easy. It remains a real challenge, particularly with domiciliary care and in rural areas.
As my hon. Friend also said, we are seeing a growing demand for social care, as people live longer—that is a positive for us all to remember, but it does mean more people living with health conditions, and more frail and elderly people, who need people to come in and care for them. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about the importance of living independently. We want people to be able to live longer in their own homes. There is a time when it is better for people to live in residential care—that can be the right thing for some people—but most of us want to stay living in our own home behind our own front door for as long as possible. Domiciliary care workers, who go to someone’s home, are absolutely crucial.
My hon. Friend for Southport referred to our 10-year vision for social care, which I am truly passionate about. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), talked about the challenges that social care faces. Those challenges have been around for many decades, so we are not going to fix this overnight. I share the impatience of my hon. Friend the Member for Southport. That is one reason why I try to do things in the here and now. However, I am also realistic, and some social care reforms that we want to do will take time, hence that long-term vision.
My hon. Friend spoke very specifically about the cost of parking and rightly about the stress of looking for a parking space when the clock is ticking. He also spoke about unexpected situations, such as when care workers need to stay longer and call an ambulance. The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) also spoke about that in her intervention.
I heard that my hon. Friend the Member for Southport called on his local council to fix that in his area during the pandemic. He welcomed our free parking scheme during the pandemic, so I am glad that he saw it taking good effect. That was one of many things that we tried to do to help key workers through that difficult time. That ended, and I absolutely hear his argument for a new national scheme, particularly to help care workers with parking while they are on duty.
I thank the hon. Member for Strangford. It is a pleasure to be in Westminster Hall with him at any time in the week, but particularly on a Thursday; we do this not infrequently. He spoke powerfully, if I understood him correctly; sometimes I do not pick up every word he says. He spoke about his brother, Keith. He said that, following a brain injury, Keith might well have lived in a care home, but has in fact been able to live independently with the support of family, including his mother and the hon. Member, but of course with care workers visiting. He brings a very personal perspective on the important role of care workers in our communities.
The hon. Gentleman also spoke about us working across the parts of the United Kingdom. I am always happy to talk to colleagues in other parts of the Union, because I think we can all learn from each other to try to get the best for our constituents.
Taking a step back, I want to say that I am incredibly grateful to all health and care staff. I recognise the extraordinary commitment and hard work, particularly of our care workers and domiciliary care workers, who are less frequently spoken about in Parliament. I want to ensure that care workers gain the recognition they deserve from society. I truly thank them for all the vital work they do every single day, whether in care homes, people’s homes or beyond.
Many people want to work in care because they want to make a difference to the lives of others. In my conversations with care workers, many have told me that they find their work truly rewarding. Just a few weeks ago, I had a wonderful conversation with a home care worker, who told me that she loves her job. That is great to hear, but there is no denying that it can be a very demanding job, both physically and emotionally. Domiciliary care workers play a crucial role in providing care and support to people who need it within their own home, enabling them to continue living independently even when they have substantial care needs. From going on the rounds with care workers and speaking to them, I know how committed and passionate they are about what they do.
Turning specifically to parking, I heard the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Southport on free parking for care workers, and I am sympathetic to them. I have had many conversations with those who provide care in people’s homes about some of the challenges they face, including travel and parking costs. For instance, I share the concerns about underpayment for travel times, which is a live issue within the sector.
All social care workers are entitled to be paid at least the minimum wage—I should say, the national living wage—for the work they do. The Government are clear that time spent caring for clients, travelling between appointments and waiting to start the appointment must be included in pay calculations. I labour that point because I hear accounts, usually anecdotal, of whether travel and waiting time is being paid for. It may not be within the care worker’s control if they turn up for an appointment when, for instance, another health worker is visiting somebody and they have to wait. If they are having to wait as part of their job, of course they should be paid for that working time.
Responsibility for setting the terms and conditions for parking permit schemes and delivering social care is devolved to local authorities. Some local authorities, such as Cornwall and Devon, already run health and care parking permit schemes. I am glad to be talking about this important issue today and it is right that, at the very least, the national Government support the sector by raising awareness of and driving forward innovation and best practice. I therefore encourage local authorities who are not already undertaking similar projects to look and learn from those areas that have implemented their own parking schemes, especially as we know about the recruitment and retention challenges in adult social care. I also commit to working with my colleagues across Government, in particular in the Department for Transport and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, to consider what more can be done to help care workers with the cost of parking.
More broadly on the adult social care workforce, the Government recognise the current workforce challenges in social care.
Andrew Gwynne
I want to take the Minister back to where she rightly said that terms and conditions are matter between the employer and the employee. She was, rightly, very robust on the expectations of the national living wage being paid for waiting to do work. Does she also take a strong view that employers should reimburse their staff for any incurred parking costs?
Helen Whately
The hon. Gentleman will allow me to pause, because I do not want to find that I have unintentionally misled anybody. I am very happy to write to him on that specific question. What I am completely happy to do here and now is reiterate the importance of social care workers being appropriately paid for the work they do. At the very least they should be paid at the legal level to which they are entitled and reimbursed for the expenses of the job they do. I hope the hon. Gentleman is happy with that response.
As I said, we recognise the recruitment and retention challenges in the social care workforce. The Government are supporting local authorities and providers with the recruitment, from both home and abroad, and retention of workers. For instance, we have been running a national recruitment campaign with continuous activity across job boards, video on demand, digital audio, radio and social media to encourage people to come and work in social care. That campaign will run until the end of this month.
In addition, in February last year we made care workers eligible for the health and care visa, and added them to shortage occupation list. The latest data published by the Home Office shows that a total of 56,900 visas were granted for care workers and senior care workers in 2022. I do not suggest for a moment that international recruitment is the whole answer to our recruitment challenges in social care, but given that we have such a substantial need for care workers, it is really important to help boost our care workforce. I have heard from many care providers who really welcome it, as it helps them to recruit and fill vacancies, and bring valuable staff into our workforce.
More broadly, the Government are making available up to £7.5 billion over the next two years to support adult social care and discharge, with up to £2.8 billion available this coming financial year and £4.7 billion the following year. That is an historic funding boost to put the adult social care system on a stronger financial footing and help local authorities to address waiting lists, low fee rates and workforce pressures in the sector.
Another way councils are able to support their adult social care workforce is through the market sustainability and improvement fund. At the autumn statement, the Chancellor announced that £400 million of new ringfenced funding would be made available for adult social care in the next financial year. We have combined that with £162 million of fair cost of care funding to create the fund. We are allowing councils to use the new funding flexibly on three target areas: support for the workforce measures; increasing fee rates paid to providers; and improving social care waiting times, which will improve adult social care market capacity and sustainability. My hon. Friend the Member for Southport might be pleased to know that Sefton Council will receive £3.6 million through that fund. Many local areas have chosen to use a significant proportion of the adult social care discharge fund on measures that support the adult social care workforce, including those who work in home care.
The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish talked about the importance of commissioning—I think he referred to ethical commissioning. I assure him that I think how local authorities commission care is really important, because it influences the terms and conditions on which care providers employ their workforce. That is one reason why, in April—just a couple of weeks away—we are starting the Care Quality Commission assurance of local authority social care provision. That will increase oversight of how local authorities are implementing the Care Act 2014, and part of that is very much about how they commission care. It will enable us to identify local authorities that are doing a really good job and will give us more information about those whose commissioning does not support their market or leads to some of the practices that we have been talking about.
As I said at the beginning, we want quick answers. My hon. Friend the Member for Southport wants change here and now, and so do I, but we also have to look to the longer term for our social care reforms. People at the heart of care must set out a longer-term vision for social care. I will shortly be publishing a plan setting out our next steps for the reforms. It will include substantial reforms to the adult social care workforce to strengthen careers and opportunities, and make adult social care a better sector to work in. That will help attract more people to work in social care and retain those valuable staff members.
I thank my hon. Friend for making the case and other Members for showing support for domiciliary care workers. I share my hon. Friend’s aspiration to support his care workers. In fact, I believe I have shown that in practice—for instance, through the support I put in place during the pandemic for the social care workforce; things I am doing right now with the funds such as the market sustainability and fair cost of care fund; and things that I will do in the future, including with our adult social care reform. I am happy to consider his proposals further as part of the work I am doing to boost our support for the care workers our constituents depend on.
NHS Update
Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Helen Whately(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Helen Whately
As I have said, we are considering the recommendations of the NHS pay review body. This is an extremely important decision for the Government; it clearly has consequences for a very large number of NHS staff. We will be announcing our decision on pay as soon as we can.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Let me start by commiserating with the Minister, who is clearly grabbing a short straw at the moment. I am not sure what the point of this statement actually is. It seems as though pages 2 to 4 have been torn out at the last minute, and she has just read out the preamble and the end, with nothing in between. However, as this is an opportunity to raise NHS issues with her, may I draw her attention to a growing concern for my constituents, which is the difficulty in getting a GP appointment? Is she aware of that growing issue across parts of Greater Manchester and, no doubt, the rest of England? What is she doing about it?
Helen Whately
I thank the hon. Gentleman for taking the opportunity to raise that point. I am well aware of it, as my constituents in Kent raise the issue of that challenge in my area, and I know others do the same in many other parts of the country. That is why we are working to increase the number of primary care appointments available to people, knowing that demand is going up and that we must make sure that people’s need for local healthcare, which is so important, is met.
Telecommunications Infrastructure (Relief from Non-Domestic Rates) Bill
Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Helen WhatelyMonday 10th July 2017
(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
May I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker? It is a pleasure to see you in your rightful place. I wish to take this opportunity to welcome my shadow Communities and Local Government team: my hon. Friends the Members for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) and for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), and my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), who has today agreed to act as my PPS.
The Opposition cautiously welcome the Government’s apparent commitment to provide financial relief for all new investment in full-fibre internet for five years. In the course of my speech, I shall set out why I say “cautiously”. Until the intervention from the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), the Minister had waxed lyrical for twenty minutes before coming to business rate relief, which is the subject of this very short Bill.
The Opposition welcome the opportunity finally to discuss a crucial piece of infrastructure policy—a policy that will have a huge impact on the potential investment opportunities for all our communities over the coming decades. It is rather ironic that we are talking about IT connections on a day when pretty much all the parliamentary internet connection is down. I have it on good assurance that the parliamentary information and communications technology officers are busily trying to reconnect MPs to the internet and their email accounts.
All Members will know that the policy in the Bill will affect every part of the country—north or south; England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; urban or rural—so we have to get this right. I am sure Members will feel that acutely today as we and our staff struggle with the collapse of internet connection across the Westminster estate which I just mentioned.
We were expecting a larger, more substantial Bill, not least considering the scope of investment and certainty needed not only for full-fibre infrastructure but on business rates more widely. However, it appears that the Government have been in permanent listening mode for quite some time now, which would explain their decision to acquiesce in the concerns of independent and large internet providers who at the end of last year faced an excessive fourfold increase in their rateable values.
The UK’s main providers and the Broadband Commission have estimated that UK 5G infrastructure will outstrip the economic benefits of fibre broadband, which most of the country currently uses, by 2026, when it will be outdated. By 2026, therefore, the UK will reach a tipping point where the direct economic benefits of new 5G optical fibre internet will beat the conventional fibre broadband. Various estimates point to a boost to the UK economy of between £5 billion to £7 billion just six years from roll-out, with 5G broadband delivering economic growth almost twice as quickly as conventional fibre broadband used today. Much as with our railways and road links, the quicker the connection, the faster businesses will grow, particularly in an age when online sales, social media and direct online contact with buyers and sellers are becoming the norm.
A study by O2 has revealed that national 5G infrastructure will also add an extra £3 billion a year through secondary supply chain impacts, boosting overall UK productivity by a total of £10 billion, which, as I have already said, makes good, sound economic sense. With improved connectivity comes greater economic growth, more jobs and improved links between business hubs and individuals alike. Although today’s Bill will be welcomed by larger providers in the sector as it will relieve some of the burden that they face from increased business rates—£60 million is on offer, which is a big giveaway to them—I worry that it will do not as much as it should for the independent providers, and it will not come close to mitigating the fourfold increase that all providers have faced. Perhaps the Minister can give us some assurances when he winds up the debate. Providers are not the only ones who need assurances; consumers do, too, and they need to know that those costs will not be passed on to them.
Additionally, I am slightly disappointed that this Bill contains only partial measures, instead of the more detailed and wide-ranging set of proposals that were outlined in the Local Government Finance Bill, of which these measures were originally a part. I mention that Bill, which had successfully passed through Committee, as it included proposals on local business rate retention for local authorities as well as the legislation for business rate relief for new full-fibre broadband, which we are now discussing today. However, those fuller measures seem to have disappeared since the general election.
Since that election, I have asked the Secretary of State on three separate occasions about the progress that has been made on delivering business rate retention for local authorities. Perhaps the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), has something to say on that. He can intervene on me now or respond in his closing remarks. I ask him again: what is happening to retention and why has business rate relief for new 5G connectivity now been separated into this smaller, separate Bill?
As I have said, I have written to the Secretary of State about this matter and I await his response, although I hope that, by this stage, the Department will do less listening and more acting on this issue of business rate retention. In the spirit of the cross-party co-operation that the Prime Minister is now asking for, and in respect of the exchange of ideas and genuine dialogue between the Opposition and the Government, I suggest that perhaps we can work together on a shared future for local government finance. The local government sector deserves more than a policy and a financial black hole with which it is currently faced with the exclusion of the Local Government Finance Bill from the Queen’s Speech. At the same time, the Government are still announcing their intention to remove the revenue support grant. Perhaps the Minister can clarify that when he closes the debate.
The Secretary of State and I visited the LGA conference last week—admittedly we received slightly different receptions. I am sure that he was reminded again and again by representatives from councils of all political colours of the financial certainty that local authorities desperately need—specifically at a time when they have already absorbed budgets cuts of 40%. However, like me, they have received no updates and no certainty. While we are talking about an element of the business rate in this Bill, perhaps we can remind the Secretary of State that local authorities need to have that clarity and certainty for future financial planning. They need some idea from this Government of where the wider business rate policy is going.
I will repeat what I said during my speech to the Local Government Association: “The Secretary of State told local government that they faced a looming crisis in confidence. He’s wrong. It is this Government who are facing a looming crisis in confidence.” The lack of clarity on business rates and the botched business rates revaluations have left thousands of businesses facing cliff-edge increases in their rates. In addition, the Government’s support package and promises to review the revaluation process go nowhere near far enough.
It is clear that business rates are this Department’s ticking time bomb, which threatens to destroy high streets and town centres across the country. Labour advocates introducing statutory annual revaluations to stop businesses facing periodic and unmanageable hikes, and guarantees a fair and transparent appeals process. We will reform business rates, scrap quarterly reporting and end the scourge of late payments, because it is Labour which is the party of business. [Interruption.] Members can heckle, but the facts speak clearly: this Government have let down business and they have let down local government.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman just remind us of the Labour party’s policy on corporation tax rates?
Andrew Gwynne
No, I have given way once to the hon. Lady, I will not do so again.
There is a further omission in this Bill—the exclusion of any real and meaningful legislative commitments on growing rural broadband. I am worried that there appears to be absolutely no mention in the body of the Bill or the explanatory notes of growing and expanding the UK’s superfast broadband in our rural areas, although the Minister touched on it and I think there is some consensus about its desirability.
Let me give a short anecdote. Last year, I was privileged to be in a delegation to Zambia for the Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly. In the middle of Africa, in the middle of nowhere, on a visit to a health scheme near the Zambezi river, I received an almost-perfect 4G connection to my mobile phone. There are parts of my constituency where I do not get such a perfect 4G connection. We need to look at our internet connections, broadband connections and mobile telephone connections in this country so that we have the very best to support business, consumers and individuals.
As I am sure the Minister is aware, many families living in rural areas struggle to get anything close to fast broadband, let alone 5G, which is what we are discussing today. Many others struggle to get anything above 2 megabits per second, making most average use of day-to-day internet functions incredibly frustrating. The impact on rural businesses is steep, with the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs warning before the 2015 general election that rural communities are being overlooked for potential investment by businesses looking to expand and develop because certain regions have very poor digital connectivity. The then Chair of the Committee, the former Member for Thirsk and Malton, said:
“There is a risk in the current approach that improving service for those who already have it will leave even further behind those who have little or none.”
Rather than taking responsibility for this ever-growing chasm in our technology and identifying specific areas that desperately need investment, the Government have chosen to rely solely on the market to encourage improvements in any given area.
Andrew Gwynne
Will the hon. Lady to let me answer the Minister’s intervention before I take another?
I am grateful to hear that from the Minister, and we will hold the Government to account to ensure that that intervention takes place. As he knows, we are all here to ensure that improvements happen, and if he has given a commitment from the Dispatch Box that he will use his ministerial position to ensure that the market is not a free-for-all and that the Government will ensure those improvements in rural areas, for rural businesses and consumers, the Opposition will support him.
Helen Whately
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way to one of the Back Benchers he mentions. Yes, many of us are campaigning on behalf of our constituents for better broadband, but on behalf of many of my constituents I appreciate that 20% of properties have been connected to superfast broadband thanks to the Government’s intervention. I expect up to 100% to be connected thanks to further Government intervention through the universal service obligation, as the Minister mentioned earlier. I look forward to being very grateful to the Government for all the work they are doing for my constituents.
Helen Whately
I thank my hon. Friend very much, although I doubt whether even one of my constituents is watching my speech. I will not hold my breath while waiting for confirmation.
We know that children, including mine, often get set homework tasks requiring them to look up things on the internet. If a child lives in a rural village or at the end of a track and they cannot get online, they are disadvantaged. There is also the very basic thing of staying in touch with distant relatives, who often live all around the world. I remember when I was a child that the cost of making an international call was enormous. During my gap year as an 18-year-old, I made two phone calls to my parents in nine months, because it cost such a huge amount to phone home, but people can now make video calls basically for nothing so families around the world can stay in touch. As older people go online—many people in their 70s, 80s and 90s are very active internet users—I hope that the internet will be one way in which we can tackle the challenge of loneliness. For someone to make a FaceTime call to their grandma or grandpa is a great way for them to keep in touch, and that is often much easier if it is very difficult to go to see them.
There is also the question of the use of the internet for work, where it can make a huge difference for rural areas, as it does for the economy in general. It enables people to work from home—I have two caseworkers who do most of their work supporting me and my constituents from home, which enables them to juggle that work and their family commitments—and I know that a huge number of people in my constituency now run businesses from home, including many quite significant rural businesses. There is a fabulous business called Bombus around the corner from where I live just outside Faversham, which makes amazing products out of maps. If any hon. Members want interesting products based on maps of their constituencies, I recommend that they contact Bombus to get all sorts of books, paper goods and lampshades. On the other side of my constituency, near Maidstone, a business enabling people to compare utility prices has about 100 employees in a really rural spot. There is no way in which that business could exist without good broadband, so it is very important for the rural economy.
We have got to this point very quickly. About 12 years ago I worked at AOL Time Warner launching digital products, such as the UK’s first video on-demand service for downloading films. Back then, just over 10 years ago, people had to plan ahead: if they wanted to watch a film, they had to start downloading it and then go away, perhaps to cook something for supper, and come back a couple of hours later when enough of it had downloaded to enable them to watch it, if they were lucky, although it may well have stopped downloading halfway through. We probably launched the product a little ahead of what the technology could do. Now, however, my children sit down in front of the television on a Sunday morning, when I am trying to catch up on some sleep, turn on the iPlayer and watch something immediately, with none of that delay. That change has turned watching television into a completely different experience.
I welcome the Government’s commitment to this area, but I very much ask them to press on with making sure that we get high-speed broadband to 100% of properties across constituencies such as mine. I also ask them to make sure that the new technologies enabled by the Bill such as 5G and full-fibre broadband—I will now turn to the Bill— benefit those not only in more urban areas of the country, but in rural areas. I would ask that as far as possible that should not be a simple sequential process, with the people of Headcorn being able, if they are lucky, to make a phone call and then getting 3G, 4G and eventually 5G sometime in the distant future. I am very keen for some leapfrogging so that those in more rural areas can catch up thanks to new forms of technology.
It is particularly important for the Bill to go ahead, with investment in these new technologies, in the challenging economic climate and the challenging economic times in which we live. I am very mindful of the ageing population in this country. We have talked a lot during the past couple of weeks about the cost of the public sector and the desire to increase the pay of people working in the public sector. We know that as a country we face a productivity challenge in that we are not nearly as productive as we need to be for people to have a good or a better standard of living, and we face global competition. I am pretty realistic in saying that—unfortunately, unlike the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), who wishes to raise business rates and thinks, erroneously, that that will increase revenue to spend on public services—history tells us that, as we very well know, increasing business rates results in a fall in revenue.
Helen Whately
As the hon. Gentleman gave way to me, I will give way to him.
Andrew Gwynne
I merely wish to correct the record: at no stage have either I or the Labour party said that we want to increase business rates. We want a small increase in corporation tax, which would still result in our having one of the lowest rates of corporation tax in the world.
Helen Whately
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s putting the record straight, because I made an error in my notes. Instead of business rates, I meant to say corporation tax. We disagreed about this point earlier. My point about corporation tax stands. Unfortunately, raising corporation tax results in a reduction in revenue for the Government, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) pointed out.
A&E Services
Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Helen Whately(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
We have had a good debate. I pay tribute to hon. Members who made their maiden speeches. I particularly congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) and for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey). Having been a student at the University of Salford, I had not realised until now that I followed in the footsteps of Marx and Engels by supping in The Crescent; you learn something new every day. The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) also made his maiden speech. I congratulate them on their contributions. It is clear that all three will make their presence felt in the House of Commons in the coming years.
I thank the other Members who have contributed, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), and the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), who leads on health issues for the SNP. On the Government Benches, we heard from the hon. Members for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson), for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), for Crawley (Henry Smith), for Braintree (James Cleverly), for Bath (Ben Howlett), and for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns). Many Conservative Members stuck very closely to their party’s policy research unit paper, a copy of which I was conveniently sent earlier today. I congratulate them on being so loyal to their Whips Office.
It would be very remiss of me not to place on record my own tribute to the doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants and other dedicated NHS staff who provide such extraordinary and professional care. Many Members of this House who have been here for a number of years will know that I had a run of bad health about five years ago. As a result, I became far more familiar with my own local hospitals, Tameside general and Stepping Hill, than I had hoped to, even given my position as a constituency Member of Parliament and a shadow Health Minister. I have experienced the very best of NHS care. If I am honest, I also experienced some care that did not meet the standards that we perhaps expect of our NHS. I know, however, that we have a workforce who are completely dedicated and caring.
The House should be in absolutely no doubt, though, that those staff are under a great deal of pressure—sustained pressure that has been building over the past five years. The facts need to be laid out in the open, and Ministers need to be challenged on their fictions. They made all sorts of desperate promises to get them through an election campaign, and now they need to show where the money is going to come from to pay for those promises and to set out exactly how they are going to deliver them. Yet what have Ministers been doing since the general election? I do not disagree with Professor Sir Bruce Keogh’s decision to improve the publication of data for mental health and for cancer—that is welcome—but I do disagree with what this Government intend to do in relation to A&E data. Instead of dealing with the pressure facing the NHS in England, they have decided to stop publishing weekly data about those pressures.
Helen Whately
Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the NHS leads the world in transparency, and that an excessive focus on one data point—the four-hour target for A&E—is detrimental overall to patients?
Andrew Gwynne
We should remember, of course, that the last Labour Government started that transparency with heart and stroke data.
I think we all know what is going on here. There can be no clearer sign of the Tories’ failure on the NHS than the fact that hospital accident and emergency departments have now missed their own four-hour target for 100 weeks in a row. This is a landmark failure, to which the Prime Minister promised he would not return. The reality is that this Government caused the crisis by making it harder to see a GP and by stripping back social care services.
Let us be under no illusions—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State can chunter, but social care cuts are NHS cuts. The Government made damaging mistakes that have seen the number of people going into hospital soar. The best thing that they could do is to admit it and explain what they are going to do to fix the problem. It is stunning that their only solution is to spin their mistakes and to make the NHS less transparent.
Let me briefly come on to nurse staffing problems. Only this week, we have seen yet another example of poor policy coming out of the Department of Health. If it insists, along with the Home Office, that migrants not earning £35,000 after six years must go home, that will cut a hole right through the middle of our NHS. The Royal College of Nursing estimates that 6,620 nurses will have to leave the country by 2020. Because of the Government’s failure to train adequate numbers of nurses in the UK, those nurses will have cost almost £40 million to recruit from overseas. People coming from other countries to work in the NHS make a huge contribution and our health service would not be able to cope without them, but this is now a mess entirely of Ministers’ own making.
The short-sighted cuts to nurse training in the early years of the last Parliament left NHS hospitals with no option but to recruit from overseas or hire expensive agency nurses. That is also one of the main reasons why many hospital trusts are now in deficit. It was an absolutely profound error and I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that. As ever with this Government, patients and taxpayers will pay the price for the Prime Minister’s mismanagement of the health services.
There have been further mistakes. On GP access, it stands to reason that if it is made harder to see a GP, people will be more likely to end up in hospital. As we have heard, the reasons for the crisis are many, but the lack of access to GP services appears to account for much of the problem. No amount of obfuscation and massaging of figures can hide the fact that this Government have made it harder to get a GP appointment. All Members will know of constituents who have had to phone their doctors only to be told that no appointments are available and that they should ring back the next day—which they do, only to experience the same problem again. That they end up in frustration in A&E should not come as any shock.
The Prime Minister has now repeated his 2010 promise to provide access to GPs seven days a week, but he cannot even provide access to them five days a week. When patients want up-to-date information on how their local hospital is performing, this Government plan to publish the data less frequently. I hope that the Government will now see sense, and I commend our motion to the House.