Surrogacy: Government Policy

Debate between Andrew Percy and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 21st January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government policy on surrogacy.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, and a delight to see my current favourite Minister and favourite shadow Minister in their places. Having flannelled them, I am sure that the debate will receive a very successful response.

Surrogacy is an issue that I came to by accident, having watched a documentary about people who were going overseas to partake in surrogacy arrangements, and some of the problems that that was causing, particularly when it came to the welfare of some of the surrogates. From that, I started to look at the issue of surrogacy in the UK a little more closely. Having become more interested in the subject, it quickly became clear that there is urgent need in this country for reform of surrogacy law. There is also an urgent need for Government to understand and appreciate the important role that surrogacy plays in creating families in this country, whether those families are heterosexual couples, same-sex couples, or single people who wish to create a family. It is a legitimate, valued and socially acceptable means of family building.

Apart from investigating the situation of surrogacy overseas, the only other thing I remember about surrogacy is the debate in the 1980s, when I was a kid growing up. That was when the legislation on which UK surrogacy is presently based came into being, in response to some of the stories and concerns about surrogacy at the time. The debate in the 1980s was very different from the debate we have now. We now understand that surrogacy in this country works, and that it is a legitimate and loving way in which families are created. I thank the previous Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), who is in the Chamber today. She was, I think, the first British Minister to publicly state in the House of Commons the positive role that surrogacy plays in this country. Although I do not wish to embarrass her, I will repeat what she said in July 2018 when she was a Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care:

“Surrogacy has an increasingly important role to play in our society, helping to create much-wanted new families for a range of people. The UK Government recognise the value of this in the 21st century where family structures, attitudes and lifestyles are much more diverse.”—[Official Report, 19 July 2018; Vol. 645, c. 38W.]

We could not disagree with a single word of that, and we thank her on behalf of the whole surrogacy community for the positive way in which she embraced surrogacy.

We in the surrogacy community also thank my hon. Friend for the guidance that was issued by her Department during her time as Minister, including “Care in Surrogacy”, which was guidance that the Department of Health and Social Care issued to healthcare providers across the country. It had the same simple aims that all of us in the surrogacy community want to achieve: to normalise surrogacy among healthcare professionals, and to avoid the embarrassments that sometimes occur when healthcare professionals do not understand how these arrangements are come to and just how normal they are. In the past, there have been car park handovers of children because healthcare professionals on maternity wards and in hospitals have not known how the legislation and these arrangements work. We all want to avoid those situations, so I thank my hon. Friend for that guidance, which was updated at the end of November last year. I also thank my hon. Friend for addling the brass, as we say in Yorkshire, to ensure that the Law Commissions’ review into the current legislation—a joint review by the Scottish Law Commission and the Law Commission for England and Wales—was a root and branch review. We are very grateful for that.

I also want to say a big “thank you” to the Surrogacy UK working group on surrogacy law reform, which has done a brilliant job. Some of that group’s members are here today, although of course I am not allowed to refer to people in the Gallery. Particular thanks must go to my constituent, Sarah Jones, who serves as the chair of Surrogacy UK. When I got interested in this topic, I did not realise that one of my constituents was chair of Surrogacy UK; it was quite by accident. A big “thank you” is also due to Natalie Smith, and to Dr Kirsty Horsey from Kent University, who led and chaired the review working party within Surrogacy UK. We are really grateful that the funding is in place, and that this review has now happened. It is a three-year project which, if memory serves, we are about half way through.

Surrogacy in the UK has been regulated since 1985 by the Surrogacy Arrangements Act 1985, which came out of the 1984 Warnock committee report. That Act contains a number of provisions that make advertising for, or as, a surrogate illegal, criminalise for-profit surrogacy and render all surrogacy arrangements as they stand unenforceable in law. Since 1985, there has been plenty of legislation to change some of that Act’s provisions. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 established that in all forms of assisted reproduction, a woman who gives birth, and no other woman, is the legal mother at birth. The legal problem with the situation now is that a surrogate who is carrying a child who has no genetic link to them is, in law, the mother at birth, whereas the intended parents, who may have a 100% genetic connection to that child, are not.

The 1990 Act also determines that the partner of the surrogate is the legal father, even though he may have had absolutely no part in the surrogacy arrangements. That is why parental orders are being created that enable legal parenthood to be transferred after birth as long as certain conditions are met. However, that takes six to nine months at best, and in many cases takes much longer.

Surrogacy legislation has evolved and changed over time. Not so long ago, a remedial order was passed by Parliament in response to a human rights court case. That order now enables single individuals to take part in surrogacy, something that was previously outlawed. The key problem with the legislation, as I have highlighted, is the issue of parent orders. Despite the fact that surrogates, intended parents, and everybody involved in these arrangements have only one interest at heart, that of the child, the current legal situation sometimes works against the interest of the child. It is very rare in a surrogacy arrangement for the relationship between the surrogate and the intended parent to break down, but the current law means that if that does happen, a surrogate who, at birth, is the legal parent can prevent legal parenthood from ever transferring, even though the children could have no genetic relationship to the surrogate.

The relationship breaks down only in a very small number of cases. Most surrogates go into this for entirely altruistic reasons, and the relationships between the surrogate, the parents and the child are normally very strong and often life-enduring. However, when such a breakdown happens, as in the well-known case of Re AB (Surrogacy: Consent), it can result in legal parenthood never being transferred, resulting in a situation where the parent in law will always be different to the parents in reality. That is not in the best interest of the child, which is why we in the surrogacy community welcome the Law Commissions’ proposals on this issue. By outlawing the enforceability of surrogacy arrangements, the current situation is one in which people want to properly formalise an arrangement, but cannot then rely on that arrangement later on in law.

Most of us involved in the surrogacy debate would say that what does work in the current UK legislation is the principle of altruism.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

This is a complex issue, and the hon. Gentleman is setting the scene very well. However, does he agree that in all these things, sensitivity must be key? Does he also agree that we perhaps need to look to our neighbours across the pond in the United States of America, for instance, where large numbers of surrogacies are carried out, to see how their policies and guidelines have made the process safe for parents and surrogates alike?

[Andrew Percy]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and will come on to the issue of surrogacy arrangements in the United States. Nobody would question that surrogacy arrangements in that country operate in the best interest of the child, but they operate on a wholly different basis to surrogacy arrangements in the UK: they operate on a commercial basis, which many of us would not want to see here. It is fair to say that in this country, surrogacy arrangements work. There is no doubt that the welfare of the child is at the heart of surrogacy arrangements, and at the heart of the courts in this country. However, as the debate progresses, we can of course take examples of best practice from other jurisdictions, whether through legally enforceable surrogacy arrangements or whatever else.

[Andrew Percy]

I entirely agree. I will say more later, but there is a debate in the surrogacy community about the nature of payments and whether its basis should be altruistic or commercial. Throughout the process, the view of the all-party parliamentary group on surrogacy, which I formed with other hon. Members, has been that we must maintain the altruistic basis of surrogacy in the UK. There are others in the community who take a different view; I will say more about that in a moment.

The all-party parliamentary group undertook a number of hearings in response to the Law Commissions’ proposals. The principal purpose of the debate is to explain where we agree with them and where we do not, and I thank the Law Commissions for the way they have engaged with us. They have been proactive and positive in coming to APPG meetings and some of the hearings, and they have been open throughout the process. That view is shared by everybody across the surrogacy community.

We took evidence from a number of interested parties. We heard from surrogates, intended parents, parents who have created their families through surrogacy, and the legal community. We even took evidence from Tom Daley who, with his partner, chose to undertake their surrogacy arrangement in the UK, not in the United States, precisely because there are some big reasons why the US is not as attractive a jurisdiction—although it is perfectly safe—for such arrangements. Those sessions were really interesting and valuable. In response to the Law Commissions’ initial consultation, we have some clear views on what we would like to see.

[Jim Shannon]

There is something at the back of my mind, which I want to put on the record and get the hon. Gentleman’s thoughts on. With the rise of celebrities openly discussing their surrogacy journeys—he has mentioned one—does he agree that we need a clearly defined strategy to address the rise in the number of surrogacies and the complexity of the issue, which is difficult for people to understand without clear guidelines?

[Andrew Percy]

It is absolutely the case that we need updated legislation. We welcome the arrangement of Tom Daley and his partner, Dustin Lance Black—I have just remembered his name; I am not very good at remembering actors’ names—because they are two loving parents who have created a loving family. They are a good example, because they demonstrate better than anyone, or as well as anyone, how loving families can be created in a range of ways—through surrogacy, IVF, adoption or marriage—in the UK in 2020.

Dustin Lance Black also undertook an interesting set of radio programmes, one of which, following surrogacy arrangements in the US, explained why they chose the UK and felt that the system here was better. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is spot on, however, that we need a well-regulated and updated framework for surrogacy in the United Kingdom.

We as an all-party parliamentary group are positive and pleased by the Law Commissions’ proposals. We recognise how progressive many of them are, and that they balance most of the concerns about safeguards, ethical surrogacy and the welfare of children—of course—that were raised by stakeholders throughout the process. We also welcome the fact that, unlike in previous reports, the lived experience is front and centre of all the proposals. We believe that the commissions have engaged positively with the whole surrogacy community and interested parties.

Where do we agree? As I said, we are happy that a full root and branch review is taking place. We are also pleased that there is no move towards allowing the commercial surrogacy that we see in the United States, because it would then become the preserve of the wealthy. That is not the case with the altruistic nature of the current system, although it is not without expense or challenge. We have a situation in the United States where some families are now going out of the United States to undertake surrogacy because they cannot afford it there.

Patient Transport Services: Northern Lincolnshire

Debate between Andrew Percy and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

Absolutely. As my hon. Friend has highlighted again in this debate, we are not talking about one or two cases: Members of Parliament across our area have multiple cases. I want to highlight another one. Another constituent of mine, this time from Burton-upon-Stather, has to attend Castle Hill Hospital for chemotherapy every single day. His experience is of ambulances frequently being late, of other patients missing their appointments and of late collection for following treatment. As he has pointed out, receiving chemotherapy means that he is already very ill and weakened, but not just once but regularly he has had to wait up to three hours for an ambulance to collect him. He has also had issues with the booking system and trying to get a place at all.

My final example is of another constituent living just outside Burton-upon-Stather: 82 years old, suffering from Alzheimer’s, in a wheelchair and with very poor mobility, he is totally dependent on the assistance of others to get to and from hospital. Again, his experience is of frequently waiting for the service to collect him from Scunthorpe Hospital. Not so long ago, during snowy, freezing weather, he was left for over three hours in a hospital doorway, waiting for a lift. In the end, hospital staff intervened and brought him inside to warm up, but yet again the experience of the complaints process was that Thames Ambulance Service was wholly unresponsive in dealing with complaints.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. The consensus in the Chamber is clear. The current format has people waiting at home for transport to hospital—for a scan or other procedure—and then having it cancelled. Does he agree that it is not just about cancelled operations and appointments or wasted slots, but about the financial impact on the service and on the patients, who then have to go to the back of the queue, and about the trauma they go through as a result?

[Andrew Percy]

It has a whole knock-on effect, whether it be individuals having to find their own transport, missed appointments or rescheduled appointments—it is all incredibly expensive—and it is not just patients who have these terrible experiences, of course; it is also the drivers. I have had whistleblowers from the service contact my office. One said they come on duty at 12 o’clock and are expected at the same time to be at Castle Hill Hospital in Hull with patients. They have described themselves as being at their wits’ end and thoroughly stressed. One contacted me recently about a 100-year-old lady who had to wait three and a half hours to get home.

Clean Water and Sanitation (Africa)

Debate between Andrew Percy and Jim Shannon

Thursday 21st April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing that to our attention. I will touch on those issues now, as they are vital. When we consider water and sanitation, we must consider disease as well. I want to underline some of the issues addressed by the all-party parliamentary group on child health and vaccine preventable diseases, which was formerly chaired by Jim Dobbin, who passed away. Those of us in this House who knew him, even for a short time, were aware of his magnificent contribution. He outlined the issues from his personal experience of visits to Africa with vaccine programmes, where he witnessed at first hand deplorable hygiene and water facilities in hospitals. People can vaccinate and do all sorts of other things, but if they do not have water and sanitation, it is not going anywhere.

The scale of the problem is massive. In 2014, the lack of access to adequate water is estimated to have killed some 3,500 children under five years of age every day. The latest figures show that every year some 600,000 children lose their lives to diarrhoeal diseases, to which the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) referred. Most of those deaths are of children less than two years of age in the poorest countries of the world.

Rotavirus is the most important cause of diarrhoeal mortality in children; it is associated with 28% of the deaths from diarrhoea. Despite the advances in treating water poverty, which have saved millions of children’s lives by protecting them against diarrhoeal disease, rotavirus remains the second leading killer of children worldwide.

We have to implement a combination of health, safe water, sanitation and hygiene solutions, and then we can do what the hon. Gentleman said—save more lives. That is part of the purpose of this debate. We can save the lives of children who are still at risk with simple interventions: improved safe water; sanitation; hygiene; exclusive breastfeeding; and vaccines that prevent rotavirus.

I will pose a couple of questions at this stage to the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), and to his officials who are here. The United Kingdom has a very proud history of providing expertise, resources and global leadership to improve children’s health worldwide. It continues to provide leadership and support to build upon the positive trends. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how we can build upon the success that we have had so far in order to try, with others, to close the clear gap that exists? Can the UK continue to invest in a package of life-saving tools and services, which includes the vaccines, the medicines, the water, the sanitation, the hygiene and the nutrition, too?

What priority and weighting are given to the water, sanitation and hygiene, or WASH, strategies in the upcoming bilateral aid review, which we all know about and which the Minister will hopefully speak about in his response to the debate? Where do the Government sit regarding ongoing support and commitment to the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia and Diarrhoea, which was introduced by the WHO and UNICEF? How do the Government intend to ensure that

“sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”,

as outlined in sustainable development goal 6, is achieved? What fall-back do they have if that goal is not achieved? Let us consider what happens if we do not get there. What action does the Department for International Development intend to take—I am conscious that this may cross departmental boundaries—in the Nutrition for Growth summit in Rio in August? Has DFID discussed that with stakeholder organisations? If it has, what has been the outcome? Is the Minister yet in a position to state the level of funding that will be provided through the Ross Fund for health interventions, and whether WASH will benefit from the fund? Those are the questions that I wish to pose at this early stage.

Although this issue goes back as far as we can remember, the United Kingdom’s commitment to dealing with it could be significantly better. Investment in water, sanitation and hygiene is extremely cost-effective. According to WaterAid, for every £1 spent we can get £4 in return. In fact, the World Bank has declared that hand-washing with soap is the single most cost-effective intervention. As I mentioned earlier, the Movilla church in Newtownards has sent bars of soap over to Africa, because that is one of the small ways in which we can make a difference.

The lack of sanitation services is estimated to cost the world more than US$250 million per annum. The United Kingdom currently spends some 2% of its bilateral aid budget on water and sanitation, compared with around 13% on education and 19% on health. However, we need to be careful that we are not jumping the gun on this one, as access to clean water and sanitation can often be a prerequisite for success in other development areas such as education and health, and we must acknowledge the overlap between these issues.

Yesterday I had the chance to speak to representatives of some organisations who were keen to add their comments, to help with this debate. When we consider health, water and sanitation, we also have to consider the environment. I will just mark up one thing. Management of habitats is important; it can lead to better water access or worse water access, and to better or worse sanitation. I heard a comment yesterday about Madagascar, where people’s access to water is threatened by habitat destruction over huge areas. The destruction of the African wetlands deprives people of access to drinking water, and threatens livelihoods that depend on water, such as fishing, and the core survival of some people, including some tribes. In Madagascar, deforestation and erosion threaten almost every wetland, and as a result many thousands of people are in trouble and many species could be lost for ever.

I will just mark something else up; it is completely off the line of this debate, but is none the less important. The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust is trying to help to save the Madagascar Pochard, or the “Mad Pochard” as it is called, which is the world’s rarest duck; I am not sure whether calling it “mad” is a compliment or not. In any case, there are only a few dozen left. The point that I am trying to make is that if something is not done about the water and wetland where that duck lives, it will not be able to provide drinking water for the local people or be used for sanitation, and it will not have any fish living in it either. Again, 6,000 people benefit from that clean water; many livelihoods go with it. That is just a reminder that conservation of nature goes hand in hand with looking after people who depend directly on the natural world.

As I have said, the United Kingdom currently spends some 2% of its bilateral aid budget on water and sanitation, compared with around 13% on education and a large percentage on health. For example, the delivery of quality healthcare in Africa has been seriously hampered by the lack of access to safely managed water. That is why I gave the example from Madagascar.

Sanitation and hygiene also affect practices in healthcare facilities. The WHO and UNICEF estimate that 42% of healthcare facilities in Africa do not have access to a safe water source within 500 metres. According to the WHO, 50% of malnutrition is associated with infections caused by a lack of access to water, sanitation and hygiene.

Globally, malnutrition accounts for some 45% of child deaths, of which a large proportion are within Africa. Children in sub-Saharan Africa are more than four times as likely to die before the age of five than children in developed regions. And after the first month of life, pneumonia and diarrhoea are the leading causes of the death of children under the age of five. Both pneumonia and diarrhoea are inextricably linked to a lack of water, sanitation and hygiene.

We have not had a debate on water aid or sanitation in this Session of Parliament. That is why we have asked for this debate today. First, we aim to raise awareness; secondly, the debate gives hon. Members a chance to participate and add their contributions; and, thirdly, we aim to highlight the issues that we feel are so very important.

Approximately 800,000 children aged between one month and five years died from pneumonia in 2013. Around 1,400 children die every day from preventable diarrhoea, and 58% of diarrhoeal deaths are caused by unsafe water, poor sanitation and poor hygiene. That is incontrovertible evidence that access to clean water and sanitation is essential if we are to see any meaningful development in other areas.

In conclusion, I will just give two examples of what I have talked about; nothing better illustrates the case I am trying to prove than case studies. The first involves child health. The name of the mother is Peggy Mpundu. She is 36 and part of the Mwasha village in Lubwe in Zambia. Peggy recently gave birth to twins, Kapya and Mpundu, in hospital. Two days later, they were discharged as healthy babies. However, one day after returning home, both babies started having problems breathing. Their parents, Peggy and her husband Sylvester, rushed them back into hospital, but tragically they both died that day. Peggy said:

“I was then told that water from shallow wells was harmful for babies.”

That was the same water that she had used for years. She continued:

“Having bathed my children using water from a shallow well just left me with a feeling of guilt and regret. I wish I knew that water could be so harmful”.

That is the true story of Peggy Mpundu.

The second case study is about opportunities for girls. The name of the girl involved is Erika Makalli, from Tanzania; I know that the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who is here today, has particular knowledge of that country. Erika, who is 12, lives in Mbalawala village, in Tanzania. Like so many young girls, she was responsible for collecting water for her family, leaving her little time, if any, to go to school. The Tanzanian Government estimate that 58% of the country’s rural population do not have access to a safe water supply.

Discussing her old routine, Erika said that previously:

“I had to get up at 4 am and walk a long distance to find water. It took two hours and I could only collect a small amount of water to take home. That meant that Mum had to spend most of the day finding water so that we’d have enough to drink and cook with. I used to try and rush to get to school and wouldn’t be able to wash or have any breakfast beforehand. Most of the time I missed school altogether because I was sick or just exhausted. There were so many diseases in this village.”

I am very pleased that two officials from WaterAid are here in Westminster Hall today; they have helped me in preparing for this debate. WaterAid started working in the Mbalawala village two years ago and now there is a tapstand 15 minutes’ walk from Erika’s house and in her school. Erika now attends schools with her friends. Get the water right, get the health right, get the education, give them opportunities—those things follow on from each other. She is a prefect. Discussing the transformation in her life, she said:

“If I still had dirty water I wouldn’t be going to school anymore. I probably wouldn’t have had any real education at all. Also, most of my friends would probably also have died from the diseases we used to get. Life would be miserable. I feel I can at last look forward to a brighter future. Perhaps I will be a health and hygiene teacher when I leave school.”

WaterAid, this House, our Government and all the many other organisations—whoever they may be, and whether they are Churches, individuals or groups—have enabled that to happen.

Dr Lee Jong-wook, the former director general of the World Health Organisation, said:

“Water and Sanitation is one of the primary drivers of public health. I often refer to it as ‘Health 101’, which means that once we can secure access to clean water and to adequate sanitation facilities for all people, irrespective of the difference in their living conditions, a huge battle against all kinds of diseases will be won.”

I conclude with a question for the Minister. I am convinced that his response will be positive and helpful; I have no doubt about that. The contributions we all make show how united the House is on the issue. I will say it again: in this House, we are fortunate to have access to water for all purposes, whether that is washing, cleaning, sanitation or regular showers. Many of us have a shower every morning, but many people elsewhere would just love to have that water. We have it every day. We have to be the voice for the voiceless. We have to speak here on behalf of those who need help, wherever they may be in the world. Can the Minister give us some idea of the Government’s bilateral and multilateral aid reviews? Will he set out and prioritise water and sanitation in the reviews? We need to be ever mindful of the fact that if we start with water and sanitation, then health, education and opportunity follow.

[Andrew Percy (in the Chair)]

The Front Benchers will be called at the usual time. There is plenty of time for the debate, so there is no need for a time limit or anything like that.

Care Homes (Regulation)

Debate between Andrew Percy and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Thank you for calling me, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) on bringing this topic to Westminster Hall, setting the scene and explaining its importance from his personal experience and knowledge.

Care homes should and must provide care and services to some of the most vulnerable in society. I believe and the House believes that those who have worked hard and have contributed to society and the economy all their lives deserve appropriate care and dignity in their old age. We have the opportunity to be a voice for those who cannot be a voice for themselves. That is the issue the hon. Gentleman has brought to the House today. The people involved are often at the fringes of society and are of all ages. Many people in care homes do not have immediate family and that is another concern. We read stories in the press and we may be suspicious of them, but they illustrate the problem. There is no smoke without fire, so if there is a story in the press there must be at least some truth in the story.

Some people may be physically unable to look after themselves, including those who are elderly or have learning difficulties, dementia or Alzheimer’s. They deserve the very best care in care homes and their families need the assurance that they are well looked after. If someone has dementia, Alzheimer’s or a physical disability, they deserve the same treatment and care as others to ensure that their meals are correct and that they are given a wee bit of time, compassion and understanding, as the hon. Gentleman said. It is imperative to do all we can to protect those in care homes and to ensure that they receive the care and dignity they deserve.

I welcome the opportunity to question how the Government intend to improve regulation of the industry so that the people who are cared for are protected. I am always a bit suspicious of statistics—as the saying goes, there are lies, damned lies and statistics—but they are clear. Only 64% of care service providers in England are registered with the Care Quality Commission, so there is a question to be answered. I have great respect for the Minister’s understanding and I think the world of him, so I am sure that in his response we will hear the compassionate understanding that he feels personally and as a Minister. I look forward to that.

The Care Quality Commission monitors and regulates care organisations to ensure that they are continuing to meet national standards, and herein we encounter the first issue about regulating care homes. We need to press for much higher levels of registration if we are even to think about improving regulation. We cannot improve regulation if we do not have registration. I hope that we can make higher levels of registration a key part not just of this debate, but of the Government response. We cannot improve regulation if 36% of care service providers are not registered with the main body for monitoring and regulating the industry. Indeed, we should express immediate concern about whether those unregistered care providers are up to the national standard. I am not saying that they are not, but Government observation and monitoring is needed to ensure that they are.

Last year, following years of scandals, the Care Quality Commission announced that it would reinspect all care services and then rate them individually. We do not want to go into too much detail about the most horrible stories and incidents, but they do resonate with all of us as elected representatives. Care homes judged to be inadequate would be shut down and their directors banned from working in such positions again.

[Andrew Percy]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very important speech. He references the examples of abuse, mainly involving physical abuse, that we have heard about. Does he share my concern that in other care homes the problem is not physical abuse, but people not receiving proper nutrition? It is a national scandal that £13 billion of NHS money is spent every year dealing with poor nutrition, much of it in the elderly population. There are no doubt some very good nursing homes and care homes, but the quality of the food in homes often contributes to the decline of residents, and the CQC needs to get a handle on that as well.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; he is right. I tried to make the point earlier about the food that residents eat and its nutritional value, and about the time that may need to be spent looking after someone and feeding them. I thank the hon. Gentleman for highlighting another very important issue.

The National Audit Office found that just 9% of services had been assessed as of July this year, despite the deadline for inspections being February next year—a deadline that has been pushed back. Obviously, the February deadline cannot now be met, because 91% of homes cannot be inspected in that time, but perhaps when the Minister responds we can get an idea of a new deadline in relation to the inspection regime.

However well intended the Care Quality Commission system is, there are clear failings in the current way of doing things, and today’s debate gives us the opportunity to discuss the way ahead in terms of improving the poor rate of inspection. The right hon. and hon. Members who are here will illustrate that very clearly. Concerns have been raised across the political spectrum, both in newspapers and by political representatives, and I hope that the solution to those concerns can also be found on a cross-party, bipartisan basis. After all, this matter concerns us all. It is not a matter of scoring points—it is never that with me anyway, but it certainly is not with anyone in this debate, because we all have the same focus and commitment to delivery of the same level of care and to ensuring that all homes reach a certain level.

We have had many issues in the past in Northern Ireland. I know that this is a devolved matter and the responsibility of someone else, but having the appropriate protection and regulation is so important to ensuring that abuses are not happening. The historical and the up-to-date abuse cases that we see in the papers need to become a thing of the past.

We can come together from both sides of the House, set the right course, address the issues and hopefully, through the Minister and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), provide some direction in relation to the solutions. I hope that my contribution and the issues I raised have been noted by the Minister—indeed, I know that they have been—and that they will prove useful to eliciting a strategy and a response from Government to ensure that this matter is addressed correctly as a matter of urgency, as the hon. Member for North Devon said, and to the best of our ability.

Home Affairs

Debate between Andrew Percy and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who, as ever, made a thoughtful and important speech on an issue that generally unites the House rather than divides it.

I apologise to the House for being away for a short time while I was attending the Health Committee, but of course I was here for the opening speeches and the first few contributions. I want to focus on a number of areas related to home affairs, including policing in my constituency, immigration and criminals in our jails, including several issues that have arisen following a visit that I recently made to a prison near my constituency.

As I said in my earlier intervention on the Home Secretary, I welcome the social action, responsibility and heroism Bill. Some people might not think that it is necessary, but those who try to do good as volunteers or just as passers-by in society often feel that the law is against them and they are not protected, as may well be the case, and anything that gives a nod in that direction is important.

I have mentioned my own experience working as a first responder with the ambulance service every weekend. One of my staff members—they are all trained as first responders as well—recently came across somebody who was in cardiac arrest, and had sadly died, but was laid out on the side of the road. He was the first one on the scene who was prepared to do anything to try to assist that person. There is not only the fear of getting involved, which is very difficult to get rid of, but the fear in the backs of many people’s minds that if they do something they may make the situation even worse and then end up being sued for it.

This applies not only to such experiences. Whenever it snows in my village, I clear the section of the path between the old people’s home and the pub, and people say as they are going past, “Be careful or you’ll get sued.” Thankfully, I have not been; I think some of the residents of the old people’s home have enjoyed being able to get to the Percy Arms. Although I have not faced any legal action, a lot of people have the perception that, if they try to do right, they will fall foul of some legal issue and end up being arrested or sued in the courts. I very much welcome this Bill as a nod in the right direction in that regard.

I want to say a little about crime and policing locally. I have never been a particular fan of the reductions in the police budget, which is why I always try to speak every time that we agree the police estimates, but I will not rehash my previous speeches on that subject. An awful lot more needs to be done on partnership working with the police. Whenever I meet the police locally, they outline the financial savings that they have to make, and I am fully conscious of the difficulties involved in that. However, I still get the impression—I will give a practical example in a moment—that the police have not fully embraced proper partnership working and engaging with other agencies such as local authorities and other emergency services. When they talk about partnership working, they seem to mean that they are prepared to work with other police forces, but when it comes to working with others there is still something of a silo mentality. More needs to be done by the leadership nationally, to drive the issue forward and make sure that some of the savings can be realised. I am concerned that when it comes to back-office costs and senior management, not enough is being done at the top to share work between agencies other than police forces.

My constituency is represented by two local authorities: the East Riding of Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. North Lincolnshire council has been very forward thinking in playing its part not only in helping the police and crime commissioner to achieve his crime plan, but in reducing crime and the fear of crime locally. The council has funded a number of CCTV projects, including in Epworth and Winterton in my constituency, for which I and the ward councillors were pleased to secure the funding.

The council has also funded police community support officers for rural communities. Crime mapping and the allocation of police service resources focus on crime hot spots, which tend not to be in rural areas, so in my own area, North Lincolnshire council worked with me on a project to find funding for five police community support officers—two on the Isle of Axholme, one in the Burton and Winterton policing team, one in the Brigg team and another in the Barton team. They are now in post and are having a real impact.

Unfortunately, the area in which we are having trouble with the police force locally relates to the need to go further and expand the project with even more council-funded PCSOs. It is not often that one public body tries to throw money at another, only for the intended recipient not to want it, but that is a problem in my own area at present. The council is not able to shovel more money at the police force to employ more PCSOs, and none of the various reasons for that are acceptable either to myself as a local representative or to local people who tell us strongly that they do not believe that policing in our rural communities is being prioritised, because the crime rates mean that resources are not being allocated to them. When the local authority steps up and says, “We will buy in that extra provision to make people feel safe,” and the police say they do not want it, something is obviously going very badly wrong.

I am not criticising Humberside police, who have done a fine job of handling the significant financial challenge that they face. Their officers are dedicated and they have a good chief constable and senior officer team, but their intransigence on this issue is a cause of deep concern and regret. A lot more needs to be done regarding partnership working, and the police need to change some of their practices to properly embrace that.

It was interesting to hear the pro-immigration speech of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) and I suppose we should respect him for that. I expect him to be pro-immigration, given that he wants to make very large numbers of Scottish people immigrants in England. Perhaps it is no wonder that he is so pro-immigration.

What concerns me about the immigration debate is that since the Euro election results, too many people seem to want to jump up and say that we should respond by informing people that they are wrong to think what they think about immigration. I find that deeply patronising and insulting to my constituents. I have seen that happen in my own area. When the migrant support grant went, I was summoned to a meeting to discuss it. There has been significant immigration from the European Union to the town of Goole since 2003. When I intervened on the shadow Home Secretary earlier, I asked her to apologise to the people of Goole, who have seen up to between 20% and 25% of their town come from eastern Europe. She chose not to apologise for that or for visiting my constituency recently without informing me. That is the context of why people in Goole are very concerned about immigration, and they should be listened to.

I was called to that meeting to talk about that fund by people, none of whom live in the Goole area, who wanted to tell me how awful it is that the people in Goole think the things they think. Yes, people sometimes do not use language that we might like them to use, but I find it wrong to brush aside their concerns in a patronising way and to talk down to them, saying, “Oh, Mrs Smith, you really mustn’t use language like that. How dare you.” Mrs Smith is not a racist. She is concerned about her community when her street in Goole—in many cases, a street of terraced houses—is suddenly peopled by large numbers of young males from eastern Europe. That has changed the dynamic of her street, and her concerns are legitimate.

This is not about rounding on Mrs Smith to make her better understand why immigration is good for this country and why she should put up with it, but about responding to her concern. She is concerned not about people who want to contribute coming to my constituency to work, but about the uncontrolled nature of the numbers and, in some cases, the types of people. Some of the large number of young people behave in a way that many in our area do not understand and do not consider acceptable, and they want that behaviour to be challenged. It very much concerns me that, since the vote in Europe, the debate seems to be all about how awful it is that people think such things, as opposed to trying to address their genuine concerns.

In my constituency almost half, if not more, of the intake of some schools are children—mainly Polish and Latvian—for whom English is their second language. Some of our GP lists have been closed, so there is a mad situation in which people whose children return to Goole after having temporarily moved away now cannot register with the GP who was their family GP when they were growing up. To use the example of Mrs Smith, she would of course look at that and think, “How is it that my son or daughter, who was born and bred in this town, cannot now go to the doctor who has cared for them all through their life, while someone can suddenly appear from another country and register with that doctor, with no controls on their ability to do so?” The anger comes from such a perception, and until we start to recognise that people have legitimate concerns—I have mentioned housing issues—we will get nowhere.

I am sorry to say that none of the current responses of any of the parties is acceptable or goes far enough. To try to get tough on non-EU immigration and all the rest of it in order to bring down the numbers is fine as far as it goes. However, the situation in my constituency is not about non-EU immigration, but EU immigration. We have to do something about the free movement of labour across Europe. We are losing people and losing the country on this issue, and until we address that fact, UKIP or other fringe parties of that nature—I would not necessarily call UKIP a fringe party now—will gain traction. I hope that in the next year or two, if we get a renegotiation on Europe, this issue will be addressed. Uncontrolled EU immigration is no longer acceptable and is not working.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned housing, employment opportunities and health. The same also applies to education, in that school places have been lost to those living in such areas because of the level of immigration.

[Andrew Percy]

Absolutely. In fact, I mentioned schools in relation to their intake. We have had the problem of people living just outside the catchment area of the school that they went to as a child, but finding, because of this massive pressure on places, that they cannot get their child into their old school. All that feeds into a perception of unfairness and of immigration being bad, which I do not think people at the top have necessarily understood.

111 Telephone Service

Debate between Andrew Percy and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which clearly outlines exactly what the 111 system should be trying to achieve. Sometimes, when hon. Members ask if I will take an intervention, they are looking over my shoulder to see what I am going to say next. My hon. Friend made exactly the point that I was going to make.

There have been lots of complaints about calls going unanswered and poor advice being given, which reiterates the point made by my hon. Friend. That follows concerns prior to the national roll-out, after pilot schemes showed disastrous results, with tales of patients waiting hours for advice and others being asked to call back later. That situation is quite unsatisfactory and must be addressed. NHS England stated:

“The safety of patients must be our paramount concern”.

So it should be, and if it is not, we want to ask why. It also said:

“NHS England will keep a careful eye on the situation to ensure NHS 111 provides not only a good service to the public, but one which is also safe.”

Examples mentioned by all hon. Members—we have them in front of us—provide information that contradicts that. In Greater Manchester, the 111 service was started and then abandoned. Dr Mary Gibbs, a GP providing out-of-hours cover when the system crashed there, said:

“Calls just weren’t coming through.”

Quite clearly, that is the issue. She stated:

“It was totally inadequate. Patients’ health was put at risk.”

The 111 service tends to be busiest when local surgeries are closed. Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the British Medical Association GPs committee, stated:

“We are still receiving reports that patients are facing unacceptably long waits to get through to an NHS 111 operator and suffering from further delays when waiting for calls back with medical advice should they manage to have their call answered… The quality of some of the information being given out appears, from anecdotal sources, to be questionable in some instances.”

The advice that people are being given does not always seem to have been up to scratch and is not of the quality that it should be. He added:

“If any area of the country is failing to meet high standards of care, then its NHS 111 service needs to be suspended.”

This is what the experts in the field are saying. NHS England needs to be more transparent about how the system is functioning across the country.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I met one of my local ambulance service chief executives just last Friday, who told me that, in his experience, the implementation of NHS 111 was going well and was helping to reduce demand on the ambulance service locally—and they were quite happy with the service. Although there have been problems, which the hon. Gentleman is right to highlight, plenty of people have been treated well and professionally by this service, and some health service professionals think that the service is working okay.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have stated that the focus of the new system was on trying to make it better. Every hon. Member accepts that. The idea behind it is great, if it works. We elected representatives will always get the complaints. Not often do we get the wee card saying, “Thank you very much for what you’ve done for us,” but we always get the ones saying, “It’s not working well.” The hon. Gentleman is right. I accept that there will be many examples throughout the United Kingdom where the system has, perhaps, worked, but equally there are a lot of examples of where it has not worked. That is the point that I am trying to make.

We highlight such issues for a purpose, not to be dogmatic, angry or always to be negative in our comments, but to try to look towards improvement. I always try to think that my comments will be constructive criticism, which can be taken on board to make things better. My idea as an elected representative over the years, as a councillor and a Member of the Legislative Assembly in a previous life, has always been to try make comments in that way.

I am conscious of my position as a Northern Ireland Member of Parliament, because health is a devolved matter and I am ever mindful of the cuts in funding faced by all Departments in an effort to reduce the deficit—every pound spent must be well spent—but, from my perspective, I urge that the Northern Ireland Direct system continue until the kinks are ironed out here. On health, we will follow, as we often do, what happens here on the UK mainland, so, from a Northern Ireland perspective, I want to make sure that the system’s fall downs and problems are ironed out and sorted out before we take on the system—if we take it on.

I have been looking at the system with great interest, because one of my jobs here as MP for Strangford and my party’s health spokesman is to consider the systems across on the mainland. Many of my queries to Ministers here in questions on health and to my Health Minister back in Northern Ireland come from what colleagues say to me and from what these debates bring out. I am interested in seeing how this system works or will work, or does not work. If it does not work, I will convey that to my Minister in Northern Ireland, to ensure that when making a decision there we will look at how it can happen. I will certainly not be urging our Health Minister in Northern Ireland to use his precious funding to implement this scheme as it stands.

Public Bodies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Andrew Percy and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

I do not want to get into too much of a political spat, particularly when I am speaking from the Government Benches, but those organisations have repeatedly made the point that they have been unable to gain access to all the information. Perhaps they did not do so before the general election either. Perhaps it is a systemic problem, but having access to that information is important, particularly if so much emphasis is going to be placed on costs, as appears to be the case.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Sir Alan Beith]

rose—

[Andrew Percy]

I will give way to my hon. Friends, but then I am going to make some progress.

[Jim Shannon]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman would agree that the families are most important. The families need to have confidence in the system, and they indicated that their confidence would lie with the chief coroner rather than the independent coroner. Does he feel that that is what we should really be doing and that the families know best?

[Andrew Percy]

It is always easy to concentrate on the emotive issues in debates like this, and it can be very powerful, but I also believe there are less emotive reasons for pursing this policy. I would not suggest for a moment than anybody does not want to support families; it is a question of how we drive the reform forward. It is a bit like the discussion last night, when the Conservative party was united but had different tactics.