Sudden Adult Death Syndrome
Debate between Andrew Percy and Steve Rotheram(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Steve Rotheram
All I can tell the hon. Lady is that if I can use a defibrillator, anyone can use one. We had people come into the House to demonstrate what an AED does. I was under the illusion that it was like something out of an episode of “Casualty”: someone picks up two paddles, says, “Stand back—clear,” and applies the shock to the person through that method. It is not like that. An AED is a small computerised unit that talks someone through the process, so believe me, literally anyone can use one. That will destigmatise the use of these devices for certain people who think that if they do it wrong, they will cause further complications.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I declare an interest as a first responder who on a number of occasions has had to attempt resuscitation. Defibrillators are indeed incredibly easy to use. One of the saddest things is turning up at someone’s house and finding people just standing around, worried or frightened that if they attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation, they will cause more damage. Actually, the training that is necessary is minimal. I therefore commend not only the e-petition, but the words of the hon. Gentleman up to now. This is something that is very simple. It is so sad to turn up two or three minutes in and find that people have not started CPR, at which point the chance of survival is so much less.
Local Government Funding
Debate between Andrew Percy and Steve Rotheram
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
I am delighted to have been given the opportunity to speak in this important debate as, once again, yet another announcement —this time on local government funding—will see areas such as Liverpool lose out in favour of more affluent areas of the country. I have no doubt that some Tories on the Government Benches would agree with the rich getting richer—after all, it is part of their political philosophy—but they could at least come clean about it and not try to kid us that this makes things fairer.
Steve Rotheram
Not just yet.
To hear the Secretary of State tell one of my hon. Friends not to take us back to the ’80s shows the brass neck of the man. That is exactly what Labour Members wish to stop. If he wants to know about that torrid decade of Tory rule, I would be happy to sit down with him for a few days to outline the devastation that the Tories wreaked on our great city and specifically on the people of Liverpool, Walton.
This decision on local government funding by this coalition Government will have a disproportionate effect on the area I represent. When I made my maiden speech, I warned—hon. Members can check Hansard—that I would fight against a return to the devastating Tory policies of the ’80s that nearly destroyed places such as Liverpool. That is a fight that I will not shy away from.
The Government are rapidly gaining a reputation for saying one thing and doing another, and I fear that their gung-ho approach to local government funding is yet another shameful example of the widening gulf between the coalition’s rhetoric and the harsh contradictory reality on the ground.