NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc.) Bill

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Friday 6th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Anne Marie Morris]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes an important point. It is right that the money goes towards new, far-reaching, novel pieces of equipment and medical solutions, which are exactly what we need in this country. We should be proud of that and do everything we can to enable the hospital to gain as much funding as possible.

The hospital is able to facilitate a number of different wards for a number of different treatments, and that is due to the continued contribution from donations and legacies. Barrie’s contribution has been so significant over the years that, fittingly, there is a Peter Pan ward—I am sorry that there is not yet a Wendy ward, but I am sure we can do something about that.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

The Lost Boys ward.

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[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

I am delighted to contribute to today’s debate on such an important issue, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on deciding to raise it in this place and to make these changes, which I am pleased to support.

Our nation would be a poorer place without the thousands of charities and their trustees who contribute their time and their expertise without fear or favour. As we have heard, this is trustees’ week, so it is appropriate to debate this issue today. Close to my heart are the many hospital-related charities that play such an important role in supporting our free-at-the-point-of-care national health service that has served us so well. It is vital that such charities are allowed to conduct their good work with as few barriers as possible.

The current structure of NHS charitable trust status has three main disadvantages. First, potential donors may perceive that the charities lack independence from government. Secondly, being bound by legislation prevents the charities from adopting different legal forms specific to their needs, particularly those offering limited liability. Thirdly, the Charity Commission believes that dual regulation under both NHS and charity legislation makes it difficult for NHS charities to achieve and demonstrate independence. It is therefore vital that NHS charities have the opportunity to move to independent charity status.

In my constituency, I have many charities that support the work of the NHS in some way, but today I want to highlight just two of them. First, Ilkeston community hospital league of friends is a dedicated group of people who do everything from making cups of tea for visitors and taking the newspaper trolley around the wards to holding extremely successful spring, summer and Christmas fairs. A recent bed push up Ilkeston’s main street, Bath street—and when I say up, I mean up the hill—raised over £1,400. These events raise valuable additional funding providing for those added extras that make such a difference to my community hospital. This has included a scanner for the Val Jackson scanner suite at Ilkeston hospital, and the list goes on and on.

Secondly, I have an amazing hospice, Treetops Hospice Care, located at Risley, but serving the wider community across Derbyshire and parts of Nottinghamshire. Only the other day, we heard a very powerful speech in this place by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield)about the importance of palliative care. Treetops Hospice Care is a bit unusual as it does not have any beds, but provides all its end-of-life care and support in the community. As we heard on Wednesday, up to 70% of people want to die in their own homes, yet only 30% manage to have their wishes fulfilled. The invaluable care in the community that Treetops provides is helping my constituents to fulfil their wishes, which must be comforting for their families at such a difficult time. Treetops is innovative in its fund raising, too, holding everything from dog shows and vintage fairs to car boot sales and a sponsored bike ride taking in all the different charity shops that make a contribution—and I am pleased to say that I took part on a tandem.

My constituents and the wider population give generously and freely to both Ilkeston community hospital league of friends and to Treetops Hospice Care. These two charities are not bound by the legislation that the NHS charities in question are today.

As previously mentioned, the Bill takes away one of the barriers to maximising donations for the NHS charities in question. It removes the Government’s involvement, as it removes the role of the Secretary of State in appointing trustees. This move will enable potential donors to know that the NHS charity is truly independent from the Government.

I now wish to talk specifically about Great Ormond Street hospital. I have visited this amazing hospital on numerous occasions in a professional capacity, so I felt touched by the descriptions that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills and the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) provided of their visits to this amazing hospital. Like them, I felt very privileged to have seen a small part of its ground-breaking work and the care that is given there. Only yesterday, we heard about the one-year old girl, Layla Richards, now in remission from leukaemia as the result of innovative gene editing, creating designer white blood cell treatment. That really was fantastic news—both for Layla and her family.

[Bob Stewart]

I have to declare an interest, as my wonderful daughter-in-law, Nicola Stewart, is a nurse at Great Ormond Street. I just want to confirm and support everything my hon. Friend is saying about the dedication of the nurses and doctors at Great Ormond Street hospital.

[Maggie Throup]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I completely agree that every doctor and nurse, and every NHS worker goes beyond the call of duty—not just at Great Ormond Street, but in hospitals throughout the country. We owe a great debt of gratitude to them for the work they do.

J. M. Barrie made a very generous and powerful donation when he gifted the rights from “Peter Pan” to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity. I am sure the renowned author would be cheering from the Gallery, if he could, to hear that his wishes are to be continued through the mechanisms of this Bill.

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[Kevin Foster]

Indeed. This is a bit like the reforms to school governors, where we have reduced the number of local authority appointments. Although some were very independent minded and focused solely on the school and its interests, in other areas it was almost a tradition to have a certain number from Labour, a certain number from the Conservatives and a certain number from the Lib Dems.

[Bob Stewart]

None from the Lib Dems.

[Kevin Foster]

I accept that at the moment a Lib Dem and an endangered species have something in common. I will return to the subject of the Bill, despite the generous opportunity offered by my hon. and gallant Friend to make a remark about the political situation west of Bristol.

Why, as a Devon MP, am I keen to see the Bill make progress, given that it relates particularly to Great Ormond Street? As I said in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), the hospital provides specialist services that benefit the whole of the UK. The provisions on the “Peter Pan” copyright apply to all four nations in the United Kingdom, not just to England and Wales, as some of the other provisions in the Bill do. This hospital provides services that it clearly would not be practical to provide in individual areas and individual hospitals, because that pure specialty is needed. At least one person who has been in my surgery recently has benefited from Great Ormond Street’s work even though they are a resident of Torquay, because of the specialties that the hospital brings.

It is therefore right that we should make this provision that the J. M. Barrie bequest and copyrights can be properly applied, to the benefit of the hospital. It is nonsense to have two charities in place purely because of law that made sense at the time but which now looks like a legal accident, whereby the money has to go into one pot and cannot go into another pot, even though almost any other bequest in this country would be going into the one charity. As has been said, that means that money for patients—money for services—is going to lawyers and accountants. That is not right, which is why the Bill is so timely. It seeks to resolve that anomaly and give that certainty, particularly to Great Ormond Street, and to all the other trusts.

I am very pleased to be here to support this Bill, which will make a real difference. It may sound very technical—it sounded exceptionally technical when I first read it—but it will make a real impact on the ground in providing better services and better outcomes, and helping some of the sickest and most vulnerable people in our society. That is why it is right that the Bill receives its Second Reading. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills decided that this subject was the right choice for her private Member’s Bill slot, given the number of choices that would have been available to her, and it is good to see so much support here this morning from hon. Members.

I look forward to hearing what the Minister will say in response to today’s debate—[Interruption.] I am glad he is looking forward to it, too. We are anticipating every moment of his speech, which I am sure will be a tour de force, given his knowledge of this area. We hope it will confirm that giving the Bill its Second Reading makes eminent sense and that it will move into Committee, so that we can turn it from a worthwhile Bill into a worthwhile Act of Parliament. I am delighted to endorse the Bill and I hope the whole House will support it.

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[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I have great sympathy with what my hon. Friend says; it is so important that we have enough time. It is why Fridays are such a pleasure, because there is time to discuss a Bill in full and in the round, and to consider the principles underpinning it, the details of it, and what would happen to it if it were to be brought into effect. That is proper parliamentary procedure. I have such admiration for those great heroes of the 19th century—[Interruption]—talking of which I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart).

[Bob Stewart]

I thank my great and hon. Friend, an advocate of the 16th century, for giving way. Does he consider appointments to the House of Lords to be the modern version of 17th-century baubles?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Madam Deputy Speaker is giving me one of her looks. As much as I would like to discuss reform of the House of Lords, I would be ruled out of order. If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I must get back to jobbery, because jobbery and avoiding jobbery are at the heart of the Bill.

I was explaining how jobbery, when it starts, is not a deliberate corruption. It is merely the recognition that it just would not do to appoint somebody on the other extreme of politics. We can hear Sir Humphrey going to the Secretary of State and saying, “It would be a little brave, Minister, to appoint such a person who is on so different a wing from you.” The next time an appointment comes up, there is the thought, “Well, if I couldn’t appoint someone who was actively opposed, perhaps I should really only appoint people who are on my side”—in other words, our mates and friends. Thus we get to the heart of jobbery. Appointments are made purely because of somebody’s political colour and context.

In the primary care trust in Bath and North East Somerset which preceded the current organisations a local Conservative had a judicial review against the previous Labour Government to get himself appointed as its chairman, because he was the most qualified person and had been refused only on the basis that he was a Conservative. Therefore, the idea that jobbery has completely left the system is false, and so too is the idea that Governments are so high and mighty and Olympian in their decision making that they do not descend to mere political jobbery.