Veterans’ Mental Health
Bob Stewart Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Johnny Mercer
The hon. Gentleman is right. The war disablement pension is listed, in line with all other pensions, as a source of income against universal credit, but it is different in different cases—for example, payments made to widows and so on. There are aspects that do not count against benefit claimants. We are trying to achieve the right balance of fairness across the country, but this is something that I look at on an ongoing basis and I would be more than happy to have a conversation about it with the hon. Gentleman offline.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend and, indeed, all Governments for all they have done in this area. When I came back from a very heavy tour in Bosnia in 1993, I had an interview with a psychiatrist. He said to me, “How do you feel?” I said, “Fine.” He said, “Thanks” and left. Things have changed. There is £10 million of extra funding going into the covenant specifically for mental health. May I pitch again to my very good friend the Minister on behalf of PTSD Resolution, which has never, ever taken a penny from the Government, but which does such sterling work?
Johnny Mercer
My hon. and gallant Friend is a long-term and passionate advocate of PTSD Resolution, which does good work. In the framework of veterans’ mental health, I will be bringing forward a programme in April that I will launch with Simon Stevens, the director of NHS England. My hon. Friend will see that that programme includes a clear role for charities of whatever size to bid to run some of the specialist services that PTSD Resolution and others do so well. The offering to our people is changing and I encourage my hon. Friend, PTSD Resolution and others to work together. We can meet this challenge if we work together and focus on outcomes, as I know both he and PTSD Resolution want to do.
Mental Health of Veterans
Bob Stewart Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Jamie Stone
The hon. Member for Strangford makes a point that I know is close to his heart. He has spoken about it with eloquence in the past, and he does so again today.
In constituencies such as mine, which is vast and remote, accessing healthcare is already difficult. That makes it particularly hard for veterans like Mark to reach out and share what they have been through with people who have also risked their lives for their country. The Government should be making it easier for veterans, service personnel and their families to connect with one another and access peer-led mental health support. Time and again, the evidence—both numerically, and in people’s personal experience—suggests that peer-to-peer treatment is the most effective form of mental health support for people who are affected by combat trauma. Accessing this kind of mental health support is a battle for those who have risked their lives for their country, and they should not be asked to fight that battle.
I turn to funding. It is the custom in this place to cite lots of statistics, so here are a few. The Care Quality Commission rated two out of four Ministry of Defence mental health centres as inadequate or needing improvement between April 2017 and January 2019, and there were shortfalls of at least 50% in uniformed and civilian psychiatric posts in 2017-18. Those are not good figures. Charities that provide support for veterans, service personnel and their families often receive no Government funding whatsoever. They rely solely on donations and pay no salaries. For example, in the last 11 years, PTSD Resolution treated more than 2,700 veterans, reservists and families.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I declare an interest: PTSD Resolution is run by my old commanding officer, Colonel Tony Gauvain. It is the most brilliant charity, and it takes very little money from Government. It has more than 200 counsellors and a 78% success rate. It is the sort of charity that we want to encourage and, indeed, give some more resources to, if we can.
Jamie Stone
The hon. and gallant Member speaks with great knowledge and authority, and I welcome his words.
PTSD Resolution prides itself on delivering a prompt, local, brief and effective treatment, at an average cost of £650 per case. If untreated, the social cost can amount to tens of thousands of pounds; it manifests itself in lost jobs, broken families or perhaps, most tragically of all, suicide. Since Combat Stress had to stop taking referrals from Wales and England because of a reduction in funding, PTSD Resolution has seen a 60% increase in referrals. It tells me that it needs the Government to co-operate in funding, according to demand and outcomes.
The chief executive of Combat Stress, Sue Freeth, said to me:
“82% of the veterans treated by Combat Stress have tried to engage with NHS services but their needs have not been met. The government needs to ring-fence funding for specialist services such as ours, that understand and can successfully treat those veterans with complex PTSD. There is a significant funding gap for veterans with complex mental health needs who need intensive clinical rehabilitation and struggle to access this support elsewhere.”
The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Johnny Mercer)
It is a pleasure to speak under your leadership this morning, Mr Stringer.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for his interest and for the way he continually drives the debate. Clearly, I have a script that talks about all the stuff we are doing, but I want to answer some of the specific points that he has raised this morning. I am delighted that he shows such an interest in the subject. He will know that support for veterans was a driving force for me in coming to Parliament; I wanted to drive through change. I can honestly say to him that there a shift in strategy is under way in how we support armed forces veterans. For too long, colleagues in charities and in this House have asked the Government to step up and do more, and we are now starting to do that. I do not pretend for an instant that we have always got it right. That has led to some of the challenges that we face today, and I came into Government specifically to try to lead the change.
I want to challenge a couple of things that were said, and the first relates to the portrayal of veterans. There is no doubt that some of our people are extremely poorly because of what we have asked them to do over a number of years. I am acutely aware of that. The Prime Minister and I are acutely aware that the nation has a debt of gratitude to them that must be realised by more than words and ceremonies in Whitehall; it must be repaid by provision to look after them throughout life. It is important to me to challenge the portrayal of the problem as greater than it is. There is in the country undoubtedly a way of portraying veterans—exacerbated by the media and TV programmes—that suggests that military service or combat experience equal mental health problems. In reality, we all know that that is not so, and we cannot say that too much, because the problems that that view causes are significant. This week we are bringing in changes with respect to national insurance contributions, and that is important because although there are pretty good veterans programmes at big firms in cities, for people who can get access to those workplaces, sometimes when I have been to towns and cities someone from the CBI has stood up and said, “I can’t take the risk on a veteran.” They are worried about whether they will be off sick, and all the concomitant issues with service. We must be careful about the narrative that veterans are all broken. I would not advance this view if it were not true: the vast majority leave their service greatly enhanced by their time in the military. The reason I raise that is that is that if we do not get it right we will simply be unable to meet the challenge of those who are genuinely poorly and unwell because of what the nation asked them to do. I am committed to getting those people the help they deserve.
Bob Stewart
I support exactly what my good Friend the Minister is saying. I am backed up by other Members here, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland). The vast majority of members of the armed forces go through their service and do not have a problem at the end of it—that is absolutely true; but please, Minister, give more resources to PTSD Resolution, because it deserves them.
Johnny Mercer
I thank my hon. Friend, who knows the impression he left on me in my formative journey into this place. I think that I am speaking for him at a dinner tonight, where we can take the matter further. I shall come on to the question of funds for specific charities in a minute.
War Widows’ Pension Scheme
Bob Stewart Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Lewis
May I just say that it is typical of my right hon. Friend, a former Secretary of State for Defence, to make sure that she was present today, as she notified me she would be, to make that very point? Indeed, as I would have expected, she goes to the heart of the matter. As we will hear later, what really needs to be done is to stop looking at this award as the award of a pension or a benefit when in reality it is meant to be recognition of and compensation for a sacrifice, which should be untouchable under any circumstances.
In fact, however, that is not the case because, as Judith Thompson, the commissioner, spelled out at the time:
“If your spouse died or left Military or War Service before 31 March 1973 and you also receive the War Pension Scheme Supplementary Pension you keep your War Widow’s Pension for life.”
So if it is before 1973, they are okay. She went on:
“If you were widowed after 5 April 2005 and receive Survivors Guaranteed Income Payment from the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme you keep your War Widow’s Pension for life.”
In between, however, we have this cohort—now reduced to between 200 and 300—of war widows who lost the pension under a change in the rules and have not had it reinstated. I said in that earlier debate that that basically created a perverse incentive for people who, by definition, have already suffered the greatest trauma and tragedy, to part from the person with whom they have found renewed happiness, and go through a charade of this sort if they wish their pension to be permanently reinstated.
At that time, the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), who sat on the Defence Committee on behalf of the Democratic Unionist party, pointed out an additional perversity, which was that widows of members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, who served and died alongside members of the Ulster Defence Regiment and other regiments, had had the issue resolved locally in Northern Ireland. Because members of the Ulster Defence Regiment were in the Army, which is covered by defence and not a devolved matter, their widows had not had that issue resolved, and were still being denied the reinstatement of their war widow’s pension.
I then read extracts from five of seven testimonies—that was all I had time for—from war widows who explained what this issue meant to them. I shall now abbreviate those testimonies, but I urge anyone who is interested in reading the full account of what those five widows had to say to look at the speech from, I believe, November 2018, which can easily be found in the appropriate section of my website—[Interruption.]
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I am intervening at an appropriate time so that my right hon. Friend can reshuffle his papers.
Bob Stewart
This situation is frankly iniquitous. It is unfair and wrong, but it could be put right very quickly if we just say that once someone receives a widow’s pension they keep it, end of.
Dr Lewis
That has been said. That is what David Cameron did, and that is now the situation. The argument arises because of the small cohort who between those years did not have their pension reinstated. Thanks to my gallant friend’s intervention, I now have the exact date of that previous debate. It was on 22 November 2018, and it is easily accessible in Hansard, or, even more easily, in the “Commons Speeches” section of my website.
I first quoted Linda, whose husband John was murdered by the IRA in May 1973 by a booby-trap bomb. She explained:
“In the early 70s War Widows were visited by inspectors to ensure they were not living with another man whilst in receipt of their compensation pension. I felt degraded by this. Life was lonely as a young women with a baby and over time I missed the family life I so tragically had taken from me. I missed my son having a father, I missed the closeness and friendship of a husband…As was stated in 2015 this was a choice—”
the fact that she had to give up her pension on remarriage—
“that should not have been forced on War Widows. I was personally heartbroken when I was told that pension changes in 2015 had left me behind. The utter disbelief that the Government didn’t really mean ALL War Widows would now have their pensions for life was unbearable. These changes made me feel like a second class War Widow and I have now been made to relive the pain and grief of 1973 every day. I cannot and will not accept that John’s sacrifice is less worthy than others.”
I read out four more testimonies on that occasion, but I do not have time to do that again. Instead, I shall refer to two testimonies that I did not previously have time to read out. One was from someone who was bereaved not during Operation Banner in Northern Ireland, but in Iraq in 2003.
Raqual lost her husband Matt there.
“If anything happens to me”,
he wrote immediately before deploying,
“I want you and our son and our baby to be happy. Meet someone else and give our children a loving home. You won’t need to worry about money as you will be financially independent”—
he thought—
“and able to give our children what they deserve!”
Eight weeks later, she was a widow. Eight years later, she remarried. Upon remarriage, she writes:
“I surrendered my War Widows’ Pension as I had to do and increased my hours of work to compensate for this loss of income.
Being able to support my children independently was and still is very important to me and to Matt’s memory. I would never expect my new husband to have to do this. And then came the decision to allow widows to retain their pensions on remarriage, but only if they remarried after April 2015.
I am so pleased for the widows who will benefit from this. But I hold the values of fairness and equality in high regard, and we are now in a situation which is neither fair nor equal. Even now, I simply can’t get my head around the fact that had I waited four more years to remarry I would have kept my pension for life. How can it be fair that someone who remarried on the 31 March 2015 lost their pension, and yet 24 hours later someone in the exact same position would keep theirs!!!???”
Debate on the Address
Bob Stewart Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and I absolutely agree with him about the Union. The Union is important in relation not only to Northern Ireland, but to Scotland. I would like to reiterate the words of the late, great David Bowie, who said, “Scotland, don’t leave us. We love you. Stay with us.”
I would like to congratulate the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) on his maiden speech, getting it out of the way so early and with such aplomb—very good work there. I would also like to disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), who said he did not like to campaign in the winter. I loved it. I knocked on many doors—I canvassed for all six weeks—and I got offered cups of tea everywhere I went. I would like now to apologise to some residents of the Clacton constituency that I could not have a cup of tea with them all. A man can only take so much tea while walking the streets.
Only yesterday, I had a chat with a friend who recently lost his seat on the Opposition Benches. He was very candid, and said that although the result of the election was not what he would have preferred, he is happy that the Government now have a serious majority and can finally get on with delivering an agenda without more fuss and delay—that was an ex-Labour MP, but I frequently found that attitude on the doorsteps in Clacton. People want us to get on with it and deliver on the promises made.
When walking in Clacton, I gained support from many previous Labour voters; there were people who had voted Labour all their lives, as had their parents and grandparents, yet this time they gave me their vote. I am deeply humbled and honoured by the confidence placed in me and, like the Prime Minister, I am acutely aware of the responsibilities placed on me by that support. We now have to earn it. I am delighted, once again, to have been elected to represent the glorious sunshine coast of Clacton, and I have strong support from my constituents for my work, and the work of this Conservative Government, who today laid out a comprehensive and progressive policy programme.
During the election, I stood on doorsteps in Clacton with a simple message: “We must get Brexit done and then focus on other vital priorities, including even more police, better healthcare and infrastructure improvements, not to mention education.” Predominantly, the response I got back was the same. People said, “Yes, those are our priorities too. I am so glad that somebody is finally listening.” We are not just listening, we are acting—indeed, we have already acted. In Clacton, more than 30 new police officers now operate locally, and I am proud that they were recruited after a campaign I led to increase the police precept in the area.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I have known my hon. Friend for 54 years and I have visited his house, which is not in Clacton—I rather like Frinton, but it has not been mentioned. I think he should mention Frinton.
Giles Watling
As my constituents know I am a resident of Frinton, which is part of the glorious Clacton constituency. I am delighted that my hon. Friend has reminded me where I live.
As we know, hundreds more officers—20,000 in total—have been promised for every policing area, and I understand that Essex Police has already started recruiting the first wave of new officers. I am delighted that a Bill will be introduced to increase policing powers and ensure that violent convicts are kept off the streets. We have had issues in Clacton and I know my constituents expect no less.
On healthcare, we have secured a change in management at four local surgeries where services were woefully substandard. I thank Ed Garrett, leader of the local clinical commissioning group, for his perseverance on that matter. It has been my priority to hold the management to account. We have done that, and residents will see an improvement in another key doorstep issue. The Government have provided nearly £15 million for an upgrade at Clacton Hospital, which is in addition to the £33.9 billion funding boost for the NHS by 2023-24. It is right to enshrine that key pledge into law, along with the other healthcare announcements in this programme.
Some £318 million has been set aside by the Government to fund two local infrastructure schemes, including a new railway station at Beaulieu, which has been a pinch-point on our rail lines and held up transport for the Clacton community. Clacton is just under 70 miles from the great conurbation of London, yet that journey takes the best part of one hour and 40 minutes. These days that is an outrage and it should be improved. Money will also be spent on the new link road between the A120 and the A133—my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) will agree with me on this, because we worked hard to get funding to build that new road. The Conservative party manifesto pledges to spend £100 billion on additional infrastructure spending, which will go on roads and rail. That productive investment will repair and refurbish the fabric of our country, and generate greater growth in the long run.
On the doorstep, I saw how popular our policies are and—at least in my local experience—that was one of the great differences in this election. We listened to, and will deliver for, the electorate we have, rather than the imaginary electorate championed by those on the Opposition Front Benches. We will deliver pragmatic and practical policies for those voters, whereas the Opposition take them for granted and promise the undeliverable. We will get Brexit done. We cannot continue to deny the Brexit result. We know that the Prime Minister has achieved a good deal that delivers on the result of the referendum and allows us to move on, and I for one will be happy to reach a place where we never have to hear the word “Brexit” again.
People know that this is a credible Government who will act on their demands, and in five years our record will speak for itself—post Brexit. That record of delivery starts with this Government programme, although of course there is more I want to do, including further improvements in animal welfare, a ban on dog and cat meat consumption in this country, making elder abuse a hate crime that carries a tougher sentence, and ensuring that school funding is spread evenly across the county of Essex.
We must care for those who protect us by increasing defence spending, and protect and promote our incredible “Theatre” offer, which does so much to inform, educate and promote the UK internationally. We should also introduce a differential rate of beer duty between pubs and supermarkets, after the B-word has been delivered. I will bother Ministers greatly about those matters in due course, but for now I recognise that this is a strong programme that gets Brexit done and delivers on our priorities, and I happily support it.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Clacton (Giles Watling). The Queen’s Speech introduced by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) stated:
“My government’s priority is to secure the best possible deal”,
and mentioned working with the devolved Administrations and business. That was then dropped to become, “My priority is to secure a deal by 31 October, do or die”, and now we have 31 January.
Hon. Members know that we have a different system for referendums—they are one person, one vote, which decided the referendum in 2016—compared with elections for constituency MPs. Under the one person, one vote system, other than generating a significant Conservative majority, this election also generated 16.5 million votes for remain parties, and 14.5 million for leave parties, which is 2 million fewer. If we consider the number of parties that do not agree with the deal that is being railroaded through, which includes the Brexit party, that is 18.1 million people who do not agree with the deal as it stands. Nevertheless, this deal will be hammered through on the basis of an election that was thrust on us on a cold, dark night, and that disadvantaged poorer people who do not have cars and so on.
The election was engineered in such a way because the Conservatives realised that they could unite the smaller pro-Brexit vote, divide the remain vote, secure a majority, and hammer Brexit through on the back of a few slogans such as “get Brexit done”, and “oven-ready” convenience food. We all know that living on oven-ready convenience food is not particularly good for our health, but we are where we are. I am sad that we have lost so many good Labour MPs, and our next task is to ensure that people’s jobs, livelihoods and environments, and workers’ rights, are secured in this deal through democratic scrutiny. I fear that that will not happen, that those things will not prevail, and that we will end up with a Brexit that will make us all poorer, weaker and more divided.
Given that, it is incumbent on the Government to deliver a Queen’s Speech that counteracts the negative economic impacts of Brexit by making as its centrepiece a re-engineering of our economy to deliver the white heat of technology focused on sustainability, given that we have a climate crisis—a new green economic renaissance. Sadly, we did not see that in the Queen’s Speech. We saw “get Brexit done”—whatever that means—and, yes, we will have some trade deals, but there will be no scrutiny. Instead, we will stand alone, weak against China and weak against the United States, as we turn our back on the European market.
We should have accelerated our ambition to be carbon-neutral by 2050, and put in place a fiscal strategy to deliver excellent green technologies and products that would form an export base for a new economy. I welcome the fact that we will host the COP26 summit, which will give us an opportunity to showcase ideas. I very much hope that the Budget will focus on fiscal strategies and incentives for investment to push that agenda forward.
As the chair of the all-party group on air pollution, I welcome the legally binding targets in the Queen’s Speech. The devil, however, will be in the detail. It is important that we meet the World Health Organisation target on particulate matter—the target to reach PM2.5 down from the 15 micrograms per cubic metre we have in London now to 10 micrograms per cubic metre by 2030. Microparticulates will penetrate unborn babies and we are seeing dreadful public health problems in Britain. The latest estimate on premature deaths from air pollution is approximately 62,000 people a year, at a cost of £20 billion a year. It is therefore very important that we focus on this issue. People doubted much of the economics in the Labour manifesto, but according to the Royal College of Physicians the cost of air pollution is £20 billion a year. If we saved £3 billion—a fairly modest saving—that income stream could service, at a 5% interest rate, a borrowing of £60 billion to invest in green manufacturing.
We need a transition towards the electrification of all our trains and buses sooner rather than later. We need to incentivise, through scrappage schemes, the switchover to electric cars for normal consumers. It is unfortunate that the roll-out of much of the electric grid is in the hands of BP, which has a vested interested in slowing it down in order to sell more petrol and diesel. We need to re-engineer our duties to incentivise people towards a sustainable future and for the Government to invest in public transport alternatives. There are a lot of technological opportunities. Our subsidy focus should move from fossil fuel to renewable energy—whether wave, wind or solar—and towards the manufacture of associated products.
Bob Stewart
Everyone talks about electric cars, but we should also be talking about hydrogen, which is a very clean fuel. Hydrogen could power cars and trains, too.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I rise to support the humble address. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, but let me also say that it is a particular pleasure to see the new Speaker in the Chair—a proper Speaker who, while he may suffer from the disadvantages of not being a Yorkshireman, is a man who has strong and many opinions but does not feel compelled to inflict them on the Chamber and the country, in contrast to his predecessor. We look forward to many years of fair adjudication of debates in the House.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) began his speech by talking about déjà vu. I fear that every time a member of the Scottish National party rises to speak, it is déjà vu all over again. Earlier today the leader of the hon. Gentleman’s party, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), in true BBC Christmas repeat fashion, came out with the same old speech—to which many of us have had to listen for the last few years—about Scotland being dragged out of the EU. Well, for goodness’ sake let us have something new. The fact is that, as we all know, the United Kingdom voted to come out of the European Union and that decision was upheld in the recent general election in the whole United Kingdom, of which Scotland is a component.
It was a particular pleasure to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who proposed the motion for a Humble Address. Let me say for the benefit of those who could not see that she did so barefoot. As a founding member of the all-party parliamentary group on mindfulness, which I hope to have the privilege to chair when it is reconstituted, she said that using mindfulness techniques and anchoring herself to the floor gave her great confidence, and she demonstrated that with aplomb in her excellent speech. Let me recommend to those who are still feeling stressed by the result of the election the mindfulness classes which are available to all Members at 5.30 pm on Tuesdays. So far, some 240 Members of both Houses have taken advantage of them, and that has certainly improved the standard of debate in both Chambers. Let me also compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes)—who is the embodiment of the cheeky chappie—on the excellent way in which he seconded the motion.
In many respects, this is the easiest Queen’s Speech to which to respond on the first day, just hours after its delivery in the other place. We did, after all, have a dry run for it on 14 October, although today’s turned out to be a fuller-fact version. The 22 Bills that were promised back in October have now become 40. This is certainly no longer a wish list; it is now a comprehensive and substantial programme for government. I am therefore pleased to get in early, ahead of the, no doubt, Cook’s Tour of maiden speeches that will be made in subsequent days and weeks by the plethora of Members who have just been elected to seats around the United Kingdom—mostly, I am glad to say, on this side of the House. I wish them all well.
We also approach this Queen’s Speech on the basis of the strong likelihood that we might actually get it passed. What a joy it is—and I aim this particularly at new Members—that at last, for the first time in the 22 and a half years that I have spent in the House along with the new Speaker, we have a strong and stable Government with a decent majority and, ostensibly, support from all Conservative MPs on the same side. Long may that continue.
Let me say to those new Members, “You’ve got it easy.” The last couple of years and, in particular, the last 12 months in this place have been hugely stressful and exasperating, not knowing when you get up in the morning what will happen in Parliament that day—whether the Government will win votes or not, or whether they will be tied—and not being able to make plans, with the possibility of the House having to sit on Saturdays. We have all been prepared to do that, but the unpredictability has made nursing a constituency, and the other responsibilities that we all have as Members, somewhat more challenging, and throughout that time a Speaker was making up the rules and rewriting the discussion as he went along.
No more, Mr Deputy Speaker. This Administration will get on with the job of being in power and in government, and implementing a programme of the people’s priorities. That is going to happen, which is a real joy and pleasure for those of us who have seen the ups and downs of a Parliament that has not been at its best in recent years.
On Saturday, when I conducted one of my regular Saturday morning street surgeries, the sense of relief among my constituents was palpable. Whether they had voted for Brexit or remain, people wanted certainty, clarity and a way forward out of the maelstrom and gridlock that this place had become over recent months. However, there was one rather sad exception. In response to the general election result, the Momentum zealots who form the local Labour party and its councillors tweeted the contact details of the Samaritans, on the basis that people would be feeling depressed and driven to mental illness. That was crass, disgusting and inappropriate.
As for what we need in this country, a piece of advice was given to me in 2001, after the second Blair landslide, by a local Labour councillor whom I respected greatly. He said to me, “Tim, you need to be a good, strong Opposition”, and he was right. In this House we need a good, strong Opposition, so I take no delight in the current problems with the Labour party. For the functioning of democracy in this country, we need a good—and moderate—strong Opposition. That keeps a good Government on their toes, and I hope that it emerges in the months to come. I am afraid that the current Momentum-hijacked Labour party is not that strong Opposition, and I hope that it sorts itself out as soon as possible.
A measure in the Queen’s Speech that I particularly welcome is the plan to abolish the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. One view that united all the candidates throughout the election, certainly in my constituency, was that December elections suck. I am sure that we all spent the last five to six weeks constantly damp and constantly frozen, frustrated by our attempts to push soggy leaflets through those terrible letterboxes with the brushes. I recall that last year the Government agreed to amend the building regulations to get rid of floor-level letterboxes, and it should now be a priority for them to amend the regulations to get rid of furry letterboxes. They are a cancer on our society, whether you are a volunteer delivering leaflets, a political activist, or a professional postman or postwoman. If the Government will not do that, I will present a private Member’s Bill and we will see how well that does.
Bob Stewart
It is not the furry stuff but the guillotine behind it that really does your knuckles in.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir George Howarth)
Order. Fascinating and relevant though this topic is, I hope that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is not going to embark on a whole debate on the positioning of letterboxes. I do not think that there was any mention of it in the Queen’s Speech.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
This has been a long and interesting debate, and I wish to make a short and—I hope—to-the-point contribution, and ask the new Government to spell out what they will do to support our manufacturing industry, particularly our steel industry which I believe needs urgent and proactive support in extremely difficult times. As others have said, there is no mention of Wales in the Queen’s Speech. There was no mention of steel either, yet the need for steel to be mentioned is pressing and urgent.
Tomorrow, Tata’s Orb steelworks in Newport will close its doors at 12 o’clock, having operated since 1898. This is a sad day in our city. Many generations of families in Newport have worked at Orb, and it has a special place in Newport’s history. I pay tribute to those steelworkers who are moving on tomorrow, and who are so passionate about their industry. They have made many sacrifices and adapted in recent years to help the business, and they make world-class steel. I pay tribute to them for the fight they put up, and are putting up, to find a future for their plant. I also pay tribute to the Community and Unite unions, and their trade union representatives Paul—tomorrow he will have completed 12,849 days at Orb—Brett, Lee, Rhys, John, Gareth and Dai, for doing the hardest job in those circumstances.
Earlier the Prime Minister mentioned electric vehicles and he spoke yet again about making the UK a home for them—I believe that was in the Queen’s Speech. That shows the travesty of the situation at Orb. Orb is significant because it is the only electrical steel plant in the UK, and with investment it could, and should, play a key part in the future of electrification. With investment it could produce steel for electric vehicles, for which demand is set to grow and grow. The irony is that although the Government support Jaguar Land Rover to develop electric vehicles, they have not stepped in with Tata to help that vital component of an end-to-end supply chain.
Ministers in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will start work after the Queen’s Speech. What I ask of them—I ask Ministers on the Front Bench to pass this on—is for the plant to be mothballed, and for them to please work with the Welsh Government and Tata to try to find a buyer in the new year. Will they proactively support us in Newport so that we can restart the plant, help keep electrical steel making in this country, and not have to import steel, which we will have to do if we lose that capacity? Tata’s Llanwern steelworks is also in my constituency, and news during the election campaign that Tata is to cut 1,000 roles in the UK has caused uncertainty and great worry. We need the chance urgently for Ministers to report back on their discussions with Tata, and on how they, alongside the Welsh Government, are going to help. Tata’s handling of this situation has been badly done. As Community union has said, it needs to be clear about its strategy for the future.
The situation at Orb, and Tata more generally, amplifies the challenges facing the wider steel industry. We need vision from the Government to tackle them. The steel industry should be at the forefront of the Government’s thinking in Brexit negotiations and in the construction of future trade deals. Some 40% of all UK steel produce is exported and it is vulnerable to the deterioration of our existing trading relationships with other EU countries and the rest of the world. We also need urgent action on energy prices, which are higher than in other EU countries. This year, the UK steel industry has paid 62% more than its German counterpart. Representatives from the steel sector have also been crying out for action on procurement. BEIS data shows that at least 42% of steel procured by the UK Government is sourced from outside the UK, so there is significant room for improvement. The Government must get that right. These are all things that Ministers can work on with the all-party group on steel. I hope the Government will do that urgently in the new year.
As other hon. Members have mentioned, we lost two fantastic steel MPs from the all-party group on steel. Sadly, they lost their seats in the general election. Both were great champions of their steel communities and absolutely passionate about the industry. Those colleagues were Nic Dakin and Anna Turley. I know their contributions from the Labour Benches will be greatly missed. While I am at it, may I also pay tribute to Madeleine Moon, who lost her seat? She made an immense contribution in this Chamber on defence issues, latterly as President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. I know that her knowledge and expertise will be greatly missed.
Bob Stewart
May I absolutely endorse the hon. Lady’s comments about Madeleine Moon? She was an outstanding President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. She must be gutted about what has happened and I feel so much for her.
Jessica Morden
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am sure we shall both tell her that she was mentioned in this debate tonight.
Finally, I would like to thank the voters of Newport East for electing me for the fifth time. I will do my very best to stand up for them in the long years ahead, including and not forgetting the 1950s women hit by pension changes. We need fast and significant investment in Gwent police, which has been cut by 40% since 2010 by the previous Government. Operation Uplift will not even take us back to 2010 numbers.
Universal credit needs to be paused and fixed. Low pay and insecure work need to be tackled, as do cross-border transport issues. Last but definitely not least, we need urgent action on climate change and on the lasting impact of austerity on our communities. I will continue to hold Ministers to account on those and other issues on behalf of my constituents and continue to stand up for Newport East. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take part in this debate.
Early Parliamentary General Election Bill
Bob Stewart ExcerptsTuesday 29th October 2019
(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Kate Hoey
I do think that that is a hugely important issue, which has unity across this House. If the Leader of the House, who has just left his place, and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland really wanted to get that Bill through, they could do so this week. It could still be put through this week. It passed its Second Reading in the other place last night, so there is absolutely no reason why we cannot get that Bill through. Yes, the hon. Lady is right. There will be many things that we cannot get through, but there are also an awful lot of things that we should be getting through but we are not able to do so because there is no majority for them in this House.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I thought that I heard the Leader of the House say that one reason for keeping the House going until 6 November was to get that Bill through. It would be iniquitous if we do not get this Bill through, because people in Northern Ireland really require to have it passed.
Kate Hoey
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I hope that those whose business it is can sort out what we do over the next few days. As I understand it—I am sure that other people know more than I do on this—if there is not a general election until 12 December, we will not have to dissolve until the following Thursday, which means that there is time. If there is unity in the House about that very important measure then it could be put through.
I know, too, Mr Speaker, that you have made your decision about leaving this House. I see no reason why the election of a new Speaker could not have been brought forward to this week, so that the issue could have been resolved before Parliament dissolves. I am getting away from the Bill, and I know, Mr Speaker, that you would not want me to do that.
Early Parliamentary General Election
Bob Stewart Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Evans
Absolutely. I did a two-day tour around my constituency last Friday and Saturday, and I spoke to a number of people. There were three hardcore remainers who would do almost anything to remain in the European Union. However, the vast majority of people who come up to me in Ribble Valley say either, “I voted leave: get on with it”—they are quite angry that we have not left the European Union—or, “I voted remain, but I can’t believe that we are still in the European Union. I am a democrat. I believe in democracy, and when we have a referendum I believe in carrying out the wishes of that referendum.” We all remember what was written on the back of that pamphlet: it said that we would follow the instructions of the British people in that referendum.
Even better than that, of course, we had a general election in 2017 in which we said that we would deliver Brexit. Labour Members stood in that general election and said they would deliver Brexit, but what do we find? Ever since that general election, we have seen dither and delay, dither and delay, and anything—anything—but vote for the Brexit that they promised. It was either, “It’s not the right deal”, or “We have to get no deal taken off the table.” Well, we had an opportunity last week to take no deal off the table, and that would have made it possible for Labour Members to have fulfilled their promise in that general election two years ago by voting for the deal that the Prime Minister brought back from Brussels. But no—the vast majority of Labour MPs voted against Second Reading. That meant that they did not want it to go any further. There was no possibility of their amending the legislation to have a customs union, to get workers’ rights or to get higher environmental standards. No, they decided they wanted to stop Brexit in its tracks, and that is why they voted against Second Reading. Only 19 of them voted to give it a Second Reading.
My constituency, Ribble Valley, is in the heart of Lancashire. In fact, on an Ordnance Survey map one of my villages is actually in the very centre of the United Kingdom. My constituency voted 57% to leave the European Union. Every constituency in Lancashire, whether it has a Labour MP or a Conservative MP—thankfully, we do not have any Lib Dems—voted to leave the European Union.
What we are seeing tonight is quite remarkable. Labour Members said that they would deliver Brexit, and they are now clearly not doing that. Then they said that they wanted more time to scrutinise the withdrawal agreement Bill, even though the vast majority of them voted against its going any further. They wanted more time, and so tonight we are offering them more time. Then they said that they wanted an early general election. Well, the way they get an early general election is by voting for the motion tonight. They will get more time to scrutinise the withdrawal agreement Bill so that they will at least fulfil part of their promise two years ago, and then get their early general election on 12 December whereby they can put forward the programme that they wish, and see where the people go.
On the other hand, we have the Scots Nats, who are at least saying that they want to go for 9 December. They do not want to deliver Brexit—they never have—but none the less they are being consistent on that. We hear time and again that Scotland voted not to leave the European Union. More than 1 million Scots voted to leave the European Union. There is no reaching out to those 1 million Scots. More people voted to leave the European Union in Scotland than voted for the Scottish National party, so we see where that is going.
Then there are the Lib Dems, who just want to revoke article 50. They are called the Liberal Democrats. I do not know what aspect of them is democratic, because we had a referendum, the people said they wanted to leave, and that is not being fulfilled.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
As I understand it, the leader of the Liberal Democrats said that if we had a second referendum, she might not agree with its result. I wonder whether that is true.
Mr Evans
That was a previous position. However, we are in an even more bizarre position with Labour Members, because they say that if they win the election they will go to Brussels, renegotiate Brexit, then put that to the British people in a second referendum and campaign against the deal they just negotiated. That is the most Alice in Wonderland politics that I have seen in 28 years. Now we have an Opposition, who have been calling for an early general election, running scared. The last thing they want to do is face the electorate, and, quite frankly, I can see why.
Debate on the Address
Bob Stewart Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for everything he does to promote religious freedom around the world, and I can certainly give him that assurance. We will stand up for religious freedom in all our doings, and in all our foreign policy.
Bob Stewart
I thank my right hon. Friend. I know that he really cares about legacy prosecutions and what is happening to soldiers like Dennis Hutchings, but there was no mention in the Queen’s Speech of looking after our veteran soldiers from Northern Ireland. I know that my right hon. Friend intends to do that, so what are we going to do about it? In the case of Dennis Hutchings, it is urgent.
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend has anticipated a point that I am about to come to, but let me deal with it out of order, as it were, and say that we will be bringing forward legislation to protect serving and former serving personnel. As he will know, the consultation on that matter has just come to an end.
I have drawn several important points of distinction between this Government and the party led by the Leader of the Opposition, but, for our present purposes, perhaps the most immediate is that we want to get on and deliver Brexit on 31 October whereas he wants to dither and delay. I cannot in all conscience believe that that is the right way forward for this country.
The right hon. Gentleman recently said that he was “daunted” by the prospect that he might actually become Prime Minister. Well, I have to say that he is not alone in that fear—so are most Opposition Members, judging by their actions, most of the House of Commons, and, indeed, most of the country. I can give him the reassurance —the consolation—that I intend to do everything I can to prevent that from happening.
I hope very much that, in spite of some of our differences, the right hon. Gentleman will support at least some of the measures in the Gracious Speech. At the heart of the speech is an ambitious programme to unite our country with energy and with optimism, but also with the basic common sense of one nation Conservativism. Contrary to some of the gloomier things that we heard just now, we have unemployment at its lowest level since 1974, we have inward investment at record highs, we have 700,000 fewer children in workless households than there were in 2010, and we are leading the world in so many sectors of 21st-century business and technology. It is because of that economic success, that free market success—and I see the shadow Chancellor recoil at the notion of a free market success like a Transylvanian in the sunlight—that we will look after those who look after us and keep us safe. That is how we will spend another £2.2 billion on the armed services, which brings me to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart)—and yes, as I said, we will bring forward legislation to protect our serving men and women.
I should be very clear about this. The Government understand that no one can escape justice for a crime that they have committed, but we also understand that there should be no unfair prosecution when no new evidence has been produced; and yes, in the same spirit we will protect our brave police—who run towards danger to keep us safe—by putting the police covenant into law and by giving them the political support that they need in order to do their job, even if that means difficult and intrusive procedures like stop and search, because those procedures save lives. As we back our police and insist on serious sentencing for serious crimes—and I think it was the Labour party that instituted automatic early release—this Government, this one nation Government, also insist—
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
I am most grateful to be called to speak on this first day of the Queen’s Speech debate. I echo colleagues’ remarks about the excellence of the speeches that we heard at the beginning from my hon. Friends the Members for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) and for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton).
I do not know whether you recall, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the House of Commons gift shop used to sell a fridge magnet featuring the words of a certain British comedian, Spike Milligan. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) remembers it. Those words were “One day the don’t knows will get in, and then where will we be?” I fear that there is a danger that we shall be known as the “don’t know Parliament”.
This is the second Long Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West referred to the first Long Parliament and he may recall what Oliver Cromwell said on 20 April 1653:
“Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d…In the name of God, go!”
My hon. Friend is nodding.
I pray, in the earnest sense of the word, that on Saturday this House determines this matter of Brexit. I speak as a just-remainer who represents a midlands constituency that voted 60:40 out. I believe I have a moral duty to get my constituents out of Europe, and that the authority of the electorate—we delegated power to the electorate—supersedes anything passed by this House. It may be a legal nicety that the referendum was not legally binding, but woe betide this House if it ignores the will of the people.
We need a bit of luck in politics, and I cannot believe my luck seeing the Minister for Health my hon.—or probably right hon.—Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) sitting on the Front Bench, because I am intending to talk about health. Of course, one of the problems with the Queen’s Speech is that if we try to talk about the subject we wish to talk about someone like you, Madam Deputy Speaker, gets up and says “We have to restrict the debate to four”—or three or two—“minutes,” so we end up with no debate at all. As my perspicacious hon. Friend the Member for Southend West knows and pointed out, one of the joys of being lucky enough to be called on the first day, however, is that we might get a chance to make a longer speech, so I am particularly grateful to be called, and I want to talk about the health measures in the Queen’s Speech and, if I have time, say a word about the environment.
I absolutely welcome the 40 new hospitals that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has committed to, and I am particularly excited because Leicester, with the Royal Infirmary, the General and Glenfield, is going to be part of that massive hospital upgrade programme. I would like to think that when my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary came to Hinckley and saw what we were doing there—he visited an integrated healthcare clinic, where he saw chiropractors and massage therapists working together, apart from the main hospital—that might have influenced his decision.
Madam Deputy Speaker, it will be no secret to you and possibly the Minister of State that I have argued pretty much all my parliamentary career for integrated healthcare. I note that an integrated healthcare Bill was referred to in the Queen’s Speech, but I do not think it is quite the integration that I have been looking for, which is a wider range of treatments available on the NHS. I will go further today, in what might be my last speech—it will certainly be my last contribution to a Queen’s Speech debate—in what has so far been a 32-year career as I am standing down and say that, despite my support for these 40 hospitals, I think we need a new health paradigm. If we look around at what is happening outside—the Attenborough effect, worries about plastics and the Antarctic, not to mention activities recently—we can see that what we really need now is a sustainable healthcare policy. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) is getting a phone message.
David Tredinnick
I am glad, and I wasn’t expecting that; Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope you will waive the rule that says electronic devices are not allowed to be used in support of a cause.
We really need a new paradigm. We need a new health paradigm and that paradigm must look at the carbon footprint of drugs among other things, and it must look at how we are deploying resources in the health service. I have to say to my hon. Friend the Minister that there is a reluctance on the part of the medical establishment to share any space or any resources with anything it does not control itself. I cite in evidence the Osteopaths Act 1993 and the Chiropractors Act 1994. I sat on both those Bills; they were private Members’ Bills and they became Acts of Parliament. We were told beforehand, “The osteopaths and chiropractors do not have proper regulations so how can we bring them into the health service?” Well, they have now got proper regulation; they are regulated by Acts of Parliament, but where in the country do we find them working with orthopaedic surgeons? The osteopaths and the chiropractors have a carbon zero footprint—and the western acupuncturists for that matter have a carbon zero footprint—and they can help these practitioners in our hospitals. I would like to see a small percentage of the money going to these new hospitals put towards a broader base of treatment.
The Professional Standards Authority was set up by the Government to regulate, with oversight, a whole range of professions from sports therapists to all sorts of other therapists. I have argued so many times that the Government should respect the PSA’s own request that it be taken seriously and be able to refer cases that it sees to doctors. It is almost as if it does not exist. The Government speak with forked tongue on this, and I am really concerned about it, so I ask my hon. Friend—who perhaps will be winding up the debate—if she will look at that.
One third of the world’s population already has sustainable healthcare so this is hardly a novel approach. China, which has a population of 1.4 billion, has its traditional 4,000-year-old herbal medicine system and acupuncture, and India has a sustainable health ministry and a 4,000-year-old medical system plus the world’s greatest usage of homeopathy.
I have just been to India for a week at the request of its Government; I was invited by the Government to see what was going on. I went because on 17 January I had a chance to ask a question of a man I respect, Sir Andrew Dillon, who is the chairman of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. I said to him, “I can’t understand why you and your committee are dithering over whether acupuncture works for lower back pain—it has been on and off. Have any of your team been to China or India where the critical mass is, to see what is going on?” and he said, “No, we haven’t; we haven’t got the money.” In fairness to NICE, its budget has been cut by 30%.
I do not pretend to be an academic—I am a politician—but I did do research at Oxford under Professor Sammy Finer of All Souls and Gillian Peele at Lady Margaret Hall for a research degree in the ’80s, and they always said to me, “If you’re doing research, go to the biggest base of information you can find.” Yet NICE has been making decisions on tiny numbers of people—a few homeopaths in Liverpool, a couple of different groups of herbalists and acupuncturists. Why on earth are we not looking at the two biggest countries in the world that use these systems?
As I have said, I have been to India for a week as the guest of the Government. The Secretary of State knows all about this as I have talked to him about it; I was their guest and I shall declare it in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, but I paid for the flights. The AYUSH Ministry—Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa and Homoeopathy—covers a range of disciplines, but I want to dispose first of one component, and that is homeopathy. I want to dispose of this to give some idea of the scale of the operation. Here in the UK, the tiny group of homoeopaths has been under constant pressure in recent years from so-called sceptics saying that there is no evidence. When I was in Delhi, I met Dr Raj Manchanda who runs the Government services in Delhi. Delhi has 6,000 homeopathic clinics, with 15,000 registered homeopathic practitioners, of whom 80% are doctors who have had five years’ training. They practise in almost every street. I also went to the homeopathic institute and teaching hospital in Calcutta. On a 14-acre site, I found three different lines of patients waiting in areas the size of the New Palace Yard. The hospital was treating some 2,000 patients a day, off season, and 3,400 in the hot season, with 100 doctors and postgrads on duty at any one time.
This is the evidence we could look at. How can we possibly accept that there is no evidence when in the whole of India homeopathy—which was exported from London to India during the British time and caught on—has 300,000 practitioners, 250,000 of whom are doctors, treating an average 20,000 patients a day? I will leave that now. I know that not everybody wants to hear me going on about homeopathy—[Interruption.] Well, doesn’t it make it look ridiculous? There are a quarter of a million homeopathic doctors there, yet somebody here who is not very well qualified is saying that there is no evidence. I really think we should look at this. A lot of Indian homeopaths come back to the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine to do research degrees, and they regard it as the ultimate to come back here and do that work.
I was honoured to have a meeting with Shripad Naik, who is the Minister in charge at AYUSH. He is actually the equivalent of a Secretary of State. Here, the Secretary of State here has responsibility for 66 million people; Shripad has responsibility for 1,300 million, which is 1.3 billion. I think I have got that right; I never was a mathematician. I spoke to our Secretary of State about this, and he would be happy to receive an invitation from Minister Naik to visit India and look at these medical systems—I went round 12 hospitals—and also to establish a working group on traditional medicine such as the one India has with Germany. I would say to the Minister of State, before she gets distracted, that Minister Naik is in the process of opening 5,000 integrated health clinics with allopathic medicine, complementary medicine, the Ayurveda medical system of India and homeopathy. AYUSH, with its medical system including naturopathy, yoga and homeopathy, has 700,000 practitioners, 700 teaching institutions and 200 postgraduate institutions, with an annual intake of 46,000 for its degree courses and 6,000 for its postgrad course. It runs 3,000 Government hospitals that are integrated healthcare hospitals, and it has 28,000 dispensaries. It has 9,000 Government manufacturing units and there are six AYUSH practitioners per 10,000 population.
That is a massive operation, and I suggest that my hon. Friend the Minister really needs to look at this, because it offers us a chance to have a much better regulatory regime in this country. I do not think that our complementary and integrated healthcare regime is thorough enough, in the sense that it is scrappy and fragmented; I know that from working in this field. The AYUSH Ministry was set up by Prime Minister Modi in 2014 as an independent ministry—I remind colleagues that he has just been re-elected for another five-year term—and he has doubled the AYUSH budget twice. It has gone up four times in five years because AYUSH is so effective at treating people. It is extraordinary. It controls research, through central regulatory bodies and research councils. It controls 11 national educational institutes and it controls drug quality care regulation with two central pharmacopeia laboratories and a national medicinal plant board.
Looking around at the landscape outside the House now and at the general attitude that has got very intense—including people’s anger about plastics—I believe that it is only a matter of time before a tsunami of anger comes round the corner because people here are not allowed these services across the health service. I really encourage my hon. Friend to look at this, because they provide solutions where antibiotics are failing, and they provide solutions to opiate addiction. The three main services that AYUSH offers are: Ayurveda; yoga and naturopathy; and homeopathy.
Madam Deputy Speaker, you are smiling at me and I really appreciate that. I do not think you are standing to be the next Speaker—[Interruption.] You might be; perhaps you are, so you could be smiling for two reasons. Certainly, one of your reasons is to try to get me to sit down, so I will finish on this.
In 2013, I was acting Chairman of the Health Committee for a short period of time in the interregnum between our other hon. Friends who were Chairs, and I put out the report—HC401—entitled “Managing the care of people with long–term conditions”. It contains evidence from the late great Peter Fisher, the Queen’s homeopath, and George Lewith, who ran a department at the University of Southampton. What I found, going round 12 institutions and research laboratories in India, was that homeopathy was used frequently for long-term conditions with multiple problems because it can find the root of the problem, and I just ask my hon. Friend to look carefully at that and perhaps visit the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine, which is world-famous.
I hope that I may get called to speak again one day, Madam Deputy Speaker, but with that, I will sit down.
Bob Stewart
I agree with my right hon. Friend—absolutely—but I am confused. Most of us who drive cars carry an identity card: it has our name, our address, our date of birth, and a photograph on it. Effectively, therefore, we already have an ID card.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
For my hon. Friend and me, that is true, but I am thinking about the people who do not drive. I am thinking about disabled people and people who cannot afford a car and who need a better bus infrastructure. These people will feel threatened and will feel that they are being excluded or even prevented from voting. I ask the Government to think very carefully about how they go about this provision, because there are dangers inherent in it for the very people that he and I would seek to protect.
Bob Stewart
My hon. Friend says we aim to spend 2.4% of GDP on R&D. If that is correct, it is an enormous amount of money. To put it in context, it is way more than our defence budget.
UK Shared Prosperity Fund
Bob Stewart Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
European funding has been hugely important to Wales: particularly to my area of north Wales, but also to mid-Wales, and other areas. I echo the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry): many of us are frustrated by the lack of information—any information at all, for that matter—about how the shared prosperity fund will operate. The delay in the consultation is just symptomatic of the lack of care that the Government have shown towards the European funding that we have already had and towards what will happen in future, suggesting that regional funding is a low priority for this Government.
This issue is incredibly important in Wales, because we get a large amount of European funding. In fact, we get four and a half times more per head from the European Union in funding than any other nation or region in the UK. Of course, this was not always the case. Some people here will recall that the maps were redrawn to delineate west Wales and the valleys as the area that would get funding. These maps are called nomenclature of territorial units for statistics maps—ludicrously known as NUTS maps, as that is the acronym. The previous NUTS map for Wales put poor west Wales, where I live, in with the rather more prosperous north-east Wales, and south-west Wales in with the rather more prosperous Cardiff area. When the map was redrawn, suddenly we were allocated funding under the European Union’s regional policy, showing the value of that policy and also that a degree of cleverness is required in acquiring that funding, which we eventually showed.
Wales—particularly my area—is economically on a par with the former communist parts of eastern Europe, Portugal and southern Spain. That is not something that we celebrate, of course, although it does bring us in a certain amount of funding. Rather, it is the consequence of decades of marginalisation, neglect and mismanagement by Westminster. Let me echo the points made by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey. At the very least, can we have an assurance from the Minister that not a penny less will come to Wales under this fund as compared with under European funding?
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
My reading is that, actually, the funding will continue. It will just not come from Europe; it will come from London—at least in the immediate future.
Hywel Williams
The hon. Gentleman may be right, but I would like some confirmation of that, and certainly more information than “the immediate future” because we are looking beyond 2021. There are projects whose timescales demand that. In fact, there are projects in my community that require funding for many years into the future, including projects at Bangor University.
What is also extremely unclear, to me at least—perhaps the Minister can enlighten us—is the criteria for the allocation of money under the shared prosperity fund. I would argue for allocation on the basis of need. We will not accept the milking of funds that would otherwise have gone to Wales to fund projects elsewhere. That is certainly a fear. For example, Welsh farming might proportionately get considerably less money than one would expect if the criteria were based on, say, per head funding.
Luke Graham
I secured a debate on Scottish funding and devolved funding just before the summer recess to which no SNP MP turned up. In that debate, I gave the opportunity to challenge those figures and have an in-depth, detailed discussion about them, because they are not recognised by the Library. If they are, I will be happy to welcome another debate on the topic, so that we can take it further.
I would like to go on to the positive things that we are trying to do. The shared prosperity fund allows us to formalise the process of applying for funds. It could also build and improve the city deal and growth deal projects that have already been awarded Scotland to the value of over £1 billion. The money in the city deals has been very welcome, but I think Members on both sides of the House would agree that the city deal and growth deal process could do with some improvement. We can have less bureaucracy, and central Government should provide support to not only the devolved Administrations but the local authorities and civic groups that are applying for these funds. So often, exciting and transformational opportunities are lost because local businesses and local groups do not have the skills to meet a Green Book or European set of qualifications to access the funding that they so require.
Bob Stewart
It seems to me that there is a requirement for the shared prosperity fund organisation to have a local office, particularly to help small businesses.
Luke Graham
I thank my hon. Friend for his suggestion. That is just the kind of innovative proposal that we should be putting forward and having a cross-party discussion about, to ensure that the shared prosperity fund works for the entire United Kingdom.
Although we could talk about this for a great many hours more, I am conscious of time, so I will conclude. I am pleased that the Government have guaranteed funding to 2022, which I am sure the Minister will confirm, so that we can give assurances to the charities, local government and businesses in our communities. We do not come with grievance; we come with solutions. Let us keep the central fund of around £1.2 billion plus inflation for the future, but let us also recognise that it has not delivered transformational change for our constituents in Scotland. Perhaps we could put some of the UK match funding into a new direct central fund that local authorities and businesses could bid into, along national lines, to provide greater clarity and guarantees for our local communities, so that they can access the funds they so badly need to thrive and survive.
I agree with colleagues in Wales, Scotland and England that these funds provide opportunities to all our regions. We want to combat structural inequality and improve the opportunities we have, and we want to do it through a fine United Kingdom system.
Oral Answers to Questions
Bob Stewart Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Karen Bradley
I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman. He is absolutely right in the way he describes how the 2021 anniversary should be marked. I reflect on the work by the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) on the world war one commemorations, which had an inclusive nature that fostered reconciliation and brought great joy to the people of Northern Ireland.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Would it not be a good idea for the Secretary of State to declare, or to get the relevant organisation to declare, a bank holiday on 5 May, which will be the exact date, 100 years ago, that Northern Ireland was founded?
Oral Answers to Questions
Bob Stewart Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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John Penrose
I thought I heard just now the Secretary of State doing a pretty good job of showing the personal commitment and the urgency with which she is treating this. I am afraid I cannot add any more detail to the timetable, but I hope everybody here will have understood and heard the passion in her voice and the determination to move this forward promptly and swiftly.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)
My hon. and gallant Friend gave a very powerful speech on this on Monday, and I would encourage anybody here who has not heard it to go back and listen again. I think he and I agree that the current situation is not working for anyone. The question is not whether things need to change, because they clearly do, but how, so we have laws that work for police veterans as well as armed forces, for unionists and for nationalists, for victims and their families on all sides of the community, and that bring truth and justice and closure so society can move on. We will bring forward proposals as soon as possible.
Bob Stewart
As an ex-soldier, and now a Member of Parliament, I am ashamed that my Government have not sorted this matter out. I ask the Minister, and especially the Secretary of State, who has been in post longer—how much longer before it can be sorted out, and are you not ashamed?
John Penrose
My hon. and gallant Friend, having served in Northern Ireland, speaks with huge authority on this matter. I suspect that successive Governments have to share some blame for failing to fix it over many years. Clearly, as I said in my previous answer, the situation cannot be allowed to continue—it is not right; it is not just. It must be sorted out as promptly as possible. On that, I hope that he and I agree.