Baby Loss Awareness Week

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered baby loss awareness week.

This is the fourth Baby Loss Awareness Week debate, and it is incredibly heartening to see how this has become an annual event in the House. It helps to send a clear signal outside this place about the importance of this subject in the Chamber, in the Department of Health and Social Care and in the national health service.

Over the years, many Members of Parliament have been brave enough to share their personal and painful accounts of baby loss, which, while heartbreaking to hear, have done so much to raise the profile of this important issue and to start vital conversations about it. It is absolutely right and fundamentally important that we continue to raise awareness of both the devastating impact of baby loss and the support that bereaved parents need through the grieving process to help them adjust to their loss. I do not think people ever fully heal or get over the loss of a much loved and much wanted child, but with the right care and support they might be able slowly to move forward with their lives.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I identify with everything the Minister has said so far. One point about these debates for members of the public who have not experienced baby loss, and for some Members here, is what we learn about the heartbreak and, in some instances, the lack of support. In general terms, it has been very good to have these debates—even if we do have them annually—because they educate the public about an issue that has too often been shoved under the carpet, for want of a better term. It is better that people now understand what other people go through in life, so I do appreciate the Minister’s opening remarks.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I thank the hon. Gentleman so much for that intervention. He is absolutely right. In this place, we have a unique opportunity to raise subjects that people find it difficult to talk about out there. In doing so, we shine a light on those subjects, and we are able to really begin to move the dial and to change practice.

With that in mind, I would like to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) and my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), who is desperate to speak, although, being a Minister, he is prevented from doing so, so we will have to restrain him. However, in a late-night Adjournment debate back in 2015, they began to raise awareness of the variation in care for families bereaved by baby loss. It was an incredibly moving debate—I remember listening to it at the time—and it really made such a magnificent difference. It was followed by the Baby Loss Awareness Week 2016 debate, which was about bringing the subject to light and challenging the idea that baby loss is an uncomfortable topic that we do not like to talk about. I am grateful to the Members from across this House who shared their personal experiences on that day back in 2016 and have done since.

International Baby Loss Awareness Week begins tomorrow and finishes next Tuesday. This year, the focus is on the need for specialist psychological support for bereaved parents who need it. The Baby Loss Awareness Alliance group of charities will be publishing a report highlighting that some parents need that kind of support as part of their bereavement care.

Batten Disease: Access to Drugs

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

Thank you for clarifying that, Mr Speaker. I very much share the passion that I detect my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset feels about this issue, which I know is shared by Members on both sides of the House.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

On the basis of what Mr Speaker has said, surely if those who are taking this issue to the courts withdrew their challenge, or if the Minister gave them a satisfactory answer to help the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), it would not be sub judice. The Minister has the power to do that.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am very tempted to do so, but I would like to try to make progress on some of the things I can say, and then we can maybe move on to a more satisfactory conclusion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Dinenage]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The legal position, as I understand it, is that NHS England and NHS Improvement have been in discussions with the manufacturer BioMarin for some time to try to seek a deal that would enable NICE to recommend the drug for use on the NHS, but so far an agreement has unfortunately not been possible. As hon. Members know, and as I said at the beginning of my speech, NICE’s assessment is currently subject to an ongoing legal procedure. NICE has published its draft recommendation and was unfortunately unable to recommend the use of the drug, despite its meeting the criteria for consideration under the highest cost-effectiveness threshold. NICE has not yet re-published its final word on this issue, and that may provide more clarity. In the meantime, it is of course open to the company to enter into an agreement with NHS England that would make the drug cost-effective and would make the legal procedure unnecessary.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

If NHS England got a satisfactory agreement with the drug manufacturer, would that have any bearing on the decision of the Secretary of State or on NICE?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I do not think it would contravene any legal recommendations if I were to say that if the manufacturer, NHS England and NICE were to get around a table and agree a satisfactory price, there would be no need for the legal challenge. In actual fact, the desperately poorly children we have heard about today would therefore be able to get the treatments that they desperately need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Dinenage]

I completely understand what the hon. Lady says, and I completely agree with her. I would love to be able to solve this problem straightaway and give these children the lifeline they need. Unfortunately, that is not the case today. I have committed to make a statement before the House finishes for recess at the end of next week, so I will come back shortly with all the information I am allowed to give. I really do not want her to think that this in any way suggests that I do not understand how the families must be feeling. I can only begin to imagine how desperate it must be to have such a poorly child.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I do not want to be difficult for the Minister, because she is doing a very difficult job, but could she clarify something? I got the impression from something she said a minute or two back that if NICE and NHS England concluded negotiations and agreed a price with the drug manufacturer, that would be acceptable to the Government.

[Caroline Dinenage]

My understanding is that if the manufacturer of this vital drug gets around the table with NICE and suggests a price within a reasonable scale, NICE would be very open to listening. That is my understanding. Certainly, I understand calls from Members across the House for NHS England, NICE and the manufacturer to get around the table to try to find a solution. That seems to me to be the most sensible way forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

We are really supportive of the Hidden Half campaign, run by the NCT—my colleague the Minister met the trust last week. We must ensure that we are supportive of new mothers’ health needs.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

What improvements have emerged in relation to prostate cancer treatments?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am really pleased that the hon. Gentleman has raised that. Clearly, early screening is fundamental and one of the key pillars of what we want to focus on with cancers. Prostate cancer affects so many gentlemen up and down the country, and we know that that early detection is the difference between life and death.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Jim Cunningham

Monday 14th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

There are no cuts. The cuts are a figment of the hon. Gentleman’s imagination. We are putting an extra £6 billion of funding into this scheme by 2020. It is more than any Government have ever spent on early years childcare.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

6. What steps she is taking to improve the social mobility of children and young people.

UK Manufacturing Sector

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Jim Cunningham

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is imperative that the Government work to facilitate business development and innovation as much as is humanly possible.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. In addition to what the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) said about Bosch, Jaguar Land Rover has been a success story, creating not only direct but indirect jobs in the west midlands. Anyone who knows anything about industry knows that for every direct job, there are probably two or three indirect jobs, so there is a multiplying factor. Does the hon. Lady agree that in the west midlands, and particularly in Coventry, slowly but surely, manufacturing is beginning to come back? The process under successive Governments has been slow, but it is encouraging to see companies such as Bosch and Jaguar Land Rover. Not so long ago, the Minister helped out with the London Taxi Company, and that maintained an anchorage for manufacturing in the midlands and nationally.

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Manufacturing is growing apace, and Government intervention is key to continuing that progress. That is why their recent funding commitments through the aerospace growth partnership have been so widely welcomed.

I have given some examples of how the Government have overseen initiatives to help what might be called the push or supply side of business innovation.