NHS: Independent Investigation

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Wes Streeting

Thursday 12th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

For all the innovations that modern technology will bring—the revolution in big data AI, machine learning and medical advances that we will see very soon but can scarcely imagine today—health and social care will always be fundamentally a people-based service. If you do not value your people, you lose them and end up in the appalling situation that we are in today. We have invested so much money and time in training people who imagined a long future for themselves in the NHS but who, because of the reality to which they were subjected by the previous Government, are now packing up and moving into different careers—or to other continents. We are determined not just to recruit the great staff we need, but to value and retain the brilliant staff we already have.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will know that cancer is the biggest cause of death by illness for children under 14 in the UK, and that this is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. He will not know that it is also the third anniversary of the death of my constituent Sophie Fairall, who was 10 years old. With Sophie’s mum Charlotte, I have been campaigning for the past three years for the children and young people cancer taskforce to be set up. The taskforce was set up at the beginning of this year with the stated aim of meaningfully changing detection, treatment and care for children with cancer. I have listened carefully to the Secretary of State and have heard him passionately set out that he wants to focus on prevention and early intervention, yet this month we learned that he is pausing the taskforce. Parents of children with cancer are deeply disturbed by that announcement, as am I. Can the Secretary of State set out why it was made?

[Wes Streeting]

Absolutely. I thank the hon. Member for the way she put her question. I send my deepest condolences to Sophie’s family on what will inevitably be a difficult day—I suspect just the latest of many difficult days—on the imaginable pain, grief and loss that they have suffered. I thank the hon. Member for her work over many years campaigning on children’s cancer in this House on behalf of her constituents and so many other families affected by young cancer.

The pause is because we are looking at the breadth of the work of the Department to make sure that we have the right vehicles to deliver the outcomes that we want. That is why we have paused rather than cancelled, slammed or criticised the work that she was doing. I would be delighted to meet her to talk about the genesis of the taskforce and how we can take forward the outcomes that she wants to see. What we are trying to avoid is a plethora of taskforces, and the risk that there has sometimes been—this is not a party political point, because this spans successive Governments—of taskforces being an alternative for action. I know that she wants action, so let us meet and see what we can do together.

Visible Religious Symbols: European Court Ruling

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Wes Streeting

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to bring that up, because the judgment applies to religious symbols, whatever the faith of the individual who happens to be wearing them. The ruling will be equally troubling for the Church of England, for people of Muslim faith, for people of whatever faith and indeed for people of none.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Sophia Dar, a Muslim woman in my constituency, was attacked in broad daylight on Oxford Street, one of the busiest shopping streets in the world, let alone London, by a man who forcibly tried to remove her hijab from her head. Do not these judgments reinforce a sense that other people have the right to tell people of faith what they can and cannot wear and how they choose to practise or not practise their faith? In addition to the very welcome guidelines to which the Minister has committed today, will she look at what we can do to enforce existing laws that protect people from religious discrimination so that the attacker of my constituent is brought to very heavy justice?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am very sorry to hear about the hon. Gentleman’s constituent. That sounds like a very distressing thing to happen. Those who perpetrate hate crimes of any kind will be punished with the full force of the law. We are committed to tackling hate crime and have produced a new hate crime action plan that focuses on reducing hate crime, increasing reporting and increasing support for victims.