Support for Ukraine and Countering Threats from Russia

Debate between Chi Onwurah and John Healey

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

Then the hon. Gentleman has answered his own question; I am delighted he was able to answer it with an emphatic yes.

I turn now to the fifth dimension, where the Government will have Labour’s full support if they act as they should. It is one thing to confront Russian aggression abroad, but we must also strengthen our defences at home. We know that the UK is not immune to Russia’s aggression. We have had chemical weapons used on our soil to kill people. We have had dissidents murdered on British soil. We have had cyber-attacks against UK Government Departments, our defence agencies and even the organisations trying to develop our covid vaccines.

I say to the Minister that for too long that has been the poor relation of our national security and our national resilience. The Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report in 2020 said:

“Russia’s cyber capability…poses an immediate and urgent threat to our national security.”

The recommendations of that report have still not been implemented in full. The Government’s integrated review, almost a year ago, promised a national resilience strategy, but that has not yet been published. Our armed forces are essential to both our national defence and our national resilience. With the Army already cut to its smallest size for 300 years, in the light of the circumstances and the threats we now face, Ministers’ plans to cut a further 10,000 troops from Army numbers over the next three years must now be halted.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the excellent speech he is making. I asked the Prime Minister about Russian cyber-activity last week, particularly with the well-known history of bot farms and misinformation, and he did not have a response in terms of taking action. Bot farm activity has reduced in recent days because Russia has limited access to the internet. Is it not the case that we as a sovereign nation should be looking to take action to limit the influence of Russia’s bot farms and misinformation on our economy and society, rather than leaving it to the Russians?

[John Healey]

Indeed, we have been slow to appreciate the scale of the disinformation driven by the Russian state directly and by its proxies. We have been slow to realise the extent to which it is corrupting our public discourse and in some cases interfering with our elections. Once again, the steps the Government could be taking, but that they seem very slow to take, have been set out in this House by my hon. Friend and others who are experts in that area.

Finally, on the sixth dimension, talking is always better than fighting. Even in these circumstances, President Zelensky in Ukraine has displayed outstanding leadership. Even as Russia continued to intensify its attacks, he was willing to hold talks, saying that there was

“still a chance, however small”.

He is also right to say:

“It’s necessary to at least stop bombing people…and then sit down at the negotiating table.”

I see as a significant development today’s confirmation that China is ready to play a role, saying that it is

“looking forward to China playing a role in realising a ceasefire”.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Chi Onwurah and John Healey

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I had not intended to speak in this part of the debate but I was so underwhelmed and unimpressed by the Minister that I felt moved to do so. It is interesting to follow the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes). I think he was offering his support to the Front-Bench team, but often it was not entirely possible to be certain. One thing he talked about was quite telling—the flaws in the systems we as a Government tried to put in place after we did away with community health councils. The Secretary of State and his colleagues were very critical about those arrangements when they sat on the Opposition Benches. One might have hoped that they would make their criticisms and learn the lessons and not repeat some of the mistakes that we certainly made in the arrangements for a strong patient voice and strong patient representation after the community health councils, but this evening’s debate and what we have been presented with in this final stage of the Bill make it quite clear that that is not the case.

At the heart of the proposal in the White Paper, which was co-signed by the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister in July 2010, was the proposition to put patients at the very heart of the NHS. That was common ground and was supported by many. It was a promise that really went to the heart of the proposition about the NHS changes. Despite that promise, it is clear that patients are not at the heart of the NHS but at the margins. The slogan for patients that there will be no decision about me without me is simply that—a slogan. I remember that early in the autumn of 2010 patient groups who were trying to come to terms with the plans were saying—quietly at first but more loudly later—that the arrangements in the White Paper and then in the Bill when it was first introduced in the House would lead to less involvement of patients in future, not more. Since that point, the Bill has had more than 1,000 amendments—some 374 amendments were made in the other place and we have four hours to consider those amendments tonight—but looking at the Bill now I can see very little difference from the position as it was first expressed almost 18 months ago, when it first caused concern to those patient groups.

In this area of all areas in which party politics should not be part of provision for a strong patient voice, representation and safeguarding, I want to take the Government at their word. They said that they wanted to set up at the heart of the NHS a strong independent voice for patients. The House needs to consider what that means, and to do that we need to go back to first principles.

It seems to me that there are four principles or characteristics which must serve as yardsticks by which to measure whether an organisation can be a strong, effective voice for patients. The first is independence. In order to function as a strong, fearless voice for patients, any organisation that acts on their behalf must be independent of commissioners, independent of providers and independent of regulators because part of its job on behalf of patients may well be to stand up to and criticise the providers, the commissioners or the regulators at some point in fulfilling its duties. The arrangements that the House is asked to approve tonight fail that first basic test of an effective organisation for patients.

The second principle or yardstick is representation. If the organisation is to be an effective representative voice for patients, clearly it must have some representation system and accountability to the people on whose behalf it acts and speaks. Again, on that test, the arrangements that we are asked to approve tonight fail. The third principle or test of an effective patient organisation is whether it is rooted or grounded in good local information and monitoring. Again, nothing in the arrangements and nothing I heard from the Minister, who has now left the Chamber in the middle of the debate that he opened, gave me any reassurance that that third principle or test is met in the arrangements.

The fourth test or principle for an effective, independent organisation surely must be adequate resources. There are serious questions over the nature, the level and the system for the resources that will allow such an organisation to do the job that we in the House are legislating for it to do on behalf of patients.

At a national level first, I say to the Secretary of State as his junior Minister is not present that setting up HealthWatch England as a sub-committee of the Care Quality Commission just does not cut it. It is implausible that a body can act impartially and fearlessly on behalf of patients if it is a sub-committee of the care regulator. How can it be, and equally important, how can it appear to be independent and authoritative, if it is set up within the administrative, organisational and financial embrace of the CQC? The CQC itself is clearly one of those organisations that HealthWatch England and local healthwatch bodies may need to stand up to and criticise.

There was an amendment in the other place to give the Government an opportunity to change their mind and set up HealthWatch England as an independent statutory body. That Labour-led, Labour-moved amendment was defeated in the other place, I am sad to say, by a combination of Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers.

Secondly, on the local healthwatch organisations, I think I understood what the Minister said earlier—that the Bill introduces a statutory duty on local authorities to set up a local healthwatch organisation. Placing a statutory duty on a local authority to carry out a particular activity is very different from creating a statutory basis for that organisation to operate in its own right. How will that arrangement at local level ensure independence, representativeness, good local links and resources—the four things that I would argue are the essential elements of an effective organisation on behalf of patients? On the fourth point, which is about resources, I may have missed something in today’s debate or in the debate at the other end of the building, but we still have not had clear answers to the following questions. I would be grateful if the Minister answered these questions when he deigns to return to the Chamber to respond to the debate, unless the Secretary of State will be doing that himself.

First, will local healthwatch organisations be funded directly by the Department of Health? Secondly, if funding will go via local authorities, what will the mechanism be for that funding? Thirdly, will funding for local healthwatch organisations be consistent across local areas so that patients, wherever they live, can be confident that they have a strong local representative organisation working on their behalf? Otherwise, this is legislation for a local lottery in patient representation and the strength of local patient voices.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the many excellent points he is making. Is it his understanding, as it is mine, that all the local healthwatch activities could be carried out by private sector—and therefore, for-profit—bodies? Does he feel that providing the strong, independent, representative voice for local people should be a profitable activity for private sector organisations?

[John Healey]

My answer to my hon. Friend’s second question is no, and I do not know the answer to her first question, which should really be directed to the Minister. We need an explanation of how the system for setting up, or in effect franchising, local patient organisations will be carried out, what sort of framework that will take place in, and what standards, if any, will be required for the way they are set up and run.