Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Clive Betts and Steve Barclay

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

The whole House will be hugely saddened to learn of the passing of Elliott, especially at such a tender age.

The hon. Lady is right to highlight the importance of speedy diagnosis, and I was pleased that we met the faster diagnosis standard in February for the first time and again in March, with three in four patients receiving their diagnosis within two weeks and nine in 10 starting treatment within a month. She is also right to point out that there is still variation between trusts, and we are focusing on that in particular, but it is good that nationally we are hitting the faster diagnosis standard.

[Mr Betts]

When I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma six years ago, my GP gave me two pieces of advice: keep positive and keep active. The other day, I visited the wellbeing centre in my constituency, which is run by Sheffield Hallam University, the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Yorkshire Cancer Research. It is putting on a programme called Active Together to which people who are diagnosed with cancer can be referred by their consultant and have a bespoke programme of treatment involving physical activity, nutrition and psychological support to prepare them for surgery, and a programme after surgery to help them recover. Would the Secretary of State like to come to my constituency to visit this novel and innovative programme to see how it could be rolled out across the country and treat more cancers well in this way?

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting and important point. How we better equip patients pre-surgery and post-surgery, how we look at their wellbeing—the keep positive bit and the social prescribing—and how we think about being active are all are hugely important. I would be keen to learn more about the programme that he highlights and for either me or one of the ministerial team to follow up on his offer.

Recovering Access to Primary Care

Debate between Clive Betts and Steve Barclay

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

First, I commend my hon. Friend because this is an issue that she has championed and she has been right to do so. These are degree-qualified clinical roles, so it is sensible that we make far better use of the skills that they offer. We saw during covid just how much value they offer to their communities. I confirm that they will be paid for these roles; that is what the additional funding is all about. She has been right over the years to highlight the importance of pharmacies and what they can offer, and that is what this announcement is all about.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

First, I thank the GPs in my constituency and their staff for the job that they are doing for my constituents under the most enormous pressure. I want to include in particular GPs’ receptionists in that for the up-front service they give; there is particular pressure on them. GPs—often in their 50s—are saying to me that they want to leave and give up not because of pensions but because of the overbearing workload they have, and the incredible centralisation and red tape coming from NHS England at national level. They look for new GPs coming through and see so many trainees and qualified doctors now going off to Canada, New Zealand and Australia because the terms and conditions of work are better there. When will we see from the Secretary of State the workforce plan that has been promised over and over again—it was supported by the Chancellor when he was Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee—to deliver the amount of training we need and the efforts to retain the GPs we already have?

[Steve Barclay]

I agree and thank the hon. Member, who is absolutely right to recognise the huge amount of work done by GPs and their staff, including receptionists. That is why the recovery plan is very much targeted at recognising the workload. I flagged in my statement the additional volume of patients that a typical GP surgery is seeing and that reflects the huge amount of work that is done. I think pensions were a factor, certainly in the feedback from the profession. The issue was raised. The changes the Chancellor announced take 9,000 GPs out of the tax changes, but the hon. Gentleman is right—that was not the only factor; the workload was another. The recovery plan looks to cut bureaucracy and, as I say, reduces the targets to five. It also looks at areas where there are appointments that we do not feel are necessary—so it looks at how secondary care can do fit notes, for example, rather than someone needing to go to the GP to get one. There are areas where we can streamline GPs’ workload and that is what the recovery plan does. On the workforce plan, we have said on a number of occasions that, post purdah, we would set that out very shortly. We will have more to say on that in due course.

Health and Social Care Levy

Debate between Clive Betts and Steve Barclay

1st reading
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I will come to the points on devolution and happily give way at that stage, but let me just deal with the Opposition amendment, which requests a distributional impact assessment. As we have covered, that has been set out today. The Government have already published a document on the impact of our health and social care plan on households, looking at the impact of the new spending and the levy, with a full distributional analysis being published at the Budget and spending review.

As for the impact on businesses, businesses will play their part in funding this plan. However, existing national insurance contribution reliefs and allowances will also apply to the levy. This means that 40% of all businesses will not be affected due to the employment allowance, and it allows eligible employees to reduce their national insurance liability by up to £4,000. Again, that point was brought out by my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), who highlighted the impact on business and the fact that businesses, with 1% of the highest turnover, will cover 70% of the cost.

[Mr Betts]

I think the right hon. Gentleman probably knows which point I am going to raise. I am very interested in the impact on local authorities. Out of the £36 billion that will be raised over three years, how much extra money will go to local authorities after the costs of the “cap and floor” system have been taken into account? How much extra money over three years will go to local authorities out of the £36 billion?

[Steve Barclay]

I listened very closely to the hon. Gentleman’s speech, because he is a very informed and knowledgeable commentator on these issues. He rightly pointed to paragraph 36, where we are being very clear about the role in terms of demographic and unit pressure. As he well knows, part of the discussion at a spending review is to look at local government pressures in the round. That is in the context that local authorities are getting an additional £2.2 billion of funding. I remind the House, in terms of the adult social care flexibility that was allowed for councils this year, that out of the 152 local authorities, less than two thirds actually used that flexibility. That is part of looking at these issues in context.

Let me come to the central point put forward by the Scottish National party, which was very well demolished by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont). All parts of the United Kingdom need a long-term solution to fund health and social care. The Scottish Government’s independent review of adult social care recently noted—[Interruption.] I am quoting from their own review. I thought they would want to hear that. It stated that

“Scotland’s ageing demography means that more money will need to be spent on adult social care over the long term”—

and its recommendations to the Scottish Government are that this would

“require a long-term and substantial uplift in adult social care funding.”

In fact, in 2002, John Swinney said that a 1% increase was

“progressive taxation…required to invest in the health service in Scotland”.—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 18 April 2002; c. 8005.]

Additional Covid-19 Restrictions: Fair Economic Support

Debate between Clive Betts and Steve Barclay

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I will make a little progress and then of course I will give way.

In taking forward the targeted action plan that the Prime Minister has set out, we recognise that there will be significant local economic impacts, particularly for the areas in tier 3. That is why the Government have set out a package of support, and indeed why, as I say, the Mayors in other areas have worked constructively with it. This package has a number of parts. I heard reference in the shadow Minister’s opening remarks to £8 per head. That is just one component of a much wider package. It may therefore be helpful to take the House through the full suite of funding that is available.

First, local authorities are absolutely critical to the tier 3 restrictions. That is why, in addition to the £3.7 billion of un-ring-fenced grants that were announced earlier this year, the Prime Minister announced a further £1 billion of support, so that is agreed funding for local authorities that will be allocated to them shortly. In addition to that, local authorities in tier 3 will receive a further £8 per head in respect of public health measures specifically linked to enforcement within the outbreak management fund. That goes alongside other measures such as the availability of military support, which sits in addition to the infection control funding that local authorities also have access to—a further £300 million that will support localised test and trace services, specifically within tier 3—and the £1.1 billion to support infection control within the adult social care sector. Before we get on to the discussion around business support or the support for individuals through the job support scheme, it is important not to talk about local authority support just in terms of £8 per head, because that is one component of a much wider package of support that the Prime Minister has announced.

[Mr Betts]

I welcome the support for local testing, tracking and tracing. It should have been done months ago: that is the reality of the situation. As regards local negotiations—I put this to the Health Secretary last night and he did not deny it—there are not negotiations; there is a financial package that the Government have decided on that has been offered to all areas that have been put up to tier 3 status. It is a case of saying, “Take it or leave it: there’s no extra money going to be negotiated.” That is exactly what leaders in South Yorkshire have said it is: lots of civil servants in a room telling us what we cannot have. These have been the discussions, not negotiations, that have been happening in South Yorkshire in the past few days.

[Steve Barclay]

There has been a framework that we have used to shape our discussions. However, is this not what the Opposition motion, in essence, is calling for—a nationalised approach? In fact, we just heard an Opposition Member calling for the exact opposite in saying that the Mayor of Manchester had a case that was supposedly better than that of the Mayors in Liverpool or South Yorkshire, so the Mayor of Manchester should be treated a preferential way to constituents elsewhere in the north-west. Yet the hon. Gentleman, who I know comes at this very constructively—I recognise that that has always been his approach in the House—says something different. There seems to be confusion among Opposition Members. Do they want a national approach or do they want the Mayor of Manchester to be able to negotiate something allegedly on behalf of Great Britain? I do not think that was his electoral mandate.

Areas with Additional Public Health Restrictions: Economic Support

Debate between Clive Betts and Steve Barclay

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I am very happy to reassure my hon. Friend that the package of support that the Chancellor set out in his winter plan will assist businesses in Stoke and elsewhere, bringing back jobs that are viable and supporting them in terms of their cash flow. Furlough has already seen more than half the jobs—from a peak of 8.9 million—come back, so it has served a key part of its purpose. I know that my hon. Friend is also a keen champion of the wider levelling up agenda, so as those businesses bounce back, it will also be important that we work together on that agenda, which I know areas such as Stoke should benefit from very strongly.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

In the leisure and entertainment industry in my constituency, Cineworld shut its cinema, Hollywood Bowl has written to me about the problems that it has, wanting a further cut in VAT because of the impact of additional restrictions, Peller Agency has had virtually no work for any of its artists in live entertainment venues since March, and Central Travel and Linburg Travel were offered no help by the Government at all because, perversely, coach companies are not seen as part of the leisure industry. Those are effects on the constituency without additional restrictions; it can only get worse if additional restrictions come into play. Will the Government introduce a comprehensive range of measures to help the leisure and entertainment industry? Ultimately, if measures are not brought in, such products and offerings will not be available for all of us to enjoy once the restrictions are lifted.

[Steve Barclay]

I gently take issue with the point about coaches not having support. One of the areas where coach firms have been able to benefit hugely from our response, and to work with the Government, has been in school transport. We were able to secure the additional capacity that we needed in part through the willingness of coach companies to adapt as part of our response. It is not the case that coach companies have been unable to get any business during the pandemic.

On more comprehensive measures, the hon. Member is right that the cinema industry has been hit hard. We were all concerned to see the announcement from Cineworld at the weekend. Together with Odeon and Vue that is 75% of the market, but as he knows it is not simply down to one issue. With cinemas, there is the supply of films—the delay of some of the blockbuster films has had an impact—and consumer confidence. Attendance is significantly down compared with last year, and there is also the impact of the non-pharmaceutical interventions. There is not one single factor, but we continue to work with the cinema industry in shaping our response.

Checks on Goods: Northern Ireland and Great Britain

Debate between Clive Betts and Steve Barclay

Thursday 24th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

My hon. Friend absolutely captures a key point in terms of that distinction, and I very much agree with him. I would expect most firms to get intermediaries to complete the administrative process required for moving goods, so he is absolutely right in the distinction that he draws. Indeed, that is exactly what the implementation period would be used for—to address that distinction.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

On exiting the EU, trade between the port of Rotterdam and England will be subject to checks. If the same goods go from other EU countries to England through the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, will they be subject to the same checks, and if so, where will those checks take place?

[Stephen Barclay]

I visited the port of Rotterdam to discuss the arrangements that it is making. For goods coming from Rotterdam to, say, Northern Ireland and then on to Great Britain, any requirements are within the control of Great Britain and the UK; there are no requirements on that in the protocol. The hon. Gentleman knows that most of the time—this is what I was discussing with the port of Rotterdam—these issues are intelligence-led in any event. That is the case now and that will be the case in the future.

EU Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Changes

Debate between Clive Betts and Steve Barclay

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

Well, the hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He cannot, on the one hand, say that he is voting against the deal and then, on the other, pray against the uncertainty that will result from voting against it. We have already covered this point on a number of occasions: the UK Government cannot unilaterally extend article 50. That requires the consent of the other 27 member states. Even if they wanted to grant such consent, there are practical issues to consider, as I have set out, such as the timing of the European parliamentary elections. Let me be very clear: it is not the Government’s policy to extend or to revoke article 50. I thought, as I am sure many other Members did, that that was also Labour’s policy—I am sure many Labour voters also thought so, based on its manifesto. He needs to be clear, if he is voting against the deal: is he, or is he not, going back on the manifesto on which he stood?

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Before Christmas, this House had a great deal of problems getting hold of a copy of the Attorney General’s advice. If there is now to be any change to the deal itself, or to the agreed explanatory wording that sits alongside the deal, may I suggest to the Secretary of State that the Government would run the risk of once again being held in contempt if they withheld any changes in the Attorney General’s advice? Will the Secretary of State avoid the Government once again being held in contempt by giving an assurance to the House here and now that, if there is any change to the advice, that change will be given to the House, or that confirmation will be given that the advice has not changed at all?

[Stephen Barclay]

It will not surprise the hon. Gentleman to hear that no Minister wants to be found in contempt of the House. Obviously, any possibility of our being found in such contempt will be taken extremely seriously, and the Government would look at that and respond accordingly.