Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Daisy Cooper and Lindsay Hoyle(2 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
Citizens Advice in St Albans supports some of the most vulnerable people to access public services. It says that the changes to national insurance contributions will
“hit hard because we employ mostly part-time staff and the change to the threshold means we go from paying nothing to the full amount for each staff member. The increased rebate is intended to offset the NIC for small organisations but does not for us because so many of our staff are part-time.”
Will the Chancellor look again at the impact of the national insurance contribution changes on part-time workers?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Daisy Cooper and Lindsay Hoyle(1 month ago)
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Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
May I associate myself and the Liberal Democrats with the Deputy Prime Minister’s remarks on Ukraine?
Ahead of the Budget, I warned the Deputy Prime Minister that increasing national insurance contributions on social care providers would make the crisis in social care worse. Now, OBR figures suggest that the increase in NICs will cost more to social care providers than the money the Government have announced for that sector in the Budget, with that measure alone withdrawing £200 million from the sector. Will the Deputy Prime Minister speak with the Chancellor to ensure that, at the very least, health and care providers are protected from taking the hit?
Daisy Cooper
It is clear that social care providers will be worse off, so I urge the Deputy Prime Minister and the Chancellor to look again at that.
Somebody else who was worried about the Budget is Cathy, a farmer in my constituency, who told me yesterday that she thinks the Government changes simply do not make sense. They mean that her family may have to pay a bill that will force them to sell land, which makes food production unviable. At the same time, the Government have not closed the land-buying tax loophole that can be exploited by equity firms and the super-wealthy. Farmers told me yesterday that they feel as though they were betrayed by the Conservatives, and they now feel—[Interruption.]
Daisy Cooper
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Farmers told me yesterday that they feel as though they have been betrayed by the Conservatives, but they now feel that they have also been lied to by Labour. Will the Deputy Prime Minister think again on this measure, so that our farmers can feed Britain?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Daisy Cooper and Lindsay Hoyle(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
As the newly appointed Treasury spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, this is my first opportunity to welcome the Chancellor and Ministers to their places. Notwithstanding that, on the winter fuel payment, the Government need to think again. I recently spoke with representatives of Citizens Advice in St Albans, who are deeply concerned that letters from the Department for Work and Pensions will be sent out only in December to people that it believes are eligible, meaning that many people may lose out. We have urged the Government to either reverse the cut and make it taxable or look at, for example, raising the pension credit limit. Could the Government confirm whether they are going to look again at any of the measures that we have suggested?
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
Small businesses are the engine of our economy, but many of them are penalised for investing in their businesses because of the broken business rates system. Will the Chancellor ensure that investment is exempted from business rates, and will she ensure that the Budget tomorrow is the final Budget in which business rates are a permanent feature?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Daisy Cooper and Lindsay Hoyle(2 months ago)
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Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
May I associate myself and the Liberal Democrats with the Deputy Prime Minister’s remarks about Chris Hoy, and about all those involved in the train crash?
Our NHS is bracing itself for a winter crisis. One of the causes of the winter crisis every year is that there are thousands of people in hospitals who are fit to go home, but who cannot be discharged because there are not the care workers in place to enable people to recover at home or in a care home. Will the Deputy Prime Minister consider the Liberal Democrats’ idea of an NHS winter taskforce to winter-proof our NHS, end the cycle of the winter crisis, and put to an end the scandal of hospital patients paying the price of the social care crisis left by the Conservatives?
NHS: Independent Investigation
Debate between Daisy Cooper and Lindsay Hoyle(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
Much of the content of Lord Darzi’s report has been known for some years. None the less, today’s report is a scathing summary of the complete devastation that the Conservatives have wrought on our health services and on the health of our communities. We Liberal Democrats have long argued that we need to shift healthcare from hospitals to high streets, and from treatment to prevention, because doing so improves health outcomes and saves taxpayers’ money. It is a win-win.
But the report is long on diagnosis and short on prescription, so may I invite Ministers to read our fully costed manifesto to fix public health and primary care by recruiting 8,000 GPs, ending dental deserts, boosting public health grants by £1 million, implementing our five-year plan to boost cancer survival rates, and putting a mental health expert in every school?
Does the Secretary of State accept that there is an elephant in the room: social care? Will he meet me to discuss the Liberal Democrat plans for social care, starting with free personal care? This bold idea would prevent many people from going into hospital in the first place, as well as enabling them to be discharged from hospital faster. Does he accept that it is a truth universally acknowledged that we cannot fix the NHS if we do not fix social care too?
As for the dire state of our hospitals and primary care estate, well, the Conservatives have left it to fester like a wound. Will the Secretary of State give the green light to hospitals that are ready to rebuild, such as mine in west Hertfordshire? Will Ministers look to reform outdated Treasury rules that are preventing our integrated care boards and hospital trusts from spending and investing their funds in the GP practices and hospitals that we need? This Government say that they want growth. Well, health and wealth are two sides of the same coin, which is something the Conservatives do not understand. If Labour wants economic growth, fixing our health and social care must be its top priority. And it must be a priority without delay.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Daisy Cooper and Lindsay Hoyle(5 months ago)
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Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
I welcome the Secretary of State and his Ministers to their roles, but let me gently warn him that if he intends to run a contest on which Member can harangue him the most on crumbling hospitals, our 72 Liberal Democrat MPs say, “Challenge accepted.”
Under the Conservatives, the new hospital programme ground to a halt. We know the terrible stories of nurses running bucket rotas and all the rest. We have the worst of all worlds at the moment: trusts such as mine in west Hertfordshire are champing at the bit to get going but cannot, and are being held back. Other trusts have capital funds that they want to spend but are not allowed to because of outdated rules, and there are industry concerns that the one, top-down, centralised approach of the Conservatives could decimate competition in that industry, when we need a thriving industry to rebuild our hospitals and primary care. What is the Secretary of State’s response to that approach?
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats spoke about care a great deal during the general election campaign. At the heart of our plans was our pledge to introduce free personal care. Will Ministers please confirm whether they intend to open cross-party talks and, if so, whether free personal care will be on the table as one potential option?