Hospice Funding
Damien Moore Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton), and I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) and for Darlington (Peter Gibson) on securing the debate. I wish to highlight foremost the significant challenges and opportunities before us in the care sector across the United Kingdom. In Southport, Queenscourt Hospice stands as a pillar of community strength, with its Star Trek night walks, which have raised nearly £100,000, annual Christmas fairs and summer balls—and who could forget the annual Santa sprint that unites our community in support of its services? Queenscourt initiatives are vital.
It was a privilege to visit Queenscourt Hospice in 2022 and meet the dedicated nursing, operations and fundraising teams. I found their passion and commitment to serving Southport and the surrounding area truly inspiring, and I am committed to supporting their invaluable work. It is clear that the hard work of Debbie Pierce-Lawson and her team is paying off in Southport, and it is testament to the hospital’s embedded role in our community.
Similarly, my visit a few years ago to Claire House Children’s Hospice highlighted the immense dedication and heartfelt contribution made by staff and volunteers. Their commitment to providing care for every child is commendable. Their work brings indispensable comfort to affected children and their families during unimaginably difficult times, yet despite those immense and inspiring local efforts the recent Hospice UK briefing projects a £77 million deficit across the hospice sector for 2023-24.
Queenscourt Hospice, which needs nearly £3 million to operate each year, receives only 20% of that and has to raise the remaining amount through exceptionally hard fundraising work. That figure is not merely a statistic but a stark indication of the financial hurdles facing our hospice care system.
Hospices are cornerstones of our healthcare system, offering invaluable support to over 300,000 individuals annually. That support extends beyond patient care to providing relief and assistance to families during the most challenging times. Hospices’ remarkable efforts in fundraising underscore the community’s recognition of their vital role. However, the sector’s reliance on charitable income highlights the need for a more structured approach to funding.
It is heartening to see the Government’s commitment to palliative care, notably through the Health and Care Act 2022, which introduced a legal duty for integrated care boards to commission palliative care services. That is a positive step forward, ensuring that the needs of the local population are met. Nevertheless, despite those strides, the variability in funding across the country and escalating operational costs represent ongoing challenges.
I am proud of our Government’s record in supporting hospices in the broader NHS. However, I recognise that as the demand for palliative care increases, we must continue to evolve and support the system so that it remains sustainable for the future. The anticipated growth in palliative care needs, with an estimated 130,000 additional deaths annually by 2040, underscores the urgency for developing a sustainable funding model. Such a model would empower hospices to continue their work in partnership with the NHS, providing compassionate care and support.
As I participate in the debate, I firmly believe in the Government’s ability to address those challenges. I hope to hear that commitment from the Minister when she winds up the debate. By fostering a collaborative approach with the hospice sector, we can ensure that hospices in Southport and across the United Kingdom are not just sustained but supported to continue to provide critical services to those who need them.
Smokefree 2030 Target
Damien Moore Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) on securing this important debate. The Department of Health and Social Care’s announcement in response to the Khan smoking review of last year was a positive step to ensure the UK remains a world leader on harm reduction and has a strong chance of reaching the Government’s ambitious Smokefree 2030 target. That said, I worry there is a serious risk that the target will be missed, with an estimated 13.3% of adults in the UK still smoking. The Department’s announcement that a reduction in smoking would also reduce the number of hospital admissions is clearly correct. It would help the Government’s priority of reducing NHS waiting lists.
The Government are taking a harm reduction approach to tackling smoking. As the Minister said, the person who quits today is the person who is not in a hospital bed tomorrow. I therefore welcome the Government’s highly pragmatic approach to vapes, but only by embracing all smoking alternatives—not just vaping, but gum, patches and NHS stop smoking services—can the UK give itself the best chance of hitting its Smokefree 2030 target, with the health benefits that would result from that.
There are 3.3 million vapers in the UK, but vaping does not meet the needs of all smokers looking to stop. Furthermore, because it does not closely mimic smoking, 35% of current vapers use vapes and cigarettes alongside one another, as confirmed by Action on Smoking and Health. Other products, such as “heat not burn”, heat tobacco rather than burning it, and therefore produce substantially fewer harmful and potentially harmful chemicals than cigarettes. They also mimic cigarettes much more closely than vapes, which means that smokers who switch to them are less likely to continue smoking. Importantly, studies have shown that they are less attractive than vapes to younger people who have never smoked.
That said, there are rightly concerns about youth uptake of vaping. Vapes are designed for adult smokers who are trying to quit, not for teenagers to use as a gateway to other nicotine products. There is clearly a balance to be struck between ensuring that vapes do not end up in the hands of young people and not hindering the access of adult smokers to these reduced-risk alternatives.
Tt international forums, the UK should stand up for this positive harm-reduction approach to tackling smoking. Now that it has left the EU, it can speak as a world leader on harm reduction, alongside nations such as Sweden and Japan, to demonstrate the powerful role that support for less harmful alternatives to cigarettes can play in reducing smoking prevalence.
In 2018, when I sat on the Science and Technology Committee, we called for independent research to be commissioned on the relative risks of “heat not burn” tobacco products. The research would fill the gap in knowledge and understanding of the impact of these products and the relative harms compared to other products, such as e-cigarettes, and would ensure that evidence-based policymaking was not solely reliant on the industry for scientific evidence. I stood—and indeed continue to stand—firmly by that call from the Select Committee for proper scientific research to be done. It is only when we have all the facts that we can make the most effective decisions to help us stop smoking by 2030, with all the health benefits that that entails and all the lives it will save.
Car Parking: Care Workers
Damien Moore Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of car parking charges for care workers.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. I thank all hon. Members here in Westminster Hall today and the Backbench Business Committee for granting the application for this debate.
Care workers play an immeasurably important role in our society, looking after our loved ones and being with them through what for many will be the most difficult times of their lives. If it were not for their selflessness, diligence, dedication and good humour, our loved ones would have a far more difficult time and the knock-on effects on the older generation could be huge. Being a care worker is a difficult job, requiring hands-on work to support a diverse range of needs. For the 490,000 domiciliary care staff in England, delivering care and support to people in their own homes can involve dozens of short journeys every day. These workers must be trained and knowledgeable in so many things, including taking blood pressure, administering medicine, assisting patients with eating and even the art of making a good cup of tea.
Care work is undoubtedly a complex role that requires strong interpersonal skills. Given the demands of this tough and skilled job, it is perhaps not surprising that the vacancy rate in March last year stood at almost 11%, representing 165,000 vacancies. That was up from 7% a year earlier, which represented 110,000 vacancies. In domiciliary care, the vacancy rate is 13%—a figure far higher than in residential care, where the vacancy rate stands at almost 9%.
Yet as the number of vacancies grows, demand for social care is rising and that is expected to continue. I have noticed it especially in my constituency of Southport, which has an ageing population; we would greatly benefit from an uptake in the number of people wishing to work in the care sector. The increase in vacancies will place yet further stress on our hardworking care workers, so it is no wonder that Skills for Care estimates that the turnover rate of directly employed staff working in adult social care was 29% between 2020 and 2021, which is equivalent to approximately 400,000 leavers.
I appreciate that I am painting a bleak picture, but the situation is not all doom and gloom. Covid shone a spotlight on what many of us have been arguing for years: that we need to do more to support those who work hard in social care. The Government’s adult social care reform White Paper, published in December 2021, set out a 10-year vision for adult social care, along with funded proposals to be implemented in the following three years. Yet 10 years is simply too long for my hard-pressed constituents to wait, especially when a cheaper and simpler solution lies much closer to hand.
A few years ago, a particularly memorable constituent came to see me at one of my weekly constituency surgeries, held at the Atkinson library every Friday at 11 am. She worked in social care and was clearly excellent at her job; I felt confident that the elderly and vulnerable in Southport would be fine in her safe hands. However, she had a major problem with our local authority, Sefton Council. Every time she parked outside one of her clients’ houses, she would have to pay 90p for a parking ticket, and this was happening up to two dozen times a day. The cost of these tickets adds up, especially for those who are already earning close to the minimum wage.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate; it is important that we discuss this issue. I thought it would be helpful to give the example of a constituent of mine who has contacted me—a home care provider who has difficulties in driving from one client to the next and often struggles with parking. Does he agree that we should consider measures to help to ease the pressures on hardworking care workers, particularly because such measures would help to alleviate stress and save them time as they try to help their clients?
Damien Moore
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. What we are trying to do is remove from care workers’ lives the stress of paying for parking tickets and finding a parking space. There are times when a carer will pay for a half-hour parking ticket, although when they are in a client’s house they might find that they need to call an ambulance. That could take a few hours to arrive, during which time they will not be able to pop out and top up the parking meter. When they receive a parking penalty charge, which can lead to a lengthy challenge process for which few people have the time or energy, that causes additional stress.
I am sure that all Members here have at some point engaged with the Chancellor to see what he can do to better support our constituent care workers. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs already offers tax relief on mileage incurred for work purposes, but there is currently no nationwide scheme in place to help with parking charges. Consider instead if care workers were simply allowed to keep their money in their pockets and did not have to go through complex bureaucracy; that will be possible only if we get this right and end needless car parking charges.
After speaking with my constituents, I immediately wrote to Sefton Council to raise the issue, but was quickly told that it was not interested in changing policy. I then wrote to the Government to ask if they could compel the council to change the policy by providing ringfenced funds to support my hardworking constituents. I was delighted when the then Health Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), announced that the Government would be introducing the covid-19 parking pass, proving that we can do this if we really want to.
The scheme entitled on-duty NHS staff, health and social care workers, and NHS volunteer responders, to free parking in local authority off-street car parks and on-street bays in England. It was a fantastic scheme, and it worked wonders for not only the bank balances but the mental health of my social care worker constituents. No longer were they finding themselves squeezed even tighter by virtue of simply doing their job. With less time spent fumbling around looking for parking spaces, paying, and, sadly, often appealing a parking ticket, those workers could spend more time supporting people who draw on care in their own homes. It was win-win, for everyone.
Then the covid scheme came to an end. With the vacancy rate increasing, I felt all of the work had been undone. A permanent solution is required. Today, with the Minister present, I call on the Government to introduce a nationwide standardised green badge system—similar to the blue badge—for social care workers on duty and making care visits. It should be nationally recognised, with eligibility set at a national level. It should be available for all care workers who travel to provide care in clients’ homes. Care workers should be the permit holders, and, in keeping with the efficiency it would introduce, there should be a simple standardised application and issuing service. Engage Britain’s research shows that such a proposal has 80% support across all major political parties, as reflected by the diversity of Members who often bring up the issue.
Parking is normally an issue for local authorities, but we saw over covid that central Government can take the initiative in this area, and, with one sweep of the pen, put this easy and cheap solution in the hands of our care workers. After all, it is the Department of Health and Social Care’s responsibility to look after social care workers, so this parking protocol is its responsibility, not that of local councils. Similar arguments were made about the blue badge system, yet today’s standardised system is widely held up as being a great success. We need that success for our care workers too.
Some parking exemption schemes have survived the Government’s closure of their own scheme post covid, as hon. Members from Cornwall, Devon and Manchester will know. Those schemes would also benefit from the administrative simplicity of the central standardised system that I propose.
I finish with an impassioned plea. It is so rare that we are presented with such simple solutions. My proposed green badge has already been trialled nationwide throughout covid by the Government’s scheme, and was a resounding success. Both macro research from Engage Britain and micro research, such as anecdotal conservations with my constituents, show the huge benefits that free car parking has had and will continue to have if reimplemented. It is a low-cost, low-admin solution with tangible benefits for everyone who works in care, and for all those who have loved ones in care.
Damien Moore
I thank the Minister for her remarks about the things that the Government are doing for adult social care. That is incredibly important. The more airtime we can give this issue the better. We are pushing for better conditions for care workers in our constituencies.
I thank the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) for his contribution. Members on both sides of the House want to find a way forward. The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) represents a very different constituency from mine, but it has the same problems. Similarly, although my constituency is different from that of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who talked about his brother, the conditions are similar.
We know this is a national problem; that is why I believe it requires a national solution. Somebody who works in one local authority area but lives in another should be able to cross the border knowing that the badge is available for the place they work; it should not just have to be registered in the place they live. If they work in multiple areas, they could go to all of them, which would make it easy for them to go about their business. It is a simple, easy, effective solution to the problem.
Even if charges are refundable, people have to go through the process of the refund—the reimbursement of costs. As MPs, we know getting the costs of our work reimbursed is well-deserved because they are part of the job, but the way we have to do it can sometimes be cumbersome. It is therefore absolutely right that those providing care to the most vulnerable, some of whom have complex needs, are supported even more. Even if reimbursement is available, the process of finding a parking space, getting a ticket and getting it reimbursed is incredibly stressful. We want to take the stress out of it.
This will, of course, be something that the Government have to look at, and they will have to consider all sorts of factors and the cost. But let us talk about the cost of agency workers: it is getting out of control. If we talk about the cost of a visit to hospital, it is much cheaper than the cost of somebody being able to do their job properly. We talked about people with health conditions and the frail and elderly population. We talked about all the work we are doing on discharges. Never mind the discharges; let us stop them from going in in the first place if there is no need for them to do so.
This has cross-party support. We have shown that we can do this, but we must put extra effort into supporting our care workers because they are supporting vulnerable people, including our constituents and people in our own families. It is incredibly important that we do something for them that makes a real difference. This is something we should all want to sign up to. I appreciate in this post-covid world that there might be slight differences in the way we do that, but we must ensure that we give care workers this easy support to retain them. I commend all the work being done on recruiting them, but to retain them, we need to take that stress out of their lives. We would not want it in ours; let us not put it in theirs.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the matter of car parking charges for care workers.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damien Moore Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
First, I wish a happy St David’s day to the hon. Member and all those celebrating. I would be happy to meet her on this issue. The Government greatly value the role of physician associates. She knows that they bring new talent to the NHS and act in an enabling role, where they can help healthcare teams with their workload. Physician associates will be regulated by the General Medical Council, and the Department has consulted on draft legislation on just how to do that.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
I am very interested in hearing proposals on patient self-referral. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend. From a cancer perspective, we are also potentially looking at self-referrals for skin diagnosis for possible skin cancer and for breast lumps, because we want to reduce waiting times and increase GP capacity.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damien Moore Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
First, I commend everyone working in the Newcastle hospitals trust and across the NHS for everything they are doing. The hon. Lady is right to talk about the importance of the workforce—that is why we have asked Health Education England to come up with a 15-year workforce framework—but she knows that the resources that the NHS has make a big difference, and it would have helped if she had supported the Government’s record investment of £36 billion over the next three years in the NHS and social care.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
Maggie Throup
We are intent on making vaccines as accessible as possible, so there are now more vaccination sites than at any point in the programme. They operate 12 hours a day, seven days a week where possible, including at hundreds of walk-in and pop-up sites. In every community, there should be slots available at least 16 hours a day; in some places, that is extended to 24 hours a day to support workers such as those in the transport sector, who often work unsociable hours.
Access to GP Appointments
Damien Moore Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Theresa Villiers
I agree that we need more general practice capacity and I will come on to explain how we could do that.
There can be no doubt that GP surgeries are under immense pressure. The Royal College of General Practitioners says that the workload has never been greater. A GP in my constituency told me that as well as colleagues leaving the profession, it has become increasingly difficult to recruit new doctors. He said:
“Those of us left behind feel that we are holding up a broken system.”
In GP surgeries, as is the case across the NHS, demand has spiralled partly because, as we grow older as a population, we have greater healthcare need, partly because of pent-up demand from people who felt reluctant to seek help during the pandemic, but also partly because the decision by NHS leaders to push a range of treatments out from secondary to primary care has left GPs dealing with more serious and complex cases than in the past. As a result, one High Barnet GP told me that primary care was in a precarious position even before the pandemic. Of course, delays in accessing GP appointments have been an issue for some years in many areas, including my Chipping Barnet constituency. My concern has been intensified by the predatory demands of developers seeking to build blocks of flats in multiple locations in my constituency. The Mayor of London wants to see over 23,500 new homes built in Barnet over 10 years. That is a massive increase in population, yet GPs are struggling to serve the population we already have.
We have seen the number of doctors in hospitals increase to record levels—and that is a great achievement—but the same cannot yet be said of GPs. I have been campaigning to expand GP capacity in Barnet as part of the Government’s wider commitment to boost primary care. I very much welcome the £250 million announced in October to tackle immediate pressures on the system. This promised new cloud-based phone systems, a reduction in routine paperwork such as sick notes and Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency checks, and additional staff to support GPs. Well, I think we probably all know that better phone systems are urgently needed in many practices, but the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy is also pretty obvious.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. On patients phoning up trying to get an appointment, does she agree that there needs to be more capacity in phone systems so that people are not waiting on the phone for hours on end to get an appointment with a GP?
Theresa Villiers
I think that is right, which is why it was a good decision in the Government’s October announcement to focus on an upgrade to phone systems. I really hope that the Minister will update us on how that is going and when it will be delivered, so that our constituents can experience it directly.
Returning to the issue of GP paperwork, a Barnet GP told me that
“the amount of bureaucracy and red tape has increased exponentially despite various assurances that this would be cut. Increased regulation and monitoring, whilst important from a governance point of view, seems to have generated endless form filling, policy updating, mandatory training, appraisals and paper chasing.”
When this issue was debated in this Chamber last October, the Minister repeated promises that paperwork and form filling would be reduced. Has that happened? If not, why not? It is far better for a GP to spend time with patients, rather than writing sick notes or ticking boxes.
The third element of the Government’s plan seeks to strengthen the multi-disciplinary teams in general practice, so that, where appropriate, patients can seek other professionals such as nurses, pharmacists or physiotherapists. This is intended to free up GP time for them to see sicker patients. I welcome the fact that 10,000 new staff have been recruited of the 26,000 promised in the Conservative manifesto, and I commend the work of North Central London clinical commissioning group, which is due to recruit 177 more primary care staff under the programme. However, more could be done, for example, to enable pharmacists to take a bigger role, including in prescribing. We must also ensure that GPs have a strong voice in the new integrated care boards, so that primary care is at the heart of NHS decision making. It is vital that part of the massive capital investment that the Government have promised for the NHS goes into improving GP surgery premises, which in some instances are just not fit for purpose or not physically large enough to cope with increased healthcare demand.
Theresa Villiers
I agree that we need action now to make it easier to get GP appointments, and we also need action for the longer term. Even if everything that I have spoken about is delivered, and the October package is delivered in its entirety, we still need more GPs—it is as simple as that.
It is really welcome that this year more people have entered training to become GPs than ever before, because the Health Committee identified workforce shortages as the “key limiting factor” in tackling the covid backlog successfully. In its annual report on the state of health and social care in England, the Care Quality Commission concluded that by mid-2021 there were likely to be fewer full-time equivalent GPs in total per 100,000 patients than there were in 2017.
In July 2021, the then Care Minister commissioned Health Education England to review long-term strategic trends for the health and social care workforce. That review is very welcome, but we need to see it deliver results. As the Health Committee has called for, we need an objective, transparent and independently audited annual report on workforce projections that cover the next five, 10 and 20 years, including an assessment of whether sufficient numbers of staff are being trained.
Damien Moore
My right hon. Friend is being very kind in sharing her time. Does she agree that universities that have medical placements and more capacity should be allowed to extend that capacity, so that we can train more people and have more people entering the profession?
Theresa Villiers
It is essential that we expand the capacity of training places for GPs, and I welcome the new medical schools and the progress that has been made. However, because it takes years to train up a professional, the effect of those developments is not yet being felt in local surgeries.
We need to ensure that the NHS visa scheme is used effectively to recruit skilled GPs from around the world in order to meet immediate pressures, and we have to get better at retaining the GPs that we have. A vital first step in doing that is to implement measures to relieve the stresses on GPs that I have spoken about and to address spiralling workloads.
An effective workforce strategy also needs a better plan to encourage women to stay in the profession. We need to give more thought to how we persuade women who might have chosen to work part-time while caring for children to consider coming back to work full-time.
Also, what about all those retired or non-practising GPs out there? At the start of the pandemic, the Government rushed through legislation to enable retired professionals to return to the workforce to help battle that first covid wave. Clearing the covid backlog and expanding GP services is another great national challenge and we really should try to do more to enlist the talent of doctors who have retired or moved on to other careers.
Theresa Villiers
I will just make a little progress now, because I want to give the Minister time to respond.
That means fixing the problem with doctors’ pensions. I know that efforts have been made in that regard. However, it is still worrying that it seems that once a doctor has been in practice for many years, they can face a big tax bill for their pensions. Of course, the last thing we should do is push GPs into early retirement because of punitive pension taxes. We want them to stay in practice and not retire.
In conclusion, pressure on GP surgeries is leading to appointment delays, which will only generate yet higher numbers of people showing up at accident and emergency departments that are already busier than at any time in the history of our national health service, as graphically shown on Sky News in relation to Barnet Hospital just a week or so ago.
GP services are a crucial gateway to treatment by other parts of the health service. If this gateway gets blocked up, the consequence will be that lives are lost, for example to cancer, because symptoms were not picked up early enough. So this matter is not just one of convenience; it is a matter of ensuring that we are doing everything we can to deliver the best healthcare.
The Government rightly promised 50 million more appointments in GP surgeries every year. It is essential that we deliver on that promise, so that my constituents can get the care they need within a reasonable timeframe. We must see the NHS long-term plan and the Government’s record £33 billion investment in the NHS deliver more GPs in local surgeries in places such as Barnet. It is as simple as that. We cannot carry on as we are. When he recently gave evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee, the Health Secretary said that plans to recruit 6,000 additional GPs by 2024 are not on track. I appeal to the Government to get them on track and to do all they can to expand capacity in GP practices in my constituency and across the country.
Covid-19 Update
Damien Moore ExcerptsMonday 19th October 2020
(4 years ago)
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Matt Hancock
The baseline for tier 3 is set across the board, and then further measures are set out in consultation and agreement with the local area.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
Following on from that question, the gyms in Lancashire are open, but the gyms in Merseyside are closed. The deal that was struck for us was not a good deal for my constituents in Southport. Will the Secretary of State review these restrictions as soon as possible and get our gyms open? They are part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Matt Hancock
Nobody has stood up for the gyms of this country more than my hon. Friend, and he has made this argument endlessly to me. He stands up for Southport, and I will take that point away. As I said to the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), those decisions were taken in agreement with the local area, and we want—as much as possible—to make agreements with local areas so that we can all give out the same public health messages that if everybody follows the rules, we are more likely to get this under control and get the Liverpool city region out of tier 3 altogether.
Budget Resolutions
Damien Moore Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh).
I thank the Chancellor and his team for their efforts in making this Budget possible. In particular, I am immensely grateful to him for his consideration in cutting business rates for small businesses. This issue is important both to my constituents and to businesses in Southport, and I am grateful to him for mentioning this in his speech yesterday. It seems to me that we should be trying to play to our strengths as a country. That is the way we are going to attract investment, keep employment at a record low, provide jobs and prosperity for people in the future, and create increased funding for our public services.
One of Britain’s, and indeed Southport’s, strengths is its small businesses that provide the majority of jobs in the private sector. One of the benefits of being the Member of Parliament for Southport is that I get to meet some extraordinary entrepreneurs and small business owners. They are the people who form the backbone of our economy, and over the past year I have had the pleasure of meeting many of these hard-working individuals. I therefore deeply welcome the new tax reforms set out by the Chancellor in his Budget speech yesterday, which will provide unparalleled relief to many small business owners in my constituency.
However, things have been all the more difficult for small businesses in Southport because they are having to work without the support of Labour-led Sefton Council, which is more interested in punitive charges than in building a strong economy. Lord Street, in particular, is suffering under the Labour Council, but it is now set to be handed a fighting chance under this Conservative Government and this autumn Budget.
There are a number of things I want to talk about in the time I have available. The first is the Chancellor’s plan for our high streets, which will provide up-front support through business rates, while implementing a package of transformational initiatives, including a £675 million future high streets fund. Then, specifically, there are those things that can make a real difference to small businesses in our communities: how we can get out of their way in terms of tax and regulation; how we can stand up for them by regulating the online marketplace and digital businesses to create a level playing field with the marketplace on our high streets; and then, finally, how we can create growth so that we can continue to put record investment in our public services.
Cutting the deficit is still important, because only if we continue to deal with the debt left behind by a reckless Labour Government will we be able to safeguard our economic future and invest in all those things that are so essential. We are making good progress—the UK economy has grown every year since 2010, and unemployment is at its lowest level since 1975. But we have to be honest: there is still more work to do to ensure we live within our means. We have to stick to our plan, making difficult decisions about spending that will get the debt and the deficit under control but that do not penalise the wealth creators and businesses in our country. We need to invest tax receipts, not waste them like the Labour party does.
We also have to provide a much needed boost to small businesses that were left behind by the last Labour Government, to ensure unemployment remains at a record low and that the longevity of our high streets is maintained. Again, that takes difficult decisions, so I welcome the announcement in yesterday’s Budget to provide up-front support through the business rates system, cutting bills for retail properties with a rateable value of below £51,000, which will benefit 90% of retail properties. I also welcome the addition of the £675 million future high streets fund. That means that someone running a small business will see their tax come down by a third and their high street restored.
It is not just about getting out of the way of small business but about standing up for those specific issues. It is about making sure that those same small businesses are not disadvantaged by an overbearing digital marketplace that is not paying its fair share—a real David and Goliath battle. I was therefore delighted to hear in the Chancellor’s statement yesterday that the Government will introduce a new 2% tax on the revenues of certain digital businesses to ensure that the amount of tax paid in the UK reflects the value they derive from their UK users, ensuring an even ground between businesses on our high streets and online. It is not Amazon or Facebook that are the lifeblood of this country; it is the small businesses in constituencies like mine.
That is why small business is important. It means more business and more tax collected and more economic growth, and, yes, a strong economy means more money for our public services. I therefore welcome the Chancellor’s announcement yesterday of additional funding, and an indication that the hard work is starting to pay off. This means £2 billion more for mental health, and the long-term plan for the NHS will commit further funding to help achieve parity of esteem between mental and physical health services. That means anyone experiencing a crisis can call the NHS line 24/7, and it means more mental health ambulances, increased community support and comprehensive support at every major accident and emergency by 2024.
I have discussed school funding with headteachers in my constituency. This Budget means £400 million more for schools this year, with £10,000 allocated to the average primary and £50,000 to the average secondary to help schools buy the equipment they need. It means £1 billion more for defence across this year and next, ensuring our world-class armed forces can face the new threats and build on the UK’s record of spending more on defence than any NATO member except the US.
With unemployment at its lowest since 1975 and employment at a near record high, the years of financial hardship endured by the people of this country due to Labour’s inability to fix the roof while the sun was shining is now a thing of the past. With this Budget and a strong economy, constituents and businesses in my constituency of Southport can be assured that this Government are delivering for them and that their hard work is paying off.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damien Moore Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Steve Brine
Yes, and I am a big supporter of breastfeeding—I have supported it a lot in my constituency, and we engage regularly with the sector. I will be interested in any proposals that the hon. Lady has.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
The Minister for Health (Stephen Barclay)
Having committed an additional £20 billion in real terms, the Government are asking the NHS to deliver a long-term plan that includes continued improvements in productivity and efficiency, and we are reinvesting the savings in improved patient care.
Damien Moore
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his drive to recycle more hospital equipment such as zimmer frames, crutches and wheelchairs, but what steps is his Department taking to encourage more hospitals such as Southport Hospital in my constituency to run recycling programmes to reduce waste in our NHS?
Stephen Barclay
I am keen to work with my hon. Friend to encourage Southport and other trusts to recycle equipment. I know from my family’s experience that it causes significant frustration when people see hospitals not collecting perfectly good medical equipment that could be recycled. I am keen to work with him and with trusts to ensure that we learn from that.
Acute and Community Health
Damien Moore Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Stephen Barclay
My hon. Friend is right. I think that at the heart of Dr Kirkup’s findings was the conclusion that what drove these events was not money—and he made that point specifically in relation to the finance for the initial services—but the desire to seek foundation trust status, which led to a wholly unrealistic cost improvement plan and an unwillingness to address the issues that arose as a consequence.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
I thank my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper), for all the work that she has done on this issue.
As has already been said, it is important for the right culture to exist in our NHS. However, it is also important for those who compromise patient safety to be brought to book and punished, and for us to know what action was taken, because otherwise the same thing will keep happening.