Electric Vehicles: Infrastructure

Debate between Dan Poulter and Steve Brine

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Steve Brine]

I will come on to the pricing of electric vehicles, which was my motivation for applying for the debate in the first place. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that many people want to do the right thing, but the economics do not stack up right now. Is there a role for Government? Partly, and I will come on to where they have made moves in that space. I realise that I am raising lots of problems, but that is because the Minister will answer all my problems and then we will all go away happy.

As we increase the number of charging points across the UK and get ahead of our ambition, it is vital that we future-proof our energy system. Great thought must be put into the pressure that the move will have on the grid so that we protect consumers as new challenges and vulnerabilities present themselves. Obviously, the transition to EVs will massively increase the demand for energy. We have some of the greatest wind, wave and tidal resources in the world. Should we promote the use of domestic energy production, rather than relying on imports, so that we can ensure our domestic renewable energy is used to guarantee the security of our EV ambitions? I appreciate that the Government have promised vast sums of funding for the transition and implemented schemes, but perhaps that issue could be revisited.

In June 2022, the Government pulled the plug on the car grant scheme, which provided over £1.4 billion and supported nearly 500,000 sales of electric vehicles. Although I appreciate that it was said at the time that that measure was always a temporary one, it increased the sale of EVs from less than a thousand in 2011 to almost 100,000 in the first five months of 2022, which meant that uptake exceeded projections. Surely that is a policy success and if something is working like that, I ask the Minister today whether people will be offered further support.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. On that particular point, does he agree that in very rural areas, such as Suffolk and—I would imagine—parts of Hampshire as well, the practicalities of having public charging points are difficult and the reality is that if we are going to incentivise this switch, it has to come through helping people to charge their vehicles at home?

[Steve Brine]

Yes. In my constituency, as I am sure is the case in my hon. Friend’s constituency, charging at home is obviously the ideal, but there are lots of challenges to people being able to do that, because the three-point plug is not always the answer; a three-point plug can lead to a 30-hour charge. Of course, if someone does not have a nice secure driveway where they can park their Tesla and plug it in to charge overnight from the solar panels on their roof, it is difficult. That is all very tidy and ideal, but it is not the reality.

May I tell my hon. Friend the Minister that that is a kind of a theme of the debate? The ambition is great, but I worry about the practicalities of the roadmap to get there, and my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) has expounded that very well.

Hepatitis C

Debate between Dan Poulter and Steve Brine

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Brine)]

It is genuinely a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter, and to be back in Westminster Hall on such a quiet day in Westminster. The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) is sadly not in his place today, but I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) for securing and leading this debate. Although he said that he was not the best person to introduce the debate, he could have fooled us because he did it very well.

Hepatitis C is a significant health issue in our country, and for too long it has been overshadowed by other public health concerns that, despite the superstars involved, have had higher public profiles. I pay tribute to the Hepatitis C Trust and the wonderful Charles Gore, whom I have got to know in this job. He is a colossus in this area, and has become a friend. I also thank the Hepatitis C Coalition—this issue has been central to both those organisations.

My hon. Friend mentioned lots of local services for Southend residents, and a lot is going on in his constituency. Few MPs champion their constituency more than he does, so for his press release I will mention that screening and onward referral services are provided by the Southend Treatment and Recovery Service, known as STARS. For primary care, GP practices refer people to the specialist treatment services in my hon. Friend’s much-loved Southend Hospital. Local drug and alcohol treatment services in Southend hold outreach screening sessions for hepatitis, and all positive cases are referred for onward treatment. Big local successes that I noted in my papers included last year’s hepatitis C roadshow, which took place in my hon. Friend’s area, and there is the hepatitis C operational delivery network educational event 2018—he can see me after class for more details if he would like.

It is always good to see the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in his place, speaking so knowledgably and passionately about this issue, as well as the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), and my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter).

The World Health Organisation has set ambitious targets to reduce the burden of chronic hepatitis C over the coming years, with a pledge to eliminate it as a major public health threat by 2030. The UK Government are committed to meeting and beating that target, as has rightly been said.

A few years ago, hepatitis C-related mortality was predicted to increase in our country, but through the measures that we have in place and the hard work and dedication of so many unsung heroes in the field, 9,440 treatments were delivered nationally against a target of 10,000 in 2016-17; the number of deaths fell for the first time in more than a decade, and that has been sustained for another year; and between 2014 and 2016, there was a 3% fall in deaths from hepatitis C-related end-stage liver disease. That is good news.

However, hepatitis C continues to make a significant contribution to current rates of end-stage liver disease. I welcomed the recommendations to tackle that in the report, “Eliminating Hepatitis C in England”, which was published in March by the all-party parliamentary group on liver health, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West is co-chair. I often produce a recommendation-by-recommendation response to Select Committee reports in my area, but when I checked with my officials during the debate, I found that I did not do it for that report—I was not asked to by the group—but I offer to do so. In fact, I will go further than that—I will go crazy and do it. The group will get that from me as a written response to its report.

This is a timely debate, because NHS England recently launched its procurement exercise for the new generation of hepatitis C antivirals. If that exercise delivers successfully, the ambition is to eliminate hepatitis C as a public health threat earlier than the WHO goal of 2030, and to get to 2025.

[Dr Poulter]

Given the experience that we had with NHS England on HIV PrEP medication and its argument that that was a public health responsibility, which I believe was wrong and which was legally found wanting, will the Minister ensure that he holds its feet to the fire on hepatitis C so it recognises that although it is a public health issue, it has a responsibility for the effective procurement of antivirals and for making them available to all people with hepatitis C?

[Steve Brine]

Point taken; feet will be held to said fire. I do not think that NHS England is found wanting in this area, and I will go on to say why, but I take my hon. Friend’s point and will follow it through, because I want this to work.

The new industry deal may allow for longer contract terms that cover a number of years, but whether a long-term deal can be reached and what its duration is will be contingent on the quality and value of the bids submitted by industry. I expect the outcome of that in the autumn.

On local delivery networks, NHS England has established 22 operational delivery networks across our country to ensure national access to the antiviral therapy. I will touch on the issue of the cap in a minute. Those clinically led operational networks are given a share of the national annual treatment run rates based on estimated local need.

That local operational delivery network model ensures better equity of access. Many patients with chronic hepatitis C infections come from marginalised groups that do not engage well with healthcare, as has already been said. Through the development of networks, it has been possible to deliver outreach and engagement with patients outside traditional healthcare settings, such as offering testing through drug and alcohol services and community pharmacies.

As hon. Members know, I have a great soft spot for community pharmacies, and I think that they can and do play an important role in this space. In April, I hopped along to Portmans Pharmacy, which is just up the road in Pimlico, to see the pharmacy testing pilot of the London joint working group on substance use and hepatitis C that is going on there. I saw the testing and the referral to treatment that takes place in pharmacies that offer needle and syringe programmes across six boroughs in London.

Portmans Pharmacy has provided a needle and syringe programme and the supervised consumption of methadone for a number of years. Those points of contact with people who inject, or previously injected—a key distinction—drugs provide an ideal opportunity for us to make every contact count and to test for hepatitis C, as we think that about half of people who inject drugs in London have the virus.

The approach of Portmans Pharmacy and the London joint working group is innovative. It aims to provide quick and easy access to testing and a clear pathway into assessment and treatment in specialist care, which is obviously critical. I pay great tribute to the work that the group has done. It has rightly received a lot of coverage and a lot of plaudits. I am anxious and impatient—as my officials know, I am impatient about everything—to see the peer-reviewed results of that work and where we can scale it out more.

The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire mentioned treatment in respect of the cap. It is different north of the border, but NHS England offers treatment as per the NICE recommendations. The drugs that she mentioned are expensive, which limits the number of people who can be treated each year, but treatment has been prioritised for those most severely affected. The NHS then provides treatment to others who are less severely affected. So far, 25,000 people in England have been treated with the new drugs and a further 13,000 will be treated this year. The NHS procurement exercise should allow for even larger numbers to be treated each year. Of course, nothing is perfect in life. Resources in a publicly funded health system are finite, which is why we have to target them at the most challenged group. That is one of the reasons why making every contact count through primary care and pre-primary care, as I call community pharmacies, is so important.

[Steve Brine]

Of course, the hon. Lady states a fact not an opinion, and I accept that, which is why I speak of the importance of primary care and of making every contact count. The people who Portmans Pharmacy interacts with are not all sick. People who have a hepatitis C infection or a drug-use issue have other issues—they get flu too—so they interact with that pharmacy, and the pharmacy makes every contact count by grabbing people earlier. That is one reason why I am so passionate about the way that that underused network can help us to reach the ambitious targets that we have set.

Everyone has rightly talked about prevention—in many ways, I am the Minister with responsibility for prevention and it is the thing that I am most passionate about in our health service. As well as testing and treating those already infected, an essential part of tackling hepatitis C must be the prevention of infection in the first place, or the prevention of reinfection of those successfully treated, which would not be a smart use of public resources.

NHS England and Public Health England, which I have direct ministerial responsibility for, are actively engaged in programmes at a local level to prevent the spread of infection. As people who inject drugs or share needles are at the greatest risk of acquiring hepatitis C, prevention services, particularly those provided by drug treatment centres, are key components of hepatitis C control strategies. Clearly, the key to breaking the cycle of hepatitis C is to prevent infection happening in the first place.

[Dr Poulter]

The fundamental issue is that there is no greater evidence of fragmentation—I speak from my own clinical experience—and failure of joined-up working than the fact that local authorities commission substance misuse services but that the NHS commissions mental health services for the same patients and secondary care services for hepatitis C patients. People are falling through the gaps. Many people who have hepatitis C do not present to GPs, and are not even routinely on their lists, so the issue has to be looked at in a much more effective way if we are to make a difference.

[Steve Brine]

I hear my hon. Friend’s experience of the frontline and I would not disagree that in some areas there is unhelpful fragmentation. If I remember rightly back to those happy early days of the election of my hon. Friend and I to this place, we sat on the Health and Social Care Bill Committee. That piece of legislation, controversial as it was, enacted the decision to pass that responsibility to local authorities and, of course, all local authorities are now, in effect, public health bodies. All of them—well, top-tier authorities in England—have directors of public health.

Just because there are challenges and fragmentation, that is not a reason to redraw the system. I do not think there is any desire within the system for a top-down or bottom-up reorganisation—I suspect that, as a doctor, my hon. Friend would agree with that—but there is a challenge to the system to come up with a much better whole-system approach, to make sure that people do not fall between those cracks.

My hon. Friend and I could debate at length—I am sure we will—whether those cracks can ever be filled, and whether there will ever be Polyfilla that is big enough or strong enough to fill those holes, but I do not think that it is a reason to break open the system.

[Dr Poulter]

rose—

[Steve Brine]

I give way to my hon. Friend for the last time.

[Dr Poulter]

This fragmentation of commissioning is a really important point and it comes up in so many debates in Westminster Hall and, indeed, in the main Chamber. I urge my hon. Friend and indeed the rest of the health team—we have got to put right the things that we got wrong. If we want to get this issue right, and get it right for people with hepatitis C, and for people with mental health conditions who are not getting access to services because of this fragmentation, then we have to revisit it.

I urge my hon. Friend to go and spend some time out on the frontline with some professionals and to get them to talk to him candidly—not on a ministerial visit. He should get them to talk to him candidly about these problems, because we have to recognise that this situation needs to change for the benefit of the people we care about, who are the patients.

[Steve Brine]

I will not prolong this discussion, Mr Streeter, but I take my hon. Friend’s point and I think it is a subject that will receive further airing, to put it mildly.

Junk Food Advertising and Childhood Obesity

Debate between Dan Poulter and Steve Brine

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Steve Brine]

It is on my list.

We also challenged the food and drink industry, with Public Health England’s sugar reduction programme, to reduce the amount of sugar in the foods our children eat most by 20% by 2020. Some of the biggest players in the industry, including Waitrose, Nestlé and Kellogg’s, which a number of hon. Members mentioned, have already made positive moves towards that target. Data will be available in March this year to give us a better picture of how the whole market has responded—we will be naming names—and to show whether we have met our year one target of a 5% reduction. We remain positive, but we have been clear from the beginning that if sufficient progress has not been achieved, we will consider further action. We rule nothing out.

We further built on the foundations of the childhood obesity plan in August 2017 by announcing the extension of the reformulation programme to include calories. The Government will publish more detail of the evidence for action on calorie reduction, and our ambition and timelines for that, in early 2018.

Our plan also includes school-based interventions, which a couple of hon. Members mentioned, including the expansion of healthy breakfast clubs for schools in more deprived areas, with £10 million per year of funding coming from the soft drinks industry levy. That is on top of the doubling of the school sport premium, which is flowing into schools as we speak, and represents a £320 million annual investment in the health of our children. The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) asked whether that cash will continue to flow as companies take action. I will come back to that point, but the Treasury has guaranteed a level of funding over the next three years, regardless of what comes in from the levy. If she wants me to write to her to put that in more detail, I am happy to do so—I have found the note I meant to read out, but we have covered it anyway. Such actions will ensure that we are tackling the healthiness of the food offer available to all families. The evidence shows that that is absolutely the right thing to do.

On marketing restrictions, another part of the jigsaw is how these foods are marketed, in particular to children, which is of course the central tenet of today’s debate. I thank the Centre for Social Justice and Cancer Research UK—I met both last week—and the Obesity Health Alliance for their recent reports highlighting the marketing of products high in fat, sugar and salt, or HFSS, to children. All are welcome updates that add to the debate.

This month marks 10 years since the first round of regulations to limit children’s exposure to marketing of products high in fat, salt and sugar, when we banned advertising of HFSS products in children’s television programming. We monitor that closely, including in my own home. At the weekend I tried to explain the premise of this debate to my children and, last night, when I phoned home, they told me that while watching a well-known commercial television channel they saw a slush drink mixed with sweets. Such products are being monitored closely in the Minister’s household as well as by my officials. When I get home, I will ask my children to show me that.

Recently, we welcomed the Committee of Advertising Practice strengthening the non-broadcast regulations to ban marketing of HFSS products in children’s media, including in print, cinema, online and on social media. That point was made strongly by my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) in her excellent speech.

The restrictions that the UK has in place, therefore, are among the toughest in the world, but I want to ensure that in the fast-paced world of marketing—many people spoke about how quickly that world is moving—it stays that way. We heard lots of “go further” calls, including by the hon. Member for Bristol East, and that is why we have invested £5 million to establish a policy research unit on obesity that will consider all the latest evidence on marketing and obesity, including in the advertising space. That is also why we are updating something called the nutrient profile model, which does not sound exciting but is important. It is the tool that helps advertisers determine which food and drink products are HFSS and, as a result, cannot be advertised to children. The purpose is to ensure that the model reflects the latest dietary advice. Public Health England expects to consult on that in early 2018.

[Dr Poulter]

In that context, what measures are in place or is the Minister considering putting in place regarding online advertising to children?

[Steve Brine]

I will come on to that—if I do not, I will write to my hon. Friend—so I ask him to bear with me.

My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash, who opened the debate, said that the Department should have the lead on advertising. I am not sure that my friends in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will agree, but I understand her point. I have noted that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Education and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have all been touched on in the debate. I reassure the House that tackling the challenge is a cross-Government concern. The childhood obesity plan that was published is a cross-Government plan, and all Departments have a rightful role to play, which continues to be the case as that plan is delivered.

The hon. Member for Westminster Hall, otherwise known as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), spoke well as always. I know he had to leave—he let the Chair and me know that. He spoke about food management and touched specifically on diabetes. He actually said, “If only I had known the damage being done”—I have heard that so many times. On Friday, I visited a brilliant organisation called LifeLab at Southampton General Hospital, which is partly funded by Southampton University. LifeLab empowers children through scientific inquiry to understand the impact on their bodies of their behaviour, the food that they eat and the drinks that they drink. A new spin-off called Early LifeLab goes into primary schools, while secondary schoolchildren from Southampton, across the south of England and further afield come into LifeLab to understand. So in answer to, “If only I had known,” that is what LifeLab does. I am very interested in looking at evaluations of LifeLab as it goes forward and in how that work might be built into a wider public policy roll-out.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire made an excellent speech, as he always does. He rightly said that the poor are the most negatively affected, and we have touched on that point. I thank him for his Thailand, Popeye and spinach example. He also mentioned local authorities and planning. Local authorities have a range of powers to create healthier environments in their area through local plans and individual planning decisions. The national planning policy framework makes it clear that health objectives should be taken into account. The DHCLG is in the process of updating the framework to see if other aspects can be strengthened.

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, and for the offer of a weekend together among the spring tulips in Amsterdam, which is very appealing on a cold January morning in Westminster. He also mentioned the Centre for Social Justice which, as I said, I met last week. I am very interested in its work. He touched on Making Every Contact Count and GPs. He is absolutely right about that and we could do much better. It is a subject that I am sure will come up over dinner later this week when I go to the annual dinner at the Royal College of General Practitioners.

My hon. Friend was intervened on by our colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), on the daily mile. At every single school that I go into, whether as a local MP or as a Minister, I ask if the daily mile is being done. That has been a brilliant import from north of the border and it is excellent. I hope that every Member who goes into a school talks about the importance of the daily mile and encourages them to do it.

Many other points were made. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire talked about colour coding and the traffic-light system. Our colour-coded, front-of-pack labelling scheme is voluntary at the moment. It covers about two thirds of the market. We will consider other available labelling options as part of our withdrawal from the European Union—he has my guarantee on that.

The hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) spoke about the imbalance of information. His point was well made, I thought, about manufacturers and industry providing more information than the NHS does in his constituency. I would say that the Government have a strong voice in this debate, and rightly so, which is why we are seeing good progress on delivery of the plan, but we are also investing in the highly successful Change4Life programme, which I am responsible for through Public Health England. It informs families about healthier eating. Can we do more? We can, without doubt, in the public health and prevention space.

The hon. Member for Bristol East mentioned the “eatwell plate” in reference to the public sector. To respond, we have in place robust standards for public sector procurement, the Government buying standards for food and catering services. DEFRA is the lead Department and comes into the story here. It continues to drive compliance across other Departments and among NHS hospitals, which are required to meet the standards through the NHS standard contract. The hon. Lady makes a good point. She also raised the issue of academies, and I understand that the Department for Education will shortly begin a campaign to get them all signed up. I thank her for making that point.

In conclusion, from day one we have been consistently clear that the childhood obesity plan marked the start of the conversation—it has never been the final word. We continue to learn from the latest evidence. We are confident that the measures we are taking will lead to a reduction in childhood obesity over 10 years, but we take nothing for granted and will keep everything under review. I thank all Members for their contributions and look forward to further ones.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [Lords]

Debate between Dan Poulter and Steve Brine

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I shall speak to new clause 3. First, though, I welcome the constructive approach taken by my right hon. Friend the Minister to engaging with Members on all sides of the House during the passage of the Bill—a constructive engagement which, I believe, has enhanced the positive aspects of the Bill. I am pleased that the broad consensus across the House is that this is an important piece of legislation about public protection.

What we have heard clearly today is a call for evidence-based policy making. That has been echoed in a number of contributions on different amendments and new clauses, and we should all sign up to that. In that spirit, I tabled the new clause primarily as a probing amendment to examine and draw out the Minister’s comments on an increasingly confused law in respect of the medicinal use of cannabis. The existing law is an impediment to research into the effects of cannabis on mental health and general research on the medicinal benefits of cannabis and cannabis derivatives.

[Steve Brine]

I support my hon. Friend. Does he agree that the momentum is with his case? The all-party group on drug policy reform hopes to conduct an inquiry shortly into the medicinal use of cannabis. Its results will be interesting in the context of that evidence base.

Care Bill [Lords]

Debate between Dan Poulter and Steve Brine

Tuesday 11th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

Let me make a little progress, because I have been generous in giving way.

Let us consider the following:

“The vast majority of trusts perform well, but in the rare instances where that is not the case, there must be transparent processes in place to deal with poor performance.”—[Official Report, 8 June 2009; Vol. 493, c. 544.]

I completely agree with those words—the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) used them when he described the purpose of the regime to this House in 2009. This is Labour’s regime, which it now tries to disown in opposition. The TSA regime is only ever used as the very last resort, and provisions in the Care Bill will introduce, importantly, a new role for the Care Quality Commission for triggering the regime when there has been a serious failure of quality; the emphasis will now be on quality, rather than merely on financial failure.

Clause 119 respects the coalition agreement that routine service changes will be locally led; it is about protecting patients and ensuring we can act rapidly and effectively in their best interests in examples of extreme failure. It may therefore be helpful if I set out some of the changes and improvements we are making to the regime under clause 119.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I think I know the answer to this, but the opposite has been said so many times in the past three and a quarter hours that it is worth saying it again. The Minister knows that my local foundation trust is undergoing proposals that will lead to a public consultation on reconfiguration, which is supported on clinical grounds by the commissioners. Whatever view local representatives and others take on that—I am far from sold on this at the moment—will he confirm to me, as he did to my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), that neither he nor his administrators will be on a train to Winchester any time soon?

[Dr Poulter]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right in what he says. These are decisions, under the legislation that this Government introduced, that are being led by local commissioners and local clinicians engaging with patients; they are nothing to do with the TSA regime we are discussing today, which deals with examples of extreme failure in the NHS.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Poulter and Steve Brine

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

2. What recent steps he has taken to improve maternity care.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)]

We have made improving maternity services—so that women have a named midwife responsible for ensuring personalised care—a key objective in our mandate to NHS England. Since May 2010, the number of midwives has increased by more than 1,500 and a record number—in excess of 5,000—are now in training. Over the past two years I have set up a £35 million capital investment fund, which has already seen improvements to over 100 maternity units.

[Steve Brine]

My local foundation trust is currently exploring a major service change which would see the creation of a new acute care hospital to handle the sickest and most complex patients. It would leave midwife-led units only in Winchester and Basingstoke, and centre consultant-led services on the new site. Does the Minister feel confident that the clinical case for this kind of centralisation has been made? Would he be comfortable to see it rolled out across the NHS?

[Dr Poulter]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the fact that such decisions are clinical decisions and need to be made at a local level to ensure safe care, both with appropriate numbers of obstetricians in obstetric-led units and to give women the choice to deliver in midwifery-led units where appropriate. I am pleased that we, as part of the fund that I outlined earlier, have been able to give Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust £50,000 to provide enhanced facilities in birthing rooms at Florence Portal house.