Health and Care Bill

Debate between Derek Thomas and Daisy Cooper

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

The Minister made a valiant effort to dissuade some of us from supporting Lords amendment 29—the workforce amendment—but I suspect he knows he is not kidding anybody.

We have learned today that public satisfaction with the NHS is at its lowest level since 1997. We should not underestimate the blow that that news will deliver to the health and care workers who turn up, do an amazing job, and go above and beyond every single day. To say that that news is dispiriting is an understatement. It is important that those workers know that the public, and every Member of this House, loves our NHS; it is just that we want it to work a bit better. It is hardly surprising that people’s biggest frustrations are waiting times, a lack of proper funding and staff shortages. Those things are the fault not of health and care workers but of this Tory Government, who are driving our health and care services into the ground.

Cancer Research UK says that without the workforce amendment the Bill will fail to address the biggest barrier to the achievement of world-class cancer outcomes in the UK: the staffing shortages and pressures. The King’s Fund has said that the health and care workforce crisis will be the key rate-limiting factor in the reduction of the NHS elective care backlog. The workforce amendment may not be a silver bullet, but it is the closest thing to one, which makes it all the more frustrating that the Government will not accept it. As I suspect the Minister knows, the Government’s objections just do not stand up to scrutiny.

As the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) said, framework 15 simply sets out the number of staff the Government think they can afford, rather than the number of staff we actually need. I urge the Minister to think about what message that sends to my constituent, who is a newly qualified midwife. She wrote to me just a couple of months ago and said:

“I am extremely concerned about the crisis in maternity care. This isn’t caused by Covid-19—the systemic failings have been crippling the service for a generation—but the pandemic has made a bad situation worse.”

She said:

“I am being harmed, my clients are being harmed. Staff are being harmed. For every 30 newly qualified midwives, 29 are leaving. Parents are reporting bullying and coercion. Threats are being used to ensure compliance. Unnecessary medical interventions are at epidemic levels. Trauma—amongst parents and midwives—is rife.”

She said that “concerns are being missed” and interventions “made too late”, and that the reason was “staffing problems.” If that is not a wake-up call, I do not know what is.

I wish briefly to express my concern about the powers the Bill will give the Secretary of State. At best, the change will create a bureaucratic nightmare; at worst, it will lead to meddling and the politicisation of the day-to-day running of the NHS. The Government have tried to argue that the pandemic showed the need for Ministers to have more powers, but we know that during the pandemic the Secretary of State had powers over PPE and test and trace, both of which issues were handled extremely badly. The NHS’s operational independence is critical, but it will be undone by the introduction of the Henry VIII powers in the Bill, so Liberal Democrats will oppose them.

Finally, I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) on his impassioned speech. I agree with him wholeheartedly that we have a duty as a nation and as a society to ensure that the goods used in our publicly owned NHS are not tainted by modern slavery or linked to the behaviours that may lead to genocide.

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

I rise to speak in support of Lords amendment 29, in the context of those who suffer brain tumours. I wish to take a moment to reflect on the fact that Tom Parker, a member of The Wanted who had done so much work to raise awareness of brain tumours and who worked with the all-party parliamentary group on brain tumours, which I chair, died today of his brain tumour. I wish to take a moment to remember him, his family and the two young ones he has left behind.

As I say, I chair the APPG on brain tumours, so I wish to discuss the need for Lords amendment 29 in that context. As we have heard, there is currently no data on how many healthcare staff the country needs, but we know that staff are overstretched. As we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), £6.2 billion was spent on locums in the financial year 2019-20 to plug the gaps. The NHS and social care will never be able to keep up with demand without regular assessment of the numbers needed. As we know, the Government have so far dismissed this workforce planning amendment on the basis that the Department of Health and Social Care has commissioned a long-term strategic framework. We have heard already this evening why that is not good enough, although I am extremely aware of how much the Minister is engaged in, and concerned about, this workforce subject, and he has been generous with his time in talking to colleagues about what the Government hope to do.

Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Derek Thomas and Daisy Cooper

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

The Government’s plan and funding to address this fire safety issue are a welcome start. I am not going to rehearse the points already made this afternoon, but I believe that the role of affordable home ownership schemes in this disaster has been overlooked.

Many people engulfed in this scandal are first-time buyers who took their first step on the property ladder through Conservative-backed schemes intended to boost home ownership. People use these schemes because they are not cash rich, but they are now facing unexpected bills for life-changing sums, and some are being asked to take up further Government loans to pay them. The drafting of this Bill means that despite owning only part of the value of their flat, leaseholders are potentially liable for 100% of the share of the costs. In effect, they are subsidising their landlords, who own the remaining percentage of the value of the flat but pay nothing to remedy the defects. Leaseholders have always had to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of buildings they do not own, owing to the way leasehold agreements work, but the building defects and costs involved to fix them are beyond what anyone could have contemplated.

With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to read out a case study of a future constituent —someone hoping to relocate to my constituency. This individual owns a one-bedroom flat in the Olympic village in London, in which she has a 35% interest, and is seeking to move to Penzance, in my constituency, to be with her fiancé. The flat was sold to her as a low-risk investment; she was encouraged by the shared ownership Government scheme, as part of their affordable housing directive. Her block was found to have missing fire cavity barriers, rendering it a B2 rating, warranting remediation, with the bills potentially being in excess of £50,000 for her flat alone. The housing association is trying to bring the developers to account, something that legally it is not required to do. Failing that, this will result in a lengthy legal battle, during which she may well be presented with the bill for remediation work in order to make the block fire safe and adhere to the Government’s new guidelines. Applying for a grant under the Jenrick announcement for remediation works is an extremely slow and complicated process. If the housing association does not succeed in getting the perpetrators to fix their mess, she will get the bill, and as a shared owner she will be liable for the full 100% of the bill, not 35%, which is the share she owns of the property. In any case, it is highly unlikely she will be able to sell property for years to come and buy into the Cornish economy by purchasing a house.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) has put forward very pragmatic proposals to unlock the deadlock and improve the fire safety of homes across our nation, and I would welcome the Minister’s response to these sensible proposals,

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD) [V]]

Over the weekend, it was reported that the Bank of England is assessing whether Britain’s building safety scandal could cause a new financial crisis—why? It was because 1.3 million flats are unmortgageable and as many as 3 million people face a wait of up to 10 years to sell or get a new mortgage because they cannot prove that their homes are safe.

This scandal has gone on for too long and it has already caused too much damage. This Government must accept the Lords amendment that would protect leaseholders from exorbitant costs, or they should drop this Bill altogether and bring back a better version in the Queen’s Speech. It is simply incredible that the Government have had 10 whole months to break the deadlock and propose a solution that they find acceptable, but they have refused to do so. Instead, they wage a campaign of scaremongering, telling us that if the Bill fails it will have the effect of increasing fire safety risks. Well, that is not the view of the leaseholders in my constituency; it is not the view of the leaseholder group; and it is not the view of the Cladding Action Group. They are speaking with one voice and they are clear that they would much rather see this defective Bill fall than pass in its current form.