Social Care

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We will fulfil all the commitments in the manifesto, which, as the hon. Member set out, includes one on this subject, and that is part of our plan.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

We have been talking for some time. Indeed, we legislated: we decided to legislate for Dilnot. Can the Secretary of State take us through why we resiled from that position?

[Matt Hancock]

The honest truth is that that decision was made in the 2015-17 Parliament, and it was a decision the Government made at the time. I think that we need to take action to solve this problem, and that is what we are planning to do. The third part of the plan—[Interruption.] Well, I am halfway through explaining the plan.

The third part of the plan is to seek a solution that brings dignity and security to all those who need social care, with a system in which nobody needing care is forced to sell their home to pay for it. Such a solution would go against one of the most basic human impulses, which is the drive to provide for one’s family. We want to encourage people to save and we want to reward them for the fruits of their endeavours. As we said in our manifesto, we want to guarantee that

“nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it.”

We are determined to tackle this challenge in this Parliament, and to bring forward these reforms.

Fixing the funding, as my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) said, is only half of the equation, and the other half needs attention, too. We should be helping more people to live at home for longer; finding a cure for dementia, because we refuse to accept that dementia is an inevitable part of ageing; and harnessing technology to improve care. The stereotype of social care as a kind of digital backwater is increasingly out of date; there are many examples of brilliant social care organisations, public and private, using wearables and new technology to support the round-the-clock care that they give. We should also be breaking down the silos between health and social care. We will always support our carers, both paid and unpaid alike.

NHS Funding Bill

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 27th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We are already exceeding those amounts with the additional funding that I mentioned to do with training and capital, both of which are critical. Of course the budget is set out in cash terms: cash is what the NHS spends. Part of what the NHS has to do is make sure that it spends the money getting the best possible value for money. I am acutely aware that, while we are spending £33.9 billion extra and the total budget is almost £150 billion, every single pound of that is taxpayers’ money. We have to be acutely aware of the value we get from it.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

We have said that there will be parity of esteem between mental and physical health. What is the mechanism for ensuring that the money that my right hon. Friend has announced is actually spent on mental health, as desired, rather than elsewhere?

[Matt Hancock]

That is clearly set out in the operational guidance to the NHS—that it must be. That will be auditable, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend will look to ensure that that has happened. This is an issue where the levers from the Secretary of State’s office to the NHS frontline are extremely well connected.

Health and Social Care

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move an amendment, at the end of the Question to add:

“but respectfully regrets that the Gracious Speech fails to ensure that the National Health Service and social care will be properly funded; and calls for the Government to bring forward a plan and additional funding to end the crisis in social care and provide for at least a 4 per cent per year real terms increase in health spending.”.

Before I move on to the substance of my remarks, may I congratulate you, Mr Deputy Speaker? It is a pleasure to see you back in your place overseeing these proceedings. I will endeavour to be as brief as I can in my remarks, because I am aware that many Members hope to catch your eye to offer their maiden contributions. I am sure that every one of them will do their constituencies proud.

At the outset, I also wish to thank our hard-working NHS and social care staff who every day go beyond the call of duty and go the extra mile, especially over the Christmas period. We are forever in their debt. Our amendment, which we will put to the vote today, is essentially about backing up those hard-working NHS and social care staff, and sending a message to the Government that they should be given the resources that they need.

This is a motion about the 4.5 million people on waiting lists. This is a motion about the pregnant woman who waited so long for her glaucoma operation at a hospital in Southampton that she nearly lost her sight and has never seen the face of her child. This is a motion about the 34,000 people who wait more than two months for cancer treatment. This is a motion about those constituents, such as mine in Leicester, who had their bladder cancer operations cancelled twice. This is a motion about the 79,000 cancelled operations last year, and the 18,000 children’s cancelled operations. This is a motion about the 110,000 children denied mental health care, even though they are in the most desperate of circumstances. This is a motion about the 98,000 patients who waited on trolleys last month—a 65% increase on the previous year—many of them elderly, many of them in their 80s and 90s, languishing for hours and hours on trolleys in hospital corridors.

This is a motion about those hospitals that have been pushed to rack and ruin after years of cuts to capital budgets, including Hillingdon hospital in the Prime Minister’s own backyard, where children’s wards had to be closed because of subsidence. This is a motion about the Royal Cornwall hospital that is discharging patients early because it is so overwhelmed. This is a motion about the 1.5 million people, many of them with dementia, denied the social care support they need after years and years of swingeing cuts.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

Let me make a little bit of progress. I think Members on both sides would agree that I am usually generous in taking interventions, but I am aware that many colleagues want to make their maiden speeches today. I will take some interventions, but let me make a little bit of progress. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give me a bit of leeway.

This motion is about giving the NHS the funding it needs. It is a motion that will test every newly elected Conservative Member of Parliament on their commitment to the NHS.

The Government are correct to signal in the Queen’s Speech, as they did indeed in the pre-election Queen’s Speech, that health and social care should be the priority. On that, at least, they have my agreement. Yesterday the Prime Minister promised to

“get those waiting lists down.”—[Official Report, 15 January 2020; Vol. 669, c. 1015.]

So the test that must be applied to the NHS and social care announcements in the Gracious Address is whether they add up to a strategy to drive waiting lists down and A&E performance up. The answer on that front is surely no. We have promises of 40 new hospitals, 50,000 new extra nurses, and 50 million more GP appointments, with 6,000 extra GPs. On each and every one of these commitments, we will keep track of progress and test Ministers on whether they deliver.

But we will also test Ministers on social—

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

rose—

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

rose—

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I give way first to the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) and then I will make some progress because I know that many Members want to speak.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

The hon. Gentleman will recall that the Government accepted the Dilnot proposals and even put in place certain legislative provisions for them to be implemented in the next financial year. I never understood why, during the 2017 election campaign, they departed from that position—but what is the Opposition’s position on Dilnot?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

We have long argued for a cap on care costs, but of course the Government, as the right hon. Gentleman says, dropped their support for this policy.

On the issue of social care, the Prime Minister said at the Dispatch Box yesterday that he wanted cross-party talks, although in his BBC interview the day before he said that he had a plan that he would bring forward in the next 12 months. The Government want a consensus. I say to the Government that the Labour party has proposed free personal care. We have a version of free personal care in Scotland. There is a similar version of it in Northern Ireland. There is a version of it in Wales. The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, which includes Thatcherites such as Michael Forsyth and Norman Lamont, alongside the former Labour Chancellor, Alistair Darling, has proposed free personal social care. There already is a political consensus. It is the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister who stand outside that consensus. If the Secretary of State wants to engage with us on that basis, then my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) is happy to do so. I will now take the intervention from the former Chief Whip.

Decriminalisation of Abortion

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I thank the hon. Lady for the characteristically constructive spirit in which she has engaged with this issue. The nub of the point she makes is that decriminalisation must not be met with deregulation. Whatever we do, we must make sure that in repealing those sections of the 1861 Act—if that is what Parliament chooses to do—the regime that replaces it must not only guarantee the rights of women to take decisions for themselves but protect them and keep them safe. That is my priority in addressing this issue.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is aware—isn’t she?—that any proposal for repeal will be resisted as passionately in the country and on the Government Back Benches as it has just been advocated by those on the Opposition Benches?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I am very aware that this issue rouses passions on both sides of the argument, which is why I reassure the House that, from my perspective, I just want to make sure that I deliver Parliament’s instructions in a way that is safe. I should add that perhaps the way in which both sides of the argument have been debated in the House has not led to good lawmaking, because it has meant that the law has not been revisited in 50 years and has not kept pace with medical advancement.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman is right, which is why the Green Paper will have long-term plans on mental health and, indeed, dementia. I think he will be pleased to see that when the Green Paper is released shortly.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

What can the Minister do to expedite the provision of primary care services in those rural areas where the population is growing fast as a consequence of new housing?

[Stephen Hammond]

My right hon. Friend is right to raise that point, which has been raised with me several times. The new funding formula that the independent advisory committee is setting up will take into account the growth in population. It will look at the growth in the electoral register every year, rather than over a five-year period, as it does now, so it will be able to respond more quickly than is currently the case.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Seema Kennedy]

It is distressing to hear of such a case, and these situations are very distressing for patients and their carers. The NHS Business Services Authority has taken steps to make things clearer, including with an easy-read patient information booklet and an online eligibility checker. We are also running a national awareness campaign, but of course we do need to ensure that people are not claiming for things to which they are not entitled.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I have constituents who are furious at repeatedly receiving penalty notices that subsequently have to be quashed. The system is rubbish, isn’t it?

[Seema Kennedy]

I do not agree with my right hon. Friend that the system is rubbish. If somebody does receive a penalty charge notice incorrectly, there are procedures in place to challenge that notice. If somebody thinks they have received a penalty charge that they should not have received, they should contact the NHS Business Services Authority.

Whorlton Hall

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This is an extremely important and sensitive matter, but I am looking to move on to the business question at 11 o’clock, so short questions and short—though, I am sure, informative—replies are required.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

What happens at the Care Quality Commission’s headquarters when a story such as this emerges? Are the inspectors who so recently rated the facility summoned in for a meeting without coffee, or perhaps with the rough end of a pineapple?

[Caroline Dinenage]

The Care Quality Commission is taking the situation incredibly seriously. Some massive concerns were raised last night, and Paul Lelliott from the CQC apologised and said that the matter would be very thoroughly addressed and investigated by its team.

Medical Cannabis under Prescription

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mike Penning]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. That is what we are here for. Yes, we are frustrated and angry, but actually we are here to do something very important. The only reason the Home Office deregulated this drug and we are in this position today is that this House came together and, more importantly, because the families came together. Those families have young children—I am a father myself, like lots of colleagues in the House—and we all came together to say that the situation was fundamentally wrong. We asked why medical cannabis was illegal if we knew that it helped our children.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Am I right in my assessment that Ministers have bent over backwards and we have acted in the Chamber to ensure that these products are now available, but that the problem is in the medical profession? What more can we do now? I know that this is interfering in the medical profession, but, frankly, that is now becoming necessary.

[Sir Mike Penning]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care stood at the Dispatch Box during the urgent question and laid out in plain English that it is not illegal for a suitably qualified person to prescribe these medical products, so how are we still here?

Access to Medical Cannabis

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

If the principal issue is that doctors will not prescribe, is there a secondary problem when there is a prescription but the bureaucracy is failing to honour it?

[Matt Hancock]

I have heard that accusation being made by a couple of the parents. I am advised that that is not the case, but I am very much looking into it because in these circumstances I always think we need to listen to the people who are trying to resolve the issue. I am looking into that very point.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

4. What estimate he has made of the number of prescriptions for medicinal cannabis products that have been issued since November 2018.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

The data that my right hon. Friend asks for is not available, but it is important that we take action to make sure the right drugs are available for the right people.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

Was it intended to make them as rare as hens’ teeth? What measures is the Secretary of State taking to support clinicians in actually prescribing?

[Matt Hancock]

I met the parents of some of the children whose needs are best met through the use of medicinal cannabis. My heart goes out to those who are fighting for this cause. We changed the law in the autumn to try to make it easier, and I am looking very closely at what we can do to make sure that the intention of that decision is met.