Business of the House

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I hope that my hon. Friend can get an answer to his question from one Department or another. He is able to pursue the matter with the Cabinet Office. There are many ways of promoting and bringing about debates, including Back-Bench business debates, of which we have a great many. He might want to put forward aspects of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for such a debate.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The latest figures show that Hull, which is the 10th most deprived area in the country, will lose £628 per household during the course of this Parliament, whereas Elmbridge in Surrey will gain £41 per household. May we please have a debate before the local government settlement in December to look at the fairness or unfairness of the way in which the coalition Government allocate local authority funding?

[Mr Hague]

We debate local government finance on a regular basis in the House. The level of Government support for local government spending remains vastly higher in the vast majority of urban areas of this country than in many of the more rural areas. Of course there are variations over the years, but the level of support in a city such as Hull is much greater than that in constituencies elsewhere in Yorkshire, such as mine. This matter can be argued both ways, and the hon. Lady argues that the funding should be greater in her constituency. We have all made that argument over time, and she will be able to do so the next time these matters are debated.

Summer Adjournment

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

It was a pleasure to listen to the thought-provoking contribution of the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee). I had forgotten how wide-ranging and interesting the pre-recess Adjournment debate can be. We have heard contributions from hon. Members championing individuals, for example, the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) championing Mr Cromer; discussions about children’s TV programmes such as “The Herbs”, which many of us will fondly remember watching; and speeches about the role of the 1966 World cup and how West Ham was instrumental in making sure the cup was won for England. I want to make a contribution about the NHS.

I am growing increasingly concerned about the NHS in my Hull constituency. In 2010, the NHS, both in Hull and across the country, had high levels of patient satisfaction—the highest levels in its history. Of course there were challenges in 2010, but the NHS was well placed to deal with them. Under a Labour Government, Hull had many new health centres: we had a new women and children’s hospital; a new eye hospital; a new oncology centre at the Castle Hill site, just outside Hull; and the new Hull York medical school opened in the city, so that we could produce our own doctors for the future. As an MP, I received very few complaints about the NHS then.

In the past two years, however, especially since the wasteful £3 billion top-down NHS reorganisation, which nobody voted for and for which there was no call in the coalition agreement, things have deteriorated. I worry that the only person who seems to understand or know how the fragmented NHS now operates and fits together is the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), and I note that he is leaving the House of Commons at the next election, so I am a bit concerned about the situation we find ourselves in today. The number of complaints I have received from my constituents about the NHS has doubled in the past year, going from 16 to 34 in 2012-13. This year, I have already received 27 such complaints.

I want to run through a few of the issues I am most concerned about, the first of which relates to parents trying to seek a diagnosis for their children where there is a concern that the child may have autism or be on the spectrum. The clinical commissioning group in Hull tells me that the standard for this diagnosis is supposed to be 20 weeks, but two constituents have come to me in the past few months saying that they have been told it will take more than 12 months for a child to be diagnosed. That is unacceptable. We all know that the earlier we can get children into the kind of services that will help them, the better. The outcomes will be better for those children. The CCG tells me that it is doing everything it can to address the problem, but that is not a wait that should continue for very long, and I hope the CCG is able to get it down.

I want to raise an issue that a parent brought to me about children regarding Down’s syndrome. There is no national care pathway for this group of children. There is good practice around the country, but that good practice is not in every part of the NHS, and it should be. With the changes to the NHS and to the role of the Department of Health, I am worried that the drive to ensure best practice around the country may now be fragmented and that we may see a return of the postcode lottery.

The headline story in today’s Hull Daily Mail is that almost 4,000 patients in East Yorkshire are now forced to wait more than 18 weeks to see a hospital consultant. The areas in which they have to wait are orthopaedics, neurology and colorectal and thoracic medicine. It is a concern that ill people have to wait to be seen.

Finally, I have had complaints about A and E and the acute assessment unit at Hull Royal infirmary. The complaints are often about waiting times to be seen by doctors. Many people say that they think the staff are doing a good job, but are overstretched. A constituent sent me an e-mail in which she said:

“My husband was admitted to Hull Royal Infirmary on New Year’s day with a major asthma attack due to a viral chest infection. He received excellent care by the staff both in the ambulance and those on duty. However, the overcrowding in A&E gives serious cause for concern. Many dozens of poorly people were waiting on trolleys in the corridors. The staff were run ragged.”

She said that her husband had to wait 11 hours to get the results of an X-ray and blood test. She went on to say:

“If A&E is the barometer of the Health Service then it is sadly in trouble. The NHS had improved so much under Labour.”

Let me read out another case that was sent to me by my caseworker:

“The constituent’s father had been unwell for over a year. He was admitted to Hull Royal Infirmary…where he was on the Acute Assessment Unit Ward with suspected tuberculosis. When the constituent visited him the next day, they found that: the drip in his arm had not been put into a vein; he had been laid in his own urine; there was no way for him to attract the nurse’s attention; and nobody had checked on him for 6 hours. He was discharged the following Tuesday, however he was still poorly and had difficulty walking. He still had a cannula in his arm. The constituent had to go back to the hospital to collect his medication, and she found out that the nursing staff didn’t know why he had been discharged. The constituent said she was later told by a nurse and her family’s GP that he had been sent home to die.”

Those are just two examples from my growing postbag. I am truly shocked—I am sure that other Members are too—to hear these harrowing accounts of the care that my constituents have received.

Admittedly, not all the problems with Hull’s NHS as reported in our recent CQC report, such as the totally unacceptable bullying culture, may be entirely made in Whitehall. However, these problems seem to have come to the fore in the past two years, after the NHS reorganisation.

There is another matter that I want to raise, one that I have raised before with the Secretary of State during Health questions. The former chief executive of Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, Phil Morley, suddenly resigned just before the publication of a very poor CQC report, which highlighted the bullying culture in the trust. I was shocked to read, just a few weeks later, that he has now resurfaced as the new chief executive in Harlow, Essex. I thought that the new Health Secretary was going to end this revolving door of chief executives moving from trust to trust, but he has not, and I am very anxious that we should deal with the matter.

I am also still waiting for an answer to another question. The CQC report mentioned a shortage of junior doctors in our local hospitals. I do not understand that. As I said at the beginning of my speech, we have the Hull York medical school in Hull, which was designed to train doctors for the local area, so I do not understand where the junior doctors are going.

I also want to mention the privatisation going on under the coalition’s NHS reforms. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) has tabled a private Member’s Bill that will have its Second Reading in November and would scrap the competition framework set out in the coalition’s NHS legislation. I hope that the Liberal Democrats might support my hon. Friend’s Bill.

Let me raise just one more issue to do with health. Last winter, A and Es around the country received extra money to cope with the winter pressures: some £250 million was made available. Hull did not get any of that money, but the CQC report to which I have referred made it quite clear that the inspectors felt that A and E needed extra assistance and support. I say again, as I have on many occasions, that Hull often seems to miss out on moneys that are very much needed in a city that has considerable health inequalities and where people develop chronic illnesses much younger than they do in other parts of the country.

The NHS is a key issue for many of my constituents. I will be out and about over the summer listening to their concerns about the NHS and about what is going on locally. I am seriously worried by what has happened over the past two years. I remember very clearly the Prime Minister saying in 2010 that the NHS was safe in his hands. Four years on, I do not particularly think that he has kept that promise, and I think that over the coming 12 months we will start to see more and more issues raised about the state of the NHS.

I finish by taking this opportunity to wish everybody a good recess, particularly the staff of the House, who serve us so well.

Business of the House

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes a good case for an Adjournment debate in order to illustrate those issues more fully, but if I may be helpful in the meantime, I will talk to my hon. Friends at the Department for Communities and Local Government to establish what opportunities local authorities have to ensure that car boot sales function in a way that is fair to local people.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The report published by the Public Accounts Committee and today’s Daily Mail say that there are more than 300 complaints a day of abuse by carers of elders. May we have a debate on the Government’s policy on keeping our most vulnerable adults safe?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady will recall that the coalition Government have responded to elder abuse on many occasions. In particular, through the establishment of more inspections and an unannounced inspection regime by the Care Quality Commission, we are trying to give greater reassurance and to take action when any evidence of abuse emerges. That is especially true of abuse in domiciliary care. The CQC is working to ensure that it can take appropriate steps, including inspections, in domiciliary care circumstances, which have hitherto effectively been without that kind of scrutiny.

Business of the House

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I understand the important role played by our creative industries, including the video games sector, in our economic recovery. Indeed, I think that was illustrated by the replies given by my colleagues to the preceding questions to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The creative sector is worth £71 billion to our economy, with its employment figure growing at five times that of the economy as a whole. It is a great success and we are committed to working with the creative industries to take the strategy forward. Create UK was launched just yesterday in order to make further progress, and I hope my hon. Friend’s constituency, which is such a leading location for firms in the sector, will be able to fully benefit from the strategy.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Last week’s Sunday Express reported that a suspected terrorist was freely supporting and encouraging young Britons to travel to Syria to fight jihad. May we please have a debate in Government time on what additional powers we may need to introduce for returning radicalised young people who have been fighting jihad in Syria and Iraq?

[Mr Lansley]

I understand completely the seriousness and importance of the point raised by the hon. Lady. There will be Home Office questions on Monday. We also intend to introduce powers under the Serious Crime Bill, which is currently in the House of Lords, relating to extraterritorial jurisdiction in relation to acts concerned with terrorism, preparation for terrorism and similar. I know I may be asking the hon. Lady to wait a little, but this House will have an opportunity to debate that Bill in due course.

Business of the House

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

On top of the unfair treatment Hull receives in council funding and other funding that has been cut, this week the Chancellor forgot to mention that Hull is at the end of the HS3 route he was proposing and now we hear that the Deputy Prime Minister is talking about a golden triangle between Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield. In the light of the snubs the Government keep giving Hull, may we have a debate on this? We are doing our very best, getting the city of culture and Siemens into the city, but those are victories that are home-grown, not enabled by the Government.

[Mr Lansley]

That is uncharacteristically churlish on the part of the hon. Lady; the Government have been part of that, for example, being part of the negotiation with Siemens. The Chancellor talked at the beginning of this week about the vision for the future and greater east-west connectedness and, as she acknowledged, what he was talking about included Hull as part of that potential connectedness.

Business of the House

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My goodness, what my hon. Friend says sounds jolly tempting. I am surprised that the noble Lord Grocott considered it wise to legislate in such a way. Perhaps he and the Labour party are rather worried by the prospect of elections and the dangers they might represent. I am pleased to reassure my hon. Friend that we in the coalition Government are not frightened of elections and we have no intention of returning to a “Long Parliament”, as it were.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Last week, BBC Radio Humberside and the Hull Daily Mail were reporting a scam alleging that the bedroom tax had been abolished and asking for people’s personal information so that refunds of their payments could be made. May we have a debate to make it clear that this bedroom tax policy was supported by the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives and that it will be abolished only with the return of a Labour Government in 2015?

[Mr Lansley]

I find the scam to which the hon. Lady refers shocking: people should not be exploited in that way, and I am sure that we agree on that. The trading standards department of her local authority might be in a position to take some action against it. The policy, however, is straightforward. It is about dealing with under-occupancy so that large numbers of people who are trying to access social housing will have an opportunity to do so through the better use of our social housing stock.

Business of the House

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. If I may, I will ask the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to reply to him, and if, as he says, there is widespread confusion on this issue, to let the House know what it can do to dispel that confusion.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

In 2010, there was the highest ever level of satisfaction with the NHS. A report this week by the Care Quality Commission on hospitals in Hull shows deteriorating services and staff shortages. May we please have a debate on the cost to the NHS of the £3 billion spent on reorganisation, on the fact that that has meant deteriorating services, and on Hull not receiving a penny of the £250 million provided for A and E services over the winter?

[Mr Lansley]

A number of questions were wrapped into that. The latest British social attitudes survey showed a 61% satisfaction rating with the NHS. That is an increase on the previous year and the third highest figure since 1983. One of the reasons why people are satisfied with the NHS is that the service is not deteriorating. On the contrary, we have kept to our coalition agreement to increase the resources for the NHS in real terms. Those resources are being used more effectively across the NHS, including saving nearly £1.5 billion a year through the reorganisation the hon. Lady describes. That cost about £1.5 billion to implement, but will save £1.5 billion a year—more than £5 billion in the course of this Parliament.

Business of the House

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes the point very well, and I hope that people will listen to it. He is absolutely right. The railway line has reopened and the waters have receded. People have gone to enormous trouble to rebuild and recover, and Somerset and the west country are open for business. I was very pleased over the Easter holiday to see evidence of people who were really enjoying themselves in the west country. I hope that people will have sunshine this weekend so as to have an opportunity to enjoy themselves again.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

For the benefit of the UK Independence party donor who said this week that women should be banned from wearing trousers, may we please have a debate on the historic contribution that women in trousers have made to this country, including Amy Johnson from Hull, who wore trousers as an aviator, the women’s Land Army in the second world war, and Princess Elizabeth, who wore trousers as a mechanic serving in the second world war?

[Mr Lansley]

Well, good for her. I cannot promise a debate, but I entirely endorse the hon. Lady’s sentiments.

Business of the House

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am delighted to hear about the optimism among brewers in Yorkshire. My hon. Friend has also made a good point about the food and drink sector, which has reported export sales of £19.4 billion in 2013. That is a very big contribution to our economy and our exports. I cannot promise a debate about the sector immediately, but it would be good to have such a debate, because I think that this country has a great deal to offer the world through its food and drink exports.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I am sure the Leader of the House will be concerned to learn that the insurance premium of a small business that was flooded during the December tidal surge in Hull has been increased from £1,100 to £6,500, as a result of which it is unlikely to remain viable. May we have a debate about why the Government chose not to include small businesses in the coalition’s Flood Re scheme, and about what other support can be given to small businesses that may flood in the future?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady will know that in the debates on the Water Bill we were very clear that if we were to include businesses in the Flood Re scheme, the nature of the scheme would mean that the cost of that subsidy would have to be met out of other insurance premiums, and that would have taken the insurance premiums for everyone else on domestic premiums above £10. We have set out the reason why we are not doing that, therefore, but, as it happens, we will I hope have an opportunity soon to consider the Lords amendments to the Water Bill. That might give the hon. Lady an opportunity to debate this issue.

Business of the House

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am aware of the tragic murder of Eystna Blunnie just days before she was due to give birth to her baby girl Rose in 2012. On behalf of the House, and for myself, I would like to take the opportunity, through my hon. Friend, to offer our condolences to Eystna’s family on their loss.

My hon. Friend will know that in April 2011 the Government placed domestic homicide reviews on a statutory footing, so that every local report into a domestic homicide is reviewed and quality assured by a panel of independent and Home Office experts. Each review results in a tailored action plan delivered by the area in question to ensure that we learn and act on the lessons of individual tragedies. I understand that a domestic homicide review of this case is under way and will be published by the community safety partnership in coming months. For reasons of data protection, such reviews are anonymised to protect the identity of all involved, including the victims and their families. I will, as my hon. Friend requests, raise the issues he has raised with my right hon. Friends at the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Last week, 45 members of staff at Hull’s office of the official receiver were told, after a three-week review, that the office was to close, and that all the jobs would be moved to Leeds in October. That will mean a loss to the economy in Hull of about £1 million, on top of the other cuts we have suffered recently. Hull has been trying very hard to regenerate the city. May we have a debate on why, when we are taking two steps forward, the coalition Government seem to be taking us one step back?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady often comes to the House to offer good news from Hull, the city of culture and renewable energy investment, so I am sorry that on this occasion she feels that there is bad news. I do not know the circumstances in detail. I will, of course, ask my hon. Friends to look at the issue she raises and to respond to her, but she will understand that, when we are realising efficiencies in resources, there will sometimes be necessary and inevitable changes in public services.