Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Elizabeth Truss Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I am not speaking in this debate because I love smoking, although I have voted against every single smoking prohibition since I have been a Member of Parliament. I am speaking today because I am very concerned that the policy that has been put forward is emblematic of a technocratic establishment in this county that wants to limit people’s freedom. That is a problem.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady—[Hon. Members: “Oh.”] I will not give way. I will give exactly as much opportunity as the Opposition gave me to talk about my private Member’s Bill, which I shall come on to later.

The problem is that the instinct of this establishment, which is reflected in cross-party consensus in the Chamber, is to believe that it—that the Government—is better at making decisions for people than people themselves. I absolutely agree that that is true for the under-18s. It is very important that we protect people while they are growing up until they have decision-making capability. However, I think the whole idea that we can protect adults from themselves is hugely problematic and effectively infantilises people. That is what has been going on. We are seeing, not just on tobacco but on sugar, alcohol and meat, a group of people who want to push an agenda which is about limiting personal freedom. I think that that is fundamentally wrong.

I go out canvassing a lot in my Norfolk constituency. People raise all kinds of issues with me on the doorstep. They are concerned about immigration. They are concerned about the cost of energy. They are concerned about the rise of China. They want to support Ukraine. Not a single voter has ever said to me, “My big concern is adults smoking.” This proposal has not come from people—our constituents—talking to us. It has come from a group of people who, by and large, work in a professional capacity pushing these policies. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) was Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, this proposal was sitting on her desk, so it is not new. I am pleased to say that she put it in the bin, but unfortunately since then it seems to have been pulled out of the bin and resuscitated. My real fear is that this is not the final stage that the health police want to push.

[Wes Streeting]

Health police!

[Elizabeth Truss]

They are the health police, and people are concerned about this. They want to be able to make their own decisions about what they eat, what they drink and how they enjoy themselves. If the hon. Gentleman does not understand that, I suggest that he starts listening to the public.

What I also find extraordinary is the fact that almost four weeks ago I put a private Member’s Bill to Parliament to ban under-18s from being able to access puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in the private sector and on the national health service. Children have been taking those drugs, and that has had life-changing effects on them. They have prevented them from having their own children, created problems with their physique and their bodies, and damaged their health.

Not only did the Labour party not support my private Member’s Bill but its Members talked and filibustered—they talked about ferrets—so much that I was not even able to speak. These are the same people who are saying that in future we should ban cigarettes for 30-year-olds, yet they will not vote to ban puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for the under-18s. Thank goodness that Hilary Cass has come forward with her report. I welcome the support of the Health and Social Care Secretary for that report, but that is what we should be legislating on. We should be legislating on implementing the recommendations in the Hilary Cass report to prevent real danger to our children, rather than a virtue-signalling piece of legislation about protecting adults from themselves in future.

I am afraid that too many Members of Parliament have gone along with this orthodoxy. I am not surprised that that is the case for Labour and Liberal Democrat Members, who generally do not support freedom. They believe that the Government know best—the state knows best—and we understand that. I am disappointed, however, that a Conservative Government has introduced the Bill. The only other country in the world where such a Bill was brought forward was New Zealand, under a very left-wing Prime Minister. That Bill has now been reversed under the new conservative Government in New Zealand. I have a message for my colleagues on this side of the House. If people want to vote for finger-wagging, nannying control freaks, there are plenty of them to choose from in the Opposition, and that is the way they will vote. If people want to have control over their lives, if they want to have freedom, that is why they vote Conservative. We have to stand by our principles and ideals even if—

[Wes Streeting]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Elizabeth Truss]

No, I am not giving way to the party that filibustered on my Bill and stopped us taking action to protect children. That was a disgrace.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Did my right hon. Friend hear the comments of Sir Chris Whitty on the radio this morning? He refused to apologise for or explain the failures of the NHS to deal with the issue of puberty blockers while, at the same time, he professed great support for these oppressive measures which are before the House.

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend makes absolutely the right point. There are double standards in this debate. My view is that it is absolutely right that we protect the under-18s from these potential dangers before they have full decision-making capability, but we should allow adults to exercise that freedom. It seems to me that the medical establishment, the national health service and others working in the health industry have unfortunately been captured by this gender ideology, which is preventing them from seeing the truth of what is happening. That is why the Cass report is welcome. If only the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) had shown the same level of interest in dealing with the issue of young people and puberty blockers that he has shown in pursuing his crusade against smoking—he was not saying this a few years ago.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend will know, I was in the Chamber on that Friday listening to the filibustering, and was unable to contribute to the important debate on puberty blockers. I support her Bill and am grateful for the Cass report.

In reality, there are some products that are banned for adults—things such as cocaine and heroin—so society as a whole has made a choice that some products must be banned for adults as well as children. It is about where we draw the line. My right hon. Friend said that people should be able to do whatever they want as adults, but in fact unless we want to liberalise laws on drugs and allow people to have heroin, cocaine and everything else—perhaps she does—a line has to be drawn somewhere, and it is just a case of where.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I certainly do not support the liberalisation of those drugs. We know that people who become addicted to heroin and cocaine are a huge danger to other people and to their families; it destroys society. That is not the level of danger that tobacco poses, so those are very different scenarios.

I will come to my conclusion, because I know that a lot of people want to speak in the debate. What I ask is that Members do not just follow the instructions of the health lobby. We have heard about what the chief medical officer says. I know from being a Government Minister that there are often schemes pushed by officials and civil servants because, fundamentally, there is a belief that government knows best. I want Members of Parliament to think not just about what happens if we ban smoking for people who are over the age of 18, but about the implications for shopkeepers who have to identify whether people are the right age. Will it mean that people have to carry ID into shops with them into their 40s? What are the practical implications? It is a very dangerous precedent to start saying that some adults can have the freedom to smoke and some cannot. That is a fundamental problem. It is fundamentally unconservative, it is unliberal and I will not be supporting the Bill.

[Wes Streeting]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for Members of this House to attack individual officers, such as the chief medical officer, or the civil service more generally, when they cannot answer back? Ultimately, advisers advise and Ministers decide. If people do not like Government policy or its consequences, they should take responsibility as Ministers and not attack officials who cannot answer back.

New Hospitals

Elizabeth Truss Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

For reasons of commercial confidentiality, which I am sure the House will recognise, it would be unwise to say what each scheme is allocated—that would be most interesting to the developers bidding for that work. That is why we will not set out individual allocations. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I have been to see Leeds and I recognise the importance of the work there. On the modular design 2.0, I pay tribute to the work that Lord Markham has done; he brings real commercial experience into the use of modular methods of construction. Those schemes are designed to have some flex. I sat for four years on the Public Accounts Committee, and one of the recurring themes during my time there was costs increasing because specifications were changed mid-build. One of the advantages of the modular method of construction is that, by putting all the advice into the design at the front end, we can standardise design, have the benefits of scale and maximise the “national” in National Health Service, rather than having individual schemes, all of them at risk of specifications changing and costs inflating.

[Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary for listening to our representations in west Norfolk and announcing a new build for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn. As he knows, the hospital is in a poor state. Parts of it are being held up by stilts and the concrete is crumbling. This announcement will come as a huge relief to local residents and will be extremely welcome. Can he confirm that the new hospital will open its doors by 2030?

[Steve Barclay]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for her campaigning on this issue, together with other Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) and for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker), who have also led that campaign. I can confirm that the new hospital will open by 2030. We accept in full the findings of the independent report. That is why the seven RAAC hospitals are being prioritised and why today’s announcement is such great news for staff and patients in King’s Lynn.

NHS Pay

Elizabeth Truss Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

Let me make a little bit of progress, and then I will give way.

Over the past seven years, a public sector worker on the median public sector wage has seen the value of their wage drop by £3,875. That is more than the cost of feeding the average family for a year. Given what we know about inflation, on the figures published yesterday and on the Treasury’s own inflation forecast, if this cap was to remain in place until the end of the Parliament, a public sector worker on the median wage since 2016 will have seen their pay drop by at least another £2,200.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Elizabeth Truss)]

It is not true.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

The Chief Secretary says it is not true. These amounts are based on her own Treasury figures.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Elizabeth Truss)]

We have had an important debate, in which it is fair to say that both sides of the House have recognised the importance and hard work of workers across the NHS. I saw this hard work in action on the Becket ward of Worthing Hospital a few weeks ago, where deputy sister, Sue Grace, and her team were in an improvement huddle, where every day they look at how they can make life better for their patients. That goes on right across our NHS. Because of the hard work of NHS workers across the country, there have been 1 million more operations and cancer clear-up rates have improved.

The Health Secretary recognised in his opening comments that there are challenges to address. We need to ensure that we retain those hard-working staff, that we can recruit the next generation into the service and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) pointed out, that we are able to recruit people in specialisms. We need to look at making jobs more flexible so that people have a good work-life balance and we need to look at banding, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) pointed out. That is why the Government announced yesterday that we are moving from a blanket approach of having a 1% public sector pay cap to greater flexibility in each workforce across the public sector.

Just to be clear—because there seems to be some confusion on the part of Opposition Members—the prison officers and police settlements were for 2017-18. Our new policy is for 2018-19. There is already a clear process in place for that. The Health Secretary will submit evidence to the independent pay review body. It will look at issues such as recruitment, retention and affordability, and will then come back with a recommendation. That is the way we should do it; we should look at the evidence. Rather than shouting out numbers in the debate, we need to look at the circumstances. We need to ensure that pay is fair for people in the NHS, but that it is also fair for the taxpayers who fund those services.

OECD figures show that we spend 9.8% of our GDP on health and social care. That is above the European Union average of 8.6%. We are able to do that because we have run a strong economy. Today we announced record levels of employment. We have not heard any concrete proposals from Labour Members this afternoon. We have just heard reckless pledges that they will spend more money without looking at how they are spending it. As my hon. Friends the Members for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) and for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) pointed out, the Conservatives do not just spend more money. We actually make sure that the money goes to the frontline, that it helps and empowers people there to do their jobs, and that it makes those jobs more fulfilling.

It is not just about spending more money; it is also about the way we spend it. If we followed the Labour party’s advice, we would end up crashing our economy in exactly the same way the Greeks did with their economy. What was the result of that? They ended up cutting health service spending by 36%.

We have recognised that there are challenges in the national health service and in other parts of our public sector, and this policy applies right across the public sector. We have reflected on that situation, and we have moved to a more flexible policy that looks at issues of recruitment and retention.

However, it is important, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) pointed out in an excellent speech, that we also look at fairness for the people who pay for our public services. It is only by having a strong economy and by being disciplined in our approach to debt that we can get the great public services that we all want.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes that in 2017-18 NHS pay rises have been capped at one per cent and that this represents another below-inflation pay settlement; further notes that applications for nursing degrees have fallen 23 per cent this year; notes that the number of nurses and midwives joining the Nursing and Midwifery Council register has been in decline since March 2016 and that in 2016-17 45 per cent more UK registrants left the register than joined it; and calls on the Government to end the public sector pay cap in the NHS and give NHS workers a fair pay rise.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it not now clear that the House has been unanimous in saying that we should end the pay cap in the NHS and give health workers a fair pay rise? Is it not also clear that the reason the Government did not divide on this motion is that they knew they would lose?