Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Emma Hardy and Paul Scully

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

5. What steps he is taking with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to ensure the adequacy of business and community flood recovery support funding.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)]

The flood recovery framework is in place to determine where communities and businesses need support from central Government in severe flood events. The guidance has recently been reviewed and refreshed, to learn from previous years. The framework includes the business recovery grant, which BEIS administers as part of a Government core package of support for communities and businesses.

[Emma Hardy]

Flooding is now inevitable: climate change means that it is going to happen. It is not a question of if but a question of when, and small and medium-sized enterprises are disproportionately affected by the devastation of flooding. The Flood Re insurance scheme does not cover small businesses, meaning that many are left without insurance. I am pleased to hear that the flood recovery grant system is being looked at again, but will the Minister now consider talking to SMEs to design a scheme that is ready to go from the moment flooding happens? As I say, flooding is not a question of if but a question of when.

[Paul Scully]

The Flood Re scheme does not include businesses, as the hon. Lady says, and there are no plans to extend eligibility because that market operates differently from the household insurance market. The scheme is bespoke. I appreciate that SMEs are disproportionately affected compared with bigger businesses, but I suggest that the hon. Lady engages directly on this with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

CCRC Decision on 44 Post Office Prosecutions

Debate between Emma Hardy and Paul Scully

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

There is a separate director within Post Office Ltd who is looking specifically at the historic shortfall scheme to make sure that the rest of Post Office Ltd has the capacity to reset its relationship with postmasters, but we will of course look at Sir Wyn Williams’s findings. Postmasters who have had wrongful convictions have other methods of compensation, as I outlined in my original statement.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab) [V]]

My constituent Tracy Major was falsely accused of stealing £24,000 from Anlaby Park post office. She was innocent. She has had her reputation destroyed, she has suffered unimaginable stress, and she is also looking at losing more than £150,000. She has received only £20,000 in compensation. How will the Government and the Post Office ensure she has the justice she deserves?

[Paul Scully]

If the hon. Lady’s constituent was in the group litigation, the compensation was settled in a full and final settlement that was agreed with the Post Office. The Post Office has said it will not contest the wrongful convictions. We will see what happens in the courts, but anybody who has been wrongfully convicted who was not part of that group litigation will have other methods of returning to compensation.

Cystic Fibrosis Drugs: Orkambi

Debate between Emma Hardy and Paul Scully

Monday 10th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully]

One of the reasons why NICE was set up in the first place was to take politics out of drug development. We need to ensure that we have the balance right between the Government intervening and the clinicians—the people who can make their assessments without political interference—making their decision. None the less, we clearly must have a view.

One of the things that some people have suggested—I think it was intimated in an earlier intervention—is Crown use of patents, to allow the use of generic drugs and effectively remove patents from pharmaceutical companies. Obviously, that is in extremis. There is an inherent problem with the potential lack of investment in future research, should we start taking away patents from private companies.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful speech, and I stand here today representing my constituents. Does he agree that when factoring in costs, NICE should also factor in the ongoing costs that not treating cystic fibrosis will bring? It needs to factor in the cost of the additional mental health treatment and other health treatments that will be needed, and possibly even the cost of lung transplants. This is not a simple comparison with the cost of treatment; other things need to be taken into account.

[Paul Scully]

The hon. Lady has hit on a really crucial point. The underlying thing that I took away from my meeting with the people living with CF this morning was mental health, which ran through all their situations.

I heard from Oli Rayner, who talked about the fact that he is 43 and has dedicated his whole life to staying alive; he had effectively been told that he would not make 10 years. He was then told that he would not make 20, then 30. This is a guy who has now got cystic fibrosis-related diabetes and a number of other conditions. He has had a lung transplant, and he had Orkambi to get him to that stage. The fact is that his lungs are now doing what he wants them to do, without his having to think about it. We can imagine the mental issues that he had before.

Jessica Jones told me that people with CF are very good at living. Yvonne Hughes said she felt broken. One lady, Carly Beale, told me that she had been on the original Orkambi trial. The NHS had not prepared her for when Orkambi stopped at the end of the trial. She had suddenly improved and started to get her life back—perhaps a life that she had not had in the first place—and she was not ready to have it taken away from her. She said that it is almost worse that this drug exists but she cannot get access to it. She said, “I’d rather it didn’t exist than have it dangled in front of me in expectation.”