Health

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to speak in this pre-Christmas debate. I have already exchanged seasonal greetings with your good self, Mr Speaker, and other colleagues.

I rise to speak about the integrated drug treatment system, which is the drug treatment system for people in prison. The issue came to my attention when I visited my local prison, Hollesley Bay. I do not want to get into the rights and wrongs of drugs today; that issue has been debated in Westminster Hall. I am more concerned about value for money and the diversion of funds from primary care trusts to the continuation of prisoners taking heroin substitutes, at the taxpayer’s expense.

In a recent Question Time, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice spoke of how important it is to get prisoners off drugs and to remove drugs from our prison estate. I fully endorse that view. Everybody was depressed in the mid-’90s when a judge ruled that it was against somebody’s human rights not to be allowed drugs when in prison. A number of hon. Members, including you, Mr Speaker, have raised questions on this topic. This is yet another example, dare I say it, of a conflict between the judiciary and the common sense of the general public.

The cost of the IDTS to the taxpayer for the last three years has been £23.8 million, £39.7 million and £44.4 million. I am sure that my local residents would love an increase in health spending of such an amount. Such funding for the three prisons in the Suffolk district area and the one in the Great Yarmouth borough and Waveney district area has risen from £400,000 to £555,000. In Hollesley Bay prison in my constituency, £190,000 is allocated to just one prisoner. It is astonishing that under this system, one prisoner can continue to have a heroin substitute every day, at the expense to other people of just less than £200,000. The figures show no sign of decreasing.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it cannot be right that we have inherited a system under which approximately 300 of the 1,000 prisoners in my major local prison of Durham are on methadone? The reality is that either we give them drugs on a prescribed basis, or they will obtain drugs illegally. What does she think we should do about that?

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[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

A merry Christmas to you, Mr Speaker, and to the House.

I was born in Wallsend in the 1960s, and my mother was born in Newcastle in the ’20s. What we had in common, which we share with any child of the north, was the impact of geography on our life chances. A child born in Newcastle today is expected to die five years before one born in South Cambridgeshire, the constituency of the Secretary of State for Health.

Of my mother’s six brothers and sisters, only one survived into adulthood. We have certainly made great strides since those dark days, but health is still a critical political, social and personal issue. Newcastle has world-beating hospitals—the Royal Victoria infirmary, the Freeman and the General hospital. We also have the Campus for Ageing and Vitality, the Centre for Life, the Great North children’s hospital and the Northern Institute for Cancer Research, but what we do not have is health equality.

The people of Newcastle are more likely to die early from cancer, heart disease or stroke. We tend to die younger, are more obese as children, and are more likely to die from the cold as pensioners. We suffer more from the diseases of our industrial legacy, such as asbestosis, and we are more likely to be born into poverty, experience mental illness and commit suicide. One in 25 adults in Newcastle claims incapacity benefit for mental illness, four times the rate in the constituency of the Secretary of State for Education.

I will be frank and say that I do not believe the last Government did enough to tackle the issue of mental health. It is the responsibility not only of health care providers but of social services, educators, the police and prison officers. The lack of co-ordination and support was tragically highlighted by the case of Raoul Moat earlier this year.

As a Newcastle MP, I consider my primary duty to be to work for the health and well-being of my constituents, so the existing inequalities concern me and I am worried that they will widen under the current Government. I hope that the Minister can offer me some reassurance. The previous Government doubled health funding in real terms, reduced waiting times and improved health outcomes. Deaths from heart disease and stroke went down by 40%. They also worked hard to tackle poverty and its associated evils, such as poor housing, low aspiration and unemployment, which all have an impact on health.

Improvements in those areas benefited the mental and physical health and well-being of all our constituents, but in Newcastle, inequalities have been maintained or even increased. In 1998, early death rates from heart disease and stroke were 19% higher in Newcastle than the national average. In 2007, they were 26% above a much reduced national average.

The last Government prioritised tackling health inequalities in 2006—too late, certainly, but as a result the North East strategic health authority, primary care trusts and hospitals are all working to address the problem. However, that is all set to change. The Government’s reforms to the NHS are estimated to cost £3 billion, without counting the cost of disruption and the loss of skills. Our strategic health authority and primary care trust are being abolished and funding will be in the hands of GP consortiums, of which Newcastle will host one of the first. The Government do not like targets, but will the Minister confirm that she expects the key measures of health inequality to reduce as a consequence of those changes? Will she also confirm that Newcastle will not have to pay anything for those reforms from its health allocation?

The Secretary of State recently wrote to me to say that the 2011-12 allocation for Newcastle represented a growth of 2.8%, including a change to the funding formula. Despite written questions, however, I have been unable to clarify how the changes will address health inequalities. The Government’s changes to formulas have tended to work against us in the north-east, so will the Minister confirm that more will be invested in health services for every man, woman and child in Newcastle in every year of the comprehensive spending review period?

[Guy Opperman]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the health service in Newcastle now covers not just her constituents in Newcastle but mine in Hexham, both because they are run by the same trusts and because the services are now so interdependent?

[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Health services in Newcastle are accessed by a wide range of people from across the north-east.

Finally, the Minister will know that health depends on many factors. The Government’s wide-ranging cuts will have a negative impact on people’s health, especially the health of the most deprived. Cuts to fuel poverty reduction programmes such as Warm Front will leave pensioners in Newcastle cold, and therefore more vulnerable to illness. Cuts to area-based grants such as Supporting People mean that there will be less investment in support services for those with mental health problems, and cuts to the working neighbourhood fund mean that my constituents will have less help to get back into work, with all the health advantages that work brings.

I shall give the Minister a specific example. In Newcastle, about £10 million a year goes to charities to help deliver services for the vulnerable. The Government’s cuts mean that that figure will go down by 75%, which will have many consequences. One charity to which I have spoken estimates that it will have to close hostels, leading to the number of rough sleepers in the city rising by up to 500%. Rough sleeping obviously has terrible consequences for the health of the individual concerned, but Newcastle as a whole will also pay the cost. The police, health services, social services and the third sector will all have to focus more resources on those sleeping in the streets, reducing the help available to others—help that supports the health of the city.

There are many similar examples. Will the Minister assure me that she has assessed the impact of the cuts on Newcastle in the broadest sense, and that she is confident that the health inequalities between Newcastle and the rest of the country will be reduced over the term of this Government?