Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Guy Opperman and Harriett Baldwin

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

What support her Department provides to benefit recipients to help meet heating costs in winter 2020-21.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman) [V]]

Winter fuel payments of between £100 and £300 are provided to all those of state pension age. In addition, certain benefit recipients can also receive payments from the warm home discount scheme and the cold weather payment scheme. As mentioned by the Secretary of State earlier, we have introduced a covid winter grant scheme, which has made £170 million available to English local authorities.

[Harriett Baldwin]

Obviously the weather has been very cold and families are spending much more time at home, so I welcome all that additional support to help with heating. Will the Minister clarify whether the money is paid automatically or families must actively apply for it?

[Guy Opperman]

Worcestershire received £1.6 million to provide support to vulnerable households and families. This can be used to support the costs of heating, utility bills and various other items, and is available at the local authority’s discretion. Clearly, my hon. Friend should contact her local councillors and the leader of the local authority for further details.

Pension Schemes Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Debate between Guy Opperman and Harriett Baldwin

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

The Minster is making a powerful case for rejecting the approach that was taken in the other place. Could he elaborate on the costs of this platform, and who ultimately will pay for building a pensions dashboard?

[Guy Opperman]

The costs are substantial. There are a variety of ways in which this is being paid for, but first and foremost, it will not be paid for by the individual. Our constituents will be able to access the dashboard, and the facility that we are creating, for free. My hon. Friend will have to forgive me for giving a generalised answer, because I cannot give the pounds, shillings and pence now, but I will be happy to do so in writing before Report.

The cost is fundamentally met in respect of the work on state pension; there was a budget announcement many years ago for the expensive work that is required by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to provide the state pension provision as part of the dashboard, as it is our intention that state pensions will be part of this from day one. I believe that £5 million was set aside to pay for that part.

There is ongoing payment for the Money and Pensions Service, which is through a variety of means. Some is from Treasury funding, but it is paid for primarily through the pension levy, which pays for a variety of things in the usual way, from the regulator to the Pension Protection Fund and the Money and Pensions Service. Ultimately, the cost is borne by individual schemes and members, but not by the individual constituent accessing the dashboard—it is not expected in any way that there should be a cost for doing that.

It is clearly our intention and desire that a commercial dashboard should be available. That leads me to a point that I will come back to in more detail: do we go to where the customer is, or do we make the customer come to us? In this particular example, we strongly believe that we should go to where the customer is.

It is entirely right that we design a system with a data portal that could in no way be utilised for bad purposes, but that could be accessed by an individual, whether they are presently with Aviva, PensionBee or another organisation. They can then work with a particular independent financial advisor—whether my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn in a former life or other independent financial advisors—who would have to be specifically approved to do this work. They already have a relationship with those people and they are already in the position of having an understanding. If we do not have that commercial capability, we will lose out on a significant chunk of the market and there will be a significant deficit in the ability of what we all believe is a great idea to have a practical effect. That is the fundamental point in respect of costs. I am happy to give my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire a detailed breakdown before Report and Third Reading.

I may return to Government amendment 7 but I shall first try to address amendments 1, 2 and 15 on the state pension. I am certain that I will be invited to comment on a variety of matters relating to the women’s state pension increase, but my only comment at the outset is that it is not the Government’s intention to amend the Pensions Acts of 1995, 2007, 2008 or 2011. We intend that the state pension will be part of the original provision of the dashboard. We are working with HMRC, which is responsible for that information, so that we can identify the date of state pension age and the amount that people might be expected to receive at the present stage. We do not intend to take into account what their entitlement would have been with or without the amendments to the 2011Act, as proposed in amendment 1, or what it would have been with or without the benefit of the triple lock, as proposed in amendment 2, or in respect of the 1995 Act, as proposed in amendment 15. I am sure that I will be tempted to cast a view on the future of the triple lock, but I am delighted to say that that is a matter for the Chancellor. As we discussed in the Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill, the decision has been made in respect of the upcoming year of 2021-22, and that is the extent of the matter at present.

Amendment 14 concerns the extent to which the dashboard should add information on environmental, social and corporate governance matters. I am delighted to have been the Minister who brought ESG into part of this country’s pensions system and drove forward change in the pension and asset management systems, with due credit to Chris Woolard and the Financial Conduct Authority for changing their original views and coming on board with our timetable. I am utterly in support of the principle of ESG and of ensuring that individuals have as much information, on a long-term basis, about what their pension fund is being invested in. However, I shall resist the amendment for several reasons.

First, we intend that the dashboard should start with simple information. We want to ensure that the information available in the dashboard service is easily understood by consumers and that the impact on user behaviour is considered. Trustees must have a policy on ESG and must disclose it in any event, but we do not think that the provision of that information should be prescribed in the Bill, and nor do I want to prejudice the pensions dashboard programme consultation, which began earlier this year, about what information could be shown. The consultation specifically includes signposting users to schemes’ statements of investment principles and implementation documentation, including information on schemes’ ESG policies and work. The programme will publish an initial version of a proposal for data standards by the end of the year, and we will respond in respect of what specific information will flow from that at a later stage.

Amendments 4 and 5 in the name of the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts deal with people in vulnerable circumstances. Although I applaud the principles behind them, the matter is slightly more complicated than the amendments necessarily make it appear. I am happy to explain in more detail at a later stage, but it starts with the fundamental principle that the Money and Pensions Service, which oversees the dashboard programme, has a statutory objective to ensure that information and guidance is available to those most in need of it, bearing in mind in particular the needs of people in vulnerable circumstances. It must have regard to that in the development of pensions dashboards.

The pensions dashboard programme usability working group—a catchy title, I accept—will explore how best to help users to understand the information being presented to them and where they can get more help, including those who are most vulnerable. That could include making recommendations about mandatory signposting to guidance and/or advice. Money and Pensions Service guiders are trained to recognise that some customers may need additional or different types of help.

The Financial Conduct Authority will seek to introduce a new regulated activity and amend the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001, consulting on rules relating to that activity. That may also include a requirement to signpost users to guidance and to provide information about how to find regulated financial advice. We believe that the best way to do that is through the FCA rules and not in the Bill.

I will make two other points on the vulnerability issue. The Department for Work and Pensions, the FCA and the Money and Pensions Service all have a duty to comply with the public sector equality duty in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010. Although dashboard providers will be regulated, there has also been a recent consultation on guidance on the fair treatment of vulnerable consumers, and that will be responded to in guidance published by the FCA either later this year or in early 2021.

My final comment on the proposals on vulnerable individuals would be on the potential difficulty where, as I explained a dashboard is merely a find-and-view service. Were the amendments taken to their ultimate conclusion, they would require a pension scheme to make further inquiry of the individual themselves before the release of the information. I fear that the practical reality of that in a find-and-view service of this nature is neither appropriate nor in the best interests of all parties. I entirely accept the principle behind the amendments, but I believe that we may be able to navigate the problem in an alternative way.

Pension Schemes Bill [Lords]

Debate between Guy Opperman and Harriett Baldwin

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Wednesday 7th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what she is saying, but on what Mr Mark Carney has said, she will be aware that he is a member of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. Under the Bill, the UK will be the first G7 country to bring that into statute. The advantage of that is that the very aspect that she has highlighted as a problem—FTSE 100 companies are not aware of what the risk is from climate change to the way in which they do business—will be tackled, as they will now be forced to disclose that on an ongoing basis to the wider market and individual consumers with pension investments. I believe that the issue raised by Carney, the Treasury Committee and others is addressed in the Bill and the consultation that accompanies it.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I welcome what the Minister says, and I did not want in any way to undermine the provision in the Bill and the incredible progress that it represents on our journey to a greener financial future. I welcome those steps wholeheartedly, but I wish to highlight that those risks, although disclosed, will be there. Many of our constituents, every month in their payroll, put investments into index-based funds in which those risks are inherent. It is incumbent on us all to recognise that that could be a big driver of UK returns, given that a significant portion of the index consists of carbon-based industries in the UK.

I make that point, and I make the point about charges, because the pension dashboard will play a vital role in showing people what they are paying for those returns in an environment where interest rates are virtually zero, where the index has quite a lot of climate-affected assets, where charges can be as high as those from NEST, the state-backed provider, and where investment returns could be lower for a protracted period as we recover from the pandemic. It is worth flagging the fact that giving information on charges in particular and the way in which they compound over a lifetime will be a powerful part of the very many welcome changes that we can see in this excellent piece of legislation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Guy Opperman and Harriett Baldwin

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

1. What recent assessment she has made of trends in the number of people contributing to a workplace pension.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

You have impeccable timing, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Workplace pension participation rates have more than doubled since the introduction of automatic enrolment under the coalition Government in 2012, rising from 42% in 2012 to 85% in 2018. In West Worcestershire, my hon. Friend’s constituency, 9,000 eligible jobholders have been automatically enrolled, and thanks are due to the 2,600 local businesses that are supporting them.

[Harriett Baldwin]

This has truly been one of the great policy successes of the last decade, but many would argue that people are still not saving enough for a comfortable retirement. Does the Minister plan to use other nudge techniques, such as automatic uplifts whenever a person gets a pay rise, to encourage saving for old age?

[Guy Opperman]

We have the 2017 review, which we continue to monitor and will implement going forward. Automatic increases are not part of the Government’s present plans, but I am actively looking to learn from private sector companies that are carrying out similar initiatives. I welcome my hon. Friend’s interest and would be happy to discuss this in more detail.

Citizenship (Armed Forces) Bill

Debate between Guy Opperman and Harriett Baldwin

Friday 13th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord) on introducing this excellent private Member’s Bill. I am delighted to be here to speak in support of it, just as he was kind enough to be here to support my private Member’s Bill. The Minister, who is my neighbour, as he represents Forest of Dean, was also in the Chamber that day. Since then, he has been promoted to his current role, so I hope that the fact he is sitting on the Front Bench today augurs well for the Bill.

The Bill is an extremely worthwhile piece of legislation, but, as we were just hearing from my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), it is incredibly important that we scrutinise these pieces of legislation in great detail. Although the Bill appears short, containing few clauses, my scrutiny of it has found that it raises many questions in this important area, on which I seek the Minister’s clarification. I wish to ask him about the time an individual is required to spend, and where they are required to spend it, before the process of naturalisation can begin. I want to explore the Secretary of State’s discretion in these matters, which is clearly outlined in the Bill, and to ask the Minister further questions about the territorial extent clause. I also want to clarify whether the naturalisation provisions added to our general citizenship legislation since the 1981 Act—specifically the requirement to pass a citizenship test and how the test has been changed—would continue to apply in this case. Given that this is a Second Reading debate, I hope that you will regard all those areas of questioning as in order, Mr Speaker.

As I understand it, the provisions on timing relate only to the starting point of the application for naturalisation. As things stand at the moment, the individual making the application needs to be in the United Kingdom at the point at which the clock starts ticking for the five-year period. I would like that clarified.

I also want clarification on the territorial extent of the Bill. My interpretation is that clause 2(3) would extend the Bill to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, which all seems very logical, but also to the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and the British overseas territories. It is on the British overseas territories that my questions begin to multiply. It is worth putting it in Hansard that they are Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Antarctic Territory, the British Indian Ocean Territory, the Cayman Islands, the Falkland Islands and its dependencies, Gibraltar of course, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, St Helena and its dependencies, the sovereign base areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the British Virgin Islands.

[Guy Opperman]

On the 300th anniversary of the treaty of Utrecht, my hon. Friend has mentioned Gibraltar. She may recall that it was taken under British command, but with the aid of Dutch and Austrian troops.

[Harriett Baldwin]

The question is whether those troops settled in Gibraltar and what the rules were for their naturalisation as British citizens prior to 1981. I can honestly say that I do not have the faintest clue, but that is an interesting historical point.

I was evacuated to the British sovereign base of Dhekelia as a child when, as a British citizen, I was growing up in Cyprus. We were living in Nicosia at the time, and we were often under threat of invasion by Turkish forces. I remember being evacuated to Dhekelia, and feeling incredibly safe and secure there, on British sovereign territory. My father, however, had to remain behind in Nicosia to do his job. He put a Union flag on the roof of our house, and we sincerely hoped that the Turkish air force would be able to spot it from the air should it decide to bomb Nicosia. However, I digress, Mr Speaker.

I am trying to find out how my hypothetical examples would be affected by the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Woking told us that the provision would probably apply to a citizen of Fiji. Let us imagine that that citizen of Fiji joins Her Majesty’s armed forces, does exemplary service and decides—I do not know what the residence requirements would be—that he or she wants to remain in the British Indian Ocean Territory. Does the territorial extent of the Bill mean that the first date of the five-year period includes residence in one of the territories I have listed? That is my interpretation.

In relation to the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, a situation might arise in which, as we heard, a Jamaican citizen who joined our armed forces abroad and served with great courage with them in other parts of the world decides to settle in Gibraltar, or perhaps closer to Jamaica, in the Cayman Islands. From there, could that person apply for naturalisation as a British citizen, without ever having resided in what we might more naturally think of as the United Kingdom? I particularly want clarification on that point. I understand that the 1981 Act requires people to spend five years resident in the UK, but does the territorial extent in the Bill define the UK more widely? I look forward to hearing from the Minister about that.

The first residence requirement in the 1981 Act is that applicants must have been resident in the UK for at least five years, and I am again interested in the Minister clarifying the territorial extent of the United Kingdom in that regard. The second requirement is that they must have been present in the United Kingdom five years before the date of application, which is the provision that we are tackling; the third is that they are free of immigration time restrictions on the date of application; and the fourth is that they are free of immigration restrictions for a period of 12 months before making the application. Will that remain in force when the Bill is passed?

The fifth requirement is that the applicants have not spent more than 450 days outside the United Kingdom during the five-year period. I understand that that is covered by the Secretary of State’s discretion with regards to serving members of the armed forces. The sixth is that they have not spent more than 90 days outside the United Kingdom in the last 12 months of the five-year period. The final requirement is that they have not been in breach of the immigration rules at any stage during the five-year period. Can the Minister confirm that all those aspects of the residency requirements in the 1981 Act will continue to apply, and that the Bill will change only one particular area?

Since the 1981 Act, there has been one major modification to what it takes for someone to be naturalised as a citizen of the United Kingdom. I refer, of course, to the UK citizenship test. I do not know whether you have ever had the chance to see whether you can pass it, Mr Speaker, but in preparation for this debate, I thought that I would see whether I could do so. I looked at some sample tests, and I regret to inform the House that in the first sample test I failed to reach the necessary 75% required to pass.

Let me give some examples of questions that I did not answer successfully. I will not put you on the spot, Mr Speaker, although I know you are an encyclopaedically knowledgeable man. The following question stumped me: in which year did married women get the right to divorce their husband? To help the applicant there are four possible answers, and I am happy to take an intervention from anyone who can answer the question correctly. The options are 1837, 1857, 1875 or 1882. I do not know the correct answer, but I know I got it wrong. I am glad to say that I did know that it is not the Prime Minister who calls a by-election and that we have two Chambers in our national Parliament, so I sailed through some of the questions.

Here is another question that I failed miserably to pass: what is the number of children and young people up to the age of 19 in the UK? Again, Mr Speaker, I will help you out, but I will not put you on the spot. I will take interventions from colleagues who know the answer. The four possible answers are 13 million, 14 million, 15 million and 16 million. I failed on that one and I can see that the House has also failed on that measure of citizenship. I was getting rather depressed with my results from the test until I discovered a crucial fact. I compliment my hon. Friend the Minister on any involvement that he may have had in this crucial fact, which is that this Government have now introduced a much more sensible citizenship test. Those examples were taken from the citizenship test that can only be described as a new Labour fantasy about the level of knowledge that we would all have about our country.

I will not go on with further examples of questions that I failed—

--- Later in debate ---

[Harriett Baldwin]

Mr Speaker, I shall have that speech of yours printed and engraved. It is so eloquent that I can only—

[Guy Opperman]

May I draw my hon. Friend back to the Bill? Surely the point is that this country, whose virtues she is extolling, has a long history of support by overseas troops and forces to win key battles. Waterloo would not have been won without the Prussians, Wellington famously crying, “Where is Blucher?” I presume General Blucher could have applied, were he willing to change from Prussian to British, to become a British citizen.

[Harriett Baldwin]

My understanding is that he would have had to have been resident in the territories outlined in the Bill for a considerable period of time before applying.

I will bring to a conclusion this line of discussion, but I am pleased to report to the House—you will forgive me, Mr Speaker—that I was able to get 100% on the new citizenship test. I expect that all the people who go through the process will, as a result of these changes, be able to demonstrate not just the narrow technical points that we define on a page in legislation, such as the number of days, but the wider cultural and historical aspects of what it means to be a British citizen.

My next line of questions for the Minister relates to the Secretary of State’s discretion, which I understand is a crucial part of the legislation. That discretion is vital because someone serving in our armed forces might get into trouble with the law, either civilian or military, and might—I am sure that the numbers are very low—have to go through the ignominy of a dishonourable discharge. If a member of the armed forces has been dishonourably discharged, would that almost invariably mean that they would not meet the new criteria for applying for naturalisation? Perhaps the Minister will confirm that from the Dispatch Box.

That former member of the armed forces might have lived a blameless life for many years since, their dishonourable discharge having been some time in the past, so to what extent will the Secretary of State’s discretion be used in that example? Would it be the case that, however much time had elapsed and however honourable the person’s life had been since, the fact that they had been dishonourably discharged would be sufficient to count against their application for naturalisation?

Will the Minister, when he responds, clarify exactly how the Secretary of State’s discretion might be used in other situations? What other aspects of that discretion might be required? For example, if the person had had a magnificent period of service, left the armed forces, lived in one of the overseas dependencies I listed earlier and was then perhaps convicted of rape or murder, would that be something the Secretary of State would see automatically as a red line? My understanding is that it would, because being of good character is a requirement.

The other area of discretion I would like clarified relates to the requirement to be able to communicate to an acceptable degree in English, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic. Someone might have exemplary military service and fulfil all the conditions, and they might be one of the people who will be helped by the Bill, because at the beginning of their process of naturalisation they were on active service overseas, but perhaps their command of English, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic is not quite at an acceptable level. To what extent will the Secretary of State be able to use his or her discretion in those circumstances? It is a question of how discretion will be used to define good character. Similarly, how will discretion be used to define the ability to communicate in English, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic?

Bowel Cancer Screening

Debate between Guy Opperman and Harriett Baldwin

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to raise this matter in the House. Bowel cancer affects men and women, and it is the second-highest killer after lung cancer. The debate is, I suggest, both timely and genuinely needed.

I have personal experience of the NHS that is probably too long to list. When I was a jockey, I was saved by a gastro-surgeon at Warwick hospital. I hoped I was riding the winner at Stratford races, but we turned over and the horse ruptured my spleen, perforated my left kidney and broke nine bones in my ribs. I can assure the House that it hurt a great deal. The surgeon saved my life on that occasion. Subsequently, it is well known that I had a meningioma in April and was recently given the all clear by Mr Neil Kitchen and the amazing staff at Queen Square hospital in north London.

My grandmother was an NHS matron and I have had bowel cancer screening. Certain family members have had this cancer, so I had the colonoscopy that was medically advised in those circumstances. I would certainly not be an MP were it not for the campaigns I waged on behalf of Savernake hospital in Wiltshire, where I was born; that hospital also saved my mum’s life.

I would like to declare an interest as a taxpayer. The NHS’s approach to individual screening is surely an issue in which we should all be interested—from the point of view of prevention of loss of life and the maintenance of good health, but also in respect of how NHS funding, which is clearly finite, is spent on preventing future problems.

I pay tribute to the Beating Bowel Cancer regime, to Cancer Research UK, to the British Society of Gastroenterology, and to Professor Wendy Atkin, her funders and the 170,000 volunteers who took part in her definitive study of flexible sigmoidoscopy, which is known as a flexi-scope. I also pay tribute to Imperial College London, University College London, the University of East Anglia and St Mark’s hospital, and to the variety of doctors, constituents, charities and members of the public who have worked so hard to combat this problem and have helped me to prepare for the debate—including the clinicians, particularly Dr Colin Rees.

As a Member of Parliament representing a constituency in the north-east, I am proud to say that the north-east leads the way in bowel cancer screening. It was the first to complete coverage of an entire region in April 2010.

Before I embark on the substance of my argument, I also make an apology on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who sponsored the Beating Bowel Cancer reception in the House last year. Much to his regret, he cannot be here tonight. He is a good friend of mine, but he is well known in the House—and, indeed, throughout the world—for having worn the Beating Bowel Cancer tie, which I am now wearing, in the Chamber after that reception. My hon. Friend, who has quite a generous build, was attempting to restrain that generous build with his suit when he accidentally touched a button on the tie, setting off a melody that lasted for nearly two minutes. Madam Deputy Speaker virtually extracted him from the Chamber. I understand that the incident was reported in 25 countries, and did more for the screening of bowel cancer worldwide than anything that anyone has said since.

I have no future as a surgeon, and I assure the House that I have removed the bottom half of my own tie so that there is no possibility of my being extracted from the Chamber for being too musical.

Let me now make some serious points about the clinical position. Traditional bowel cancer screening involves the faecal occult blood test, known as the FOB. In the last few years 11 million people in the country have been offered the test, 6 million have accepted it, 120,000 scopes have followed, and 12,000 diagnostic findings of cancer have resulted. It is clear from the statistics that lives have been saved. Previously those screened were aged between 60 and 69, but screening has now been extended to those aged between 60 and 74. It should be noted that the north-east—leading the way, as it does so often in a medical context—was the first region to extend the age group.

Tragically, take-up of that vital free NHS screening is only 54%, whereas take-up of breast cancer screening is 74% and take-up of cervical cancer screening is 79%. However, the situation is changing. Professor Wendy Atkin and her team have brought flexible sigmoidoscopy to the forefront of bowel cancer screening. The results of their 16-year study were definitive. Their randomised trial, which followed 170,432 people, established that the flexi-scope examination reduces the incidence of bowel cancer in those aged between 55 and 64 by a third. Mortality was 43% lower among that group than it was in members of the control group.

The flexi-scope test works by detecting and removing growths on the bowel wall, known as polyps, which can become cancerous if left untreated. It can prevent cancer from developing by removing polyps before they become cancerous, and provides long-lasting protection from bowel cancer.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this very important debate. Does he agree that screening for certain kinds of hereditary cancers, such as non-polypsosis colorectal cancer, should begin at a much earlier age, and should take place relatively frequently throughout the lives of those who are screened?

[Guy Opperman]

I do indeed. I welcome the fact that the guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence have changed to allow screening to become considerably more frequent in such cases. I am sure that the Minister will comment on that.

Flexi-scope screening will undoubtedly save thousands of lives. FOB screening saved 700 to 1,000 lives a year, and flexi-scope screening will save about 3,000 lives a year. To confirm that, the Government implemented a pathfinder project in three areas. Unsurprisingly, two of those areas were in the north-east, this country’s leading medical region. The three areas were South of Tyne and Wear and Tees, along with Derby. The pathfinder findings are with the Department of Health and have not yet been published, but I can assure the House that, in broad terms, they accord with Professor Atkin’s findings. Last October, the Prime Minister announced a proposal to pilot the scheme nationally in 2012, but there are clinical and funding issues that need to be addressed.

First, when is the Department of Health going to invite bids for the follow-on pilot process, given that that was supposed to be done in 2011 and it is now 23 November?

Secondly, clinicians raise the specific concern that the flexi-scope system is only manageable if we have a sufficiency of trained nurse endoscopists, so where are we in respect of this crucial training? Even with the most amazing piece of equipment, if we do not have the people to operate and interpret it, it is useless. Under this scheme, several hundreds of thousands of endoscopies will have to be carried out, with colonoscopies to follow in about 10% of cases. Therefore, everything will depend on training.

Thirdly, how does the Department of Health plan to assess its age groups? My understanding is that the current group of 60 to 74-year-olds will have FOB testing, and those aged 55 will have a flexi-scope. That is relatively clear, but what will happen for gentlemen and ladies in the 56-to-60 age group is not at all clear. Will they be offered the flexi-scope as well, or is that to be based solely on GP referral? Trusts need guidance on what they are to do with such a large and unknown number of people, as they need to plan budgets, staffing and much more besides.

Fourthly, we need to assess what we are going to do with those who have a flexi-scope at 55 and receive the all-clear and then reach the age of 60. Will we rescreen? Anyone who has ever worked in the health industry will know that there is “health speak”, and in this case the following question would be asked: “What is the parallel screening modality for the future?” As always, “health speak” is gibberish, but the simple question here is: are we going to rescreen people who are fine at 55?