Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Guy Opperman and Jamie Stone

Thursday 8th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Guy Opperman)]

My hon. Friend has been a fantastic champion for Fraserburgh and for that business in particular. I know very well the issue in respect of longer semi-trailers and compliance with the regulations. I would be delighted to meet him and the company, and I assure both the company and the wider industry that we are working to find a way forward on this question, because it matters and we want to support that business.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

T4.   His Majesty the King is well known and much loved in my constituency, and on behalf of my constituents I wish him a full recovery. Do the Government agree that the sustainability of transport links, particularly air links, between Scottish airports and the rest of the UK are very important? For example, flights in and out of Wick John O’Groats airport are crucial to the economic development of the far north.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Guy Opperman and Jamie Stone

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I pay full credit to Mrs Ward and also to my hon. Friend. I read with interest the Stoke Sentinel report on this particular issue. There is a genuine change to be made, there has been a long-standing campaign, and all parties should be pleased with the outcome reached.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

In all honesty, I probably ought to declare an interest, but pensioners living in Edinburgh and Glasgow do not face the same sorts of increases as pensioners living in a remote and faraway constituency such as mine when it comes to living costs such as running a car, buying groceries and heating the house. Will the Government look at ways of targeting these particularly hard-hit people?

Baby Loss and Safe Staffing in Maternity Care

Debate between Guy Opperman and Jamie Stone

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) for bringing forward this debate. This is my first Westminster Hall speech in seven and half years; it is an honour and a privilege to speak on such an important matter.

I have had three children, but was able to take only one home from hospital. Teddy and Rafe came and went in the summer of 2020—briefly—and were loved all too shortly. I welcome the work led by the teams at Oxford and Leicester to ensure that there is clear advice to support health professionals in assessing and documenting signs of life in extremely difficult pre-term births. That is what I want to focus on.

I should put on the record, as I am sure many will, the amazing charities such as Sands and others who work in this sphere and who have helped me get over the trauma, loss and bereavement, as have the Northumbria NHS trust in my constituency and St Thomas’s, where my children were born. I thank my constituent, Sarah Richardson, and all the teams at Hexham Queen’s Hall and Hexham Abbey for their support for baby loss awareness.

Consistency across the NHS is key. People will lose children; that is a fact of life. Pregnancy is, as we all discover, more complicated than we imagined it would be—even in 2022. There is work to be done on the improvement of midwives and maternity staffing levels, but the key for me is a consistent approach across all NHS trusts up and down the country. Why does that matter? Because there should not be a postcode lottery in which a parent in trust A is treated differently from a parent in trust B, and poor souls go on the internet and find out that in trust A they would have been treated in one way, but in trust B in another way.

We all have to accept that mistakes are made and that giving birth is a fragile process, but we should expect the NHS and our Government to promote consistency of approach in dealing with the individual issues that mums and dads have.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Does the hon. Member agree with me that the principle that he correctly outlines should also apply to the nations of the United Kingdom, and that equality of service should apply right across Great Britain?

[Guy Opperman]

It is a perfectly fair point that there is a difference of approach in the different countries of the great United Kingdom, and I utterly agree that if someone lives in the United Kingdom, they should have a consistency of approach. There should be a coming together of the various professional boards to drive forward consistent standards. I will give one specific example.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Guy Opperman and Jamie Stone

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

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

The hon. Gentleman is a member of the Labour party. He will recall that it was the Labour party that set up the Pensions Regulator with operational independence to deal with these matters. He may have forgotten the basis on which the Pensions Regulator was set up, but I have not. It is a matter between the Pensions Regulator and the individual company, but I am sure that he will take that up when he meets the Pensions Regulator.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

This is in no way a criticism of the very hard-working DWP staff in the north of Scotland, but, prior to covid, as the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) has pointed out, one-time face-to-face meetings did work. However, since covid, we have had virtual meetings, often followed by another virtual meeting and yet another virtual meeting, or even a face-to face, which has led to huge delays, and, if that is followed by an appeal, this is really unacceptable. Will the Secretary of State look at two things: first, will she ensure that we go back to timely face-to-face meetings; and, secondly, if there is a geographic element to this, because I represent such a huge constituency, could that be looked into as well with a view to sorting it out?