Women’s Health Strategy for England

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Steve Barclay

Wednesday 20th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I thank my hon. Friend for her warm welcome. I agree with her about empowering patients, women in particular, with information. That is why part of the strategy is to focus on the information provided on the NHS website. There is also the need to work with trusted partners—to look at where people go for their health information, and how we can better empower them. For example, in the consultation, we heard of patients being told that heavy bleeding was normal—that it was something that they had to accept. Again, that was an issue highlighted by respondents in the call for evidence. It is about making sure people realise that, where there are issues, their voices are heard. That is at the heart of the strategy that we have set out.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I am delighted to see the UK Government follow in the footsteps of the Scottish Government with a women’s health plan. I am also pleased to see that they have taken on board the Stonewall campaign to bring the rest of the UK into line with Scotland on female same-sex couples’ access to in vitro fertilisation, because for far too long it has been a postcode lottery and lesbians have been discriminated against.

As co-chair, with the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), of the all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis, I am pleased to see the recommendations for more research and better care for those who suffer from that condition, but can we be certain that that will be backed up by proper support and funding? Women’s healthcare champions are fantastic, but they cannot replace proper funding and a proper strategy. I pay tribute to the work of Sir David Amess: I have no doubt that this strategy and the endometriosis aspects of it would not be there without the great work he did as chair of the all-party group.

[Steve Barclay]

I thank the hon. Lady in particular for that tribute to the work Sir David contributed to this, and agree with her on the issue of same-sex couples having access to IVF. She is right about better research and how we highlight that; that is a key part of the strategy. It is also interesting from the comments of the health ambassador that services can be reconfigured in a way that gives better outcomes for the patient without leading to higher cost. By having centres of excellence where the woman’s voice is heard, treatment comes more quickly and that delivers better patient outcomes.

Tax Avoidance and Evasion

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Steve Barclay

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point about the moving target of criminality and the ingenuity of approaches to evade tax or abuse the tax system. That is partly why I referred earlier to the fraud service set up within HMRC in 2016. It is also a key part of how technology is used in a dynamic way within HMRC to tackle that moving target of criminality. As I said in answer to his earlier intervention, if in their surgeries Members are told of case involving firms or local authorities in their constituencies, that intelligence is obviously of relevance to colleagues, and I can commit that the Financial Secretary would take those forward.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware of the situation in my constituency, where the HMRC offices are being closed and moved to Edinburgh, at significant cost to the taxpayer. One of the key issues the unions raised with me time and again was the loss of expertise. The services and expertise of the many long-serving staff who cannot move for various reasons—financial reasons, caring responsibilities, and so on—will be lost, so there is a double cost to the Treasury. Does he not consider it a grossly bad decision by this Government?

[Steve Barclay]

The right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), when she chaired the PAC, looked at whether the Government were managing their estate efficiently. Through the PAC, the House regularly raised the concern that the Government were not properly managing their cost base by rationalising the estate, and often those concerns related to PFI—I do not know if the case the hon. Member has raised relates to PFI.

[Hannah Bardell]

The Pyramids, in Livingston in West Lothian, where the HMRC offices were based, was one of the most high-tech and best-connected sites in Scotland, yet the Government are moving them to Edinburgh to one of the most expensive sites in Scotland. It makes no sense financially, and the PAC agreed. There is still an opportunity for the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to rethink this decision or create a hub in West Lothian to save those jobs, which were put there as a result of the closure of Motorola.

[Steve Barclay]

I will not comment on that individual decision, which I have not been involved in, but the House has in the past questioned whether the Government have been moving quickly on the wider principle of using our estate in the most value-for-money manner, by pooling expertise to work more efficiently and offering career progression through the greater flexibility that bigger teams in bigger centres often allow. It is right that we look at what the right estate mix is and at how we can pool expertise to achieve our common goal of closing the tax gap, particularly by using technology.