Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Whately and Gregory Campbell

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

I thank my hon. Friend for his invitation. He has been a tireless campaigner on this issue on behalf of his constituents. The future of healthcare is about getting people the care that they need, where they need it and when they need it, and Rugby is no different. New local NHS services are bringing care closer to home in his area, such as the new imaging unit at the Hospital of St Cross that opened in September.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Access to urgent and emergency care can be greater facilitated when greater protection is offered to staff, particularly the many who suffer attacks in emergency departments at hospitals across the United Kingdom—often by people who are intoxicated.

[Helen Whately]

The hon. Member makes an important point. The safety of our staff in the national health service is important, including those in urgent and emergency care departments, as well as the ambulance services. He is absolutely right to point that out, and it is never acceptable for anyone, including patients, to be violent towards staff.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Whately and Gregory Campbell

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

T2. Will the 10-year cancer plan feature the distinctive approach that is required in relation to the early diagnosis of brain tumours?

[Helen Whately]

Cancer will be a substantial part of the major conditions strategy. We will be looking at the major causes of ill health in the country, of which cancer is, of course, one. Part of that will involve ensuring that we are good at diagnosing cancer, because the earlier it is diagnosed, the more treatable it is, and hence the better the outcomes for people with cancer will be.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Whately and Gregory Campbell

Tuesday 10th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Care (Helen Whately)]

My hon. Friend is right about both how widespread loneliness is and the costs. The cross-Government loneliness strategy does indeed join up the voluntary sector and many parts of Government, led by the brilliant Baroness Barran in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. For our part, in this Department we are particularly supporting the growth of social prescribing, which enables GPs to direct their patient to a host of activities, many of which help people to overcome loneliness.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Let us try to keep a sense of perspective. Last weekend, Government sources indicated that the worst-case scenario would be 100,000 deaths due to the current virus outbreak. Given that China has reported just over 3,000 deaths and that it has been at the epicentre of the virus for 10 weeks but has a population 20 times greater than the United Kingdom, was the 100,000 figure a helpful reference?

Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme

Debate between Helen Whately and Gregory Campbell

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend rightly refers to the large number of people working in the supply chain. Most of us—I know this is the case in my constituency—do not have many people looking for work.

Farmers have told me how their EU workers are genuinely worried at the moment about their legal rights to be in the UK. There are also concerns about their safety following reports of attacks on migrant workers. I hope the Minister will reiterate that the status of EU workers in the UK remains unchanged. It would be helpful to communicate that clearly to EU workers in the UK to make absolutely sure that they feel welcome and understand that legally they are allowed to remain and work in the UK while we are in the European Union.

The recent referendum result was decisive and, rightly, the Government plan to negotiate a Brexit deal that controls free movement. However, that creates a challenge for an industry that relies on seasonal migrant labour largely from the European Union. This is where the Government may be able to help. I want the Minister to look into piloting a new seasonal agricultural workers scheme, known as SAWS, for 2017, next year.

We used to have a seasonal agricultural workers scheme until 2013, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) has mentioned. Similar schemes exist in other OECD countries, including New Zealand, Canada, the US and Australia. Organisations from the NFU and the Fruit Advisory Services to the Migrant Advisory Committee agree that our old seasonal agricultural workers scheme worked well, as my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) mentioned. SAWS had robust entry and exit checks, which meant that more than 98% of those who came to work in the UK returned home when their work was complete. For that reason, those coming to Britain under SAWS did not count towards immigration figures. This debate on SAWS should not be seen as part of a wider debate on immigration. It is very much about the workforce for a specific sector.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way and I congratulate her on securing this debate. On the seasonal workers who return home after they have worked here, whom she has mentioned several times, it is obviously the case that they are able to secure employment here more easily and more readily than is the case closer to home in their own nation states. As in so many other issues relevant to the Brexit negotiations, their countries benefit from the moneys that they earn here and return to their own nation states to spend, so it is not a one-way system; it is a two-way process that should benefit farmers in the UK and the workers’ countries of origin as well.

[Helen Whately]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. On the new scheme that we would like to pilot, we would expect it to include all the positives of the old scheme: oversight by the Home Office; checks on arrival and departure; restrictions on the length of placement; and independently accredited standards.

People often ask, “Why can’t British farmers employ British labour to do all the work? Why do we look to recruit people from overseas?” I have brought this up with farmers in my constituency. I know that they and many others have tried to recruit locally, and it is possible to recruit small numbers locally. I held a jobs fair in Maidstone a couple of months ago. Representatives were there from the local fruit farms and they recruited workers on that day. However, the problem, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), is that there simply are not enough people looking for work. It is almost a downside of the very low unemployment rate that we have, which overall is clearly a good thing, but the fact is that there is not a swathe of people looking for work.

Syrian Refugees: Resettlement

Debate between Helen Whately and Gregory Campbell

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Helen Whately]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. I, too, heard about connections between camps and people going back to Syria to fight to get an income. I would be keen to hear from the Minister about accelerating the scheme and whether we could front-load or bring more people more quickly, but that must be done in the context of making sure that we are doing a good job with those we are bringing here. To ensure that we do the job well, it is important that the scheme where councils volunteer to take people continues and that councils do not have numbers imposed on them.

On jobs and qualifications, there are many examples over the years of people who have come here from places such as Afghanistan, where they were skilled professionals such as dentists, engineers, teachers and even doctors, but they find that their qualifications are not recognised in this country. They therefore find themselves doing other jobs and not making full use of those qualifications. I understand that it takes about two years to get a foreign qualification recognised in the UK, so will my hon. Friend the Minister tell us whether it is possible to expedite the process to get international and Syrian qualifications recognised in the UK? Obviously, there must be a requirement for appropriate language skills; it is clearly important that people speak English as well as having professional skills.

Some hon. Members are calling on the Government to take in around 3,000 more child refugees. That sounds like a wonderful thing to do. In Kent, however, already about 1,400 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and care leavers are being looked after by the county council, so services in Kent are under immense strain and foster homes are completely full. We have limited school places.

In November, the Government called on other local authorities to volunteer to take in some of the unaccompanied asylum-seeking children; but unfortunately, few have done so. Offers have materialised for just 35 of the young people. Kent has therefore welcomed an amendment to the Immigration Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, to make it possible to compel local authorities to accept young asylum-seeking children. While it would be a good thing to take in more refugee children and it should be considered seriously, I ask Members who are urging the Government to do that to urge their local councils to ensure, if possible, that they to step up and take their fair share of the young asylum-seeking children and minors we have in the country at the moment. We have got to do a good job by the ones who are here before we start taking in more.

We must not overlook the challenges of integration. There are cultural barriers, but because integration is a two-way process, there is also an opportunity to harness the good will of the British people. We have seen an enormous upsurge in people who want to help, which was triggered particularly by the pictures of what is going on in Europe and the image of the child on the beach last summer.

Communities have seized on the arrival of refugees as an opportunity to do something practical. I heard about a teacher in Tunbridge Wells who has given up their time to teach English to a recently arrived refugee. In Ashford, council staff started their own fund for refugees and donated toys to be given to children. The challenge, however, can be in channelling such offers, and some charities and councils have struggled to co-ordinate enormous numbers of volunteers, so I wonder whether some businesses might be able to help with match-making technology and in other ways or whether the Government could facilitate that, given that this is a problem throughout the country.

Our experiences show that if councils and communities embrace the refugee programme, it could be an incredibly positive experience. People in places such as Ashford and Kingston, and not least their councils, feel a real sense of pride in what they are doing. It is easy to think of reasons not to take refugees and to think about the barriers, but it is much better to think of ways to overcome those barriers, especially when the numbers are so small. If each of the UK’s 391 local authorities took just 51 individuals over the five years—that is about 10 families each—we would achieve the 20,000 target, and some are already planning to take five times that number.

Councils should be bold and take this opportunity to do the right thing. Those who are reluctant and cautious may be surprised by the support that they would receive from voters.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. She is talking with some pride about the many people who want to be of assistance in this unprecedented crisis, but does she agree that while some countries in the middle east are inundated with migrants, some nation states have not done anything to help? If we could see some of those nation states helping, that would certainly help people in the UK feel that everyone was putting their shoulder to the wheel to try to address this unprecedented humanitarian crisis.

[Helen Whately]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We all—the whole of Europe and of the middle east—need to be seen to be doing our part. Some countries have been particularly criticised for not taking more refugees. I have heard, for instance, Saudi Arabia’s name come up. I am aware of countries that are taking refugees but not making such a noise about it. Some of this may be a question of communication, with countries taking refugees but not calling them refugees and giving them resident status. Those refugees are being integrated, and they have family members with them. In some areas, the process is just not so visible. There is no question but that the countries in the region around Syria are taking enormous numbers of refugees and putting a lot of resource into supporting them.

The Government should take on the role of facilitating the sharing of expertise on taking in refugees. We have lots of expertise, but some areas may be taking refugees for the first time and will be doing their very best but might not know what the risks are. I would like to see the Government ensuring that we do the best we can across the country and providing more ongoing transparency about how well the resettlement programme is going. Mistakes can and almost inevitably will be made. There is a risk that the generous funding—it is a substantial amount of money—might not be spent in the best possible way. Any mistakes should be quickly identified and addressed, to ensure they are not repeated elsewhere.

My final questions for the Minister are as follows. What is being done to help councils to access people or organisations with the expertise to help them with the resettlement programme? How are the Government enabling the sharing of that expertise and information on what is already known about how to resettle refugees effectively? How are the Government monitoring the resettlement programme to identify how well it is going, to pick up any problems as they emerge and to celebrate the successes?

I want to emphasise that final point: we should celebrate success. We should feel proud that Britain is the second largest donor to refugees in and around Syria, where the British pound goes much further than it does here in the UK. We should feel proud that we are giving thousands of the most vulnerable refugees a chance of a new life in Britain. Kofi Annan recently told “Newsnight” that Britain’s “effective and smooth” approach is the right one. We should celebrate the councils and communities that are stepping up to take refugees and the charities and the volunteers who are helping, while encouraging all those who are reluctant or sceptical to support this thoughtful strategy. Britain rightly has a reputation as a compassionate country of opportunity that welcomes people from around the world. Some have doubted us recently, but we should make that a reality for 20,000 Syrians.