Living with Dementia

Debate between Holly Lynch and Ian Paisley

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

As always, Mr Paisley, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I join colleagues in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) for her leadership and for the compassion she shows in everything she does. I am a Dementia Friend because of her, having attended one of her workshops here in Westminster in 2016. I have since become a dementia champion and was asked by the Alzheimer’s Society to run its workshop for Dementia Friends at the 2016 Labour party conference to 80 colleagues and members, which was quite a challenge for my first workshop. I am incredibly proud to have played a very small role in training some of the UK’s 2.8 million Dementia Friends and sending them out into their communities to make them that bit more dementia-friendly. Once again, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her role in that.

This debate gives us an opportunity to evaluate where we are against the aspirations set out in the Government’s Challenge on Dementia 2020, but also to shine a spotlight on some of the good work that is being done at a grassroots level—not least in Halifax, thanks to some truly inspirational and passionate volunteers. As we have heard time and again, 850,000 people are living with dementia in the UK, a figure that is expected to double by 2040. One in 14 over-65s is living with dementia. If that is not an incentive to us all to do everything we can while we are able and empowered to do so, I do not know what is.

I recently wrote to older people in the Sowerby Bridge area of Halifax on behalf of the campaign to make Sowerby Bridge a dementia-friendly town, and invited them to a day of action to learn more and see the support available in their area. That campaign is driven by Shabir Hussain of Bluebird Care in Calderdale, who is a thoroughly committed community activist, along with Chris and June Harvey, who are truly dementia champions, and who run the wonderful Memory Lane Café for people with dementia and their carers. With their trustees and volunteers, Chris and June run pop-up cafés in churches and community centres in Sowerby Bridge and Halifax, with a dementia-friendly programme of games and crafts, information and support, cakes, music and conversation. Some 540,000 people in England alone care for those with dementia, and estimates suggest that one in three of us will be involved in caring for someone with dementia at some time in our lives, so a dementia-friendly environment that offers a thoroughly positive experience for all those involved in living well with dementia makes a massive difference to the regular attenders.

We also have a young onset dementia and Alzheimer’s group, or YODA for short, which was set up by Julie Hayden and provides support for younger people with dementia and for their carers and families. As we have heard, it is often overlooked that 42,000 people of working age live with dementia. Their requirements can be quite different. People diagnosed with dementia at that time of life usually present between the ages of 30 and 65 and are most likely in work, potentially with dependent children, older parents to care for or financial commitments such as a mortgage to consider. For that group, as other hon. Members have said, living well requires a different support package from that required for over-65s.

I would be remiss not to highlight the work of Inspector Neil Taylor of West Yorkshire police, who is a dementia champion and the chair of Dementia Friendly Todmorden. He has gone over and above in promoting best practice within West Yorkshire police and his local community—all credit to him. West Yorkshire police have introduced the Herbert protocol, named after George Herbert, a veteran of the Normandy landings who lived with dementia. The police and other agencies encourage family and carers to complete a form with useful information that could be used in the event of a vulnerable person going missing. The form includes vital details such as medication required, mobile numbers and places previously located, along with a recent photograph. In the event of a loved one going missing, the form can be handed quickly to the police to speed up the search and assist in supporting that person, who may be lost and confused when they are located. I recommend that all forces adopt such a protocol as soon as possible.

We are blessed with dedicated volunteers who have made Calderdale a better place to live with dementia, but what if Shabir, Chris and June, Julie, Neil and others like them were not there? The environment might be quite different without their leadership. How can we ensure that such work is supported and replicated elsewhere?

I give credit where it is due. David Cameron’s Government launched the dementia challenge in 2012, which sought to create dementia-friendly communities, with work led by the Alzheimer’s Society; drive improvements in health and care; and improve research, with a commitment that funding for dementia research be doubled to more than £66 million by 2015. Under Dementia Challenge 2020, as the programme was called when it relaunched in 2015, the Government committed to investing more than £300 million in dementia research and medical innovation.

It has been estimated that dementia costs the UK economy £23 billion a year, which is more than the costs of cancer, heart disease or stroke. With the numbers of people living with dementia expected to double by 2040, predicted costs are expected to treble alongside that increase. For anyone not yet won over by the human arguments for committing to research for dementia, the economic arguments speak for themselves.

To be fair to David Cameron, I believe that he understood the issue. I hope the Minister can assure us that she will seek to make it a continuing priority for the incoming Prime Minister. However, there are still areas in which I would like to see things standardised across the UK to support people, particularly younger people, who live with dementia, as well as their families and carers. To have a dementia diagnosis in the workplace, with dependants or financial commitments, must be incredibly daunting, but with a renewed focus on that group, and with changes to our understanding of the support that those demographics need to live well, we can make a positive difference. I thank the APPG on dementia for its report “Hidden No More: Dementia and disability”, which calls, quite simply, for

“equality, non-discrimination, participation and inclusion.”

I wholeheartedly endorse those aims.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

I thank colleagues for their immensely good self-imposed discipline, which will allow the Opposition spokespersons and the Minister 10 minutes each to speak.

UK Fisheries Policy

Debate between Holly Lynch and Ian Paisley

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Holly Lynch]

I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the opening speech, where we had a nuanced approach. That will be in the discussions. Access to markets will be important for our fish, but having control of our waters is incredibly important. The Government will have to strike that balance as they go into the negotiations, which is what we are reflecting on today.

In contrast, the Conservative Government have moved from saying that they want trade with the EU after Brexit to be tariff-free to saying that they want trade to be as tariff-free as possible. It is starting to feel as though we are moving only backwards against the Government’s, if not the leave campaign’s, initial bold assertions for a post-Brexit fisheries policy.

It is reassuring that there is firm common ground between the fishing industry, conservationists, recreational fishers and consumers alike that a sustainable approach to a new fishing policy is the only game in town. That was the theme running through a fisheries discussion of experts that I chaired on behalf of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology just last week. For a sustainable approach to work, however, we need two things if we are to have confidence in managing fish stocks responsibly. We need a means of robustly enforcing our approach, and we need to get the science right. Those two things have been mentioned in the debate today, and I am sure they will be considerations for the Minister in the coming weeks and months.

There is renewed public awareness of the need for action to preserve our marine environments—a point made passionately by the right hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon). I am hopeful that consumer movements will play an important role in reducing the plastic waste in our waters. The success of the Marine Stewardship Council certifications shows how environmentally aware consumers can bring about positive change. However, we will need Government action to prevent plastics and protect marine environments.

Labour are proud of our record in government and of introducing the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009. We included bold commitments in our manifesto ahead of last year’s general election. We support the blue belt proposals for our overseas territories, and our recently released animal welfare plan announced a consultation on the creation of national marine parks. I hope that those matters will not be overlooked as the negotiations on the future of the UK’s fisheries policy move forward.

Marine protection and fisheries management, as we have already heard, are two sides of the same coin. If we get it right and set the standard both domestically and in our waters around the world, we can secure a flourishing marine environment and a strong and profitable fisheries sector. However, on many of the biggest questions faced by the fisheries sector, hopes are high, but we are still in the dark on much of the detail. There are plenty of opportunities for our fishermen and women and our coastal communities as we leave the EU, but what we desperately need from this Government is the road map, outlining just how we deliver against those opportunities.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Given that the mover of the motion had such a good innings, I do not intend to call him to make a wind-up. I call the Minister, George Eustice.

Police Officer Safety

Debate between Holly Lynch and Ian Paisley

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch]

We have heard from Members on both sides of the House about the increased complexity surrounding crime, and the different types of crime with which the police are having to deal while also weathering truly staggering cuts. As a result, they are naturally more vulnerable when doing their work on the streets of all our constituencies.

When officers are deployed on their own, are they really equipped to deal with an incident when they arrive? The use of Tasers is probably a debate for another day, but, again, I ask the Minister to think about the package of measures that is needed to give officers every opportunity to manage the risks to which they are exposed on the front line. The provision of more widely available Taser units, with the training to accompany that responsibility, could be one of those measures.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The extent of the problem is indeed startling. I have obtained some statistics, because we take measurements in Northern Ireland. Between 2014 and 2016, a quarter of all police officers serving there—1,631—were assaulted, and nearly 500 have been assaulted in the current year. Those are atrocious figures. The Government must tell the Northern Ireland Administration, and chief constables throughout the United Kingdom, that they need to recruit more officers, and judges must impose stiff sentences on people who are caught and found guilty of such crimes.

[Holly Lynch]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that staggering and depressing intervention. We have seen what he has described far too often, and the statistics are very serious. I hope that the Minister will respond with what could be easy and effective ways of dealing with sentencing to ensure that the greatest possible deterrents exist. We quite often see repeat offenders, and that cannot be allowed to continue. We must give police officers every protection that we can possibly provide.

What additional protections might officers need? Perhaps controversially, I want to refer to spit hoods. I am all for informed debate about the issue, but the truth is that if people are politically uncomfortable about spit hoods, I can promise them that somewhere, right now, there is a police officer who is being spat at and who is even more uncomfortable. As well as being thoroughly unpleasant, spitting blood and saliva at another human being can pose a real risk of transmission of a range of infectious diseases, some with life-changing or even lethal consequences. We have a duty of care to protect officers from that, whenever possible.

The Centre for Public Safety has published a briefing on the issue, and I thank it for the work that it has done in this regard. The briefing cited a recent occasion on which the Metropolitan police were called to a disturbance and arrested a 20-year-old woman on suspicion of a public order offence. The woman, who had hepatitis B, then bit her own lip and spat blood at three officers who had to be taken to hospital for anti-viral treatment. Anti-viral treatments are not guaranteed to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases, and an officer may have to endure a wait of over six months to find out whether the treatment has been successful.