Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Stewart and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let us bring in the shy Member—Jim Shannon.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I ask the Minister this question? Now that the bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland has been laid to bed at long last, can the Minister indicate what will be done to improve the roads from Larne to Stranraer and further on, because it is important for us in Northern Ireland, where we have tourism and we have business, that the roads are up to a certain standard? What has been done to improve those?

[Iain Stewart]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important question. The thinking behind the connectivity review is that we look at transport connections right across the UK. The A75 from Stranraer and Cairnryan to the motorway network is in desperate need of an upgrade, and that was one of the central recommendations of Sir Peter’s report. We absolutely see that as an important corridor.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Debate between Iain Stewart and Jim Shannon

2nd reading: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 23rd October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to be called to speak in this important Bill debate. May I, for completeness, first declare an interest, in that I chair the all-party parliamentary group on the future of transport, which has its secretariat funded by the Transport Systems Catapult? I also chair the all-party parliamentary group on smart cities, which has a range of public and private bodies funding its secretariat.

I had the great pleasure of serving on the Committee that considered the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill in the last Parliament. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) said that today’s Bill was a case of déjà vu. Perhaps the correct phrase is that it is a system upgrade to the previous Bill. This is a better Bill, because, as has been mentioned, a number of the genuine concerns that were expressed previously by Members on both sides of the House have been reflected in this Bill’s clauses. I should add that that Committee was a perfect example of how Bill Committees should work. We had a very cordial and courteous exchange of views; genuine concerns were raised, and they have, as I said, been taken on board.

I remain very supportive of the objectives in both parts of the Bill. As has been said, it is important that we in this country are ahead of the game. It is forecast that the intelligent mobility market will be worth £900 billion globally by 2025, and we have to make sure that our industry and our system of regulation are as up to date as possible to make sure we get a good share of that market.

I think the Government have taken the right approach. It is not possible for us today to predict the precise technology that will be innovated. I take a different approach from that just outlined by the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford). I do not think we can prescribe too much at this stage. The legislation has to be enabling and then further qualified by secondary legislation at the appropriate time.

The potential advantages of autonomous and electric vehicles are huge. I will not detain the House by repeating the ones that have already been mentioned, but these vehicles will make transport more accessible to people with disabilities and people who are elderly or who do not have the means to afford a private car. That is a very important social objective.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Surely three things must be tackled by the manufacturing sector: the performance of electric cars, their price and the commercial relationship with the Government that will allow us to provide the charging points. If we do not have those three things in place, we do not have electric cars or a way forward.

[Iain Stewart]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. As I will expand on in my speech, the Bill provides a way for those things to happen. If he will bear with me, I will touch on those points later.

The other advantages, of course, are to do with the environment and making better and more efficient use of the limited resources we have. It is no mistake that the United Nations has as one of its top priorities dealing with the increasing urbanisation of the world, and the human race is going to have to find better ways of moving people and goods around to make that development sustainable.

In that regard, I should mention that my constituency is at the forefront of a lot of the innovation involved in this technology. We were today recognised in the UK Smart Cities Index 2017 as one of the top cities in the country.

Before I move on to the detail of the Bill, I should say that we had mention earlier of the importance of matching skills to this new technology. I very much welcome the Minister’s willingness to have a constructive dialogue in Committee, and more broadly with other Departments, to look at this issue. As a starting point, the Transport Systems Catapult recently published its “Intelligent Mobility Skills Strategy”, which identified that, by 2025, we will have a 750,000-job gap in skills, and there is an urgent need to address that point.

In my Second Reading speech and in Committee on the previous Bill, I raised several concerns, which were addressed to my satisfaction by the Minister. In my comments today, I just wish to get reaffirmation on those points and to raise a few additional concerns.

Clause 1 provides for the Minister to provide a list of vehicles deemed to have autonomous capability. I just ask a simple question: when this list is compiled and then updated, will it include the freight sector and the public transport sector, or are we simply looking at what are deemed motor cars today? It would be helpful to have that clarification.

As regards clause 2, we had extensive debates on the previous Bill about what would, to use an umbrella term, be classified as driver-assistance technology—lane guidance, cruise control and reverse parking guidance—and what constitutes a wholly autonomous vehicle. The Minister was very clear in Committee that driver-assisted technology is not the point of this Bill. When we have these gadgets in cars—there will be ever more as we go forward—they are there to assist the driver. They do not replace the driver, so the driver remains absolutely in control.

Shared Ownership Housing

Debate between Iain Stewart and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered shared ownership housing.

It is a pleasure to open the debate under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I wish to advance some thoughts that I have had for some time, and which were debated in my constituency at the general election, about how the shared ownership model could be expanded and improved to become a larger and more successful sector of the UK housing market.

Housing issues are rightly high on the political agenda. I do not propose to analyse some of the broader issues about housing supply or schemes such as Help to Buy, rent to own, the right to buy for housing association tenants and so on, although I will refer to them as I explain my proposals for shared ownership. My proposals would assist with the size of the overall housing supply and operate alongside other policies, not replace them. They fit neatly into other recent and planned developments, such as the liberation of pension funds, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is introducing. I will turn to those later in my speech, but first I shall explore why I and many others believe that the shared ownership housing model has not fulfilled its potential.

At its heart, shared ownership is a simple concept that helps people who aspire to own their own home to get on the housing ladder. Rising house prices increasingly make the goal of raising a deposit and taking out a mortgage beyond the reach of many, even those earning decent incomes in some parts of the country. In addition, for young people, the cost of repaying student loans post-graduation plus the need to begin building pension funds limit the affordability of a home buying. I know from the experiences of many people in my constituency that policies such as Help to Buy are popular and effective, and that will be the same for other welcome initiatives from the Government such as the proposed discount for first-time buyers purchasing a new brownfield property.

Without help from the bank of mum and dad, or if someone is not already in a council or housing association property—for those people the right to buy is, or will be, an option—getting on the housing ladder will remain elusive, and for many people the private rented sector will be their only option. As we all know, rents can be at a level that makes saving for a deposit and mortgage difficult. Shared ownership offers people the chance to gain some equity and move towards full ownership. It also offers greater security of tenure than renting. I do not wish to do down the private rented sector; far from it. It fulfils a valuable role, particularly in areas where there is a highly mobile population, such as in university towns and cities, or in places, including parts of my own constituency, where dynamic economic activity requires shorter-term tenure housing stock. There will always be people who want to rent privately for short or long periods for a wide range of reasons, and the buy-to-let market helps fulfil that goal. As the Chancellor rightly identified in the Budget, the buy-to-let sector cannot become too dominant. The Governor of the Bank of England pointed out that that could pose a risk to the country’s economic stability. In addition, if it is too large, it will continue, through simple supply and demand forces, to push the affordability bar higher still for people who aspire to own their own home.

There is considerable evidence to show that home ownership remains the tenure of choice for most of the population. I see it in my own constituency, where we have considerable new housing development, and large numbers of the new houses are not bought by aspirant owners but by buy-to-let landlords. As well as restricting the supply of new housing to would-be owners, there is also some evidence to suggest that too high a concentration of buy-to-let properties is not as conducive as a broader housing mix to developing community stability. I have noted comments from the National Housing Federation, Orbit Group and the Chartered Institute of Housing that having a stake in their own home makes people more likely to invest in their neighbourhoods. For those reasons, I see a greater role for shared ownership.

Shared ownership is not a new concept. Many residents already use it successfully. Its main advantage is that it allows a route into home ownership for low and middle-income families who could not otherwise afford a full equity mortgage straightaway. There is not one shared ownership scheme; there are various schemes, but they share the common feature of allowing an individual to take out a mortgage on an initial share of a property. They then pay rent on the proportion owned by the housing association and mortgage repayments on their share, with the option to buy more shares in the property later—a concept known as staircasing. The National Housing Federation has shown that, by and large, the combined rent and mortgage payments under shared ownership are considerably lower than equivalent full mortgage repayments or full private sector rental payments for equivalent properties—so far so good, but I believe that there is huge untapped potential in the sector.

The Government’s affordable homes programme will run until 2018. It commits £1.7 billion in capital grant funding for affordable homes outside London, and includes provision for shared ownership. I am also aware, from the autumn statement and the spring Budget, that the Government have been looking at rule changes, which should reduce bureaucracy in the system and remove some of the barriers. Those are all very welcome, but I believe that we can go further still. My motivation in securing the debate is to make some suggestions as to how that might be achieved.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing the issue to Westminster Hall for consideration. In my constituency of Strangford, a great many people are involved in the co-ownership scheme. It has enabled those on low incomes to get on the housing ladder. The only thing that concerns me is this: for someone who is paying 50%, perhaps they should seek financial advice at the beginning about what happens when it comes to buying the other half, moving the other half through, or even legal problems if they cannot make their mortgage payments. Does the hon. Gentleman think that there should be more help to look at the long-term financial implications for those who want to go into co-ownership?

[Iain Stewart]

I will touch on that point a little later, because one problem with expanding shared ownership is that tenants can find it difficult to take a big additional equity share. I will touch on a proposal in a little while that helps to address the problem the hon. Gentleman rightly identifies.

Barnett Formula

Debate between Iain Stewart and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Iain Stewart]

There certainly is that perception. Part of my motivation for securing the debate was to address such issues so that we can have a more informed debate on the fiscal relationship principally between Scotland and England. I am conscious that Members from Wales and Northern Ireland are in the Chamber as well. My comments will be principally about Scotland and England, but the arguments also apply to the rest of the United Kingdom. As I said, there is much ill-informed comment and misunderstanding about what the Barnett formula is and does and that is why I wanted to have this debate.

As well as being misunderstood, the Barnett formula is much maligned. Contradictory simultaneous comments are made that it both penalises Scotland and is too generous to Scotland, but both of those cannot be right. I am reminded of a comment that Lord Foulkes made when he was a Scotland Office Minister about a decade ago:

“If the SNP think that Barnett is too mean and the English Tories think that it is too generous, most sensible people would think that it is just about right”.

For many years, reform of the Barnett formula has been parked in the “too difficult” box.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

In Northern Ireland’s case the Barnett formula is just right. It recognises the need to keep the balance of wealth, because in Northern Ireland our wages are lower and the products we buy in shops are more expensive. At the same time, if the current talks work out—I hope that they do—and corporation tax is devolved to Northern Ireland, that could be a poisoned chalice. However, Northern Ireland has already been able to set its air passenger duty for long-haul flights with the permission of the British Government.

[Iain Stewart]

As I said earlier, the purpose of the debate is not to say whether Barnett is right or wrong or whether it needs to be changed or not; it is just to help inform a more considered debate about the issues.

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome

Debate between Iain Stewart and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I am grateful for the opportunity to highlight how regional sympathetic dystrophy, now known as complex regional pain syndrome, affects those who suffer from it and to press for more research into the condition, so that a greater number of people may be properly diagnosed and treated. If Members forgive me, I will use the acronym CRPS throughout the debate for brevity and ease of description.

The earliest descriptions of CRPS apparently date back to the American civil war, but I became aware of it only through my constituent, Kevin Scardifield, who suffers from the condition. He contacted me because his experience of CRPS and the quality of care that he received led him to believe that there is neither an adequate understanding of the condition by NHS clinicians, nor good-quality care for sufferers such as him on the NHS.

Before I proceed, it might be helpful if I explain CRPS and its symptoms. The NHS Choices website describes CRPS as

“a poorly understood condition in which a person develops a persistent (chronic) burning pain in one of their limbs.”

It continues:

“The pain usually develops after an injury—which in most cases is a minor injury—but the pain experienced is out of all proportion to what you would normally expect.”

It is through an injury that my constituent developed the condition in 2009. He was undergoing carpal tunnel release surgery when the local anaesthetic failed to work and he broke his hand against the clamp when he jerked so hard because of the pain.

To give a full account of the symptoms experienced by sufferers of CRPS, I will quote directly from a letter that Mr Scardifield sent to me:

“The pain of this condition is so great that there are recorded cases of sufferers self-amputating in a desperate attempt to escape the excruciating agony. Others have had their circulation so badly damaged that they have developed gangrene and have had to have amputations to save their lives. In either case it has caused the condition to spread further into their bodies.

According to the…McGill Pain Index, it is the world’s most painful incurable condition; it is almost impossible for us to understand exactly how painful that is. Try and imagine a 3 bar electric fire with a metal grill—how long do you think you could hold your hand against the grill with one bar on? Now try and imagine that fire is inside your hand, one bar is a good day for a sufferer, three bars is a bad day and there is no off switch.

Try and imagine a pain so great and a grip so weak that you cannot pull open a packet of crisps yourself, a sneeze that turns into a scream of agony. Knowing that you will never be able to pick up and hold or play with your newly born child or grandchild because one hand is useless and they could cause your condition to spread or start somewhere new.”

My constituent recounts that his injury was missed, not only by the surgeon in subsequent visits but by the hand therapists in approximately 50 visits. Eventually, he was diagnosed as having CRPS following a referral to the hand therapy unit of Milton Keynes hospital.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this matter to the House for consideration. I have a great many constituents who have the problem, which concerns me. Does he believe there is now a greater need for doctors to be trained to tell the difference between fibromyalgia, which some people think CRPS is, and the actual disease itself? If so, does he think the NHS should initiate training among doctors and surgeons to ensure that that happens? Should there be more research on how the pain starts and where it comes from?

[Iain Stewart]

I have much sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman says, and if he bears with me, I will address training and research funding a little later.

The NHS Choices website sets out the quality of care and treatment that CRPS sufferers should receive due to the complex nature of the condition. My constituent should have been provided with a care team comprising a physiotherapist, an occupational therapist, a neurologist, a psychologist, a social worker and a pain relief specialist. He informed me that he has not received such care, as most health professionals whom he has encountered do not even know the condition’s acronym.

That leads me to my principal argument. If NHS clinicians do not sufficiently understand the condition, how will they be able to diagnose it properly and ensure that patients are adequately treated and cared for? The NHS Choices website says that it is hard to estimate exactly how common CRPS is because many cases go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. I think the hon. Gentleman was referring to that point.

My constituent contends that possibly 250,000 people in England have not been properly diagnosed. He is understandably impassioned about the issue and has been carrying out his own research using American sources—it appears more research is being conducted into the condition in America.

From my own research, I learned from one study that as many as one in 3,800 people in England may be affected by CRPS. Therefore, going by the 2011 census estimates, 14,000 people could either have been misdiagnosed or remain undiagnosed. Although that might appear to be a small number by comparison with my constituent’s estimate, it does not diminish the issue’s importance.

The core principles of the NHS state that good health care should meet the needs of everyone and should be based on clinical need. Kevin Scardifield is unable to do the everyday things that other people take for granted. He was a police officer before the onset of the condition—a profession he greatly loved but had to give up. So debilitating is the condition that, by the middle of last year, he had been able to leave the house only six times, which was just for a few yards to the GP.

I am sure that Members can appreciate why this is such an important issue and why Kevin Scardifield has been campaigning hard for proper diagnosis and treatment. Since he made me aware of the condition, I have made a number of representations to the Department of Health, the local hospital, the primary care trust—now the clinical commissioning groups—and even the Department for Work and Pensions.

I am grateful to the Minister and his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), for their replies to my constituent’s concerns when I brought them to their attention. Had my constituent felt that his concerns had been fully addressed, however, we would not be having this debate, so if the Minister will forgive me, I will raise a number of specific issues. First, as I have mentioned, people are either being misdiagnosed or remain undiagnosed because NHS clinicians do not appear to have sufficient awareness of the condition.