May Adjournment

Debate between Ian Mearns and Nicholas Dakin

Thursday 3rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns]

That is a concern. As well as my duties as Chair of the Backbench Business Committee and as a member of the Select Committee on Education, I am a member of several parliamentary trade union groups, including the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, which, with the Health and Safety Executive, has been struggling to get recognition for a condition known as baker’s asthma. I understand entirely the hon. Gentleman’s point. The HSE is working under great pressure to conduct the work that it must do.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating all those responsible for arranging Workers Memorial Day, including Councillor Tony Gosling in my area, who worked with the Scunthorpe Baptist church and Berkeley Junior School to hold a fantastic celebration of the work of trade unions in improving health and safety with their employers. The young people from Berkeley Junior School will take that message with them through their lives, and that will really transform health and safety in the future.

[Ian Mearns]

I entirely concur with my hon. Friend’s comments.

Workers Memorial Day is important, but it comes with a vital message. As we prepare to leave the European Union, when so much power will be handed back to Ministers, the protection of health and safety regulations and law is so much more important now than it has probably been for an awful long time.

Welfare Reform (Disabled People and Carers)

Debate between Ian Mearns and Nicholas Dakin

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Ian Mearns]

Unfortunately, my forecast is that, in areas such as the one that I represent, with its particular age and disability profile, we MPs can look forward only to a tsunami of casework coming in our direction. We need to reflect on how we will deal with that.

Some figures even suggest that the work capability assessment appeals cost £50 million annually. Does the Minister really think that those assessments are effective and cost-efficient? A lady in my constituency with significant mental health issues tried to claim disability living allowance but was unsuccessful, and subsequently attended a tribunal without representation and lost. She visited the local CAB for help, and it assisted her in appealing again at the tribunal. The decision was overturned, and she was awarded £4,000 in backdated benefit. She also gained an extra £41 a week to live on. She reports that that has made such a difference to her physical and mental well-being, she no longer has to choose whether to “heat or eat”—a dilemma that many families with disabled people now face.

We need to ensure that the assessment criteria take proper account of the full range of barriers faced by people with disabilities and health conditions, make the assessment and reassessment process as simple, transparent and proportionate as possible, and ensure that robust evaluation and monitoring processes are in place.

Let me come on to social funds, which were designed to help people with expenses that are difficult to meet on a low income. The centrally provided social fund has been abolished and replaced with the devolution of discretionary social fund emergency payments, including crisis loans and community care grants, to local authorities. The making of those payments has been delegated to local authorities, and of course we know about the disproportionate cuts that authorities in the north-east have had to make in their mainline budgets.

About one third of the users of crisis loans and community care grants are disabled people. Localising that provision could have a significant impact on them, as there is no statutory duty obliging councils to provide that service or ring-fence funds for that purpose. In other words, local authorities can choose to use that money for other purposes. Given the tight budgets that they are currently overseeing, there is a high likelihood that the money will be injected into other services. The Department for Work and Pensions acknowledged that itself in its research.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on obtaining the debate. Does he agree that Jobcentre Plus in localities such as Scunthorpe is concerned about that transfer of responsibility to local authorities, which are ill prepared to take on that very important task?

[Ian Mearns]

I could not agree more. My local authority has shed about one third of its administrative staff. That prompts the question: how will a local authority with such a huge cut in its capacity to deliver for its people ever be able to come to terms with the demands that will be placed on it?

Another distressing topic at the moment for disabled people and their carers and families is, of course, the bedroom tax. The reduction in housing benefit for social housing tenants whose accommodation is deemed to be too large for their needs will disproportionately hit households with disabled people. Of the 670,000 people estimated by the DWP to be under-occupying accommodation in the social rented sector, two thirds of those affected may be disabled. Many organisations such as Carers UK believe, as do I, that the policy will have a detrimental impact on certain groups of carers and many disabled people. Some families may be unable to cover the shortfall and be forced to move.

Wild Animals (Circuses)

Debate between Ian Mearns and Nicholas Dakin

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), who has spoken up for animals such as Donkey that cannot speak up for themselves. It is also a pleasure to speak in this important debate, and I congratulate the hon. Members for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) and for Colchester (Bob Russell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) on bringing it before the House. There is overwhelming public support for the introduction of a ban on the use of wild animals in circuses, and it is crucial that we have a vote on this motion today. I am pleased to hear from the hon. Member for The Wrekin that there is to be a free vote across the whole House. That is what the country is asking for on this issue, and it is what the country should have.

There are only three circuses left in the UK that use wild animals in performances. It has been recognised that to use them for human entertainment is unethical and unjustifiable, and that it should therefore be opposed. The previous Government consulted the country on a ban on the use of wild animals in circuses in 2009, and the consultation closed in March 2010. It received more than 10,000 responses, 94.5% of which supported a ban. That illustrates the extent of public opinion, which has been reflected in our postbags over the past couple of weeks.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I have received just one item of correspondence from someone who is against a ban—he is not a constituent of mine; he was writing from an address in Dorset—but I have had hundreds of e-mails and letters from my constituents calling for a ban.

[Nic Dakin]

I have received no correspondence opposing a ban. Indeed, we have heard from only one Member this afternoon adopting a different point of view. It is good that that point of view has been aired, because it is important in democratic debates that all points of view are heard.

I am particularly pleased to see a good turnout of Lib Dems for this debate. I suspect that they feel a certain empathy with circus animals, as an endangered species being kept against their will for the entertainment of others. [Laughter.] But this is a serious issue, and if the motion is carried today, the Government should listen to hon. Members on both sides of the House and to members of the public. They should listen to what the British people are saying, and they should stop clowning about and introduce a ban on wild animals in circuses.

Congenital Cardiac Services for Children

Debate between Ian Mearns and Nicholas Dakin

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the Minister, who was very careful in setting out how he is attempting to ensure that this process proceeds in an appropriate way. I was pleased by his comments about the consultation being genuine and about the review being flexible, open-minded and not limited to a particular set or number of outcomes. His contribution was very reassuring and I thank him for that.

I would like to use as my reference point a lady who attended a meeting in Scunthorpe, at the Wortley House hotel, for people who have used the Leeds children’s heart unit’s services in recent years. Her use of the service goes back to when it was in Killingbeck hospital a long time ago before it moved to Leeds General infirmary in 1997. At that point, as has been pointed out, all children’s services were located in one area to great positive effect for the children of the Yorkshire and the Humber region. What she said to the people from Leeds at that consultation was that she really did not mind where the heart surgery locations were, but that she wanted the very best to be delivered for children in need so that they could access the best and most excellent services. She went on to say that her experience of the Leeds service was such as to give her assurance that it would meet those needs. She was particularly concerned that proper outreach services should remain in any future configuration. Her daughter was expecting another child and was already engaged, in relation to her pregnancy, with service support through Leeds, which was going to make it less likely that there would be significant cardiac problems that could not be dealt with at the appropriate time and with appropriate effectiveness.

In the Scunthorpe area, we tend to be on the periphery of things, so we always have to travel, in this case to Leeds. The weather conditions at the end of last year made it difficult to travel to and from Scunthorpe, and a two-hour journey with unwell youngsters would have led to great concern.

We need to make sure that there are proper outreach services to give support in future and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) said earlier, we must recognise that people should have equality of access to excellence wherever they are in the country. That is important for my constituents.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it seems a little unfortunate that the options in the consultation would not include the continuation of services at both Leeds and the Freeman hospital in Newcastle? That was deeply upsetting for parents in the communities that both hospitals serve. There is real concern that the excellent heart and lung transplant service at the Freeman hospital could be jeopardised.

[Nic Dakin]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important point. One of the things illustrated by the debate is that there are many forms of excellent practice, with excellent people working across the country in this area of medicine.