Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jackie Doyle-Price and Sarah Newton

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

17. What progress has been made on implementing his Department’s strategy and action plan, “Improving lives: the future of work, health and disability”, published in November 2017.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)]

I am pleased to say that we have made strong progress against the commitments in the Command Paper my hon. Friend refers to, and I thank her for her role in delivering those advances. I can advise the House that the number of disabled people in employment is now 400,000 higher than it was in 2017. There is, however, much more to do, and on 15 July we launched a consultation on measures to reduce ill health-related job loss. We are seeking views on how employers can best support people with disabilities and people with long-term health conditions to stay and thrive in work.

[Sarah Newton]

I thank the Minister for her really helpful response, and I congratulate her on the fantastic work she has done in her position. Last week, the next Prime Minister announced his intention to look again at the tax treatment of at-work referral health services as a benefit in kind to employees, given how crucial fast access to health and support is to so many people. Will the Secretary of State and the Minister work with the new Prime Minister in bringing forward an urgent review, as the current tax regime goes against our focus on prevention and reducing demand on the NHS?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

Absolutely. We will continue with the emphasis on work being good for people’s health. We need to look at what we can do to make it easier for employers to help their employees, which is good for everybody—it means that everyone can still make an economic contribution, and that we retain the existing workforce, and it is good for people’s wellbeing. We absolutely will look at what we can do to incentivise best practice.

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[Jackie Doyle-Price]

Yes is the short answer, and the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that I have regular discussions with colleagues in the DWP to see what we can do to humanise all our processes for benefits claimants, because it is important that when people suffering from mental ill health interact with organisations of the state, we are not causing them harm. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that is very high on the list of things in my in-tray.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I greatly welcome the publication of the prevention Green Paper. How will that strategy enable people to keep well by living in warm homes?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jackie Doyle-Price and Sarah Newton

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have spent a lot of time encouraging donors from minority communities, but the real issue with regard to stem cell donation is that it is about genetic composition. We live in a wonderful society where we all have heritage going back in various, very complex ways, but that makes finding a suitable donor for stem cell donation extremely difficult. It is therefore important that we encourage people to take the test to establish their genetic heritage so that we can have more and more diverse people on the register.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

20. What recent steps Public Health England has taken to help ensure that the violence against women and girls service commissioning guidelines are implemented throughout the NHS.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her important work on the whole issue of violence against women and girls. Clinical commissioning groups are the primary commissioners of NHS services, and, as such, play the lead role in ensuring that service commissioning guidelines on violence against women and girls are implemented through the NHS, as informed by evidence available and current guidance.

[Sarah Newton]

Public Health England is planning to update the public health outcomes framework this summer, but there are no planned outcome measures for victims of domestic abuse or sexual violence. Will my hon. Friend liaise with the Home Office and the clinical commissioning groups to consider measures so that we can all be confident that victims are getting timely access to appropriate services?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend is knocking on an open door, because this issue is very close to my heart. The public outcomes framework does include a measure of reported domestic abuse incidents and crimes that is intended to give an indication of the scale of the issue in each area, and we expect CCGs to commission services as a response to exactly those issues. I have written to CCGs to remind them to commission appropriate sexual violence services, as well as those already commissioned by NHS England so that we have proper support for people who have been victims of these terrible offences.

Mental Health Support: Young People

Debate between Jackie Doyle-Price and Sarah Newton

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

In the past we have treated ring fences as a ceiling and set CCGs the clear objective that they need to increase investment in CAMHS by more than what we have been giving them. [Interruption.] However, acknowledging the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), we will look at what more control we can give, and NHS England is keeping a very close eye on how that money is being spent. As I said at the outset, I am not complacent about the challenges we face. I have to say that we are on it. Direction of travel is one thing, but we have to make sure that we are managing expectations and that we can deliver the services that people expect. That includes investment in the workforce to deliver on very clear expectations.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is being characteristically generous in giving way. I would like to give her some feedback from Cornwall, where our CCG is spending more money on mental health services and I am seeing those services grow. Does she agree, however, that simple organisational changes can sometimes help? I have two universities in my constituency, Exeter and Falmouth. When young people leave home for the first time and arrive at university, it can take months for the NHS to get their records and services sorted out, but young people with existing poor mental health conditions need those services to be in place when they arrive.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Transition is clearly an area that we need to address, and she is right to highlight the importance of this in universities.

The hon. Member for High Peak made a number of points in her speech. She referred to people with ADHD and ASD, and I could not agree with her more that there is a real issue with the failure to diagnose people with those conditions early enough. We know that those people are more likely to suffer from mental ill health, so early diagnosis is absolutely crucial if we are to equip those young people with the tools to look after themselves. I am pleased that that has been a target in the forward plan that we will roll out. The hon. Lady also rightly highlighted the issues surrounding county lines and knife crime, and there is no doubt that the increased incidence of trauma in communities will bring with it more demand for mental health services. That is something that we are very much tackling as part of the Prime Minister’s summit, which took place just last week.

I have been very pleased to work with the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) on this, and I welcome his all-party parliamentary group’s report on the impact of social media. The impact of social media brings with it a whole new set of pressures on children’s and young people’s mental health. It brings greater intensity to relationships, for example. We think our children are safe in their bedrooms, but they are not necessarily, and we need to be vigilant about how we hold social media and internet providers accountable for the content that they host on their sites.

Pensioners and Winter Fuel Payments

Debate between Jackie Doyle-Price and Sarah Newton

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman agrees with the point about the quality of housing stock. There is a lot of Government support for people to invest in such improvements. The difficult is in take-up. He focuses on the winter fuel payment and identifies it as a cut. Instead of having a broad-brush, one-off payment that is available to everyone, we must tackle the root causes of fuel poverty and identify the households that will benefit the most from such help.

[Sarah Newton]

Does my hon. Friend agree that many of the solutions can be found locally in our communities? For example, Community Energy Plus is working with Cornwall council to use the Government incentives to tackle fuel poverty by offering free insulation to vulnerable households living in fuel poverty in Cornwall right now, this winter. The critical role that we can play as MPs is to work in partnership with organisations in our communities to ensure that people know about and take up the good schemes that are available.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend makes a constructive point, which goes to the heart of the point that the Minister made earlier about the lack of take-up, particularly of means-tested benefits. That happens for a host of reasons, including that they are too difficult to take up, that people are too proud, and the lack of awareness among pensioners about the support that they can get to improve the quality of their housing. That is because many of the schemes are nationally designed and rolled out, and the information is not readily available. We can do a lot to push people in the right direction so that they can find help, such as through the project that my hon. Friend mentioned. All Members can play a constructive, championing role, because we are all community leaders. We need to pay our part in pointing pensioners towards the sources of help that they can access to tackle this growing problem.

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[Jackie Doyle-Price]

It is always a challenge for the Government and the public sector to deliver such schemes in a user-friendly way that makes them available to people and does not dissuade them. We need to continue our principle of using all organisations in society and making them approachable. As my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) mentioned, we need to use voluntary groups and the other groups that are closest to pensioners, to encourage them to engage. We can see elements of that starting already in welfare reform. The Government are looking to local authorities to be stronger delivery partners, because they tend to be the organisations with which pensioners have the closest day-to-day contact. We need to think carefully about making support people-friendly and easy to access.

I wish to set the winter fuel payment against the broader context of what the Government are doing for pensioners. They have confirmed that they will be keeping other benefits, such as free TV licences, prescriptions and eye tests, and they have set aside £650 million to help local authorities freeze council tax. We should all recognise that council tax has been a real problem and has contributed to pensioners’ financial difficulties. As we know, if local authorities can limit their budget increases to 2.5%, the Government will meet the cost of the freeze. In recent years the average increase in council tax has been quite significant, and it has been a pernicious bill for many households.

I particularly wish to congratulate the Government on restoring the earnings link to pensions and introducing the triple lock to guarantee an increase in the basic state pension of the highest of earnings, prices or 2.5%. That measure will go further than any other in addressing pensioner poverty. It will give pensioners a firm financial foundation from the state and guarantee a more generous state pension. That is the essential goal of what we are trying to do—we want to ensure that everyone is guaranteed an income that will prevent them from being in poverty.

[Sarah Newton]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s point about improvements and annual increases in the state pension. Does she agree that some of our reforms to the NHS will also have a hugely beneficial effect on older people? Integrating social care with the NHS and giving the health and wellbeing boards a key health outcome of reducing fuel poverty represents a more holistic approach. We are considering pensioners, their families and their lifestyle in the round, and we are supporting them.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

The broader point is that many of the issues that face us in later life have been parked for too long. I congratulate the Government on gripping them, and in the ongoing debate we will have to ensure that we have good provision for people in their later years. I believe that will occupy the House’s attention for quite some time, because we cannot afford to get it wrong. We all need to get behind the Government and help to tackle the matter.