Business of the House
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Hague
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about a disturbing case. I will refer it to my ministerial colleagues, and there will be further questions to Ministers at the Ministry of Justice before the Dissolution of Parliament. I will ensure that Ministers consider the matter he has raised.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
It is estimated that the elephant population of the Selous reserve in Tanzania has fallen from 55,000 in 2006 to about 15,000 now. As chair of the all-party group on Tanzania and a long-term resident of that country, that greatly distresses me and hundreds of people around the world. May we have an urgent debate in this House on the factors that fuel demand for ivory, rhino horn and other illegal wildlife products?
Mr Hague
My hon. Friend is right, and this is a deeply disturbing situation not only in Tanzania but internationally. The British Government are playing a leading role in fighting this. As Foreign Secretary, in February last year I hosted an international summit on the issue, which the President of Tanzania addressed. I now chair a taskforce on how to prevent the transportation of illegal ivory, at the request of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge. As my hon. Friend says, it is ultimately a matter of demand in countries such as China, Vietnam and Thailand, and it is welcome that such issues are being debated with China during the visit of His Royal Highness this week.
Business of the House
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Hague
As my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary is in his place and has been listening to that question, I shall not need to write to him about it; he has taken note of it. The Government are committed to reform of the death certification system. When a patient dies, it is the statutory duty of the doctor who has attended them in their last illness to issue a medical certificate of cause of death. There is no fee payable for completing that, but there are other forms before cremation of a deceased patient. The proposed reform of the system to which the Government are committed would remove the need for cremation form fees. My right hon. Friend has heard my hon. Friend’s point about the urgency of tackling this.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
During this Parliament we have had the welcome practice of Government coming to the House in the event that military action is contemplated. What would happen during Dissolution in the very serious event that that might again be the case?
Mr Hague
An important convention has grown up that the Government come to the House in the event of military action. During a Dissolution there is no provision for the recall of the House. When Parliament has been dissolved, none of us are MPs after 30 March so it is not possible to recall it. In the highly unusual circumstances of military action that might then arise, of course we continue very much to have a Government who would, I am sure, in any set of circumstances handle the situation extremely responsibly. This Government are always vigilant about our national security, and that will remain the case during Dissolution. I think that in the circumstances that my hon. Friend mentions, what would happen in practice is that whoever emerged in government after the general election would need to come to Parliament as soon as possible thereafter for parliamentary debate on the issue.
Business of the House
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Hague
This sounds like an important issue that needs to be pursued. The most immediate opportunity to do that will be at questions to the Chancellor and Treasury Ministers next Tuesday, 27 January, in the House. The hon. Gentleman could also make a case for an Adjournment debate or a Back-Bench Business debate on the matter.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
May we have a debate on the discrepancy between the time limits on tax refunds and refunds of overpaid benefits? The constituent who had to take early retirement from teaching, through no desire of her own, found that she had been overpaid incapacity benefit for a number of years, on all of which she paid income tax. She returned the overpaid benefits in full, but was only refunded the tax she paid for the statutory four years, and thereby lost several thousand pounds, which she could ill afford, to the Exchequer.
Mr Hague
It is right in principle that, where overpayments of benefits have occurred, it is the policy to recover them to prevent loss to the public purse. I am not able to comment immediately on that individual case, which does seem to be complicated by the issue that my hon. Friend raises. But I will ask my ministerial colleagues to write to him in response to the concerns that he has raised.
Business of the House
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
There are extraordinary pressures on A and E departments in Stoke and the north midlands, although the excellent staff at Stafford County and Royal Stoke University hospitals are working hard to deal with them. Furthermore, a speedy return to 24/7 A and E services in Stafford is essential owing to the long-term acute pressures that will result from the doubling of the number of people aged over 85 in south Staffordshire and Stafford by 2030. May we have a debate on regional A and E provision, in the light of the increased number of complex medical emergencies?
Mr Hague
There has already been a good deal of discussion in the House about A and E services—indeed, the Health Secretary spoke about them in the House last week—and my hon. Friend will be aware of all the action that the Government are taking to try to relieve pressure on those services, nationally and in his own region. However, he is right to refer to local pressures, and I shall ensure that the Health Secretary is aware of the point that he has raised.
Business of the House
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Hague
On the face of it, it sounds as though the hon. Gentleman raises an important point about bogus calls. There is no Government time available for such a debate, but there are many other opportunities to explore such matters, including Adjournment debates and questions to Health Ministers, which we will have next week. I encourage him to take those opportunities, because this is an important matter. If changes can be made that lead to a reduction in such bogus calls, and therefore to the more effective use of emergency services, that would be an important improvement for people across the country. I will refer the points he has raised to the relevant Ministers and encourage them to look into the matter.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) referred to the Chilcot inquiry, as did the Prime Minister yesterday, which was established only two years after my right hon. Friend first called for it. In my constituency we have seen two inquiries by Sir Robert Francis, the latter a public inquiry steadfastly called for by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). May we have a debate on public inquiries, including how they are initiated, their conduct and, most importantly, whether they achieve their aim of getting to the truth and bringing about change for the better?
Business of the House
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Hague
Those are important issues, and I know that my hon. Friend does very good work on them. We have no Government time to allocate to such debates, but, as I have said to other Members in connection with other subjects, it is open to my hon. Friend to press for them through all the normal channels, including the Backbench Business Committee.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
May we have a debate on imaginative partnerships between the further education sector and private companies, such as the launch of the Risual academy by Stafford college and Risual, a fast-growing IT consultancy in my constituency?
Christmas Adjournment
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
It is a great privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), and I echo entirely what he said about identity—in Stafford and Staffordshire, during difficult periods over the past few years, we have experienced that same sense of identity.
Yesterday, we heard the welcome news that the number of people out of work claiming jobseeker’s allowance had fallen in Stafford by 452 in 12 months. Stafford’s strengths are many—in engineering, especially energy, and in information technology, health services, defence and consumer chemicals—and signs of investment are everywhere. There is the substantial expansion of the Ministry of Defence base, to welcome two new Signals regiments in 2015; two new business parks; major developments in the town centre; Northfield village, which brings together a new health centre, extra care housing, a first-class dementia care home and a community centre; and the opening of Pencric in Penkridge, which is a superb example of extra care housing, with a mixture of homes to buy and houses for social rent.
Stafford borough and especially Stafford have also been clear about the need to build more homes to meet current and future needs—more than 10,000 of them—but in a planned way. Several developers have tried to break open a plan on which so much time and effort have been spent. Fortunately, thus far, it has been to no avail, but I urge the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to make it clear that an agreed plan is an agreed plan and that efforts by developers immediately to throw it into the bin will not succeed.
After five and a half years, two Francis inquiries and a trust special administration, our hospital, now the county hospital, can finally focus on what my constituents and its excellent staff wish to do: deliver top-quality, safe care. I thank the Support Stafford Hospital group and many others for all they have done to get this far. The hospital is now part of the University Hospitals of North Midlands Trust. I believe that this coming together will bring both challenges and benefits. We will see benefits through increased investment in A and E, cancer and dialysis services, and refurbished wards and theatres, but the challenge will be to ensure that the trust makes best use of the county hospital for my constituents and others. The hospital is a tremendous asset, and our community campaign has managed to save its A and E and acute status and even to save it from closure, which some people feared might happen.
As we debated this morning, there is great pressure on A and E everywhere. In Stafford, we have a much improved A and E that is open 14 hours a day. Increasing that back up to 24 hours a day with paediatric cover will bring great benefits both to Stafford and the rest of the region, where hospitals are under pressure. The proposal for an overnight, doctor-led service at the county hospital from April is welcome and will help, but I will continue to argue for a return to 24/7 A and E until it happens, because it makes absolute sense and the cost is manageable.
Mr Simon Burns
My hon. Friend is being somewhat modest, because he omits to mention the tremendous work he has done for the hospital ever since he became a candidate. We should also mention the work of our hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash).
Jeremy Lefroy
I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comments. He was a doughty supporter as a Minister in the Department of Health, which we appreciated greatly.
A 24/7 A and E department would guarantee 24/7 access for children to paediatric emergency doctors. In the meantime, I and my constituents need assurances that any transfer of services will not happen unless independent experts say that the arrangements are safe.
Next year will see the review into consultant-led maternity services. Let me be clear: this must be properly carried out, as the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary have said. There can be no pre-ordained outcome. I have still heard no convincing explanation why our major European neighbours can run much smaller consultant-led units but we cannot, especially when, as with our county hospital, a hospital is part of a large trust that could surely provide such services on a network basis.
Our part of Staffordshire is tendering for cancer and end-of-life services. I understand the reasoning—a desire to integrate the services better to improve care and outcomes—but, as I have said before, I believe that this form of tender is not the right way to go about things. If there is a need for an integrator to help better joint working, let us search for an organisation to work alongside the providers; there is no need for the integrator to be the commissioner as well. It will simply add another layer of management. I therefore urge the Department, NHS England, Macmillan, which is involved, and the clinical commissioning groups to reconsider my proposal for an integrator that helps providers to work better together but does not actually commission the services.
Our libraries are at the heart of many of our local communities. Staffordshire has had a consultation on their future, and I welcome the county’s desire to keep all its libraries open, but the initial proposals for my constituency are flawed. The main towns in the county should all have a library in the top category—“library extra”. I simply cannot understand how Stafford and Cannock were not placed in this category, but Newcastle-under-Lyme, Burton, Lichfield and Tamworth were. That needs correcting. Penkridge is also a large and thriving community with an excellent library. As stated in the petition I presented here last week, it needs professional staffing—assisted, of course, by the volunteers who are very willing to support it. The other libraries in my constituency in Rising Brook and Holmcroft also need the support of professional staff.
Let me turn to other matters concerning my constituents. Nuisance telephone calls and copycat websites that pretend to be official, but charge people money unnecessarily are the bane of many constituents’ lives. I urge the Government to mount an education campaign to alert people to the free services and to work with search engines to ensure that the free Government services are always top of the listing.
Respite care funding is another issue. This Government have introduced more of it, which I welcome, but there is increasing need for people to have respite care. The millions of carers around the country depend on it.
I welcome the steps that the Minister for Schools has taken to improve schools funding for the underfunded counties and authorities around the country. In Staffordshire, however, we have not gone far enough, and there is a problem with the formula under which special care funding is calculated. I welcome the fact that the Minister has now included the county of Staffordshire within the 10 authorities where that is being investigated. General practice and health funding need looking at, too. The weighting of funding for older people is not sufficient, which certainly affects my constituency and my county.
Constituents have raised a number of other matters, often relating to older people and their treatment by pension funds and their tax treatment. A widow who had been married to a policeman who died in the course of his service has found that, having married again, she is not able to collect her pension. There seems to be some confusion about whether that should be the case. I have been told that it should not be under new regulations, but her experience is that she is unable to receive her widow’s pension.
I discovered last week from a constituent whose husband died more than 50 years ago—and she has not remarried—that she is not entitled to the transferable inheritance tax allowance on her property, whereas someone whose spouse had died more recently would be entitled to that transferable allowance on the estate. The estate effectively claims on both spouses, the original and the current, making two allowances. I believe that this amounts to some sort of age discrimination, which the Treasury could look into.
I would like to bring to the attention of the Department of Health the matter of retrospective care refunds. There was a problem a few years ago when families were overcharged for care. A process of refunding is going on, but it is taking too long, with bureaucratic hurdles in the way. I ask the Department of Health to look into this and to work with CCGs to ensure that the refunds, many of them dating back as far as 2006 and 2007, are given to the people to whom they are owed.
Finally, I would like to thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for all the work you do and to wish you a very happy Christmas. I would like to thank all the staff and everybody in my constituency. I thank the voluntary organisations, and then there are local councillors, to whom we do not often give enough credit. This year, when the Staffordshire mayoralty is 400 years old, it is particularly important to remember local councillors and the work they do, alongside volunteers and everybody else who makes my constituency such a wonderful place in which to work and to live.
Business of the House
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Hague
If we were to make a list of military blunders throughout history, it would be long and substantial before we came to anything in the last few years.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s first point. The next step is for the House to have a debate or a statement from the Defence Secretary in the coming weeks, given our withdrawal from Afghanistan, about the sacrifices made and what has been achieved. Sometimes more has been achieved on some issues in Afghanistan than we get the credit for. There will be either a debate or a statement, and I will be following the matter up.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
When it comes to the vote on the European arrest warrant, among other matters, may we have the fullest possible debate so that we can understand the safeguards that have been negotiated and whether they are indeed adequate?
Business of the House
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Hague
A lot of myths have been put about, including the suggestion that it would somehow endanger public services, and it is important to demolish those myths. There is an opportunity for another major step forward in free trade that could raise the prosperity of all nations. Although I cannot offer an immediate statement or debate, I can tell my hon. Friend that hard work is being done on this in the Government, the European Union and the United States. When there are important developments, I know that my ministerial colleagues will want to update the House.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Returning to the question of Ebola, may we have a statement on direct flights between the UK and Sierra Leone? This week the last remaining direct commercial flight was stopped. I understand the reasons for that, but I point out that, as a result, people travelling between Sierra Leone and the UK are coming via transit points, which makes them more difficult to identify. I have been approached by British businesses and Sierra Leoneans from the diaspora living in the UK who think it would be much better to have arrangements for direct commercial or charter flights between the UK and Sierra Leone that could be properly monitored at both ends and enable them to go to and from their country.
Business of the House
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hague
There is great concern in the House about this problem—it was raised last week as well—and the DCMS is taking measures to address it. It published its nuisance calls action plan on 30 March and since January 2012 regulators have issued penalties totalling more than £1.9 million to companies for breaching the rules. Further work is under way to see what more can be done to tackle the issue, as set out in the action plan, and I know that DCMS Ministers would be willing to discuss that with my hon. Friend.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
A senior NHS executive recently asked counterparts in European countries how they could continue to offer consultant-led maternity units of the same size as the one in Stafford—2,000 to 2,500 births a year—whereas in the UK these are often said to be unsustainable. He was told that different implementation of the working time directive was a major consideration. May we have a debate on the continued provision of safe consultant-led maternity and paediatric care in district general hospitals, including the impact of varied implementation of the working time directive?
Mr Hague
This is an important issue, as I have seen in my own constituency, and the Government are committed to reducing the negative impact of the directive on the NHS. The Health Secretary commissioned an independent taskforce, chaired by Professor Norman Williams, which looked closely at evidence of how the directive affected different parts of the medical profession, and work is now being done on the recommendations. Furthermore, the European Commission has recently requested information on the impact of the implementation of the directive from all member states, and our response must take account of the concerns that my hon. Friend and others have expressed. He can also seek a debate in the normal ways.