Appropriate ME Treatment

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Carol Monaghan

Thursday 24th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

This debate is long overdue and much anticipated, and I thank the Members who have remained in the House on a Thursday afternoon to contribute to it.

There have been previous debates on ME, including one called by the then Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth, Anthony Wright. That debate took place 20 years ago, and in 20 years little has changed for those living with ME. There is currently no cure, and many with the condition experience inadequate care and support. An estimated quarter of a million people in the UK suffer from it, and we are letting those people down. Many adults with ME cannot maintain employment or relationships, while children frequently fall behind at school. The ignorance surrounding the condition makes it harder for people to access benefits, and assessors from the Department for Work and Pensions often decide that sufferers are fit for work.

ME has specific characteristics—severe fatigue, debilitating muscle and joint pain, and extreme sensitivity to light and sound—but an important marker for the condition is that mental and physical activities can make the symptoms more acute. Some people with severe ME spend their days in darkened rooms, unable even to watch TV or listen to music. Touch is intolerable. Many are tube fed. For these individuals, ME is a life sentence, but it is a life spent existing, not living.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Carol Monaghan]

Very briefly.

[Mr Cunningham]

I fully support the motion, because it alludes to some of the complaints that ME sufferers have brought to my surgeries. This is a timely debate, and what the hon. Lady has said so far is quite right.

[Carol Monaghan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman.

This condition is largely unknown, because those affected are often hidden away. I commend the ME community for lobbying so successfully to ensure so many Members are here this afternoon. Ultimately, what that community wants is better treatment and care for people with ME.

ME: Treatment and Research

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Carol Monaghan

Thursday 21st June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered myalgic encephalomyelitis treatment and research.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving Members the opportunity to hold this debate.

It is estimated that around a quarter of a million people in the UK suffer from myalgic encephalomyelitis—ME. It costs the UK around £3.3 billion per annum. Although the exact cause of the disease is unknown, numerous patients report that their ME developed following a viral infection. ME is characterised by flu-like symptoms that can vary in severity from headaches and muscle aches to debilitating pain, extreme sensitivity to light and sound, and memory and concentration problems. For some, even touch is intolerable and they require tube feeding. Despite the number of people affected and the devastating effect of the disease on sufferers and their families, it is very much a hidden illness, which is characterised by some as yuppie flu and misunderstood by doctors, the public and politicians alike.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is quite right that doctors do not research this enough and do not have adequate training to suss it out, for want of a better term. More importantly, less than 1% of children are badly affected. Does she agree that, very often, employers do not understand the illness?

[Carol Monaghan]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. It is a tragic situation when children are not able to attend school and social services become involved because they consider there to be a problem with those children’s care.

PACE Trial: People with ME

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Carol Monaghan

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Lady for securing this important debate. Does she agree with me that a lot of employers do not really understand how people with ME suffer and that that can affect their employment? It can also affect housewives.

[Carol Monaghan]

Absolutely. The public perceive it as mere tiredness, but it is so much more than that. The debilitating pain that ME sufferers experience is something that we all should be aware of.

The participants in the PACE trial received a range of different treatments, including cognitive behaviour therapy and graded exercise therapy, where patients were encouraged to become physically active and then increase the activity’s intensity. Unbelievably for a trial this large, none of the groups was given specific medical interventions. The results were published in The Lancet in 2011, with the contentious claim that CBT and GET brought 30% of patients back to normal, while 60% improved. The media reported that all ME sufferers had to do to recover was exercise. However, the report was immediately questioned by the patient community. How could exercise, the very thing that was known to worsen symptoms, actually help?

Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Carol Monaghan

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Carol Monaghan]

Absolutely. The UK is becoming an increasingly hostile environment for international students and they are being enticed to competitor countries with the promise of a more attractive route to post-study work options.

In Scotland, international students make an important contribution to the economy. The UK Government have focused their migration policy on control, rather than having effective policies that allow for flexibility and support in the area of migration. The loss of the post-study work visa is a blow to many students, but also to our local economy, which is missing out on those skilled people.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way and apologise for coming in during her speech. International students are worth something like £7 billion to the economy. We have two very successful universities in Coventry and Warwick.

[Carol Monaghan]

In Scotland, the value is estimated to be £1 billion annually, so it is very significant. That is something we need to consider. There are not only benefits to our economy, but benefits to our community, such as the diversity that international students bring.

We call on the UK Government to take international students out of the net migration target. We look forward to seeing that in the next Queen’s speech. As the UK leaves the EU, I assume that EU students will be classified as international students. The effects of Brexit on Scotland’s world-class universities and research institutes cannot be ignored. If we do not get the immigration policy right, long-term damage will be done to our vital HE sector and the wider economy. As was pointed out earlier by my friend the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie), we need guarantees for EU nationals, both those working in higher education and prospective students at our universities.

Our problem in Scotland has always been emigration, not immigration. It is time for the Government to face the facts and take international students out of the net migration target. We need skilled people, and I hope very much that the Government will take a serious look at Scotland’s needs when considering future immigration policies. It is great to see that the Minister for Immigration is present; I hope that he has listened to some of the points that have been made today by Members on both sides of the House.

I understand that Lords amendments 229 to 240, which relate to schedule 9, have not been selected for debate, but I hope that the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, if he is re-elected—or, indeed, the Department for Education—will clarify the role of UK Research and Innovation’s executive committee and its impact on research priorities. We will seek assurances that the committee will not prove detrimental to Scottish institutions by removing funding streams or allowing a large number of research priorities—and, therefore, funding—to stay in England.

SNP Members tabled a number of amendments in Committee and on Report. In particular, we wanted the devolved nations to be represented on the board of the UKRI to ensure that consideration would be given to research priorities throughout the United Kingdom. When we return, we will seek clarification on the composition of the board and assurances about the impartiality of board members.

Higher education is at a crossroads, and the United Kingdom is at a crossroads. I hope the path that we choose to take, both today and in the weeks, months and years to come, will protect this vital sector of the Scottish and the UK economies. It is important to all our futures that we get it right.

[Richard Fuller]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan). She made a number of points of principle with which I have a great deal of sympathy, especially about the long-term indications for our getting immigration policy right for our institutes of higher education.

Let me take this opportunity to praise my hon. Friend the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation. In the best of circumstances, this Bill would have required deft handling, compassion, understanding and compromise to resolve the issues in not just this House but the other place. Moreover, given the truncated procedure that has become necessary, the fact that we have reached this point is, I think, due to my hon. Friend’s significant abilities and dexterity in the management of different interests.

It is also a great pleasure to see that my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration is in the Chamber—I can be nicer to him today. I will say of him that he is a true man of Yorkshire. I know that the principles of securing our borders and ensuring that the systems work effectively is at the core of everything that he has done as Immigration Minister, and those two great points of view have come together in amendments (a) to (c) in lieu of Lords amendment 156.

I support the Government amendments, because although I personally believe, like the hon. Member for Glasgow North West, that the long-term goal should be to exclude student numbers from the immigration statistics, I also think that we need precision first. The truth is that many of our immigration statistics are represented on sample sets. Information about immigration may be available to the Home Office in very specific circumstances, but out there in the great blue yonder—trust me, it is a great blue yonder—there will be a lot of misunderstanding about what immigration really is.

People have a very sensitive understanding of different types of immigration. We should not treat immigration as a single clump, because that is not how the population think of it. People understand that it can be good for the country, particularly when it comes to the transfer of skills and the transfer of people who will contribute in the long term to the economic vitality of our country. In that context, I think that the Government’s proposal is worthy of support, because it will establish a structure within which we can secure precision and that will be understood not only by the Government, but by the institutes of higher education. I think that that would provide a firmer basis for the future direction of the control of student immigration numbers that we seek.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Carol Monaghan

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 21st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

The Scottish Affairs Committee has been looking at some of the issues that the hon. Lady has mentioned, and we found evidence that the Government need to look at the situation in Scotland differently from that in the rest of the country. Scotland has a declining population, so we have to find an anchor to keep the talent in Scotland to develop the Scottish economy.

[Carol Monaghan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It is well documented that in Scotland our issue is emigration, not immigration, so this is a key lever for allowing us to trigger economic growth in Scotland and something that would make a massive difference to our local economy.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Carol Monaghan

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Carol Monaghan]

I agree 100% with my hon. Friend. Diversity in our institutions and what we learn from overseas students enrich the experience for all students in higher education.

International students who are considering a move to a UK university could view an English university with a strong TEF rating as offering a better experience than a Scottish university with no TEF rating. Since the TEF will be grounded in quality assurance scores, and given that Scotland has a distinct quality assurance system, recognition of Scotland’s enhancement-led institutional reviews, and benchmarking those reviews against TEF ratings, would allow institutions in Scotland to continue to compete on a level playing field when attracting international students.

It is important to exercise caution around the use of metrics to judge quality of teaching. Certain metrics—graduate salary or student satisfaction, for example—can drive university behaviour in a negative way, as higher education institutions are incentivised to sacrifice certain subjects in favour of areas that produce more positive results in the criteria being measured. Courses that are more challenging and perhaps score lower in student satisfaction metrics—for example, vital STEM courses—could end up being dropped because they do not measure well on the TEF metrics. If metrics are to be used, it is important for our economy that they are carefully honed to ensure that the degrees being taken and the skills developed still meet the overall needs of society.

We should view with caution the drive towards marketisation of the student experience. Giving the power to award degrees to new untested providers on day one is a concern if there is no clear mechanism to ensure that those providers have a track record of delivering quality courses to students. Plans that assist the entry of “for profit” providers and award them with the title of “university” will be damaging as the UK competes internationally for students. Perhaps most importantly, those new institutions, which often have no record, will compete for significant numbers of students while allowing them to cherry-pick profitable courses.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I am sure the hon. Lady knows that the National Union of Students is concerned about what we call the creeping privatisation of the university service. We could end up with a situation like the mess we have in the national health service through privatisation by the back door.

[Carol Monaghan]

All SNP Members share that concern, and we should be worried about the move towards privatisation of the university system.

Courses that are more expensive to deliver—again, I mention STEM courses—will be left to traditional higher education institutions that will either bear that financial burden alone or, worse still, will abandon some of the courses that have earned the UK its worldwide reputation for excellence in that field. New institutions will be allowed to operate without providing services such as libraries or student unions, which are a key part of the student experience at university. Indeed, the Bill permits competition not on equal terms with existing universities, but on substantially reduced terms. The only assumption one can make is that the new providers will put profit before students.

The Government have outlined two models, and with the “low” fee cap of £6,000 we will have universities that potentially offer lower quality provision. At the other end of the scale, the higher fee of £9,000 can further rise with inflation. Where teaching is high quality, that is recognised as a strength of an individual course, not of an institution, yet fees will be the same for all courses in an institution. Creating a system that assesses the quality of a whole institution and allows it to raise the fees for every course based on that assessment when the quality of teaching will vary across departments, is unrealistic. It will create a framework in which students could study courses of lower quality at an institution that was judged to provide “generally” high quality, yet they would, unfairly, be charged higher fees for poor-quality degrees.