Tuberculosis

Debate between Jim Shannon and Lord Herbert of South Downs

Thursday 7th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

That is a very interesting point. TB is a disease of poverty. This opportunistic infection will strike if there are no basic health systems and if nutrition and housing are poor, and all those conditions would probably exist in areas of conflict.

Drug-resistant TB is a terrible affliction. It can be dealt with, but even in an advanced healthcare system, it requires a course of treatment in which some 14,000 pills have to be taken. This treatment is appalling, as it can cause patients to become deaf and creates a lot of suffering. Only half of drug-resistant TB patients are successfully treated. In fact, there is a lower survival rate for drug-resistant TB than for lung cancer.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Just to step back, the right hon. Gentleman mentioned diabetes. In this country, we can change our lifestyles as we have access to lots of food and other things to reduce diabetes, but people in third-world countries where TB and diabetes are rampant do not have the same choice. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that this complicates issues?

[Nick Herbert]

I do agree. There is a growing list of reasons why we should act, and that is one of them.

Localism in Planning

Debate between Jim Shannon and Lord Herbert of South Downs

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Nick Herbert]

I saw the response that my hon. Friend refers to, and I am sure that it will have raised the eyebrows of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who was clear about the signal he intended to send. Further clarification is now necessary. We need an unambiguous and published signal to be sent about the weight to be given to the emerging plans.

Secondly, we need a brownfield-first policy, not a greenfield-first policy, which means clarifying the issue of deliverability set out in the national policy framework. Unused permissions should not be discounted simply because developers say, “Oh, well, we can’t build there”. That should not be the definition of deliverability, entirely to suit the developers. Of course they will say that, because that is how they can secure planning permission for their greenfield sites. We must have a more intelligent approach.

Thirdly, we need to take proper regard of infrastructure, and guidance due to be published by the Government provides the opportunity to do so. The Minister kindly suggested that I should go to see Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, who has been responsible for drawing up the guidance, after I tabled an amendment to the Growth and Infrastructure Bill and made my points about the inadequacy of infrastructure. I accept that there is no impropriety and that Lord Taylor has properly registered his interests with the authorities, but I am concerned that not only is he producing the guidance on infrastructure, but he is a director of a company that is seeking to build a new town in my constituency. In doing so, that company is trying to overturn the local plan, which has just been produced by Mid Sussex district council. If we believe in localism, and having said that local authorities were to have the ability to set their own housing numbers and be in charge, we cannot allow people simultaneously to try to overturn those plans and be involved in the publication of guidance that is meant to reinforce localism. The system is making a serious mistake if it is permitting that.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that his proposals would provide an opportunity for people who are able to purchase only a house of a certain cost, in other words affordable housing? Does he feel that a portion of land should be set aside within a development, so that some land is processed for development now and some land is banked? We have that in Northern Ireland, and I want to see what he thinks.

[Nick Herbert]

That is an interesting suggestion. So far as further policy development is concerned, we should look at what measures can be taken to prevent land banking and at more radical reform of the planning system, which is undoubtedly constraining supply in a way that drives up prices. In the meantime, we need to make the system of localism that we promised work.

In my constituency, one chief executive of a district council, whom I will not name, told a group of parish councillors who were discussing with him their proposed neighbourhood plan, “Localism is dead.” That is the message that people on the ground are beginning to receive. When we explicitly promised localism not only in the Conservative manifesto but in the coalition agreement, when we have just passed a Localism Act, when we have told people that they will be in charge in their local communities and when we have put on them the responsibility for planning sensibly, we must uphold their ability to do so. Allowing a quango, through the back door, to reimpose the top-down housing targets that we said we would abolish is damaging to the process of localism, to public trust and, if we persist, to the Government themselves.

I am a passionate believer in localism. I want to be able to go out and defend the policy. It could be made to work, but that first requires acceptance that it is going wrong.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jim Shannon and Lord Herbert of South Downs

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I agree with my hon. Friend about the problem. The majority of prisoners do not have the necessary reading and writing skills to do most jobs in the labour market on release. That is why assessing literacy and numeracy skills is a priority in prisons and why those with a need are offered classroom-based courses and individualised support, but there is also a role for the third sector, with organisations such as Toe By Toe providing mentoring for prisoners and by prisoners to help them learn reading skills.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The Minister has not mentioned young people, and high numbers of them continue to reoffend. What strategy is in place to give them guidance and support so that they do not reoffend when they come out of prison or young offenders institutions?

[Nick Herbert]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that reoffending rates by younger people are particularly high and that that is where we need to focus attention. The guidance he mentions is particularly effective when it comes in the form of mentoring, which can be provided by third sector organisations, and we have seen some very effective examples of that. It is a question not only of statutory supervision and support, but of what others can bring.