Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Churchill and Bob Blackman

Monday 18th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

T9. One of the most challenging groups of people to get back into the workforce is those in their 50s and 60s whose jobs disappeared during covid. They have possibly fallen back on their personal pensions, although with inflation, that money is being eaten away. What actions is my hon. Friend taking to get those people back into work, and to encourage them into jobs that are valuable and improve our productivity?

[Jo Churchill]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I would ask people to go to their jobcentre, which can help them build their CV and their confidence. We have 50PLUS champions across all districts, and midlife MOTs. I for one think that working in my 50s—and now my 60s—is a very good idea indeed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Churchill and Bob Blackman

Thursday 28th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jo Churchill)]

We have a suite of measures that will help crack down on that. Yes, the report was damning and showed the size of the problem, but we have established the Joint Unit for Waste Crime to disrupt serious and organised waste crime and the Environment Agency has enhanced powers, as do local councils. Local authorities have the legal powers to take enforcement action and I urge them to use them. We have bolstered those powers. We have awarded £450,000 across 11 councils for the use of innovative technology, such as CCTV cameras, to really drive down on this issue.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

T3. I welcome my hon. Friend’s commitment to end the scourge of fly-tipping across the country. It is the No. 1 issue that every one of my constituents raises when I speak to them. Can she assure us that there will be a process for urban and suburban councils to get funding from the Department to ensure that they can combat this scourge in our society?

[Jo Churchill]

I am working on the next tranche of funding to help tackle this scourge. My hon. Friend talks tirelessly about the challenge in Harrow. I would be really happy to come and see the issue for myself, and discuss with his constituents what more we can do, because Conservatives absolutely want to get rid of this blight.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Churchill and Bob Blackman

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jo Churchill)]

Criminals should have no place to hide when they mindlessly dump waste. Fly-tipping blights lives and neighbourhoods, and wrecks our environment. We are consulting on legislative reforms to the way waste handlers are regulated, and introducing digital waste tracking.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank my hon. Friend for her answer. In the London Borough of Harrow, dealing with fly-tipping on the public highway costs council tax payers £1.5 million each year just to clear it up. The worst aspect is fly-tipping on privately owned land. What further measures can my hon. Friend take to highlight those people, catch them, put them through the courts, and get justice for people with privately owned land?

[Jo Churchill]

We know that fly-tipping incidents have increased. We had 1.13 million of them last year. We are taking that robust action, which we have been enabled to do through the Environment Act, and our recent consultations clearly set out how we will ensure that offenders face the full force of the law. Last year, we launched a grant scheme to provide £350,000 in funding for councils to tackle fly-tipping, but I commend Harrow Council on having made a large investment—£300,000—in its enforcement team. It is taking an area-based approach, it is delivering more fines, and it is using the full fixed penalty of £400. However, I urge my hon. Friend to urge his council to bring more prosecutions forward, as they did not do so last year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Churchill and Bob Blackman

Thursday 9th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

14. What steps he is taking to ensure the planting of more trees.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jo Churchill)]

We are committed to increasing tree planting to 30,000 hectares per year across the United Kingdom by the end of this Parliament. We are spending £750 million through the nature for climate fund on trees, woodland and peat restoration in England.

[Jo Churchill]

I thank my hon. Friend for asking that important question. The plant health management standard will be the future baseline biosecurity standard for Government grants and contracts. That comprehensive standard, with 23 robust biosecurity requirements, covers the domestic production and international supply of all plants. I know that this is important to my hon. Friend, because the Colne Valley Tree Society is doing outstanding work.

[Bob Blackman]

I strongly support the provision of new trees, not only in woodland and beyond but in urban and suburban settings. Will my hon. Friend join me in praising the Trees for Streets project, which is working across urban settings to encourage the provision of trees in streets where residents can get involved not only in planting trees but in nourishing them?

WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

Debate between Jo Churchill and Bob Blackman

Thursday 5th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jo Churchill]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, and, yes, I will. There is a need to be smarter with what we do. As was stated, we will achieve the target in some communities, but not in others, so refocusing on where we have the problem must be part of the strategy. However, as I am sure my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman appreciate, I do not want to pre-empt what we publish in the Green Paper.

I acknowledge and thank my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman for the report by the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health, which I have read and which sets out the group’s recommendations, including on the smoke-free 2030 fund. I assure them that the Department will speak to Her Majesty’s Treasury to discuss possible financial levers to support our smoke-free ambitions. However, I also expect that both of them—and particularly my hon. Friend, who is indefatigable in his lobbying on this matter—will lobby the Chancellor themselves.

Across the country, people are tackling the harms of tobacco every single day. During a recent visit to Tameside Hospital, I witnessed at first hand the commitment and dedication of healthcare professionals involved in the delivery of an innovative approach to reducing smoking in pregnancy. While the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) was speaking, I was reflecting on the fact that many of the things that he was saying about his own constituency were very similar to those in this particular project. The prevalence within their local community to start with was much higher than average, and the people who were starting to smoke as a habit were of a much younger age. Therefore, by the time these young women were pregnant, they had been smoking for a longer period of time, making cessation more difficult. The project was thoughtful and holistic in terms of the agencies that it used, and the way that it wrapped around the young pregnant women. It actually reached out into their families, encouraging partners, mothers and other family members to support them. That gave the young women a great deal of motivation. I spoke to one young father who had not yet managed to quit his habit, but he had taken many of the messages on board, was not smoking in their home, and was actually attempting to change his behaviour for the long-term benefit of his future’s baby’s health.

This is a particular passion of mine. I believe that we give both people a much better, healthy start if we can tackle pregnant mums as a particular cohort, because, obviously, we not only help the mother, but, as my hon. Friend has said, help the future health of the baby and ensure that a health compromised by smoking in pregnancy is not something that then follows them through their lifetime. I spoke to those mums and partners about how using a joined-up approach could work and I would be delighted if my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman would talk to me further about the matter.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank my hon. Friend for her commitment to this undoubted health challenge and also for what she said about pregnant young women. It is not the case that these young women who are found to be pregnant are automatically routed to smoking cessation services yet—neither are their partners. It is, in the long-term, an NHS plan to do that. Given what my hon. Friend has said and that she has seen the success of the trials, will she try to bring that plan forward so that we actually give every pregnant woman who smokes the opportunity to be seen by smoking cessation services? In that way they can not only understand what they should do and how they can quit, but see the damage that they are causing to their unborn child as a result of continuing to smoke.

[Jo Churchill]

I can certainly assure my hon. Friend that I am speaking with my officials all the time about how we can make programmes such as this more effective and ensure that they reach out, but they have to be part of a comprehensive programme. We have to understand how we can best help communities most challenged by smoking, who fall outside the 2025 target; we need to pay attention to the detail if we are to address their 20-year trajectory. I would be delighted to have a further conversation on that matter with my hon. Friend at some point in the future.

I wish to assure my hon. Friend that we are determined to build on the success of work so far to sustain our global efforts to tackle the tobacco epidemic and work towards England becoming smoke-free by 2030. I can also assure him that I am committed to seeing more individuals receive help so that they can successfully quit the habit.

[Bob Blackman]

Before the Minister sits down, let me counsel her that one of her predecessors, my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), was asked during his first outing at the Dispatch Box in Health questions when the prevention Green Paper would be published, and—to the consternation of his officials—he announced, “This month”. Therefore, if the Minister would do us the honour of saying when we will get the response to the Green Paper, I am sure—to the consternation of her officials—we would get some urgent action.

Cancer Strategy

Debate between Jo Churchill and Bob Blackman

Thursday 8th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman]

When the change in law came through, a number of people objected to it, saying that it would not be enforceable. I remember back to my childhood when both of my parents were smoking in the car in front of me. It was difficult then as a child to say, “Please, will you not smoke, because I do not like it?” It was just easier to open the window. I do not want children to go through that. It is right and important that we changed the law in that way, as we know that second-hand smoke is a key killer of young lungs. It was a significant development—and a development that people did not think would happen. People did not think that we could introduce this change and get it through both Chambers, but I am delighted to say that we did it and that it was the right thing to do.

[Jo Churchill]

I thank my hon. Friend for providing such a powerful case. I could not agree with him more. To my way of thinking, banning smoking would do me, but we probably cannot go that far. Does he agree that the broader point of health economics is also important? Lung cancer is not the only issue. There is also emphysema, pulmonary disease and so on. If we sort out the tobacco issue, we could make much broader savings across the health service.

[Bob Blackman]

There are aspects of that with which I agree. The reality is that tobacco is the only product in the world, which, if used in the way that was intended, will kill us. Therefore, controlling it is vital.

We know as well that those with complex medical needs have the highest smoking rates. I am talking about people who are unemployed, who have mental health conditions, and who are in prison. I am also talking about the people whom I am championing at the moment—the homeless. All of them are much more likely to smoke than others, and they are also more likely to have the most health problems as a direct result. It is quite clear that the most disadvantaged members of society are more likely to smoke and therefore suffer cancer and other health-related problems as a result. Clearly, we need to take action. Quitting smoking reduces the likelihood of having cancer. It is also key that lungs can recover if one gives up smoking. We must encourage people to give up smoking and, more importantly, to try to prevent young people from ever starting. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) told us what happened to him as a five-year-old. I would not advocate that as a shock treatment. None the less, it is quite clear that stopping people starting to smoke is the best way forward, rather than trying to get them to give up later in life.

The recent report “Smoking Still Kills”, which was endorsed by no fewer than 129 organisations, recommended that, as a target, we should reduce adult smoking to less than 13% by 2020 and to 5% by 2035. I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill): that is not ambitious enough. We should be going for a smoke-free Britain, or, rather, a smoke-free United Kingdom. I must get my phraseology correct.

To achieve that target, we need mass media campaigns, which the Department of Health has ceased. We need stop-smoking services to be encouraged, promoted and funded across the UK, and local authorities should enforce the necessary activities and to do their job. We know that mass media campaigns are extremely effective and cost- effective in prompting people to stop smoking and in discouraging young people from starting. In 2009 we had funding of just under £25 million for anti-smoking campaigns, but by 2015—last year—that had been reduced to £5.3 million. That is a false economy.

If we had much better funding for mass media campaigns, I am sure we could reduce the incidence of smoking far more. Equally, we know that stop-smoking services across the UK have been highly effective in reducing smoking rates. Smokers are up to four times more likely to quit if they have support from specialist groups and smoking services, compared to quitting cold. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse referred to when he gave up smoking, and he can remember the time and the date when he did so. Most people who have smoked in their adult lives have difficulty giving up and they need help and support. We should ensure that that is available.

The sad fact is that right across the UK smoking cessation services are either having their funding reduced or being closed altogether. That is extremely regrettable. I suggested to the Chancellor that by putting just 5p on a packet of 20 cigarettes and using that money to fund smoking cessation services we could provide all the money that is needed to continue smoking cessation services across the United Kingdom. That, to me, would be a very sensible investment indeed.

Funding for trading standards has fallen from £213 million in 2010 to £124 million now; the teams have been cut to the bone and the number of staff working in trading standards has been reduced radically. That means fewer local controls to target illicit tobacco in the way we should, to prevent some very nasty products from being used by people across the United Kingdom. That is a retrograde step. We need to invest in those services to make sure that we deliver better health outcomes.

We desperately need a new tobacco control plan and programme so that we can see the radical targets that are needed and the investment required across the United Kingdom. We should be setting out our stall—we want a smoke-free United Kingdom not by 2035 or beyond, but by 2020 or 2025. We can achieve it with the right programme. The key point is that if we deliver this plan, we will cut the rate of cancer deaths and the number of people suffering from cancer, which will reduce the burden on the national health service and allow us to take that money from the health service to use on the more difficult cancers that colleagues have mentioned. Those cancers are difficult to spot, difficult to treat and need specialist drugs and specialist treatments.