Oral Answers to Questions

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

As I set out in my statement, there are three schemes within the trust proposal. That is part of the rolling new hospital programme. We are keen to get the enabling works started as soon as possible. That includes a decant at Charing Cross to enable floor-by-floor refurbishment to proceed. We also need to discuss with the trust potential sites for St Mary’s. There is a considerable amount of work to be done, but we are keen to get that enabling work done as soon as possible.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the works beginning on the new £26 million A&E facility in Swindon, hot on the heels of the £23 million urgent care and radiotherapy centres. Will the Secretary of State confirm that this is the single largest investment in Swindon healthcare facilities?

[Steve Barclay]

I am very happy to confirm that it is the largest investment in Swindon facilities. My hon. Friend is right to draw the House’s attention to the £26 million investment in A&E and the £23 million investment in radiotherapy. It is a tribute to his championing of the need for those facilities in Swindon that the NHS has responded and this capital funding has been provided.

Childhood Cancer Outcomes

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

With a all the moving stories, this is a difficult debate to listen to, but I congratulate my near neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), on securing it. Hampshire is a small community, so it can be no surprise that nurses who treated Sophie live in Romsey and Southampton North and that her family have friends who live in my constituency. I have heard from them about Sophie’s bucket list and what her mother Charlotte wants to secure for children suffering from cancer, and that very much echoes comments made to me by my constituent Jane O’Brien, who lost her son George to teenage cancer some years ago. The O’Brien family have dedicated their time to setting up George’s trust, to raising funds to bring the first ever teenage cancer unit to Southampton General Hospital and to raising funds for the world-leading immunology centre in Southampton. Of course, we have heard today that too little of that research and money goes to childhood cancers, which are not as rare as we would like to hope.

George’s family have made a really important point to me about when he was diagnosed. When he went to the doctor’s surgery on the Tuesday, nobody recognised how serious his symptoms were. He died on the Friday, a matter of days later, but they felt strongly that the support was not there for them as a family. They did know what George had died of. They were not given the same level of support and assistance that other bereaved families might have received in similar circumstances.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a typically powerful speech and she makes a key point. We must be better at linking up parents so that they have crucial peer-to-peer support as they go through the unimaginable horrors they face in such situations.

[Caroline Nokes]

That is a really important point, not just for parents but for the wider family and siblings who also need such help.

When I was a very new MP, I remember being contacted by my constituent Pip Armitage, who came to see me with Sacha Langton-Gilkes—the most amazing woman—to talk about the charity HeadSmart. They made a point that we have heard several times in the Chamber: we need a joined-up strategy and public awareness. We have heard about the meningitis campaign that has seen hugely improved awareness among families, parents and the medical profession and enables the condition to be identified early. In George’s case and that of too many childhood cancer victims, the condition is diagnosed too late because GPs do not have the awareness and the family do not know what signs to look for.

Sacha ran the most phenomenal campaign to put awareness cards, particularly on brain tumours, into schools and local authorities, and that was really effective. As part of the children’s cancer mission that my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport is rightly calling for, we need to have that same level of public awareness campaigning on childhood cancers. We need better referral guidelines for doctors, so that doctors such as George’s GP, who I levy no criticism at, spot the signs and refer children quickly and efficiently to the brilliant hospitals that are there to treat them.

This is such a crucial subject. As we can see this afternoon, there is enormous cross-party support for something to be done. I know that the Minister is listening hard and I look forward to what she will propose.

Childhood Obesity Strategy: Chapter 2

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

I think it is very ambitious. Our first plan was world-leading and I outlined some of the things it has achieved. I think this plan is ambitious enough at the moment. We say in the plan that it is chapter 2 and that there will be a chapter 3—and no doubt there will be.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

As 80% of children are not doing the recommended minimum of exercise, we owe it to them to do better than make political gestures. In stark contrast to when the Labour Government devastated school sport, will the Minister commit to making it an absolute priority to work with the Department for Education to unlock school sports facilities for free after school and in the school holidays for sports groups and parents, in order to provide opportunities?

[Steve Brine]

I spoke earlier about the Government’s doubling of the primary PE and sport premium to £320 million per year, which is very important. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the issue. I will of course work with all my colleagues across Government to implement the plan and to do even better than we currently are.

Oral Answers to Questions

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

Yes, the Government’s response to Lord O’Neill’s review in 2016 set out new ambitions building on existing progress, including ensuring that tests on epidemiological data are used to support clinical decision making and delivering high-quality diagnostics in the NHS in support of our other ambitions. My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue, and I am happy to meet him.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

17. What steps he is taking to reduce rates of childhood obesity.

[Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)]

19. What steps he is taking to reduce rates of childhood obesity.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Brine)]

We are delivering the most ambitious childhood obesity plan in the world, and we are already seeing results. We always said that our 2016 plan was the start of the conversation, not the final word. [Interruption.] Yes, it does say that here, but I have also said it everywhere else many, many times.

[Justin Tomlinson]

With one in three primary school children leaving either obese or overweight and more than 77% of children not doing the minimum requirement for physical activity, surely the Government’s priority should be getting children active by opening up school facilities after hours and in the holidays, not faffing around with political gestures on television advertising that children have long since stopped watching.

[Steve Brine]

I do not think that it is a binary choice. We recognise that child obesity is caused by many different factors, and that no one policy will work on its own. Yes, this is about tackling advertising, and yes, it is about tackling children’s activity and working with schools; and, as I said recently, we will present new proposals very shortly.

Safeguarding Adults with Learning Disabilities

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Wilson. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, and it is always a pleasure to follow the spokesman for the SNP who, during my time as the Minister for Disabled People, was one of the most constructive Opposition Members and engaged regularly with good proactive ideas.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), who set out the horrific case of Lee Irving. There is no other way of describing it. Nobody could fail to be touched by the pure emotion that was shown, which is no surprise, because the system failed somebody so vulnerable. It should never have happened.

We have two Ministers here today, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) and the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), who I know care deeply about the most vulnerable people in society. They have listened and, I have no doubt, will take this matter forward. I hope that one of the commitments today will be for them to meet with the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North and with Beverley to learn the lessons. We cannot put the clock back, but we need to make sure that such a case never ever happens again.

What horrified me most was all of the warnings and the fact that the family had flagged up that they felt they were not part of the decisions. The hon. Lady summed it up when she said that Lee was treated as an adult, but really he was a child. Yes, he was. We have to do everything we can collectively to make sure that the lessons are learned. The two Ministers are best equipped to do that. I know that they care deeply. It is good that the matter has been flagged up today because that is the best way that we can make a difference.

I was proud to serve as a disabilities Minister. I did a lot of national news and interviews, which were normally quite tricky. That was when I heard for the first time the statistic that only 6% of those with a learning disability could expect to find employment, in contrast with around 80% of people across the population. That is by far the worst statistic of any disability. Yet at the same time, when we meet anybody with a learning disability, particularly young people, they have an incredible amount of enthusiasm, energy and determination. It is not necessarily the case that all of them will be able to have a full-time job. For some, an hour a week is the equivalent of landing a dream job. We talk to their families and friends, and people with learning disabilities are all united in wanting an opportunity to contribute and to feel part of society.

I was greatly impressed when I visited Foxes hotel in Bridgwater. It was one of my favourite visits. The hotel had taken part in a TV programme, which I had seen, so I recognised some of the young adults when I went there. I was star-struck and demanded lots of photographs.

The hotel offered a three-year course for the young adults. There were two roles. In the first role, they developed independent living skills. They would start by being heavily supervised and over the three years would become more and more independent until the end of their three-year experience, when they would go into a separate house. That equipped them with the skills they needed to have the best chance to live independently, because once people get to 25, they really need them. A lot of these people rely on their family and friends, and the biggest fear for family and friends relates to when their health starts to fail, because who will be there to look after them? The course was brilliant and the young adults were really well equipped.

The second part involved developing skills that would give the young adults an opportunity to work. The hotel worked with the other hotels, restaurants and care homes across Bridgwater and the surrounding areas to train them in the skills where there were job vacancies. It was key that there were job vacancies for them. Towards the end, they would spend their final year working in the hotels, restaurants and care homes and taking on different roles. They were supervised with patient training, because it takes them longer to pick up a role, but by the end the vast majority remained in employment. Some 80% remained in employment, of which half were paid.

The course was brilliant. One lad I saw celebrated his birthday shortly afterwards. His employers baked him a cake and they sent me a wonderful picture. I was really touched by that. We made sure that each and every one of those young adults was given the best opportunity to have an independent life and to participate and engage constructively in society, and the employers benefited. They were not doing this for charity, but were filling skills gaps. Yes, they had to be more patient with the training, but they ended up with somebody who was enthusiastic, who always turned up on time, who always had a big smile on their face and who made their workforce better, so they came back year after year.

I called the headteacher involved and she was very cynical about politics, which she made clear in her speech. We all hear those. We go on visits and they do not always roll out the red carpet when we turn up. However, she saw my enthusiasm and acknowledged that in her speech. I said to her, “I need to talk to you in more detail. I need to understand why there isn’t a Foxes hotel in every single constituency,” so she came to Parliament.

Ultimately, it came down to two things. The first was the postcode lottery of funding. In some towns we have brilliant examples where things go really well, but there are too many towns where the system is not joined up, where there are not the opportunities and where there is too much demand and not enough supply.

Secondly, that final year, which is a supervised work placement, was very expensive. That capped the number of young adults who were given that amazing opportunity. That was when I said, “Why is this not an apprenticeship?”. It is work-based learning, something that all politicians support. We all want more apprenticeships. They said they could not access the apprenticeship system, because most of the young adults would not get a grade C in GCSE maths and English.

I therefore organised a meeting with the then Minister at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles). I said to him, “We have got to get this sorted,” and he agreed 100%. His officials fell about on the floor and had to be scraped back up and gently reminded him, “We don’t want to dilute the perceived quality of apprenticeships.” I said, “I don’t care; rename it. Call it a disability apprenticeship. We just need access to the funding. I am not proud how we do it.” We came up with a cunning plan to ask my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), now the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, to head a taskforce. We gave him about four weeks, because we suspected we might not be the decision makers beyond that time, and we were right. We needed to get things in motion and I am delighted that the proposal is now coming on line. I hope that it will allow the left and right hands to join together, to give those young people an opportunity.

The Solicitor General has been fantastic about disability hate crime. When I lobbied to make the justice system better, he was really engaged. It is great that there has been an increase in reporting. The system is getting better, but there is still a long way to go, and the case that we have heard about today highlights that hate crime was not recognised. My legal knowledge is based on watching “Columbo” on a Sunday, so I do not profess to be an expert, but it is clear that advantage was taken of Lee’s disability. In my mind there is no discussion: the offence should have been categorised as disability hate crime. The Government, including the Solicitor General, are engaged on that issue, and we should all keep passing on examples of how the law is or is not working. The Government are determined to get that right.

I have four quick requests. We must embrace innovation and technology. I loved going to events where we, as a nation, were spearheading brilliant new products to help people with learning and other disabilities with their everyday lives. We can be a world leader in that.

Secondly, let us not forget the power of sport. Nothing matches the time when I took part in a learning disability netball game. I thought the other participants were going to explode with excitement. They were people who had never had the opportunity to exercise and many of them were overweight. One young adult had lost three stone over the summer. I have never seen people more enthusiastic about an opportunity to engage. I urge the Minister to continue to remind Ministers at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport about the power that sport has. Thirdly, tackling the postcode lottery is an absolute must.

Finally, we should not forget the families. They face a huge challenge. Many of those I met were families that had a good network of support, which was how they got through the postcode lottery, but many carers are not best equipped to navigate an incredibly complicated system, and ultimately it is the vulnerable people for whom they are responsible who miss out. We must all collectively do much better to improve the system. There is a lot of good practice; we just have to make sure that it is a given.

Oral Answers to Questions

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that point. Nurses are, in fact, on the Home Office’s tier 2 shortage occupation list, and they will remain so for as long as we need them to do so. The bigger issue is that for a long time we have relied on being able to import as many doctors and nurses from the EU as we need to, and that has meant that we have not trained enough people ourselves. That is bad for EU countries and for our own young people.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

2. What steps are being taken to increase the supply of doctors and nurses in the NHS.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to increase the number of doctors and nurses working in the NHS.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

Last year this Government announced one of the biggest expansions of medical training places in the history of the NHS, involving funding 1,500 additional medical school places every year—of which 500 start this September—and reforms that will enable universities to offer up to 10,000 additional nurse training places every year.

[Justin Tomlinson]

Swindon clinical commissioning group secured pilot funding for its successful video campaign to recruit additional GPs to fill vacancies in our local community. Will the Secretary of State commit to exploring further innovative ways to match newly qualified staff to vacancies that they might not have considered?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. In parts of the country, GP shortages have been successfully addressed as the CCG has done in Swindon. An important part of this is persuading people who go into medicine that general practice is one of the most exciting and rapidly changing parts of medicine today. We have seen a 9% increase in the number of medical students choosing to go into general practice since 2015.

NHS Shared Business Services

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Just to be clear, what I said was that to date there is no evidence of any patients being harmed, but the process of proper clinical review, with multidisciplinary teams, will take until the end of the year. We have to do this properly to get to the answer. We hope that it remains the case that no patients were harmed, but we will not know that until the end of the year. However, throughout this whole process we have prioritised the highest risk cases and made sure that they get the most urgent attention.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

Following this failure, I welcome the Secretary of State’s decisive action in bringing in the national incident team. How will we learn the lessons and share the best practice, as discovered by that team?

[Mr Hunt]

The NHS is extremely good at responding to crises and emergencies, as tragically we have found out in recent months. This is an example of the NHS doing a very good job when it realises the scale of the problem. For me, the lessons that really need to be learned are about not the response to the issue but the assurance processes that allowed the problem to happen in the first place.

Young-onset Parkinson’s Disease

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. That point is particularly pertinent because of the number of people who are succeeding on appeal.

I have an email from Phil from Kent, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at the age of 45. He says:

“In…2015 I was awarded 17 points (the Higher Rate) for the Daily Living Component and 10 points…for the Mobility Component of Personal Independence Payment.”

He felt that that was accurate, but the assessment was downgraded when he was seen a year later. He has an appeal ongoing, but he simply says this:

“I want the DWP to understand that Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative condition…It does not get better!”

That is precisely right.

The Government have the laudable aim of halving the disability employment gap.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

Before the hon. Gentleman comes off the subject of PIP, I wish to pay tribute. He is making a really important speech, and it is a real credit to Parkinson’s UK, which was one of the most engaged groups during my time as Minister for disabled people—I thank the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) for arranging the initial introduction. I urge the Minister to take the opportunity to meet Opposition Members as soon as possible to explore all these constructive options, which are so typical of the hon. Gentleman. I also wish to thank my local Parkinson’s UK members, who are now holding regular coffee mornings in my office as a way to engage, to share best practice and to continue to highlight the improvements that we all, collectively, need to make.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am grateful for that intervention from the former Minister. He takes a constructive approach, for which I am very grateful.

The aim of halving the disability employment gap is laudable, but I have a slight concern, in that we also have to recognise that people with Parkinson’s will need support when they leave work, at which point returning will, sadly, not always be a realistic option.

As I sum up, I want to speak about the people who battle this condition. Pete from Brighton says:

“At heart…we YOP suffer a triple indignity: the disease itself, with all that it entails; our not being considered disabled enough by the system; and the lack of awareness ensuring that we are considered to be practically useless by society at large.”

Karen from Birmingham says:

“my medication is not helping me through the night and sleeping is impossible. I am literally paralysed during the night.”

We should not forget the daily battle that people with Parkinson’s face, but nor should we forget where we started this debate—with Dr James Parkinson and that essay of 200 years ago. In addition to having medical expertise, he was also something of a political activist, writing leaflets under the pseudonym “Old Hubert” and speaking about those who lived in poverty. He argued for political reform, and I am convinced that if he was still here today, he would be speaking up for all those who have Parkinson’s, who suffer and who battle with this condition every day. I hope that this debate has at least gone some way to raising awareness of the particular problems that people face.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Mowat]

Well, as I was saying a few moments ago, there is no cure for this disease but it is possible to manage the symptoms and alleviate them. However, to do that we have to have a diagnosis, and that is the issue we are talking about today, particularly in the case of early-onset Parkinson’s disease.

On the prevalence of the disease, something like 130,000 people suffer from it—that is likely to be 160,000 by 2020—and 95% of them are over 60 years old. Because of that fact, there is a tendency in the medical profession and, indeed, in society at large, to think that it is a disease of older people. To an extent that is true according to the statistics, but we also know that something like 5,000 or 6,000 people under 50 have the disease. I will talk about the statistics a little more later, because the hon. Member for Torfaen did challenge them, and it is true that the numbers are all estimates. Nevertheless, the number I have is that something like 400 people under 40 have the disease. Incredibly, it is thought that a few dozen people get the disease under the age of 20, which is a terrible thing as it means that it is with them for their entire working lives.

Parkinson’s is a progressive disease caused by the death of cells containing dopamine. As we have heard, it causes tremors, slowness, speech impediment and gait disorder. Its severity varies, as recognised in some of the points made about the Department for Work and Pensions. There is no cure; the best we can do is to manage the symptoms by trying to address the lack of dopamine through techniques such as brain stimulation, and apomorphine is the most commonly used drug. The hon. Member for Torfaen mentioned the recent debate on Duodopa; I do not intend to go over that in detail, other than to say that it is very much a minority treatment, with something like 75 people receiving the medication. It is typically used when other treatments are not successful.

We all—the Government and the country more generally—need to build awareness of the prevalence of early-onset disease. The NHS Choices website has information on the local and national support groups we heard about a few moments ago. Parkinson’s UK does a huge amount of work in this area, and I would of course be happy to meet it and the hon. Member for Torfaen.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I am delighted that the Minister has agreed to meet Opposition Members—that will be a really worthwhile meeting—but in that vein, as I host our local Parkinson’s group, would he be willing to come to Swindon to meet its members?

[David Mowat]

In principle, I would be delighted to come to Swindon, or my hon. Friend could join the meeting with Parkinson’s UK. I am sure there is a way forward.

Mental Health and NHS Performance

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I had an interesting afternoon visiting the suicide prevention unit at Bristol Royal infirmary, where I had a good discussion about its pioneering work. I learned a great deal from that visit. We have a particular concern about the very significant growth in mental ill health among women aged 18 to 24. Today, the Prime Minister announced that we have updated the suicide prevention strategy to make sure that all parts of the country can learn from best practice, including places like Bristol.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I welcome today’s announcement on mental health, where excellent work is being done, led by Paul Farmer of Mind. Often, the key challenge is to identify those who need help and support, so will the Secretary of State agree to meet the Department for Work and Pensions to look at ways in which we can help to signpost those identified through the personal independence payments process to the additional support and help available?

[Mr Hunt]

Let me reassure my hon. Friend that those meetings are already happening; we have a health and work Green Paper, and we are particularly trying to speed up access to mental health services for people on benefits whom we can help to be more independent if we address their mental health problem more quickly.

Social Care Funding

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat]

The hon. Gentleman is right that there have been changes to the funding regime, but councils such as Knowsley and St Helens have virtually no delayed transfers of care and they have the same budget issues as his council.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

An ageing population, the welcome introduction of the national living wage and the rightly greater expectations on services provided are causing exponential growth in adult social care costs, to a far greater amount than can simply be found through efficiency savings. Although the council tax cap has delivered financial discipline, we have to be realistic, so may I urge the Minister to explore further flexibility with the social care precept?

[David Mowat]

I said in my answer to the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) that this is not a spending statement or a statement on the local government settlement, so I will just leave it at that.