Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kate Green and David Mowat

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat]

I know that my hon. Friend has introduced a private Member’s Bill in this area, and the Government intend to support it.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The support that is provided to GP practices in relation to IT, information and so on is absolutely crucial to their effective operation, but problems continue today in my constituency with the service provided by Capita. Capita cannot, for example, now get prescribing certificates for locums and new GPs. When are the Government going to get a grip on this failing contract and, if Capita cannot perform adequately, get someone else to do it?

Social Care Funding

Debate between Kate Green and David Mowat

Monday 12th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat]

I am not aware of the specific issue that the hon. Lady has raised about the respite care centre in Sheffield that is on the point of closure, and I would be happy to discuss that with her so that I understand it better. I can only repeat that today is not the day that we are going to announce a royal commission into funding.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Care providers in my constituency tell me that they are losing staff to Asda because they cannot compete on pay and conditions, because the council cannot commission care at a price that enables them to do so. What is the Minister going to do to stem the haemorrhaging of careworkers from the profession and, therefore, the haemorrhaging of the provision of care?

[David Mowat]

There is an issue with that, and that issue exists in various parts of the country. We acknowledge it and we need to manage it. We also need to manage the total number of beds in the system and the total number of domiciliary providers in the system. The total number of beds, as I said earlier, is the same now as it was six years ago. The total number of domiciliary providers is around 40% higher.

Community Pharmacies

Debate between Kate Green and David Mowat

Monday 17th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat]

I will give the hon. Gentleman the commitment that no community will be left without a pharmacy.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I cannot impress strongly enough on the Minister the danger of these proposals. In my constituency the pressures on primary care are such that GP surgeries cannot recruit GPs and many practices are now not meeting Care Quality Commission standards because they are in old premises that are unsuitable. The thought that on top of that we would reduce the possibility for people to attend their local community pharmacy for simple healthcare needs is frightening. When the Minister publishes the impact assessment, will it provide any sort of reassurance and clarity that those complex primary care factors have been properly taken into account?

[David Mowat]

We have talked all afternoon about the need to protect access to GPs, and I repeat the point I made earlier: our proposals in the round should increase the degree to which pharmacists are linked into GP practices. The hon. Lady says that many practices are getting poor-quality assessments, but the fact is that over 80% of them are getting good-quality assessments, and we need that to continue.

The proposals we are setting out in the round are expected to make pharmacy access better than it is now, and the orientation of the pharmacy profession towards services and away from just dispensing should happen more quickly.

Disadvantaged Children

Debate between Kate Green and David Mowat

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing the debate and I applaud Members on both sides of the House for the good temper in which it has been held. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) who spoke just before me in a debate on life chances. He and I started 43 years ago in the same class. I sat three behind him, and I am delighted that his life chances have not been overly impacted by that experience.

We are talking today about social mobility, which, to me, is the hallmark of a civilised society. It is a subject that probably 650 Members on both sides of the House would agree really matters. It really matters that we get this right. I want to speak on one aspect of this, and it is about how we measure it and targets. Occasionally targets get a bad press and people say that we should not have so many, but in this area, targets are important. The problem is that we have confused three different things—poverty, inequality and life chances. Those three are quite different. They are heavily correlated, but they are not the same, and the danger is that if we apply a policy to the wrong one, or try to affect another, we will get the wrong outcomes.

My concern is that we have made the measurement of inequality a proxy for success in that area. We have discussed the intention of the last Prime Minister but one to eradicate child poverty by 2020, which is a noble ambition, but the principal definition used for that purpose—median income at 60%—is a measure of inequality, not poverty. The risk is that money is spent sub-optimally and that, even though we make transfer payments of £150 billion over a period, we will still be ranked 21st out of 21 countries in a UNICEF report.

[Kate Green]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Mowat]

I apologise for being the third Government Member not to give way, but we have been asked to rattle through.

One of the most important aspects of the report produced by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) is the indices for life chances. Targets matter, and if we could start to measure the correct things, it is possible that we could really start to make a difference in those outcomes.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah) gave the example of the Chinese community and the fact that in schools, the poorest Chinese children outperform children from all other parts of society, except the richest Chinese children. That shows that something is happening that is not just about money. I have conceded that everything is correlated, but it is not just about money; it is about attitude. The words in the right hon. Gentleman’s report that I found the most useful in that context were those relating to positive parenting. “Positive parenting” is a strong phrase that describes the breeding of self-confidence and aspiration in some communities. I hope that the Government will test those indices and take them up if they find them valuable, because we need a proxy for social mobility that is not the same as some of those embedded in the Child Poverty Act 2010.

I will make a final point on a different subject. We can continue what we are doing on educational attainment, but we must also create jobs and ensure that the people leaving our universities are able to take up the opportunities that will exist in the world over the next few years. That relates increasingly to a knowledge of applied science, engineering and technology. I applaud what the coalition Government are doing on apprenticeships. One of the most significant policy failures of the past 20 years has been that we have succeeded in increasing the number of people who go to university by a factor of five, while at the same time fewer of them are studying applied science and engineering. That is at a time when the world is moving towards more advanced manufacturing and all that goes with it. I will finish by reiterating that social mobility is the hallmark of a civilized society. The coalition Government, who are supportive of that aim, should be ready to be judged by their success on that, or lack thereof, over the next few years. That is important to us all.