Diabetes

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for all his amazing work on diabetes over his parliamentary career. As he has done, I have tabled questions to ask simply how high the spend on diabetes was in individual PCTs last year, only to be told that the information was not available and so could not be given to me. Is not that kind of information vital for an effective strategy on diabetes?

[Mr Sanders]

That would certainly be extremely helpful and would complement the atlas of care by, in a sense, putting the actuality into the story behind the figures. It is extremely unhelpful not to be able to drill down to what is really happening on the ground; we could do that if such statistics were available.

Some of the problems of disseminating information have been offset by the work of NHS Diabetes. It has been instrumental, first, in monitoring variations in care and driving the collection of more robust data, which has culminated in an extremely important publication, the national atlas of variation; and, secondly, in working tirelessly to rectify the problems it uncovers, linking national policy intention with policy implementation on the ground, including support targeted on where the greatest improvements are necessary. It is important that that work continues, as much more could be done. I hope that the Minister will reassure me that, despite the upheavals in the commissioning architecture, NHS Diabetes will retain its central role.

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[John Pugh]

rose—

[Keith Vaz]

rose—

[Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)]

John Pugh.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh). I am tempted just to say that I agree with everything that everyone has said and then to sit down, but this would not be Parliament if we were able to do that, so I will briefly contribute to the debate.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders), who has dedicated his life in Parliament to addressing diabetes. Obviously, because he has type 1 diabetes, he has become the Commons expert on such matters, and I pay tribute to him for what he has done as chair of the all-party group on diabetes and for all his other work on diabetes.

I come to debates on diabetes as a type 2 sufferer full of optimism, because I want to hear about what other people are doing, but I hear about blindness, amputations, stroke and death, and I feel extremely depressed as I go out. In this debate, hon. Members have talked about amazing ideas and good practice in their own areas. I did not know about the specialist unit in Blaenau Gwent, and I did not know what a bun worry is—I now discover that it is a feast of sweets held in Northern Ireland, from which I am sure that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is kept away. The key to such debates is that we hear about good practice that we do not hear about in other areas.

I pay tribute to both Front-Bench teams, because they both understand the importance of the subject. I am sorry that I did not get diabetes earlier, because I would have done better at harassing the previous Labour Government on the issue. I was told that I had diabetes only in 2007, and, therefore, I did not dedicate myself to it in Parliament in the way that I should. I will make up for that in the next few years.

We have high hopes for the Minister, and not only because The Times has said that she is one of the rising stars of the new intake, which gives hope to those of us who have reached middle age—I am on the way down, but she is clearly on the way up. We have confidence in her and the way in which she has addressed diabetes in the Department of Health: she has ensured that diabetes is a priority; she has asked questions of the experts, and she has brought together charities such as Diabetes UK, Silver Star and others. She is doing what all good Ministers do, which is never to accept the status quo and to ensure that the Department’s bright civil servants are using their abilities and skills to deliver what Parliament wants.

I welcome what the Government have done to support the Change4Life initiative by backing the advertisements announced only on Monday to encourage people to address obesity by ensuring that they change their diet and understand that, by taking responsibility, there can be a difference. I know it is in the nature of parliamentarians always to blame the Government or to expect the Government to do more, and, yes, we do, but it is also in the hands of individuals.

The hon. Member for Strangford carefully considers what he eats in the Tea Room—I have watched him carefully as we line up to get our lunches. When we go to the Tea Room to get a cup of tea before Prime Minister’s questions, we are faced with Club biscuits, Kit Kats and every sweet thing that can possibly be found. I do not know what the English equivalent of a bun worry is, but it is there for us in the Tea Room. Let us start in this House by ensuring that the food available is acceptable.

I also praise my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) for the work that she and the Labour Front-Bench team have done on the proposals not for a tax, which was the subject of my ten-minute rule Bill, but for a reduction in the sugar and salt content of foods, as announced by the shadow Secretary of State. That is a good thing and goes some way towards what Mayor Bloomberg is doing in New York. Actually, the proposal goes further—a tax was not proposed because, of course, Denmark introduced a fat tax but had to withdraw it because of lobbying from the food industry—by showing the need to do something now. The Secretary of State was on television on Sunday, and he agrees with the principles behind the proposal, although he does not support the idea of doing it through legislation. He was looking very cool, not in a suit and tie but in his cardigan, and he said, “Let’s leave it for the industry to do on a voluntary basis.” The industry has had its chance to do something, and we need to move forward.

The Opposition are right. I know that it is in the Opposition’s nature to say radical things, but they are right to press the Government on the proposal because it means that the clever civil servants and, indeed, the clever Ministers in the Department of Health, including the Minister with responsibility for diabetes, will take note and press the industry to react. Ultimately, being able to express such views is important, and I support what the Opposition are trying to do.

I have not mentioned this so far—Members of Parliament usually criticise GPs for not doing enough, and they do not do enough—but in the five or 10 minutes available when people go to their GP, there is not enough time to have a diabetes test and a long chat about diabetes issues. The hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) specifically mentioned the south Asian community—the Silver Star diabetes charity, with which I am associated, and Diabetes UK take this seriously—because certain communities are more susceptible to diabetes. He is right to raise that point. However, I think we should be getting pharmacists to do much more. Before she died of diabetes complications, my mum had great faith in her local pharmacist. Pharmacists have more time to talk to people than GPs, who are very busy. We should include them in our forward plans. We have not mentioned them today, but we need to consider them for the future.

I know that the Minister is off to India to speak at a major conference on the issue in Chennai. We have the best diabetes doctors in the world. I happen to have a few in Leicester—Professor Azhar Farooqi, Professor Kamlesh Khunti, Professor Melanie Davies—and there is also Professor Naveed Sattar in Glasgow, as well as many others. They are world-class experts, and we do not use them enough. As the Minister starts on her journey—not quite without maps, because some have been provided in this debate, and the hon. Member for Torbay has one in his back pocket that he has offered to successive Governments over the past 25 years—will she please use the expertise that we have? The world looks to our medical profession as the best in the world. Let us engage them in the work that we do.