Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I commend my hon. Friend for the campaigning he does for high standards in his local trust. That has not been easy because, as he says, there have been a lot of problems there, although I hope he thinks that we are beginning to turn a corner. The decision on the funding allocations will be made by NHS England before Christmas, and the things that he says will, of course, be taken into account.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Yesterday we learned that the number of people suffering from hypothermia has soared by almost 40% on this Government’s watch. This morning the Office for National Statistics revealed that the number of older and vulnerable people who died unnecessarily last winter jumped by 29%. For every person who tragically loses their life over the winter months, eight more are admitted to hospital, putting huge strains on our crisis-ridden accident and emergency services. Will the Secretary of State please tell us what he is going to do about it?

[Mr Hunt]

I do not think I have yet answered a question across the Dispatch Box from the hon. Lady, so I welcome her to her post. I just say that she should be careful what she chooses to turn into a political football, because hypothermia admissions, as Public Health England said in August, are very closely linked to the number of cold days over a winter and the length of that winter. We had a particularly difficult winter last year, but the number of winter deaths was nearly 20% higher under the previous Government, when the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) was Health Secretary.

Tobacco Packaging

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is the first time I have had the privilege of speaking with you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I look forward to it.

I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for seeking this debate, the co-sponsors from all parties and the Backbench Business Committee for making it possible. It has been a very good debate, with many thoughtful and powerful contributions and, I think, a large degree of consensus. There is a clear reason for that consensus. In the final analysis, this is a debate about children. Adults do not take up smoking; children do. Despite hon. Members having referred to a drop in the take-up of smoking, more than 200,000 children still take up smoking every year. Eight out of 10 smokers start by the age of 19. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) said, there are few new smokers over the age of 21. In my patch, there are 460 regular smokers across Liverpool who have not yet turned 15. As the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) said, we are talking about a childhood addiction, not an adult choice.

We know that about half of those children—half of all regular smokers—will eventually be killed by their addiction. Contrary to the presentation by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans), who I am sorry to see is not in his place, tobacco is different from other products, because if it is used properly, as instructed, it kills one in two of its users. It is the only product for which there is an international treaty, the World Health Organisation’s framework convention on tobacco control, precisely because it is not like any other product and has to be treated differently.

Smoking remains by far the largest preventable cause of cancer. As my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) said, more than 100,000 people die across the UK from smoking-related diseases every year. In Liverpool, 346 deaths per 100,000 are attributable to smoking, whereas the national average is 201 deaths per 100,000. The hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) spoke about NHS spending on the cancer drugs fund.

The question that we should be asking ourselves is whether we are doing everything we can to discourage children from starting to smoke in the first place. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) said, I make no apology for asking the emotive questions. Are we doing all that we can to protect our young people? Have we exhausted every measure at our disposal? With that in mind, I want to cover three broad themes: first, why packaging matters so greatly; secondly, why the arguments against standardised packaging do not stand up to close scrutiny; and thirdly, why we cannot afford to wait.

I echo what was said by the hon. Member for Harrow East, my hon. Friends the Members for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and for Barnsley Central and my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley about the part that packaging plays in encouraging young people to smoke. It is widely accepted that in the years since the last Labour Government banned tobacco advertising in 2002, the tobacco industry has developed far more sophisticated ways of using packaging to entice people to smoke.

We have all seen what cigarette and tobacco packaging looks like in Britain today, with its bright colours, shiny veneers and slimmed-down packets. We have heard about the boxes shaped like perfume bottles and lipsticks, with the glamorous slogans to match. One slogan that struck me was:

“Indulgence—change the taste to suit your mood”.

Such novelty packets appeal to young people, because that is exactly what they are designed to do. Academics at the university of Stirling tested that by surveying more than 1,000 children for a study that was published in the British Medical Journal a few weeks ago. They found that the children were overwhelmingly more attracted to the packets with such designs.

[Dame Angela Watkinson]

The hon. Lady has spoken about children starting to smoke. Does she agree that the main responsibility lies with their parents, because the money has to come from somewhere? If it does not come from their parents, where does it come from?

[Luciana Berger]

That point has been made by other hon. Members in this debate. I remember from when I was a young person that children do not get their money only from their parents and that they do not necessarily buy the cigarettes themselves. Often, they see other people getting out their packs of cigarettes.

The children in the university of Stirling study who were shown a packet of Silk Cut cigarettes were found to be more than four times more likely to be susceptible to smoking. Those children had never smoked.

It is the packaging that entices children. If we want to discourage children from ever starting to smoke, we need to question whether that is an acceptable way to market a product that is highly addictive, seriously harmful and clinically proven to kill. Smokers advertise tobacco brands to other people every time they take out their pack to smoke. The packets should not be glitzy adverts, but should carry strong and unambiguous health warnings about the dangers of smoking. We should not allow those warnings to be subverted by the design of the rest of the packet.

I will move on to my second theme. We have heard a few arguments against standardised packaging in this debate. We have also heard those arguments from the tobacco industry. I will deal with each of the arguments in turn. Much of the discussion has centred around evidence. Hon. Members have said that there is no evidence that standardised packaging will work. That is not true.

Last year, the systematic review by the Public Health Research Consortium, which was commissioned by the Department of Health, looked at all the evidence on standardised packaging. The findings are clear for everyone to see. It found that standardised packaging is less attractive, especially to young people. My hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) rightly pointed out that it takes away the cool factor. The review also found that standardised packaging makes health warnings more effective and combats the utter falsehood that some brands are safer than others. Those findings have been backed up by 17 studies that have been published since the systematic review. Government Members, including the hon. Member for Ribble Valley, have asked for evidence. We have the evidence.

A separate study that was published in the British Medical Journal in July looked at research from Australia soon after the introduction of standardised packaging. It found that smokers who used standardised packs were 66% more likely to think that their cigarettes were of a poorer quality, 70% more likely to say that they found them less satisfying, 81% more likely to have thought about quitting at least once a day in the previous week and much more likely to rate quitting as a higher priority in their lives than smokers who used branded packs. Not only are people less likely to take up smoking when presented with standardised packs; people who already smoke are more likely to think about quitting if the cigarettes that they buy come in standardised packaging.

[Barbara Keeley]

My hon. Friend is being very generous with her time. The hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) seemed to be quite satisfied with the Government’s action on this issue, although that is perhaps not surprising given the views that he has put forward in this debate. However, it is a fact that fewer people have quit smoking successfully and that fewer people have attempted to quit with NHS help over the last year. That is the first time since 2008-09 that those figures have fallen. I talked about quit services in Salford, but such services are now less successful and there must be a reason for that. Does my hon. Friend take that as seriously as I do?

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important intervention. The figures that came out just the other week do show a drop in the number of people who are quitting smoking through NHS services. I am very concerned about that. As I said at the start of my contribution, 200,000 young people still take up smoking every year. That is exactly what we are seeking to address in this debate.

We have reflected a lot on the Australian experience. The former Australian Health Minister, Tanya Plibersek, reported that there was a

“flood of calls…in the days after the introduction of plain packaging accusing the Government of changing the taste of cigarettes.”

She went on to say:

“Of course there was no reformulation of the product. It was just that people being confronted with the ugly packaging made the psychological leap to disgusting taste.”

That is a significant point. Far from there being no evidence, there is a swathe of evidence.

The second claim raised during our debate is that standardised packaging would increase the trade in counterfeit cigarettes, or impact on the printing trade. Again, it is important to clarify that we are talking about standardised packaging. I have heard hon. Members use the term “plain packaging”, but we are not discussing that. I know I am not allowed to demonstrate this at the Dispatch Box, Madam Deputy Speaker, but standardised packaging is clearly printed; it is not a plain pack. Current packaging is already so easy to forge that covert markings enable enforcement officials to identify counterfeit cigarettes, and all key security features on existing packets would continue on standardised packets. Standardised packaging would make pictorial warnings more prominent and packaging harder to forge.

We heard in an important contribution that standardised packaging might lead to an increase in illicit trade, but that is simply not true. Andrew Leggett, deputy director for tobacco and alcohol strategy at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, stated in oral evidence to the House of Lords European Union sub-Committee on Wednesday 24 July:

“There are a number of potential factors that weigh on counterfeit packaging”,

but that if standardised packaging was introduced, it was

“very doubtful that it would have a material effect.”

[Jake Berry]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way to give her a chance to find her place. Does she acknowledge that the Government’s current policy on standardised or plain packaging is exactly the same as it was under the previous Government?

[Luciana Berger]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention but more than three years have passed since that point. I am immensely proud of everything the Labour Government did through their tobacco strategy to reduce smoking. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central about the many measures we introduced, but we must do more and go further, and in my concluding remarks I will say why I am disappointed with the Government’s current approach.

The third claim I want to counter is that the proposed changes to tobacco packaging are somehow a symptom of the nanny state. People should, of course, be allowed to make their own decisions, but we should not be standing by while industry sets honey traps and uses every means at its disposal to try to make those decisions for them. Nearly all new smokers are children, we are dealing with an addictive product that is clinically proven to kill, and smoking rates are higher among the most vulnerable groups in our society, particularly children in residential care. That is why today’s debate is so important.

I will conclude with my most important point, which is why we cannot afford to delay. The Minister has previously made it clear that the Government’s position is to wait and see. Her predecessor did the same, despite saying that she personally had been persuaded of the case for standardised packaging a few months previously. Just today, about 570 children across the country, none of them older than 15, will have their first cigarette, and approximately 71 will have done so while we have been debating this subject. If we wait and see, we will be standing idly by while hundreds of thousands of young people become victim to this deadly addiction.

The Opposition have made their position clear. If the Government wish to bring forward legislation to make standardised packaging a reality, they can count on our full support. That was our position before the Government changed their mind about this issue in July, and it is our position now. The Children and Families Bill is making its way through the other place. Labour has tabled an amendment to that Bill to introduce standardised packaging that will be debated in the coming weeks and voted on later this year. That simple measure would make a huge difference and is clearly supported by Members on all sides of the House. On behalf of those 71 children who have started smoking during this debate, and the 200,000 who will start every year, I urge the Minister and her Government colleagues to do the right thing and support our amendment. Let us save future generations from the perils of smoking.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

At the risk of repeating myself, all I can say to my right hon. Friend is that I am looking at that very carefully. He is right that we all want to stop children and young people smoking. There is a mass of evidence out there, and we are gaining new evidence and information all the time to help us make decisions. I will continue to look at it as one of the absolute priorities within my brief.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her new post. We knew that her predecessor supported standardised cigarette packaging: Labour will table amendments to the Children and Families Bill in the other place and in this place to make that a reality. I have listened to contributions from Members on the Government Benches supporting the policy. Will the Minister tell us today whether she supports standardised packaging?

[Jane Ellison]

We are very aware of the discussions that have been going on in the other place and the amendments that have come forward, in which we have taken considerable interest. At this stage, we want to look at all the available evidence, because new information is coming through, before coming to a view. I take this opportunity to welcome the hon. Lady to her new post.

Psychological Therapies

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Sir Edward, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning.

This has been a thoughtful and important debate on a subject that is not talked about nearly enough. Every day in Britain, people of all ages and backgrounds, and from all communities, have their lives blighted by the spectre of mental illness. Theirs are some of the great untold stories of our society. As many hon. Members have already said, the issue of mental health has been swept under the carpet for too long. One in six people are afflicted by mental illness, but all too often they are scared into silence. That is why this discussion is so important.

I also congratulate the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) on securing this debate and on the campaigning that he has done on this issue. In addition, I thank him for giving me the opportunity to talk about mental health in my first debate as Labour’s newly appointed shadow Minister with responsibility for public health.

This debate is even more timely because of the news that we have heard on the BBC this morning, to which a number of hon. Members have already referred. Dr Baggaley, the director of medicine at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, has said that our mental health services are in “crisis”, following the news—after the BBC made freedom of information requests—that in a little more than two years we have seen the loss of 1,700 mental health beds. I note that the Minister of State, Department of Health, who is the Minister with responsibility for care, said this morning that the situation is “unacceptable” and that the provision must improve. I hope that the Minister who is here in Westminster Hall today will refer to that when he responds to the debate.

We have heard a number of valuable contributions this morning. In responding to the excellent points that have been made, I will cover three broad themes: first, I will reiterate the importance of early intervention; secondly, I will talk about the improving access to psychological therapies programme, including some specific issues about how IAPT needs to work better; and thirdly, I will talk about what we need to do beyond IAPT.

Let me begin with early intervention. As hon. Members have already said, the long-term consequences are clear if we do not tackle mental illness early; indeed, we can already see those consequences right across our society today. We can see them in the workplace, where mental illness is the largest single cause of long-term sick leave; we can see them in our criminal justice system, where 70% of those in our prisons have a mental illness; and we can see them in our economy, where mental ill health costs Britain’s businesses £26 billion every year, or £71 million every day. Also, in our health service, according to the London School of Economics the physical health care necessitated by mental illness costs the NHS an extra £10 billion each year. All those points show why the case for action could not be any clearer.

I am sure that, like myself, many hon. Members will have had experience of constituents coming to them for assistance; indeed, several hon. Members have referred to those experiences in their contributions to the debate. Constituents come to us in deep distress and dire circumstances. However, many of those situations could have been avoided if those people had received specialist treatment for mental illnesses at a much earlier stage. I echo the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis, who said that it is absolutely crucial that we look at this issue of early intervention.

That was why in 2007 the last Labour Government launched the IAPT programme, which helped to make respected and evidence-based therapies available to more people than ever before. As we heard in the hon. Gentleman’s opening speech, thousands of people have been helped on that programme so far. Since then, the current Government have continued the programme and extended it to cover more people, which is a welcome step. However, as this debate has made clear, IAPT is still a developing scheme, with areas that are in need of much improvement. So, my second theme is to focus on those areas that require attention, and I would be grateful if the Minister could address them in his closing remarks.

There are three areas in particular that require attention. The first is funding. Spending on IAPT has increased from zero in 2008-09, when the programme was first launched, to £214 million in 2011-12. The Department of Health has also allocated £54 million to improve access to therapies for children and young people, which is a good step. However, it must be noted that Ministers always pledged that IAPT funding would be additional funding and would not replace existing psychotherapy services. Despite those assurances, non-IAPT therapy services have been cut by more than 5%. Funding has fallen from £185 million in 2009-09 to £172 million in 2011-12. What makes that even more worrying is that overall mental health spending has been cut in real terms for the second year in a row.

That real-terms cut has particular resonance when it comes to the second area that requires attention, which is waiting times; again, waiting times have already been mentioned by hon. Members during this debate. NICE’s aim is that patients receive access to evidence-based therapies within 28 days of referral. It is regrettable that this debate falls the day before the latest programme statistics are published. According to the latest figures, however, which are for 2012-13, more people are having to wait longer to start receiving treatment for anxiety or depression.

[Seema Malhotra]

My hon. Friend makes very important points about waiting times and how they have continued, and also about the cuts to services. Given that the number of university students seeking counselling has risen by a third in the last four years, does she agree that it is important to recognise the impact that the drop in funding could be having on vulnerable students, sometimes forcing them to leave university, which can affect the rest of their life? With the number of students in that situation increasing and without data for average waiting times, we must recognise the importance of early intervention and very fast response.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and she raises an important issue. There are lots of different groups of people who do not have access to these sorts of services or who have to wait a disproportionate amount of time to access them. We have already heard hon. Members talking about older people who might not be able to access the IAPT programme, and my hon. Friend refers to university students, who do not necessarily fall into the category of children and young people, but who, as young adults, are struggling with leaving home and with financial pressures.

I have not seen any direct research about what effect the current cost of living crisis is having on our population—I hope that there will be some research into that issue—but my experience from my case load as a constituency MP indicates that we have a problem in our society regarding the pressures of life. More people are having to access these services and therefore the services should be available, which makes the issues of waiting times even more relevant.

More than 115,000 people had to wait more than 28 days from referral until their first treatment or therapy session, which was a 19% increase from the previous year. The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) made the point that this issue is not only about the statistics but the people behind the statistics, who have to go through the trauma of waiting for treatment and suffering the uncertainty of not knowing when it will come.

On Monday, someone contacted me to say that they had been waiting for a year and a half for cognitive behavioural therapy in the Wirral, on Merseyside, and just this morning on BBC “Breakfast”: there was a woman who was interviewed who had had to wait 17 months for talking therapies treatment. Eventually, she had to be sectioned as her condition deteriorated while she waited for treatment. These cases are not unusual— there are too many cases like them—and it pains me to learn of them. According to a report produced by the We Need to Talk coalition of mental health charities and royal colleges, one in five people have been waiting for more than a year to receive treatment. However, the same report found that people who receive treatment within three months are almost five times more likely to be helped back into work by therapy than others who have to wait for one or two years. As another person wrote to me this week, even a six-week wait can seem a whole lot longer if someone is clinically depressed. Just as we focus on waiting times for cancer treatment and other examples of physical care, we must do the same for mental health therapies.

I will repeat the commitment, which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made a year ago, that the next Labour Government will rewrite the NHS constitution; that we will strengthen the rights that it grants to patients; that we will create a genuine parity between mental and physical health care; and that we will set down a new right of access to the therapies that we have been talking about this morning. That will mean that mental health patients will be entitled not only to drugs and other medical treatments but to psychological therapies, and they will have the same guarantees on waiting times, professional advice and patient experience.

However, in addition to how long it takes to receive treatment, we need to examine the range of therapies that are available in the first place, which brings me to my third broad theme; again, it is a theme that has been already been referred to by other hon. Members, but it is important to reinforce it and to ask the Minister to respond to it. Different people are affected by different mental health conditions for all sorts of different reasons. That is why we need diverse mental health provision, with a range of therapies, to cater for people with different needs, preferences and personalities. As the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis said, only five types of therapy are currently available via IAPT. Moreover, 90% of IAPT funding has gone towards cognitive behaviour therapies, with limited support for other modes of therapy. The United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy has described this as an

“overwhelmingly manualised and brief approach to therapy that sits at odds with the professional practice of the majority of leading psychotherapists and counsellors.”

We need to look at going beyond basic therapies that help people go about their day-to-day lives more adequately. There needs to be appropriate room for more intense and longer term psychological treatments, so that the underlying causes do not go unaddressed.

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire mentioned the need for couples therapies. The hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis also talked about older peoples’ problems with accessing treatment.

There is a patient choice issue, too. According to a survey of 500 service users by Mind, only 8% of people had a full choice about which therapy they received and just 13% had a choice about where they received therapy. The 8% who had full choice of therapies—a very small number—were, on average, three times happier with their treatment and five times more likely to say that therapy had helped them back into work. As the programme develops, we need to do all we can to ensure that it caters to people’s individual needs.

What needs to be done beyond IAPT? As welcome as IAPT is, we have to remember that the programme currently only aspires to be available to 15% of the population. The programme’s three-year report, published last November, shows that it is currently delivering 45% recovery rates and aims to reach 50% by March 2015. The big question this raises is, what about the other 50% to 55%—the 50% who continue to suffer from conditions, having gone through the IAPT process, but are not eligible for more intensive psychotherapy services under the stepped care model? That question, and this debate, requires an answer that goes far beyond the IAPT programme. It requires ending the artificial dividing lines in our NHS and pursuing a whole person, fully integrated approach to mental, physical, social and care issues, as Labour has indicated, and it demands a complete revaluation of how we, as a country, think about and approach mental health. That is what Labour’s mental health taskforce is looking at, under the expert leadership of Stephen O’Brien, the chair of Barts Health NHS Trust.

General mental health support should not start in hospital or the treatment room. It needs to start in our workplaces, our schools and our communities, even across our kitchen tables and in the conversations we have with one another. There is no reason why we should not be able to talk about mental health and psychological therapies in the same way we do about access to sexual health services, vaccinations or cancer treatment, but we have a long way to go.

I look forward to the Minister’s response. I hope that he will respond to my questions and issues raised by other hon. Members. Returning to my opening comments on today’s news about the crisis in mental health provision and the reduction in the number of beds, the point of our debate is access to services that would prevent people from going into those beds in the first place. However, we hear today that bed capacity is at 100%. I hope that the Minister will mention those issues as well, because they are interlinked.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

I am sure that Mr Crosby would be grateful for that bigging-up. I can assure the hon. Lady that, as she knows, if standardised packaging was as simple as she tries to suggest, no doubt the last Government would have introduced it in some way. I am proud of the fact that we have made sure that the point of sale legislation has been achieved. As she knows and as I have said before, this is a difficult and complex issue. It requires a good and healthy debate. Let us bring on that debate. Perhaps the Opposition would like to use one of their Opposition days to bring it forward. I will be more than happy to take part.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

5. What estimate he has made of the optimal level of bed occupancy in NHS hospitals.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)]

Average annual bed occupancy rates for all NHS beds open overnight have remained stable between 84% and 87% since 2000. The Government do not set optimal bed occupancy rates for the NHS. NHS hospitals need to manage their beds effectively in order to cope with peaks in both routine and emergency clinical demand.

[Luciana Berger]

I listened carefully to what the Minister said, but the Royal College of Physicians has warned that this winter there were more black alerts—when a hospital has no beds available—than there were over the previous 10 years combined. What urgent action are the Government taking to reduce bed occupancy levels and prevent next winter being even worse?

[Dr Poulter]

We had this debate last week. The long-term pressures on the NHS, as we know, are the result of an aging population, with increasing numbers of older people arriving in A and E with complex needs, so the challenge is to ensure that they are better treated in the community. That is why my hon. Friend the Minister of State launched the integrated care pilots last month. We are also seeing more patients treated as day cases than ever before. About 80% of elective admissions are now treated as day cases, which shows a massive improvement in the speed and quality of care in the NHS.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)]

We will certainly look into the issue that my hon. Friend raises, but he will be aware that there are campaigns throughout the NHS focused on supporting local food producers, which is important in many constituencies, particularly rural ones, and developing best practice and encouraging nutrition. Chefs such as James Martin have been involved in helping to drive up standards of care, particularly in Yorkshire and other parts of the country.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

T5. I listened carefully to the Public Health Minister’s answer just three questions ago, but the Government have disproportionately cut funding to the most deprived local authorities, including Liverpool, and these local authorities have today been shown to have higher mortality rates. How does the Secretary of State expect to close, rather than widen, health inequalities?

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

We actually gave a real-terms increase to all areas, including Liverpool, and followed the independent advice. If funding for public health in Liverpool is lower than it should be, that is because the last Government set the baseline way lower than it should have been.

A and E Departments

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I want them to have that freedom, but they are operating under the same constraints as primary care trusts, which means having to abide by European procurement law. It is the Labour party that is against any changes in our relationship with the European Union.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Can the Secretary of State confirm how many walk-in centres have closed since May 2010? Will he accept that those closures are linked to the rise in A and E attendance?

[Mr Hunt]

We absolutely need better alternatives to A and E, but let me remind the hon. Lady that if we followed her party’s Front-Bench policy of cutting the NHS budget from its current levels, many more urgent and walk-in centres would have to be closed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We are committed to finding a way of ensuring that people who have benefited from the cancer drugs fund—23,000 to date—can continue to receive that kind of support. That is something we can do because we protected the NHS budget, unlike the Labour party, which wanted to cut it.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

7. What steps he is taking to ensure that primary care trusts do not ration access to NHS treatments and operations.

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

12. What steps he is taking to ensure that primary care trusts do not ration access to NHS treatments and operations.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)]

Rationing on the basis of cost alone is completely unacceptable. That is why the Government are increasing the NHS budget by £12.5 billion over the life of this Parliament and giving front-line health care professionals the power to decide what is in the best interests of patients.

[Luciana Berger]

I listened closely to the Minister’s answer. My constituent, Raymond Hickson, has been told that he has a leaking valve in his upper leg, causing varicose veins. His leg will eventually fill with blood, rendering him unable to walk and, therefore, to work, as he is currently employed in a manual job. He has been refused a simple operation on the basis that he now does not fit the PCT criteria, although he has had two similar operations in the past 15 years. What advice would the Minister give Mr Hickson and others like him, who are clearly the victims of treatment being rationed?

[Dr Poulter]

It is worth pointing out to the hon. Lady, who raises a legitimate point about that gentleman’s case—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) says “Do something”, but this type of rationing of varicose vein surgery occurred when the previous Labour Government were in power—[Interruption.] It did, and rationing of many other types of services was much worse. It is this Government who have introduced the cancer drugs fund to stop the rationing of cancer treatments to patients, which has benefited 23,000 extra patients, and many more elective procedures are taking place across the NHS every single day. On the specific case the hon. Lady raises, obviously if her constituent has a specific concern, there are safeguards in place locally for him to raise it if he thinks the decision is not based on clinical criteria.

Business of the House

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I will of course reflect on my hon. Friend’s suggestion. However, although he says that it is difficult to keep up, the connection between the things that are being done is often very straightforward. For example, our announcement in July of funding for lending that would allow increased access to mortgages at more affordable rates will be followed up by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in his statement shortly. While we wish to create more demand for new housing, we also wish to ensure that some sites that have not been developed can be developed in future.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

For the second time in 12 months, the Department for Work and Pensions is planning to close the Old Swan jobcentre. Unemployment in the Old Swan ward has risen by 3% in the last month. Will the Leader of the House find time for the employment Minister to make a statement to the House explaining why he is making it more difficult for my constituents to find jobs?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady will have an opportunity to raise that issue during questions to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions next Monday.

Health and Social Care Bill

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

That is a very powerful and positive step forward. Through the joint strategic needs assessment and the strategy derived from that, local authorities and the NHS will now increasingly work together to deliver integrated services extending across health, social care and public health.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Secretary of State please confirm whether all the changes outlined in the Deputy Prime Minister’s letter now represent Government policy?

[Mr Lansley]

The Deputy Prime Minister’s letter accurately reflects the discussions that we have been having in another place—[Interruption] I do not see why that is funny; it is very simple—in anticipation of the amendments that will be debated there on Report.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Paul Burstow]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I am aware that it is a matter of concern that over a number of years some hospitals have chosen not to use the WRVS or friends organisations’ services. These decisions have to be made by local NHS trust boards, but the purpose of the strategy we published last year is very much to make sure that when the boards make these decisions they are focused on the benefits—the benefits of volunteering for the volunteer, the organisation and the patients.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

What is the Minister’s assessment of the number of unpaid interns working in the NHS?

[Paul Burstow]

As far as I am aware, no assessment has been made to analyse the number of unpaid interns. What is very clear, however, is that when NHS organisations are using people to provide services as volunteers, that is clearly separate from what would be regarded as paid employment. That is clear in the strategy we set out last year and clear in the advice and guidance provided by the Cabinet Office as well.