Business of the House

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the issue, and the report from WRAP is extremely helpful. Clearly progress has been made, but a lot more progress is possible. I am glad that Tesco, for example, recently illustrated rather powerfully the extent of food waste. The more we can reduce food waste, the more we can improve our situation in so many respects, including by reducing the amount of unnecessary packaging, by making sure that we can balance more effectively the growing and supply of food with demand for food and, hopefully, by also reducing the cost of food.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

As chair of the all-party kidney group, I recently heard distressing evidence from kidney dialysis patients of their difficulties in living a full family life because of their inability both to find and to fund DAFB—dialysis away from base? May we have a debate on a statutory requirement to make available vacancies in dialysis units so that dialysis patients can go on holiday, attend weddings or visit their grandchildren, with the funding going with them to finance their treatment?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady might wish to seek an Adjournment debate or, perhaps with colleagues, time from the Backbench Business Committee to discuss that important issue. I imagine that kidney patients would find that very valuable. I recall that, when I was Secretary of State for Health, I was aware of the relative lack of access to dialysis here compared with in other countries. The previous Government made some progress on that and we have added to that progress since. I recall visiting dialysis units, such as in Brighton, that expressly set out to provide sufficient capacity for those working away from home and those on holiday.