World ME Day
Debate between Baroness Hodge of Barking and Sajid Javid(7 months ago)
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Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
I am very pleased to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I want to raise the issue of the involvement of multiple Departments, and it relates to my constituent Sienna Wemyss, who is 16 years old. Sienna was diagnosed in 2022, but she still has not got an education, care and health plan. She got a place at our local Barking and Dagenham College, but when she arrived there, despite her mother having spoken to the teachers, she was sent home because she could not attend. She finds it difficult even to comb her hair, so she is at home and has lost out on her education.
Does the right hon. Member agree that it is really important that not only health but education plays its role? While I am on my feet, I should say that Sienna has to travel as there are no local health facilities to respond to her needs and to care for her. She has to travel into University College Hospital—miles from my constituents in Barking. Does the right hon. Member further agree that there should be local healthcare facilities to respond to the needs of people with this condition?
Sir Sajid Javid
I thank the right hon. Member for her intervention, and I agree with her on both points. She first emphasises the importance of the Government’s final plan being a proper cross-Government plan; I hope the Minister will speak to the cross-Government nature of the work that he is leading on their behalf. I also agree with her point about local health support. That must also be addressed and covered in the final plan that is published. I have heard very similar stories from constituents and others, and I completely agree with what she said. I thank her again for that intervention.
When I committed the Government to developing a cross-Government delivery plan, I stated in a written statement to this House:
“officials will work with stakeholders ahead of publishing the delivery plan later this year.”
Despite the commitment that the delivery plan would be published by the end of 2022, it was not until August 2023 that an interim plan was published. In the ministerial foreword to that interim delivery plan, the Minister’s immediate predecessor—my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately)—stated:
“The final delivery plan will be published later this year”.
That was the end of last year. We are now in May 2024, approaching exactly two years since I made the initial commitment.
I am also now hearing disturbing reports that, despite two years of waiting, the final delivery plan may not be published until the end of this year. Everyone knows that the Prime Minister has committed the country to a general election by the end of this year. We also know that when that general election is called, there will be no Government publication of any sort, which means there is absolutely no time to waste. I ask the Minister, when he responds, to give a specific commitment to the House that the final delivery plan will be published before the summer recess—or at the very latest, just after.