Business of the House
Debate between Maria Eagle and David Lidington(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Lidington
Each area now has a designated local authority—either the county or the unitary authority—that has a lead responsibility for co-ordinating flood management and response to flooding. The Government have also ensured in their response to more recent floods in the north-west and south-west of England that Bellwin scheme money is released at a much earlier stage than has sometimes been the case.
Spending on flood management continues, and we recently published a flood resilience strategy that sets out a plan for the longer-term future. I will make sure that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is aware of my hon. Friend’s particular concerns about his own area, about which she may wish to reply in more detail to him.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
Liverpool City Council is conducting an online consultation on how to find £90 million more of cuts. That is in addition to the £330 million it has already found since 2010, meaning that it will have lost 70% of its Government support by 2020. May we have a debate in Government time on the disproportionate impact of these cuts on authorities such as Liverpool City Council? In all fairness, will the Leader of the House also come forward and say how the Government can help to alleviate the problem that it has caused?
Business of the House
Debate between Maria Eagle and David Lidington(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
The board of Seqirus, a major vaccine-producing company, is to make a decision this month on whether to invest millions of pounds in the Liverpool site in my constituency or in another site in mainland Europe. I have been seeking a meeting with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but I do not yet have a date. The matter is now urgent, so may we have a debate in Government time on what the Government are doing to support the manufacturing industry given the uncertainty that our leaving the European Union is causing around such decisions?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Lady will acknowledge that if she looks at the list of significant inward investments into this country since 23 June, she will see that international businesses from both the manufacturing and the services sectors see the United Kingdom as a great place in which to invest for future growth. I am sure that that would be a most powerful argument to raise with the company in her constituency, but I will draw the particular case and its urgency to the attention of the Secretary of State to ensure that a Minister gets back to her.
Business of the House
Debate between Maria Eagle and David Lidington(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is right to challenge some of the decisions that Walsall Council is proposing to take about libraries. Of course local authorities throughout England have a statutory duty to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service, and the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has a statutory duty to superintend that local provision. She also has the power to call a local inquiry if she believes that there is evidence to doubt that the local authority is providing the required service. I am sure that my hon. Friend will ensure that, if such a service is not being provided by Walsall Council, she will put a strong case to the Secretary of State.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
Following the publication of the Cheshire and Merseyside NHS sustainability and transformation plan on Wednesday, a senior manager from Liverpool clinical commissioning group has admitted in the Liverpool Echo that the plans are financially driven, were drawn up in secrecy and are already being implemented—yet none of my constituents has had any say in how the proposals were formulated. May we have a debate in Government time so that we can properly consider the impact on my Garston and Halewood constituents of the proposals to reduce the opening hours at Whiston A&E and supposedly “reconfigure” the Liverpool women’s hospital while merging the Royal, Aintree and Broadgreen Trusts?
Mr Lidington
As the sustainability and transformation plans are published, it is important that they are examined closely. As I said earlier, local authorities have the power in law to exercise scrutiny and a check on proposals for changes in service delivery. The Government have delivered to the NHS all the money that the NHS chief executive asked for to fund reforms to the NHS to make it suitable for the health policy challenges of today and the future. When any of us talk to clinicians in our constituencies, we often find that it is the doctors and the nurses who say that there sometimes needs to be a change to the pattern of the location of services, particularly to deliver more specialist units, to provide patients with better treatment.
Business of the House
Debate between Maria Eagle and David Lidington(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Lidington
I am concerned to hear about that case. If my hon. Friend would like to write to me with the details, I will ensure that they are passed on to the relevant Minister.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
My constituent, Maria Hill, who has cleaned Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs offices in Liverpool for 20 years was expecting a modest pay rise when the national living wage came in. Instead, Government contractors ISS cut her hours unilaterally and, as a consequence, she lost her tax credits and was £50 a week worse off. May we have a debate in Government time to discuss how the Government are making sure that their contractors comply with not only the law, but the spirit of the law?