Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am well aware of that issue and have received a number of representations from hon. Members on both sides of the House. There is a mechanism by which these issues end up on my desk—they have to be referred by a local council’s overview and scrutiny committee and then I get an independent recommendation—but I will look at this carefully if that process is followed.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

To cope with rapid population increases in my constituency, Basingstoke has advanced plans to build a critical treatment hospital and cancer centre, with the support of more than three quarters of the population. Does my right hon. Friend expect sustainability and transformation plans to provide clear, timely direction on plans for this new model of care in the community?

[Mr Hunt]

I can absolutely reassure my right hon. Friend on that. One of the main purposes of STPs is to make sure that we deliver our cancer plan, which will introduce a maximum four-week wait between GP referral and ultimate diagnosis. If we get it right, that might result in around 30,000 lives a year being saved, so this is a big priority for every STP.

Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust

Maria Miller Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered governance of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I am grateful for the opportunity to open this important debate on the governance of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, a subject that has been the cause of mounting public concern over recent months. It has risen up the agenda as more information has come to light. It is right that we, as Members of Parliament, now have the chance to address it and to air our constituents’ concerns. For some, that is not a concern of just a few months’ standing, but a story that goes back many years.

For a number of patients under the care of Southern Health and, particularly, for the families and friends of those who have sadly died, this has been a long-running and painful saga. We will not resolve it for them today but we can ensure that the issues they care about are properly aired in public and are brought to wider attention. I pay tribute to those relatives and campaigners, some of whom have come to Westminster today. I was glad to be able to meet with them earlier and to hear from them in person before the debate. I also thank the Minister for sparing the time to join us and to hear their experiences. With the permission of the relatives, I will refer to some of their stories during my remarks and other colleagues may also want to do so, where appropriate.

As well as having a connection to the subject as a constituency MP, I have taken an interest in the wider issues through my role on the all-party parliamentary group on Hampshire and Isle of Wight, on which I lead on health issues. The area covered by Southern Health goes wider than Hampshire, of course, and we have invited colleagues from elsewhere to our meetings when the subject has been under discussion.

Since last autumn, we have had a series of meetings with representatives of Southern Health, most notably with Katrina Percy, its chief executive, and other senior directors. Those meetings have allowed us to put robust questions to them and to hear their side of the story. Although I cannot claim to have been wholly satisfied by the answers we have received, I thank Ms Percy and her team for engaging with us on our concerns. Just yesterday, we had a very useful meeting with the new interim chairman of the trust, Tim Smart, and I extend our thanks to him.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

On behalf of many other MPs from Hampshire, I commend my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on the tenacity with which she has led on the issue on our behalf. She mentioned the appointment of a new chair. Does she feel that, under the new leadership, we will see more assurance from the Care Quality Commission that Southern Health has actually understood what changes are needed for the future? Some CQC reports we have read suggest that the problems that have been raised have not been addressed in a swift manner. Does my hon. Friend share my concern or does she think we will see progress?

Defending Public Services

Maria Miller Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

I am grateful for the reading advice from the right hon. Gentleman, but I simply say this: I am very happy to defend the record of the previous Labour Government, who trebled the NHS budget and had the highest-ever public satisfaction ratings and the lowest-ever waiting lists.

We should be crystal clear about the crisis that we face today. The decade from 2010 to 2020 is set to be marked by the biggest sustained funding squeeze on the NHS ever. As a percentage of GDP, spending on health is set to fall from 6.3% in 2009-10 to just 5.4% by the end of the decade.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

People who are listening to this debate will want some clarification. Is the hon. Lady denying the fact that if Labour were in government it would not have increased NHS spending in the way that this Government have done? I think she needs to be clear on that point.

[Heidi Alexander]

We were very clear at the last election that we would have had an emergency Budget to put every penny that the NHS needs into its funding.

I was talking about the reduction of NHS spending as a proportion of GDP. In terms of real funding, the House of Commons Library has shown that, if spending as a percentage of GDP had been maintained at Labour levels, by 2020, £20 billion more would be being spent on the NHS each year. That demonstrates the scale of underfunding that we have already seen and just how tough the coming years are going to be. That is not to mention the deep cuts to adult social care, which have piled the pressure on to hospitals, and the £22 billion-worth of so-called efficiency savings that this Government have signed up to. I have yet to meet anyone who works in the NHS who thinks that efficiencies on this scale are possible without harming patient care.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I welcome the legislative programme that the Government have set out in the Queen’s Speech, particularly on improving life chances for disadvantaged people, which is in the very best traditions of one nation Conservatives.

In opening the debate, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State demonstrated his strategic vision and his clear personal commitment to improving life chances through the NHS. We owe him a debt of gratitude for the work he is doing in that respect, and for his work on ensuring that the NHS is fit for the future. There has been a great deal of discussion about NHS budgets—perhaps there was a lack of clarity from the Labour Front Benchers on their budgets—but, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) said, we need to talk not only about the budget, but how we use that money. That is the point I will focus on in my contribution.

In this Session, whether through legislation or other ministerial action, we need to ensure that we have a nimble, agile and responsive NHS for the future. We need public services that respond to people’s needs as they change. People’s lives are changing: we are living and working longer, and we have growing communities with more housing. The NHS, not simply Ministers, needs to respond to those changes to reflect our changing community needs.

The NHS cannot afford to lag behind its users—its patients—in its thinking. That is why I believe that, more than ever, the Government need in this Session to ensure that there is more devolution to local government to join together NHS spending and social care spending, which will help to make sure that our money goes further in future.

Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of the NHS, has set out a compelling vision for the NHS in this changed world. People with non-life threatening needs should have access to care as close to home as possible, and people with life-threatening conditions should be treated in centres with the very best 24/7 consultant-led care. That is safer and better for patients.

Like many constituencies throughout the south-east, my community has grown not only in recent years, but throughout the recession. We need the Secretary of State to press for a nimble NHS that can respond to the changes in our community, and hopefully plan for the future. We need clinical commissioning groups to work to ensure that new doctors’ surgeries are delivered where there are new houses, and that hospitals deliver the very best every day of the week.

In my constituency, we are truly fortunate to have clinicians who are already ahead of that thinking. The Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust already has fully funded plans, a site with planning permission and support across the community to establish a 24/7 critical treatment hospital, bringing together emergency care for the sickest patients in one site, leaving those requiring walk-in A&E, planned surgery and out-patient care to our local hospitals in Andover, Winchester and Basingstoke.

That approach has been developed by clinicians to keep services safe and sustainable, and I urge the Secretary of State to ensure that we listen to clinicians carefully. They often see the needs of the NHS changing before others do, and we need to ensure that those changes are put in place. The NHS investigation unit is looking at how we deal with delays at A&E, because the changes proposed by clinicians have not been brought forward in a timely manner. We are now awaiting a new models of care programme, and sustainability and transformation plan. In the meantime, my constituents regularly face more than four-hour waits in A&E, which I hope will come to an end when the long-awaited centralised critical treatment hospital is brought to fruition—after four years of planning and discussion.

Within the NHS programme for the future, we need to find ways to respond to the needs of other groups of people. The first Women and Equalities Committee report brought the needs of transgender people to the fore. It was clear from the evidence we received that access to primary and specialist care for this group of people was far from routine and, in some cases, quite shocking—another example of the need for the NHS to respond carefully to the needs of communities. I do not underestimate the challenges GPs face in our communities, but we need to ensure that they are tasked with, and deliver on, treatment and care plans for every group of people and do not leave minority groups out.

We live in a country with a proud tradition of fairness and some of the most comprehensive legislation in the world to protect disadvantaged people—the theme of the Queen’s Speech. Too often, however, legislation does not create the change in the delivery of public services that we in this House would perhaps like to see. I hope the Government will use every Bill in this parliamentary Session to challenge themselves on whether there is more that can be done to support disadvantaged people: whether, in the modern transport Bill, the Government could consider how disabled and older people can benefit from important developments in transportation; whether, in the local growth and jobs Bill, the Government could look more closely at the three quarters of pregnant women and new mums who suffer negative or discriminatory experiences at work, and bring forward measures to help to address this problem more speedily to unlock this important pool of labour for the future; and whether, in the education for all Bill, the Ministers responsible could look carefully at the House of Lords Select Committee paper on the achievements of disabled children in schools. Despite a great deal of work in recent years, we still need to be better at unlocking the educational achievement of disabled children. At the moment just 18% of children with special educational needs achieve good development, compared with 65% without.

The prison reform Bill will of course be pivotal in supporting disadvantaged people. I am sure there will be a great deal of debate on that today, but I would like very briefly to touch on the importance, in relation to the Bill of Rights, of the need to ensure that we really do tackle the disadvantage that people face. I refer again to the need to address the rights of transgender and non-gendered people. They suffer great disadvantage in our society. If we are to have a Bill of Rights, we need to tackle this issue head on.

Before I close, I want to touch on something very close to my heart from when I was a Minister: superfast broadband. I was delighted to see the Government propose a Bill to ensure that superfast broadband is seen as the essential utility that it is. I am sure the Health Secretary will have responded to this with great joy too, given his previous role as Culture Secretary.

The experience of my local authority means that I will be looking very carefully at the detail of the Bill. My local authority in Basingstoke has long seen superfast broadband as essential infrastructure, but when trying to make it happen, in terms of planning conditions for building, it has been blocked pretty firmly by the local planning inspector. Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council and Hampshire County Council have looked long and hard at how they might make progress on this. I am sure they will welcome, as I do, the measures in the Queen’s Speech. Indeed, they have asked the Government for superfast broadband to be a material planning consideration. I hope the Minister will clarify that superfast broadband will be a material planning consideration and indicate when that will come into force. My local community, like those of many other Members, has seen a rapid increase in the rate of house building, and we need to know when this might come into play.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Coventry has also experienced problems with BT’s delivery of broadband. That is one of the big problems. I know that Ministers have been looking at this, but we need urgent action. BT is a big problem in this regard.

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Gentleman makes a point that many Members have made, but I am making a very different point—about ensuring that local authorities can make superfast broadband an essential prerequisite for new house building. No one can build a house in this country without water, electricity and the many other utilities we have come to rely on. Superfast broadband has fast become a basic utility of life, and that is how it needs to be viewed; I am sure that other Members will mention the performance of those who put the service into place.

The Government have a powerful opportunity to continue on their mission to improve life chances for disadvantaged people, not only in the obvious Bills, such as the one on prison reform, but in every single Bill on their agenda. I urge Ministers to consider carefully how they can bring that into play. While we might have some of the best equalities legislation in the world, when it comes to putting it into practice, we sometimes fall short. We need to admit that and up our game.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

It is vital that they are not brushed under the carpet, and I will come to that in a second. It is important to put it on the record that there are some positive aspects of this report, some of which relate to Southampton. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will already have seen those, with the trust being commended for its work on the community pathway. On the substance of his question, I spoke honestly a moment ago when I said that I really do not know at this stage whether an inquiry is the right thing to do. I am well aware of the seriousness of this matter, of the questions the families have raised, and of the fact that this has been going on for some time. The important thing is both to effect change and to find out what has happened. The CQC report—the extensive work that has already been done—is in depth, public and transparent. That may well have the answers that are required, but if not, something further may be needed, which is why I have an open mind on this. The most important thing is to give the reassurance that certain things have happened, which the CQC report cannot yet do because that is where the work is needed and where the work is going on now.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Our constituents, particularly those with learning disabilities, need to have confidence in the complex set of services provided by Southern Health. The failings that have been identified are completely unacceptable and disturbing, and I welcome the Minister’s statement and the CQC’s action with the warning notice it has issued. Will he join me in paying tribute to the dedicated staff at Southern Health facilities that are not implicated in these serious problems, including Parklands hospital in my constituency, which provides acute wards for adults needing intensive psychiatric care, in a much needed facility that has very dedicated staff running it?

[Alistair Burt]

Absolutely. When I got the report over the weekend and turned to the summary of findings, I saw that the first positive summary finding was:

“Staff were kind, caring, and supportive and treated patients with respect and dignity. Patients reported that some staff went the ‘extra mile’.”

It is important to put that on the record; it does not minimise the things that are wrong, but in a trust that is so large, covering such a wide area and so many people, it is important that that good work is recognised, and that errors and faults of management and governance should not be laid at their door. I pay tribute to those staff, who work in incredibly difficult circumstances.

Brain Tumours

Maria Miller Excerpts

Monday 18th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) on such an excellent start to the debate. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) for her excellent chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group on brain tumours, and to other hon Members who support her in that work.

My contribution will be succinct. As the hon. Lady pointed out, this is the largest cancer killer of children and adults under the age of 40, yet just 1% of research funding is given to find a cure or new treatments. The hon. Lady said that this felt to her almost like a Catch-22, and I think she is entirely right: a lack of research means that there can be difficulty in having effective professional development, which leads to continued late diagnosis. The fact that 61% of brain tumour patients are being diagnosed in A&E is backed up by information from my local hospital and Dr Lara Alloway, a consultant in palliative care there, who said that brain tumours are

“most frequently diagnosed when people present as an emergency with stroke-like symptoms, headache or confusion. It is less common for people to be diagnosed as an outpatient.”

The lack of early diagnosis was also picked up by my local primary care trust. However, the issue is not just a lack of early diagnosis, but a lack of guidance from NICE. There are just seven pages of guidance on this matter, but more than 30 pages for blood and haematological disorders. The limited evidence base makes it very difficult for doctors and GPs to be able to diagnose in the fashion that the hon. Lady talks about.

It would be difficult to do justice to the number of constituents who have contacted me about this debate. I pay tribute to them all. I pay particular tribute to Olya Elliott, who lost her son, to Sandra Welch, who was diagnosed after a year of seeking help from her GP—that was too late to be cured—and to the gentleman who talked about his daughter, who had died at the age of 44. The list goes on, and it is very difficult to talk about it. I think that the debate today will do a great deal to send a positive message to all those constituents. I pay particular tribute also to Jan Pearson, who came to my surgery on Friday and spoke incredibly movingly about her son Tom, aged 21. He was diagnosed with an inoperable tumour on his brain stem at the age of 18. He was diagnosed because of the tenacity of his mother, who identified the symptoms after five years of insisting to his GP and other medics that he needed help and support. It was really only through her tenacity that he got the brain scan that diagnosed his tumour, but unfortunately it was too late for it to be operable.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

May I draw the right hon. Lady’s attention to my constituent, Caroline Fosbury, mother of Ella? Caroline lost her daughter at the age of 11. She said that it is a three-way cycle between support, awareness and research, and the family have started Ella’s fund to campaign for more research.

[Mrs Miller]

That positive effect in terms of fundraising is so important. When I speak to my constituents who have lost loved ones, that is often the way they can find most solace. The hon. Lady makes a very good point.

I also pay tribute to those who support my constituents who have gone through such appalling losses, particularly St Michael’s hospice, which cares not only for individuals who are going through the last hours of their lives, but for bereaved relatives and carers.

Male Suicide and International Men’s Day

Maria Miller Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of male suicide and International Men’s Day.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I thank colleagues throughout the House for supporting the debate and the Backbench Business Committee for finding the time to hold it. I also thank the many people who have been in touch with me to tell their stories or put forward their organisations’ point of view. I am grateful to all of them for taking the time to do that.

I said in my maiden speech that I would campaign hard against the blight of political correctness that is doing so much damage to our country. Ten years have passed, and I am still here fighting that battle. The number of ludicrous cases of political correctness has reduced, but the more entrenched ones are still well and truly thriving. One of the main areas where we see the pernicious effects of political correctness is the treatment of men and women. I heard about International Men’s Day and decided it was only right, given that we have a debate each year on International Women’s Day, to appeal for time to be given for a debate to commemorate the day, in the interests of gender parity.

The aims of International Men’s Day are admirable. They are:

“To promote positive male role models; not just movie stars and sports men but everyday, working class men who are living decent, honest lives…To celebrate men’s positive contributions to society, community, family, marriage, child care, and to the environment…To focus on men’s health and wellbeing; social, emotional, physical and spiritual…To highlight discrimination against men; in areas of social services, social attitudes and expectations, and law…To improve gender relations and promote gender equality…To create a safer, better world; where people can be safe and grow to reach their full potential.”

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. He has outlined the importance of International Men’s Day. Does he share my disappointment that this debate is being held in the second Chamber, Westminster Hall, rather than on the Floor of the House of Commons?

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for coming to the debate and making that point. I would have preferred the debate to be in the main Chamber, especially given that the International Women’s Day debate is held there, but I am grateful that we have the opportunity to raise these issues, which we have never done before, so it would be churlish of me to be too critical.

I want today to be the day when we in this House start to deal with some of the forgotten men’s issues and realise why the political correctness that underpins issues relating to the differing treatment of the sexes can be damaging to men. It might sound odd for someone leading the debate on International Men’s Day to say this, but in many respects, I would rather we did not have to be here having this debate, because when we think about it, in so many ways, considering men and women separately as if they live their lives in complete isolation from one another is ridiculous. Neither group is isolated. Both sexes have mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts, grandmothers and grandfathers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. Every woman has related male parties and therefore a vested interest in men’s issues.

The problem is that virtually everything we do and debate in the House seems to start from the premise that everything is biased against women and that something must be done about it. There is never an appreciation that men’s issues can be just as important and that men can be just as badly treated as women in certain areas.

The hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) supported my request for a debate, and I know he is sorry that he unfortunately cannot be here today. Had he been here, he no doubt would have shared the fact that last year, Belfast City Council hosted its first event to mark International Men’s Day. I understand that the event was held in Belfast castle and opened by the First Minister and the Lord Mayor of Belfast at the time, Nichola Mallon, following a proposal by Alderman Ruth Patterson. It seems our Ulster friends appreciate that there are some specifically male issues that should be addressed, with both sexes involved.

I want to be very clear: I do not believe there is actually an issue between men and women. Often, problems are stirred up by those who might be described as militant feminists and the politically correct males who sometimes pander to them. Members do not just need to take my word for it. Before the Equal Opportunities Commission was merged into the Equality and Human Rights Commission, it conducted research that found women had very clear views on these matters. Its findings included the following conclusion:

“There was little support for the idea that women, as a group, are unequal in society today.”

Presumably, that went down like a lead balloon in an organisation dedicated to fighting for women’s interests and rights, so it was pretty much swept under the carpet.

One of the most depressing things to happen recently was the introduction of the Select Committee on Women and Equalities. After everything else, in 2015 we have a separate Committee to deal with women’s issues, on top of the Women’s Minister, Women’s Question Time and the many strategies in this country that only deal with women.

For the record, I could not care less if every MP in this House were female or if every member of my staff were female, as long as they were there on merit. To assume that men cannot adequately represent women is a nonsense, just as it is to say that only women can represent other women. As a man, I can say quite clearly that Margaret Thatcher represented my views very nicely indeed, but I am not sure she would be a pin-up for many of the politically correct, left-leaning women who are obsessed with having more women in Parliament today.

It seems to me that we have an “equality, but only when it suits” agenda in Parliament that often applies just to women. The drive for women to have so-called equality on all things that suit the politically correct agenda but not on the things that do not is a great concern. For example, we hear plenty about increasing the number of women on company boards and increasing female representation in Parliament, but there is a deafening silence when it comes to increasing the number of men who have custody of their children or who have careers as midwives. In fact, there generally seems to be a deafening silence on all the benefits women have compared with men.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) on securing this important debate. He never fails to challenge the status quo, and he never fails to speak without fear or favour, for which I commend him, but International Men’s Day is also about promoting gender equality—that is one of its stated objectives. Striving for equality is not a competition between men and women. Women face discrimination on a daily basis—that is not a myth. He does not do his case much good by attempting to belittle that discrimination.

The number of men who are currently sitting as MPs is greater than the number of women who have ever been elected as Members of Parliament—that is a shocking fact. It is a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who has done more than anyone else to press for change on suicide, which affects more men than women. I thank the Samaritans and CALM for their excellent briefings, which they sent to us all. If we had had more women like her, and others, in this place over the past 100 years, perhaps more of the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley would have been better debated and more fully addressed, because such issues are often picked up by women Members of Parliament.

International Men’s Day is not about pitching men against women; it is about the health of men and boys, the promotion of gender equality, positive male role models and men’s contribution to family life and their children’s lives. I have the privilege of living in a three-generation family, and women are in the minority, but we have fantastic support from the male members of our family to achieve the most that we can as women. Gender stereotypes are good for no one, and International Men’s Day should be an opportunity to address those stereotypes.

Suicides are a tragic waste of life, and it is important that we have strong policies to address suicide. Ahead of today’s debate I considered the driving force behind those suicides. The hon. Member for Bridgend touched on some of the issues that she has dealt with, and I am particularly interested in her comments about the expectations that we put on male members of our families and communities. I am also concerned about the impact of relationship breakdown and loneliness, which can be felt strongly by men, particularly as they get older. I will focus on that and on how we might start to address some of the problems that men have in trying to play a full role in all aspects of their community and in all aspects of life, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley mentioned.

Too many fathers lose contact with their children after an adult relationship breaks down, and too many fathers still find it difficult to play a full role in their children’s lives even if their adult relationship is still intact. When there is domestic violence or there are concerns about a child’s welfare, it is clearly right that a parent’s role in their children’s lives might be curtailed. However, there is clear evidence that, in day-to-day life, we could be doing far more to support the role of fathers in their children’s lives and to challenge the continuing gender stereotyping that it is in some way unacceptable for men to take up a more active role in their children’s lives. That stereotype exists despite the considerable improvements that this Government, and the coalition Government before them, have made in introducing support so that we can all have a more balanced approach to life, particularly through parental leave and flexible working. The fact is that men still find it difficult to access such policies.

Parental leave is a particular case in point. In the UK, it is felt there is an attitude of frowning on men taking up parental leave, and 41% of men have said that that is one of the biggest barriers to their taking up their legitimate and legal entitlement to it. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on that, because it is not just a problem faced by the UK. In the Czech Republic, where parental leave legislation is the same for men and women, men still take up a fraction of their entitlement. The Scandinavian countries are often held up as paragons of virtues when it comes to family policy, but Finland has less than 9% uptake of parental leave by fathers. This is probably a Europe-wide problem—indeed, perhaps a global phenomenon.

How can we ensure that men have access to parental leave, which can give them an important role in their children’s lives in the early days? There is undeniable evidence from countries that encourage parental leave, such as Germany, that if a father has an active role in a child’s life before the age of five, it can encourage, support and nurture a stronger lifelong relationship between them. That is important, and we need to understand it. We have the policy in place; how do we make it work for men?

I applaud the Government for the work that they have done to ensure that the opportunity to request flexible working is now open to everybody, yet dads are twice as likely to have their requests for flexible working rejected by employers. Just under one fifth of fathers applying for flexible working are turned down. However, men are also less likely to apply for flexible working in the first place, with just 17% of fathers requesting flexible working compared with 28% of mothers.

Yes, women still face all sorts of impediments to their progress in the workplace, but men face barriers too, perhaps due to inflexibility within Government structures or expectations that men should be the main breadwinner. We must address such issues to ensure not only that men can play a full role in their sons’ and daughters’ lives but that women too can make the progress they need to.

One main protected characteristic under the Equalities Act 2010 is gender, regardless of sex. I point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley that the first report by my Committee, the Women and Equalities Committee, was on transgender, an issue that affects men and women, and on the inadequacies of policies and processes in that area. We must ensure that gender is never used as the basis for discrimination. International Men’s Day does not dilute the issues that women face, including discrimination and gender-based violence. It is an opportunity to challenge all gender stereotypes, which are not good for any of us, and to support men to speak out, as women often speak out, on behalf not only of women but of men.

Cardiac Screening: Young People

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

I absolutely agree. That is a wonderful idea to make people aware, early on, about health intervention and what can be done through training.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend and Hampshire neighbour for giving way and I pay tribute to her for securing the debate. Will she join me in paying tribute to organisations such as my local parish council, which has gone out of its way to put its funds towards making defibrillators available not only in the local village hall but in the local village pub, too?

[Mims Davies]

Absolutely, and I thank my right hon. Friend. There is always a good reason to go the pub and that sounds like an excellent one.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

I am delighted to confirm that, and we have made a conscious decision to reduce NHS waste and bureaucracy. NHS administration spending is down from 4.27% under the previous Government to only 2.77% now, which has resulted in £5 billion of efficiency savings and meant we can invest in about 6,000 more nurses, midwives and health visitors.

[Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

The extra NHS staff my hon. Friend talks about are welcome, but my constituents want to know that standards of care are the best as well. What progress is he making to ensure that hospital patients get the best possible care?

[Dr Poulter]

The most important thing we have done is support our front-line staff with additional investment in the NHS, which Labour called irresponsible, and there is about £13 billion more going into the NHS during this Parliament. We have also increased transparency to make sure that where there are isolated pockets of poor care, the Care Quality Commission can intervene and make recommendations to improve the quality of care for patients in those hospitals.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

The hon. Gentleman makes the important point that there has been an historical disparity between the priorities given to mental health and physical health conditions. That is why we have legislated for parity of esteem between mental and physical health, why we are introducing access targets for patients using mental health services for the first time—that is a big step forward—and why we have increased funding for mental health services by £300 million this year.

[Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

In the first few weeks of a child’s life, the mother often visits their general practitioner regularly, so I applaud the Government’s work on recruiting more health visitors and midwives. Does the Minister agree that GPs need to be sharper at identifying post-natal depression in mothers, because it can be so destructive to the lives of both the mother and the child?

[Dr Poulter]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. A lot of work is going on with the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Psychiatrists to improve GP training and skills in mental health more generally. The specific key to this is providing the right early years work force, which is why it is so important that this Government have invested in additional health visitors to give each and every child the best start in life. The latest figures from NHS England show that the number of health visitors has increased by more than 3,000 under this Government.