Access to Medical Cannabis

Debate between Matt Hancock and Paula Sherriff

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I have already paid tribute to the APPG, and today’s urgent question has demonstrated the breadth of concern in this House. Those who are independent of Government need to make sure that they listen to this level of concern. I am certainly determined to do everything I can to try to resolve this issue.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

It has always been the case that the Home Secretary could issue a special licence to allow the medical use of cannabis oil. I understand that the Health Secretary may be seeing him this evening, and I wondered whether he will ask him to consider this course of action.

[Matt Hancock]

One of the great frustrations for me, for the Home Secretary and, of course, for the families is that, before the law was changed on 1 November, that course of action was open. For a few dozen cases, the Home Secretary made those special licences to allow for the use of medicinal cannabis. He and I changed the law together to try to make sure that medicinal cannabis is available on a mainstream basis. Now it is available on a mainstream basis, as a normal drug, it therefore needs clinical sign-off. The problem is there are so many cases where that clinical sign-off has not been forthcoming. That is a source of immense frustration to me, as I hope the hon. Lady can imagine, and it is what we are trying to resolve.

Eurotunnel: Payment

Debate between Matt Hancock and Paula Sherriff

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Of course that matters enormously, too. Although medicines are the category 1 prioritised goods that will be using the extra procured capacity safeguarded by this settlement, there are other measures being undertaken by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to protect the supply of foods.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

That £33 million would pay the annual salary of 118,000 nurses, and God knows we need them. The NHS has 40,000 nursing vacancies in the NHS in England. Does the Secretary of State for Health think that the cost of the latest blunder of the elusive Secretary of State for Transport is money well spent?

[Matt Hancock]

Well, I do think that it is very important that we spend what is necessary in order to have the unhindered supply of medicines. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady shakes her head, but would she, in these shoes, put at risk the unhindered supply of medicines? Of course she would not, so she must agree with me that this was the right decision to take.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Matt Hancock and Paula Sherriff

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady is right to draw attention to the need to ensure that funding for mental health services has parity with that for physical health services. Getting there is the work of a generation. We did not even measure access to mental health services until this Government brought that in, and we are working towards parity.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State boasted to the global ministerial mental health summit about the Government’s plans to recruit 21,000 more staff to the mental health workforce by 2021, but he did not tell the summit that by the end of May this year, nearly 25,000 mental health staff—one in eight of the workforce—had left the NHS and that fewer than 1,000 extra staff had been recruited by March, equating to just 0.5% of his target. Does he really think that he is in a position to lecture the rest of the world?

[Matt Hancock]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s commitment to this area. Clearly it is very important to have the workforce in place. As she said, we are making progress, but we still have more to do. As far as the international approach is concerned, the response to the summit was that many countries came together, because collectively we all face the same sorts of challenges. I am in absolutely no doubt that the leadership shown by some countries, including the UK, is warmly welcomed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Matt Hancock and Paula Sherriff

Thursday 15th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Channel 4 is not paid for but is owned by the Government. It was set up under Government ownership, but it pays for itself through its advertising, and delivers brilliantly—I think—within its remit.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

T5. I have arranged for Sport England to attend my constituency in January to meet local sports clubs, many of which are struggling to stay afloat because of a decrease in grants and huge cuts to local authority funding. In the light of the child obesity strategy, does the Minister agree that the Government should make it a priority to engage with and promote these small sports clubs?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Matt Hancock and Paula Sherriff

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

2. What steps his Department has taken to improve transparency in government.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Matthew Hancock)]

Over the past five years, we have opened up 20,000 Government data sets to the public and made expenditure data covering more than £188 billion of Government spending available for scrutiny. Through our leading role in the international Open Government Partnership, we will continue to be one of the most open and transparent Governments in the world.

[Paula Sherriff]

The Minister has admitted to me in a written answer that his so-called freedom of information commission is not itself subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Now he has reported that it will not commit to publishing evidence or minutes and that it may meet in private, ban journalists from naming its press spokesperson and even refuse to consider enforcing the Act on privatised services. Is it not time to end this farce and start again?

[Matthew Hancock]

No, the commission that is looking into how the Act has operated over the past 10 years is, rightly, independent, so it deals with the question of how it operates. Private organisations have not been subject to the Act, because it is about government information, so it is entirely appropriate for them to make the decisions.