Penrose Inquiry

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

This inquiry was commissioned by a Scottish Minister—I believe it was the current First Minister—in 2008. It is a matter for the Scottish Government to comment on the length of time taken by Lord Penrose and the expense. The money announced in yesterday’s written ministerial statement was, as we said it would be, part of an interim response—it is interim because this very long report comes right at the end of this Parliament. I am sure that the next Parliament and the next Government will want to return to this and give a more substantive response to the findings of this very thorough inquiry.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

I was the chair of the all-party group on haemophilia from 2001 to 2010, and what we got then was an interim settlement as well, because no one would face up to the fact that these people should be compensated, not just given an ex gratia payment or some more money to go away quietly. We are told that all documents were looked at, but in the time that I have been involved in this campaign we have been told by the late Alf Morris that he was promised by Lord Owen, a former Health Minister, that there were documents available which proved that after the Government adopted the policy that no more contaminated blood would be brought from America and from dangerous sources, the health service went on buying that blood. The report said that many people’s lives have been saved, but the reality is that somebody in the health service contaminated these people by breaching the policy of a Government. When are we going to see those documents revealed, and to look for a proper public inquiry and compensation for the victims, not some pay-off?

[Jane Ellison]

That is a rather harsh response. It is worth noting that the terms of reference given by the Scottish Government to the Penrose inquiry do not make reference to compensation. Yesterday’s written ministerial statement referred to an amount that is specifically intended to help with transitional arrangements while the next Government consider how they might want to take forward the reform of the various payments systems. We explored that in the Backbench business debate.

The report runs to many thousands of pages and has considered all of the many documents and statements, as I set out. All the relevant documents held by the Department of Health on blood safety covering the period from 1970 to 1985 have been published, in line with the Freedom of Information Act, and are available on the National Archives website. As part of our response to Lord Penrose’s report, we are releasing all the relevant documents on blood safety that we hold for the period 1986 to 1995. The Government have been completely transparent and open about that, and given the inquiry all the documents it asked for. We are now releasing all the relevant documents, subject to that. Some of the issues the hon. Gentleman refers to are, I am afraid inevitably, because of the timing of this report, a matter for the next Government to consider in detail.

Ebola

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We are doing that already: we have made a commitment of 750 military personnel, who will be going to the affected region to help; we have military engineers helping to build the 92-bed facility in Kerry Town; and Royal Fleet Auxiliary Argus is on the way to Sierra Leone. We are tapping into that expertise, and it has a vital role to play.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Following on from the question put by my colleague from Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), clearly the nearest hospital to Scotland with provision is in Newcastle. Who is the responsible person with whom the Secretary of State has been working in Scotland? What arrangements are taking priority in Scottish towns, because someone who has 21 days to travel in the UK might not wish to stay in England alone?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman is right in what he says. This morning, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary spoke to Alex Neil, the Scottish health Minister, and on Wednesday we will have a Cobra meeting with the devolved Administrations to test how resilient the structures are between the constituent parts of the UK. That is a very important part of our effort.

Ankylosing Spondylitis

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) for allowing me to make a short speech.

When I was growing up, it was a role in my family that when the big brother went off to high school, the next brother was sent to live with my grandmother because she was in a wheelchair. She had always been in a wheelchair. Every morning, we had to get her up, and she was a big woman. She had been 6 feet tall when she was a young woman, and she had twisted feet and hands. We had to dress her in the morning, and it was difficult to do. I have memories of climbing on the bed, hauling her up and swinging her legs out to get her in the wheelchair, and getting her dressed. We did not know what it was—we just thought it was serious arthritis.

You may have recently heard me talk, Mr Speaker, about an uncle who was killed in McGurk’s bar. His sister is still living, and I go to visit her in Belfast. I have discovered that her son Joseph has had to retire from the civil service because he cannot move his neck at all. He explained to me that he had ankylosing spondylitis, and I had never heard of it before. He said that he had two cousins in the north—it is good that Members from Northern Ireland are here to listen to the debate—who were suffering from the same thing. He was diagnosed in his 40s, and he now knows that he will not be cured as he could have been if he had been diagnosed when he was young. Like my hon. Friend, he felt aches and pains, and he thought he was getting them from playing in the civil service football team, but it was actually the growth of the same problem in his body. Recently, a 38-year-old nephew, Paul, from Scotland, had a titanium hip joint replacement because the growth of the bone had basically broken his hip. Hon. Members talk about inflammation, but they seem to have a form of it that deals with bone growth. Their bones fuse early and grow in such a way that means they would end up cripples without treatment.

I fully endorse the campaign that my hon. Friend talked about, and I have spoken to the people from the National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society. One problem for my nephew was that he could not convince the people in the health service in Scotland that he had AS. In fact, he had a hip joint replacement that he might not have required if his AS had been diagnosed early enough and he had been treated for what I believe is a genetic disorder that runs in part of my family. Anything that the Government can do to make the matter a priority will save thousands, if not millions, of pounds and will save many people great pain.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

We are taking this extremely seriously. I should point out to my hon. Friend that there should be no exceptions to providing high-quality care, which includes high standards of respect for people’s privacy and dignity. We need robust information and the monthly publication of the breach figures, which will tell the public what is going on and allow the NHS to make progress. The previous Government dragged their feet on this issue with a complex system that was neither transparent nor effective.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

15. What steps he plans to take to reduce the incidence of tuberculosis.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)]

We expect NHS organisations and their partners to ensure early detection, treatment completion and co-ordinated action to prevent and control TB. The Department and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence have published supporting guidance. We are also continuing to support the charity TB Alert to raise public and professional awareness of TB.

[Michael Connarty]

I think the House should be concerned that in an excellent presentation back in September, it was explained that only 61% of people in London complete treatment for tuberculosis, that the incidence of tuberculosis in the UK is behind only the levels in Spain and Portugal, and that there were over 400,000 cases in the European Union in 2009. The London report that came out said that we had to invest in the service to provide a TB board for London and probably spread that to other big cities, where most of the people who have TB were not born in the UK.

[Anne Milton]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The World Health Organisation threshold for high instance is defined as 40 cases per 100,000. Of the 19 relevant primary care trusts in this country, 16 are in London. There is no doubt that this is a complex problem. In the past two decades, the increase in instances has come from people who were not born in this country. We are doing a number of things. The Home Office is reviewing the effectiveness of screening, and is running a pilot of pre-entry TB screening in areas of countries where there is a high instance. The problem is that it is not always detectable when people enter this country.