Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be addressing that in a little while. The whole issue of reflective learning is important. We should not, through this case, prevent people from being honest about the experiences that they have had.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

20. Energy drinks packed with caffeine have been connected to problems with children’s health. Tesco, Asda and Aldi have banned the sale of these drinks to under-16s, so will the Government do the same?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

We are becoming increasingly conscious of drinks with additional unnatural stimulants and their impact on people’s health generally, but obviously that becomes more acute with children’s health, so we will look more closely at it. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has highlighted the initiatives that have been taken by individual retailers, because it is up to them to implement good practice.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Steve Brine)]

I have listened carefully to cancer charities, clinicians and patients on the importance of the cancer patient experience survey. I have been clear that, whatever form the CPES takes as a result of the changes to how confidential data is shared, we want the survey to continue with a methodology as close to that of the current survey as possible.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

T2. Last week at PMQs, the Prime Minister made an inaccurate statement about the emergency health services in Wales. The chair of the UK Statistics Authority concluded that the Prime Minister’s comparison was not valid. Comparisons on the performance of our NHS are important, so will Government Ministers check their partisan figures in future?

[The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Stephen Barclay)]

It is interesting, looking at the comparisons, to see that the NHS in Wales appears to have changed a number of them, to make it more difficult to compare performance between England and Wales. The more scrutiny there is of the performance in Wales—where clinicians say that the best performance often equates to the worst performance in England—the more we will see the need for serious changes in the way in which the NHS delivers its services in Wales.