Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Norman Lamb and Margot James

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to improve mobile phone coverage throughout the UK.

[The Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries (Margot James)]

Our ambition is to have good mobile coverage where people live, work and travel. I welcome the coverage obligations that Ofcom recently proposed ahead of the 700 MHz and 3.6 GHz to 3.8 GHz spectrum auctions. We have reformed the electronic communications code and made changes to planning laws, all to encourage the roll-out of digital infrastructure by making deployment cheaper.

[Norman Lamb]

People living in part of North Walsham in my constituency have been waiting years for any signal at all. They thought their wait was over when a mast was erected in November 2017 but, despite constant pressure on BT Openreach, it still has not been connected. Openreach needs to lay cables across land owned by Anglian Water. Should we not be able to compel these monopolies to provide a service to local people?

[Margot James]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. We are looking to improve and strengthen the requirements on landowners to allow access to their land for vital infrastructure.

Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation

Debate between Norman Lamb and Margot James

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question, which goes to the heart of what we expect the new centre to be examining and advising on. She raises crucial questions, which are definitely within the remit of the new centre.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

As Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, I can confirm that it warmly welcomes the establishment of the centre. One of the issues the Government response to the consultation did not really cover was whether the centre’s remit will include the ability to advise on the need for clearer guidelines on the sharing of public sector data, so that the enormous datasets within the NHS and other public services can be shared for the public benefit while also maintaining trust.

[Margot James]

I thank the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee for his question, particularly as it has reminded me of something I overlooked in my answer to the previous one. It is absolutely essential that public trust is earned and reinforced, because surveys that I have seen indicate that the public have something of a crisis of trust in the way in which personal data is currently being analysed—

Learning Disabilities (Care in the Community)

Debate between Norman Lamb and Margot James

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) on securing the debate and thank him for doing so. I do not think I disagree with a single word he said in his speech today. The right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) also talked about the scandalous case of Connor Sparrowhawk. I have met his mother and what happened there should shock us all. There was acknowledged negligence in the care and these things simply cannot go by without a proper and effective response to stop repeats of this sort of thing ever happening again.

One thing that the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill focused on was the families, to whom I pay enormous tribute for their campaigning. What is most shocking when one talks to them is the sense that they are not listened to—that they raise their concerns with public bodies and get no effective response. They are ignored and that should shock us all.

The right hon. Gentleman also said that it is an ongoing scandal and a scandalous misuse of public money, and I completely agree with him. This has now gone on for very many years. It is an unacceptable remnant of the previous system of institutional care that has to come to an end. The thing that has depressed me in this job, more than any other aspect of it, is the extent to which it is so difficult to change the culture that allows this sort of thing to carry on. There is the sense that those commissioning care seem, it appears, to be willing to carry on with business as usual, when we know that the outcomes for those individuals are not acceptable, and that very many of these individuals are able to live a better life in supported living in their communities. The imperative to achieve change is as strong as ever, and for as long as I am in this job, I will do everything I can to try to change things.

Because of my total frustration about the way in which commissioning has happened, I chose to go out to visit one 17-year-old girl a couple of weeks ago in an assessment and treatment centre to see it for myself, and to see the barriers that that family are up against and the problems that they have had engaging with the commissioners of care, which, in that case, is NHS England. Indeed, with regard to the case of Josh that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, I have invited the clinical commissioning group to come into my office on, I think, 22 July, together with NHS England and with the family, so that we can get to the bottom of what has gone wrong and try to achieve a solution. I am prepared to intervene in this way if necessary, to force change to a situation that I regard as completely unacceptable.

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to focus on the needs of people who, as the right hon. Gentleman said, are among the most vulnerable in our society. Many of us share the concern that people with learning disabilities and their families are still getting an unacceptable raw deal from the health and care system, from other public services, and from society in general. People with learning disabilities have exactly the same rights as anyone else, yet they continue to experience discrimination, abuse and a basic lack of respect for their fundamental rights. That should shock us all.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

I am most encouraged by my hon. Friend’s remarks, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) on securing this important debate. Has my hon. Friend come across the organisation based just outside my constituency, Changing Our Lives? It was founded by Jayne Leeson, who was awarded the MBE for her services in this area. It is doing such innovative work that demonstrates clearly the potential of people currently in residential care with learning disabilities, who can live a most fulfilling life outside, in the community, through supported living.

[Norman Lamb]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I would be interested to hear further information about the organisation to which she refers. It is clear that sometimes a leap of faith is required to give a person the chance of a better life outside, and the system is horribly risk averse. We know that the main cause of decisions to keep people in assessment and treatment centres is the clinical judgment that the person needs to stay there, so that needs to be challenged. I want to give people the right to a second opinion and I am in discussions with Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, to give people that right, because we have to find ways of giving a voice to people who hitherto have felt that they are ignored and not listened to and that nothing ever changes.

I pay tribute to the two organisations mentioned by the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill: Mencap and the Challenging Behaviour Foundation, which have continued to make the case on behalf of people with learning disabilities.

Winterbourne View and the appalling abuse of people there reminded us that there is still a massively long way to go to ensure that people are safe and get the right support—the support that they need. The Government’s review following the Winterbourne View case looked at the systemic issues facing people with learning disabilities and their families. At the end of the review, we published the concordat—the right hon. Gentleman referred to that—bringing together all the national organisations to commit to change. In a way, the most distressing thing is that I felt that organisations committing to the concordat and the change set out in it were doing that with a seriousness of intent that they would deliver on. The lack of change that there has been since then is really shocking, given that they committed to achieving that change. Eighteen months on, we all need to remind ourselves that progress so far has not been nearly good enough and that we all need to continue to work in partnership to deliver on the commitments solemnly made at the start of all this.

I have said recently, and the information that we have shows, that far too many people with learning disabilities are still stuck in hospitals, often hundreds of miles from home and in many cases for years, with serious questions about whether they are getting the right care and support.

I have also met Mike Richards, the chief inspector of hospitals, and Paul Lelliott, the deputy chief inspector for mental health, to ensure that the Care Quality Commission challenges organisations. If someone is living in an assessment and treatment centre, which is there for assessment and treatment, not for long-term living, surely it is not delivering the right model of care. That needs to be challenged by the Care Quality Commission and not simply accepted and tolerated.

Collectively, we need to be honest and say that the system has so far completely failed to deliver on the commitment made in the concordat significantly to reduce the number of people with learning disabilities who are in effect living in hospitals—for whom hospital is their home.

NHS

Debate between Norman Lamb and Margot James

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I certainly think we have to avoid any repeat of what happened in Bournemouth. It is absolutely right for politicians to make that clear.

The Labour party has tried to paint a picture of crisis in A and E. We know that there is more pressure on this vital service.

[Margot James]

My hon. Friend is making some excellent points about Labour’s record of inviting competition into the NHS when in office. The success of that record might have been the reason why Labour’s manifesto in 2010 promised:

“Patients requiring elective care will have the right, in law, to choose from any provider who meets NHS standards of quality at NHS costs”.

[Norman Lamb]

If I am right, that is called “any qualified provider” or “any willing provider”, which is exactly what this Government have pursued. Labour’s rewriting of history is breathtaking.

There are 1.2 million more people visiting A and E than three years ago—the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) is right that the system is under pressure—but the increase in the number of A and E attendances peaked in 2009-10, under the previous Labour Government, when there was a year-on-year increase of 4.7%. Since then, the increase has been slower, and in the last full year for which data are available it was just 1.2%—clear evidence that the Government’s policies are starting to work.

Doctors and nurses in our A and E departments up and down the country are doing brilliant work. Last week the NHS not only met the four-hour A and E target, but improved on its score from the same time last year. By contrast, in Labour-run Wales, A and E targets have not been met since 2009. The College of Emergency Medicine has said that Welsh A and E departments are on their knees, at the “point of meltdown”, and are putting patients at risk in Labour-run Wales. The college has complained of the ruthless

“pursuit of targets and financial balance at the expense of quality of care.”

In England, we have already met the target for more weeks this winter than when the right hon. Member for Leigh was Health Secretary. He missed his A and E target for two of his three quarters—was that a crisis in those days?—whereas we are seeing 2,000 more patients every day in under four hours than when Labour was in government. Ambulance performance is better than at the same time last year, meaning more ambulances arriving on scene in under eight minutes. Across the country, delays in handing over patients at A and E have dropped by a third compared with last year as a result of new sanctions, so we are not complacent.

As my hon. Friends the Members for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and for Witham (Priti Patel) rightly said, we are sorting the problem. Opposition Members would like people to think that the NHS is going to ruin. They are so desperate—using the examples of scurvy and rickets. Of course, when that happens it is incredibly serious, but to suggest that that is part of the problem is outrageous. We heard the figures for scurvy, but there were 66 admissions for rickets in 2010-11 and 65 in 2012-13, so the figure has gone down. The truth is that we inherited a dysfunctional system that was crying out for reform—too many people ending up in hospital because of crises in their care, and far too much money spent on bureaucracy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Witham made clear.

For years I have argued the case for a different approach. We are making the essential changes and supporting NHS staff through difficult times. For this winter we are investing an additional £400 million in total—more than ever before. Having put plans in place earlier than ever before, with urgent care boards deciding what works in local areas, we are already seeing the benefit of those additional funds, with 320 more doctors, 1,400 more nurses, 1,200 other staff—occupational therapists, physiotherapists and so on—and more than 2,000 additional beds.

Throughout this debate we have heard that urgent and emergency care needs to change, and rightly so, but may I remind the House that we are the Government who are making that change? We have asked Bruce Keogh to undertake a fundamental review of urgent and emergency care, but there are still far too many people ending up in hospital because of crises in care. There are too many people with long-term conditions who are still receiving unco-ordinated care. That is frustrating for the patient, it wastes money for the system and it can lead to worse health outcomes, as we fail to prevent such conditions from getting worse. It is our aim in government to join up services, fitting them around people’s lives and providing better care closer to home.

The right hon. Member for Leigh seems to have had a recent damascene conversion to the case for integration. It is a shame that in the 13 years his party had in power, it did nothing significant to achieve it. In fact, many of the things it did and the decisions it made took the NHS in the wrong direction—on tariffs, on incentivising more activity in hospitals, on the disastrous private finance initiative and on the equally disastrous GP contract. I am proud to say that it is this Government who are taking the practical steps to make integration more commonplace throughout the country. We have selected 14 integrated care pioneers and we now have the £3.8 billion better care fund to achieve joined-up care throughout the country.

The truth is that the right hon. Gentleman and the whole of the Opposition have systematically dismissed the real issue with empty rhetoric. They want better care in A and E, yet we have started the reforms that will revolutionise urgent and emergency care. They want the health and care services to become more integrated. We are leading the charge to make that happen, and to improve care and support for people throughout the country. They want us to change competition law. We have made it clearer and easier to understand, and have balanced that with the need for integration, and the need to help doctors to know how and when to use it.

The Opposition are fighting their own shadow. Well, they can shadow-box all they want. They can waste time complaining rather than coming up with solutions, but this Government are actually tackling the issues, and making the changes to the health and care system that patients so desperately need.

Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Norman Lamb and Margot James

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

I welcome this week’s report by Cranfield School of Management, which shows an increase in the number of women on company boards. Does my hon. Friend agree that this shows both how success can be achieved without imposing quotas and how much further there is to go before British industry can access the much-increased pool of talent that including women will reveal?

[Norman Lamb]

The initiative taken by the noble Lord Davies has been remarkably successful. Some 26% of appointments to directorships of FTSE 100 companies over the last year have been women. That is a dramatic improvement on the previous position, and we have every confidence that it will have a continuing improving effect in the boardrooms in this country.