Animal Welfare (Service Animals) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Oliver Heald and Stephen McPartland

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Sir Oliver Heald]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that. Sometimes the House can come together and do good things, and this is an example of that. Perhaps we will see other examples before too long. I thank him and I commend the Bill and clauses 1 and 2 to the Committee.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

I just want to speak briefly, as the incident happened in my constituency of Stevenage, and I want to put on the record my thanks to PC Dave Wardell, police dog Finn, and the campaigners, and to my right hon. and learned Friend. Without his vast experience of being Solicitor General and his roles in the Ministry of Justice, we would not have been able to get the Bill written in such a form as to get past all the blocking tactics we found within some Government Departments.

I fully support the Bill, as do all Members in the House, as I understand. I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for the great work he has done in creating this cross-party passionate effort to ensure that working service animals are protected.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

I thank everyone on the Committee today, particularly the right hon. and learned Member for North East Hertfordshire for introducing this extremely important Bill. It is absolutely and fully supported by the Scottish National party and the all-party parliamentary dog advisory welfare group, which I chair. We have had the pleasure of a visit from Finn and Dave Wardell to meet parliamentarians and speak about the tragic case and why it is so important for the Bill to be enacted, in order to correct the wrong of treating service animals as objects under the law, and for us to congratulate these service animals, in line with public opinion, on all the work they do to keep citizens safe, and to protect them going forward.

A proposal is already going through the Scottish Parliament and these measures have been accepted there as a Bill. I am hopeful that we can move forward collectively to ensure that animal welfare standards, particularly Finn’s law, go forward with aplomb today, and that we add to those levels of protection across the United Kingdom.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Oliver Heald and Stephen McPartland

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland]

It is a great pleasure to be called in this debate and to follow such wonderful speeches from my colleagues. I understand that the Treasury publishes the distributional analysis of the cumulative impact of the Government’s tax, welfare and public services.

I have never been shy about voting with the Opposition if I believe that they are right, but I do not believe they are right in this case. That is because the review that they are asking for, which focuses predominantly on households with different income levels, and issues around Treasury analysis, just provides more data and more analysis, and that is not going to help people on the lowest incomes or those from disadvantaged backgrounds to move forward in life. It seems to be very academic as opposed to actually helping people to push forward and achieve opportunities. For me, the real challenge in this country is inequality in opportunity and in life chances. At the moment, the best way of changing one’s life chances is still through getting a great education. I am proud of the Government’s record, with millions more children being educated in good or outstanding schools. We should all be proud of that on both sides of the House.

As I say, I am not shy about voting with the Opposition if I believe they are right. I have campaigned on—

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in Hertfordshire we have seen a lot of investment in the schools sector, which is helping to achieve the sort of results that he is talking about, with, for example, Highfield School in my constituency being completely rebuilt recently?

[Stephen McPartland]

I do agree with my right hon. and learned Friend. I have another colleague from Hertfordshire here as well—my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami). We have seen massive investment in our area. I am very proud of the number of primary schools that have been expanded and rebuilt in my constituency. A couple of secondary schools have also been rebuilt, creating great opportunities for the pupils. I am also very proud that all the primary schools in my constituency are rated “good” or “outstanding”. It is probably one of the few constituencies in the country where that is the case. Four of my six secondary schools are good, and the other two we are currently dealing with. I hope that by the time of the next election I will be one of the few Members of Parliament where every single child in my constituency will be in a good or outstanding school.

I do not believe that new clause 9 provides equality of opportunity and equality of aspiration. It will do nothing to help people in my constituency from disadvantaged—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Oliver Heald]

I am sure my hon. Friend agrees, as many would, that the Treasury produces excellent research documents, and research is an important thing, but are these further demands for research not indicative of the difference between the parties, which is that they are the researchers, and we are the doers?

[Stephen McPartland]

I could never disagree with my right hon. and learned Friend. He always makes a powerful point.

One of the biggest challenges in society is intergenerational fairness. I do not think that new clause 9 captures some of the issues we face as a society and the challenges facing different generations. There are some people living in large houses, paying high council tax rates and on very low fixed incomes. There are young people who may be considered quite affluent but still cannot afford to purchase a property in their part of the country. In a different part of the country, they could easily afford to purchase a property but may not be able to get a job, so cannot get a mortgage. Intergenerational fairness is incredibly important, and the Government have tried to spread wealth throughout the country through the northern powerhouse.

I think that the Conservative Government have tried very hard. They have not always got it right, and I have voted against them when I believed they have got it wrong, but they have tried consistently to help people get on in life and provide a welfare system that is a safety net for those who need it in times of difficulty.

In this country, education is still the best way out of poverty and the best opportunity people have to change their life chances. I am proud of what the Government have done to ensure that millions more children are being taught in good and outstanding schools. When it comes to the economy, we have record rates of employment, with people out there earning, paying tax and contributing to society.

Radiotherapy Services (North East Hertfordshire)

Debate between Oliver Heald and Stephen McPartland

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Sir Oliver Heald]

I totally agree with my right hon. Friend. There are many arguments for the change. One patient from east Hertfordshire, who is a constituent of mine, said:

“Being diagnosed with cancer is devastating for the person and the family and to discover that part of the treatment involves regular journeys to north London just adds to the stress that family is undergoing.”

Another aspect to consider is patients with children. One constituent wrote to me about her daughter, who is in her 30s and has three children. She needs radiotherapy at Mount Vernon and will have to find someone to travel with her and someone to look after her children on a daily basis for three weeks. Her mother says:

“This all adds to the stress of having to deal with cancer, especially at such a young age.”

She ends her letter to me:

“Here’s hoping we are successful in making someone see sense.”

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend on securing this debate, which is important to my constituents in Stevenage. He and I have secured the support of the local newspaper, The Comet, and have run a petition over a number of years to improve radiotherapy access. We have dealt with thousands of people. There is no public transport available for them to get from Stevenage in north-east Hertfordshire to Hillingdon in London, so they are very much stuck with having to have private vehicles and people to support them.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

That is very much the nub of the issue: there is no alternative to the car or the bus, and the bus takes a day to take patients and bring them back.

The NHS is currently mapping the country to find areas where it takes more than 45 minutes by car to reach radiotherapy, in order to assess pressing need for new and satellite centres. My hon. Friend and I have been in contact with Kim Fell of NHS England about this issue. We have arranged to meet her, Ruth Derrett, who is the head of specialised services, Dr Adrian Crellin, who is the radiotherapy clinical reference group chair, and Pam Evans of the specialised commissioning team, because they think that the journey from our area takes less than 45 minutes.

We have been told that, as part of the review, the National Clinical Analysis and Specialised Applications Team has produced a map that shows the 45-minute position across our area. Apparently, the map shows that only a small proportion of the population of Stevenage travels more than 45 minutes for treatment, and questions have been asked about whether that would generate sufficient activity for the satellite service that we are asking for.

The methodology used is clearly flawed, so we are pressing on the 45 minute figure. Even if one ignores the heavy traffic congestion in our area—my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage and I have been campaigning for some years to widen the A1(M) between Stevenage and Welwyn because it is so congested, and we have recently got about £100 million for it—the AA, the RAC and everyone who does that journey all say that it takes longer than 45 minutes. The senior management at the trust that runs both hospitals, East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, allows one hour 15 minutes each way for the journey. I have done the journey only once, and it took me two hours in the rush hour. I have offered to do the drive seven times at different times of the day using the three possible routes and to report the findings to NHS England. I am waiting to hear whether it considers that to be a satisfactory methodology. My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage and I have suggested that the key officials might like to come with us on the journey one morning at the same time as the bus, so that they can see the challenge to the 45 minute figure.

I am arguing that Mount Vernon hospital should put a satellite radiotherapy centre at the Lister hospital. We like the Mount Vernon hospital—the treatment there is excellent—so we would like it to use its staff and machines at the Lister. The machines that they use do need to be replaced from time to time, and there are currently eight of them. I am told that fairly soon an opportunity will arise when two need to be replaced. The new machines should be sited at the Lister hospital. That would leave six at Hillingdon and allow Mount Vernon to offer its expertise to an even wider area, thereby securing its position as a cancer centre. It would be able to offer services to a larger group in Bedfordshire, for example, than it currently can. That would benefit the status of Mount Vernon hospital as well as helping the patients.

The Lister hospital has recently benefited from the opening of the wonderful Macmillan cancer care centre on its site. Radiotherapy would greatly improve the support and care available to people in our area. Patients and their relatives strongly support the idea of the move, which has been described to me as “wonderful”. Another person wrote to me to say:

“It would be fabulous to have the device at Lister. It makes sense as we have just opened a great cancer chemotherapy unit”.

I hope that the Minister might intercede on our behalf with NHS England so that our case can be properly considered. The idea that it takes 45 minutes or less from our area to Mount Vernon must be reconsidered. It is time for a satellite radiotherapy centre at the Lister, but we need help to make it happen. I intend to present a petition to Parliament in March. We already have hundreds of signatures, and it can be downloaded from my website: www.oliverheald.com. I will present it on the Floor of the House. My right hon. and hon. Friends, our constituents and I feel strongly that it is time for the change to be made. It is time that those endless journeys, hour after hour, day after day, ended.

Respiratory Health

Debate between Oliver Heald and Stephen McPartland

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I would like to talk about respiratory disease, which affects one in five people in the UK, is responsible for about 1 million hospital admissions and costs the NHS almost £5 billion a year. It is also the third biggest cause of death in the UK. It is the poor relation compared with the investment that goes into tackling the other four big conditions. To put that into context, in 2012, respiratory disease killed 80,000 people—that does not include lung cancer, which killed an additional 35,500 people.

The UK also has the highest mortality rate for respiratory disease among the OECD nations, double that of countries such as Poland and Germany and treble that of countries such as Estonia and Finland. Sadly, the worst thing about those statistics is that many of the deaths would be preventable with the right care. I understand and welcome the announcement by the Secretary of State that he is making it a priority for NHS England to prevent people from dying prematurely from respiratory disease. His ambition is to make us one of the best in Europe for survival rates by improving prevention, diagnosis and treatment. That is a very big statement and a huge aspiration when we are talking about reducing respiratory deaths in this country by almost two thirds.

I want to focus my remarks predominantly on asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—known as COPD—which together affect almost 6 million people in the UK, including me. I am chairman of the all-party group on respiratory health. With the support of Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, we conducted an inquiry into respiratory deaths in an effort to help the Government and the NHS to understand why so many people are dying from these conditions and what can be done to prevent that. I am grateful to the other members of the all-party group for their support, and for the amazing contributions that we receive from patients.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work as chairman of the all-party group. What does he make of the NICE evidence that about a third of the people who are receiving treatment should not be, while there is such a lot of undiagnosed asthma? That seems very odd.

[Stephen McPartland]

My hon. and learned Friend makes an incredibly important point, to which I will return later. The information that has come out of NICE is sadly testament to the complacency that we see regarding the effects of respiratory disease, and to how some professionals and patients treat the condition, ultimately resulting in those patients’ deaths.

Contributors to the all-party group’s report include health care professionals, charities, patients, families and professional organisations, as well as a range of other people who contributed both written and verbal evidence. I will read the story of one of those people a little later, but first I want to look at chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is an umbrella term for a set of conditions that includes bronchitis and emphysema. Combined, such conditions kill more than 30,000 people a year in the UK—around 5% of all deaths in the UK from all causes. A COPD patient’s journey is often punctuated by multiple exacerbations, which are sudden worsenings of the symptoms, often triggered by external factors such as infection and problems with air quality, that often lead to hospitalisation.

To put it into context, people suffering from COPD exacerbations are the second most common cause of emergency hospital admissions in this country, the biggest being ischaemic heart disease, which is effectively coronary heart disease—heart attacks and strokes. It is estimated that COPD leads to 94,000 admissions a year, with cold weather often a major contributory factor. The direct costs on the NHS are more than £800 million a year, so COPD is causing a huge problem in terms of the costs for the NHS and the impact on individual patients. One of the worst statistics that the all-party group’s inquiry came across was that 50% of people who are admitted to hospital with severe COPD die within four years—once it has reached the stage of their being admitted to hospital, they sadly have a life expectancy of four years.

National Health Service

Debate between Oliver Heald and Stephen McPartland

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

I am proud of the NHS and I am proud of its staff. The Lister hospital in my constituency is very large and employs thousands and thousands of staff who, I am proud to say, save lives on a daily basis. The hospital is one of the NHS’s big success stories, as it is currently undergoing a £150 million redevelopment.

I spend a lot of time at the hospital, because I am always opening things and looking at new plans and buildings, which include a new endoscopy unit and theatre, a new A and E unit and a new theatre and ward block, none of which have as yet been fully opened. I have opened a variety of other units, including new scanning units. Some £150 million has been invested in the NHS in Stevenage, which is the biggest ever investment in the NHS in Hertfordshire’s history. As the county predates the Norman Conquest, Members will understand that that is a pretty big investment.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the investment and the fantastic facilities of his hospital. In my neighbouring constituency, we say that if someone wants to find the Lister hospital, they should look for the cranes, which are there for the construction of all the new buildings. Does he agree that it has taken a Conservative-led Government to make those improvements?

Local Media

Debate between Oliver Heald and Stephen McPartland

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Stephen McPartland]

Before the Division, we were discussing what the Prime Minister said about local newspapers being a great vehicle for social change, and I want to refer to a couple of campaigns that I have run with local newspapers in my area. One campaign sought to bring the carnival back to Stevenage, and that had great success last year. We are currently running a campaign with a different newspaper to have a satellite radiotherapy unit based at the Lister hospital in Stevenage. Patients from Stevenage who undergo radiotherapy currently have to travel nearly 4,000 miles during the course of their treatment. We think that that is a little too far, and that treatment should be available somewhere closer.

[Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

That issue also affects my constituents in the neighbouring constituency of North East Hertfordshire. Does my hon. Friend agree that the local media have been extremely helpful in supporting that campaign and fighting to help cancer sufferers, who currently have a difficult journey, to receive treatment?

[Stephen McPartland]

My hon. Friend makes a good point; he has been a great advocate and supporter of the campaign and has led the way in North East Hertfordshire. As he rightly says, without the support of local newspapers, the campaign would not have achieved such massive community penetration or have been mobilised into a big, cross-party issue locally. The campaign is going well.

We are also running a campaign to stop the expansion of Luton airport because, although Luton would get all the jobs, Stevenage and particularly North East Hertfordshire would get all the aircraft noise. If there are to be quieter aircraft, we are keen for them to turn up, and we would be interested in getting the truth about those figures. Local newspapers are a great vehicle for change and something that I support.

Local newspapers face great competition from new media, although many of them are embracing that competition and in many ways turning themselves into embryonic versions of the local multi-media companies that the Minister and I support so well. Local newspapers are trying hard to move forward by doing a lot of work on the internet, accessing a variety of other platforms and starting to move into radio and so on. However, they face a great deal of competition, and although they are tackling that head-on, there is concern over the behaviour of some local authorities.

I would be interested to hear the Minister’s views on whether local authorities should spend taxpayers’ money on advertising in local newspapers, as opposed to producing propaganda that a large number of local residents are not particularly interested in reading, so it quickly ends up in the bin. For example, the Stevenage Chronicle is not particularly well supported. The problem with such propaganda is that taxpayers have no interest in it, and given the choice they would scrap it right away rather than see other services reduced. The local media market is distorted because local newspapers come under severe financial pressure when local authorities—whether county or district authorities—produce their own material.

What are the Minister’s thoughts about the current Department for Transport consultation on removing the mandatory advertisement of things such as road closures and planning applications in local newspapers? It is very important that that is reviewed. I am interested in his views, simply because I think that such a move will undermine further the financial viability of local newspapers.