Business of the House

Paul Farrelly Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I recall that in the later stages of the previous Session, there was a debate on community hospitals and I am pleased to see that Simon Stevens, the new chief executive of NHS England, has taken the matter up. When we took office, it was very important to us to have a greater focus on delivering care close to people’s homes, to improve people’s ability to step out of the high-cost acute hospitals so that they could concentrate on their job, and to give a focus to local commissioners. Often, it is the new local clinical commissioning groups that best understand how community hospitals can serve the people they look after.

[Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

May we have a debate on compensation for losses caused by the passport fiasco? In my office over the past few weeks, we have been trying to help people left in a desperate situation by the chaos, and it will not have escaped the country’s notice that the word “sorry” did not once pass the Home Secretary’s lips. She did not address the issue of compensation, either. Is it not only fair for people who apply for passports in good faith and in good time and who suffer losses—for example, by having to cancel their holidays—to be compensated? May we have a debate on that?

[Mr Lansley]

I think that the Home Secretary fully responded to the questions raised just before business questions. I am sure that in future we will be able to look after our constituents much better, in the way that she described, by being able to raise urgent cases. In my experience as a constituency Member of Parliament, when we have had to raise cases we have been able to get through on the MPs’ helpline and resolve them rapidly.