Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Penny Mordaunt and Steve Rotheram

Monday 15th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Penny Mordaunt)]

My Department has worked with Merseyside partners to ensure that individuals and businesses are signposted to business support. My Department’s demand notice will not seek to reclaim any of the money from the 17 supporting organisations which operated in good faith throughout the process.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Minister believes what she has said, but it is not entirely accurate, and it does not entirely answer the question. Social Enterprise North West has been ordered to pay back nearly £1.5 million, although it observed the funding requirements that were laid down by her own Department, and hundreds of jobs and businesses are endangered as a result. Has she received representations from councillors, Members of Parliament, Members of the European Parliament and local businesses—I have been told that she has—and what will she do to right her Department’s wrong?

[Penny Mordaunt]

It is not just a question of our accounting requirements; it is a question of the European Commission’s rules, and they are perfectly clear. Failing to provide evidence of the way in which money is spent puts funding at risk, and it is totally unacceptable that Social Enterprise North West cannot provide proper accounts for that public money. However, I can give the hon. Gentleman some reassurance. We will not be recouping money from the 17 supporting contractors which operated in good faith, no match funding has been lost, and the money from the European regional development fund that is being returned from the project will be reinvested in other existing business support services in the Liverpool city region.

Sudden Adult Death Syndrome

Debate between Penny Mordaunt and Steve Rotheram

Monday 25th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Steve Rotheram]

Again, I could not agree more. John Moores and other universities have done fantastic work. I looked at some of the material from the Football Association. It runs the association football medical screening programme for youth trainees, which involves the screening of 750 youth players. The International Olympic Committee has recommended that all countries screen their athletes to minimise the risk of SADS. That indicates the benefits of screening, so let us look at an early intervention strategy for at-risk groups as an initial step.

Even in the past week, it has been pleasing to see the Football Association and the British Heart Foundation form a £1.2 million fund to ensure that 900 defibrillators are made available to clubs in non-league football and the women’s super league. That is real action that will make a real difference, but although it is encouraging that sport has woken up to this condition and recognised what I would term its social and moral responsibility, there is more work for the medical profession to do and more support for the Government of this country and our partners across the developed world to give.

A simple ECG can expose whether a patient has irregular electrical or structural problems with their heart that can lead to SADS. Currently, however, standard cardiovascular risk assessment screening is not as precise as it needs to be in identifying symptoms relating to sudden cardiac arrest, which is why the British Heart Foundation is undertaking vital research into the genetics around SADS, on which it hopes to publish a report shortly. In the meantime, the Government can play a leading role in encouraging pathologists and coroners who determine that a person has died of SADS to inform immediate family members to ensure that they receive an ECG at the earliest possible opportunity. The Government should also support the medical industry’s work to improve the scientific precision of screening. Such Government measures should form part of the proposed new national strategy to improve heart safety and reduce preventable deaths from sudden cardiac arrest, as set out in the motion.

I hope that today’s debate and any subsequent debates will achieve a number of things, but it is pivotal that the imperative relationship between CPR and defibrillators is exposed: a defibrillator on its own cannot save a life; CPR on its own has an outside chance of saving a life, but the two together have a more than 50% chance of saving a life. How do we know? Ask people such as Fabrice Muamba. His collapse on a football pitch, in front of thousands of spectators at White Hart Lane and millions watching on television, was perhaps the most graphic illustration of SADS, and his recovery is the best example of what can be achieved with swift and targeted intervention.

Bystanders witness more than half the cardiac arrests that occur in public, but not enough people have the life-saving skills to help those heart attack victims. CPR is the first action in the chain of survival and is crucial in the first minutes after a cardiac arrest, because it helps keep oxygen moving around the body, including the brain, which is why the British Heart Foundation campaign tells us to phone 999 and press hard and fast to the beat of “Staying Alive”. It is a simple message, which works, and we have all seen it on television. CPR essentially buys a patient time. A defibrillator starts the heart, but cannot be used on a still heart, so unless CPR is administered, a defibrillator is effectively useless.

That point is crucial, and is at the heart of—forgive the pun—why colleagues and I, in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh, chose to include first aid in today’s motion. Medical experts believe that CPR combined with a defibrillator shock can triple the survival chances of somebody who has suffered a cardiac arrest outside hospital. I shall repeat that: it can triple survival chances. That is extraordinary. CPR and a defibrillator shock can buy paramedics time to arrive, prevent serious brain damage and ultimately increase the chance of a full recovery. I am not sure that there is any need for further debate. If someone’s child or loved one had a cardiac arrest, would they not want to triple their chance of survival?

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate. I add my sentiments to those expressed already on the wonderful work that the OK Foundation and the King family have done. I pay tribute to South Central ambulance service, which does wonderful training in my constituency. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, although it is tremendous that community organisations have invested in equipment and training in their localities, a benefit of a national push, such as that that we had with digital hearing aids, is that it drives down the cost of equipment and training, no matter who pays for it? It is important to get across that message about why we should put more oomph behind such work.

[Steve Rotheram]

It is an excellent point, which I will mention later in my contribution. The hon. Lady is absolutely right. If we persuaded the Government, Government bodies, large organisations or a combination of people to purchase AEDs, the price would plummet because they would order in bulk. I think they are £1,200 to £1,500 per unit at the moment, but empirical evidence from other countries shows that, when they are purchased in large volumes, their price comes down to almost 40% of the original cost.

Finally, I shall address directly what the Government can do to help, and it is simple: legislation. It can be done in a controlled and progressive manner and, in the current economic conditions, it need not cost the earth. Legislate first in education: enshrine mandatory emergency life skills training in the curriculum; ensure that every child who walks out of school at 16 or 18 possesses life-saving skills, and ensure that this Parliament, here and now, commits to having a new generation of life savers. We have the support to do it. Will we need to come back with another 100,000 signatures to get the Government to act? According to a British Heart Foundation survey in 2011, 86% of school teachers agree that such skills should be part of the curriculum, 78% of children said that they wanted to be taught how to save someone’s life in an emergency, and 70% of parents thought that children should be taught emergency life skills in school. When we place emergency life skills education in the context of my earlier point about the relationship between CPR and defibrillators, we begin to see just how many lives we could save daily, monthly and yearly.

The Government, though the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, should introduce legislation such as the Canadian province of Manitoba’s Defibrillator Public Access Act. In Canada, public consultation and medical expertise identified the most likely places for a person to suffer a cardiac arrest—apart from in hospital, of course—and legislated to ensure that all those buildings, such as gyms, football stadiums, golf courses, schools and airports, had to have an AED fitted by January 2014.

There is also a financial argument: fitting AEDs could save the NHS millions of pounds, because survivors would not need the same degree of critical care or, potentially, aftercare. To discredit further the myth that it would be too expensive, let us once again put it into context: a defibrillator costs about the same as a PC and if we put AEDs in public buildings, that cost will come down, as the hon. Lady identified, as it does for other equipment ordered in bulk.

Contaminated Blood and Blood Products

Debate between Penny Mordaunt and Steve Rotheram

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Steve Rotheram]

I absolutely agree, and the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) agrees with our view as well. He said:

“It really is time that as a Country, as a government (and forget whatever Party it is), we should now take responsibility for this. It’s a completely shocking scandal.”

Let me tell Members about what happened to a constituent of mine, Mr Christopher Munn. In 1981, he was mugged and stabbed. He received a blood transfusion and contracted hepatitis C. For years, Mr Munn fought for recognition, support and compensation but, unable to afford legal representation, he found himself led a merry dance, and was swatted away like some bothersome pest. An initial application to the Skipton Fund was rejected but, thankfully, on appeal, some 25 years after being infected he was awarded a few thousand pounds. Now, £25,000 or £45,000 is no small sum, but if we do the maths it quickly becomes apparent how risible that amount actually is when spread over 25 years and more.

This issue is largely about the money of course. Many victims, severely debilitated by conditions developed as a direct result of contaminated blood, have been struggling to meet their medical needs, let alone achieve a comfortable standard of living. However, the issue is also about the need for acknowledgement. Victims need the state to accept unreservedly and unconditionally its responsibility for their plight, and to meet its moral obligations. For the NHS and, by extension, the current Government to retain their integrity, they must make amends. To those who have challenged Labour Members with comments such as, “But what did your Government do about it?”, my answer is very simple: not enough.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Steve Rotheram]

No, as I am conscious of time.

The bottom line is that successive Governments irrespective of their political persuasion hesitated over investing resources and setting precedents. They were all equally culpable in failing the victims, but rather than bang on about who did or did not do what and when, let us finally seize the opportunity to right a terrible wrong.

I fully appreciate that money is tight, but morality is absolute, not some relative concept that expands and contracts to suit circumstances. We cannot as a society be more moral in good times than in bad. The Government have spoken about compassion and fairness and “the caring society”. They have no option but to put their money where their mouth is in order to put right a decade-old wrong.

Football Clubs (Governance)

Debate between Penny Mordaunt and Steve Rotheram

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[Steve Rotheram]

The dichotomy is that in some of the foreign models where football supporters are represented on boards, match ticket prices are much lower than in the premier league. Anyone who goes to Europe—as we will do this year, although on a much lesser basis than in previous seasons—will find out when they buy tickets that European games are always much cheaper than their equivalents in the premier league. One does not always go with the other. Football supporter representation at least gives that concern a voice.

It is more easily said than done. In the current political and economic climate, many difficulties and setbacks lie ahead. Any lack of will or any outright resistance by the parties involved—the Government, the governing authorities and the premiership clubs—will make the task more challenging. In its 2009 report, the all-party parliamentary group on football recommended a straightforward, one-size-fits-all solution: an elected supporters’ representative drawn from the relevant supporters’ trust should sit on the board of all 92 football league and premier league clubs. The group also suggested that a requirement to involve supporters should be a prerequisite for future takeovers—that is interesting to a few of us here—and that the football regulatory authority can evaluate that as part of the reformed “fit and proper person” test.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I am a Portsmouth fan, so I welcome the momentum behind football reform, but I would like to introduce a note of caution. I support fan ownership, but we might be asking fans who are already paying clubs large amounts of their disposable income to have a stake in those clubs that is not genuinely meaningful. A Portsmouth fan might want a veto on a new owner or the sell-off of land. I welcome what the hon. Gentleman says about focusing on governance structures, and I hope that we do not miss some quick wins on that front by focusing solely on ownership.

[Steve Rotheram]

What happened to Portsmouth is an absolute disgrace. Football supporters on the relevant boards might at least have been able to inform other Portsmouth supporters what was going on. Apparently, one owner did not even know that he was no longer the owner after the club was sold. That is an absolute disgrace to football governance, which is why something needs to happen and the Government need to take some control.

The football regulatory authority is a good starting point, but it makes no provision for supporters seeking outright control or ownership or those locking horns with the behemoths of the game. We need to go further and faster. Given all that, and in the absence of any overarching, fully independent body to propel matters forward, I urge the all-party group on football to undertake a fresh and specific inquiry into the subject of this debate, with the aim of developing a spectrum of practical solutions and models allowing for a range of supporter involvement options.

I have spoken at length, because I have taken many interventions. I thank everyone for their patience, but I ask to be indulged for a minute or so longer. As we have heard in Members’ passionate interventions, football is not just our national sport and a source of national pride—even for the Scottish Members here today, who will remember that 97th-minute winner. At one end, football is a multi-billion-pound industry; at the other, it is a local business offering local employment opportunities. It cuts across age, class and geographical boundaries, and is one of the few unifying activities in our society. Every one of us here today, irrespective of the demographic profile of their constituency, represents significant numbers of football supporters.

For some time now, the beautiful game at its highest level has stood in danger of being blighted by controversy, debt, bitterness and poor performance, because it is structurally and organisationally out of kilter with modern Britain and the expectations and aspirations of our 21st-century democracy. Many football fans feel disillusioned and disfranchised by this great British institution. Let us put that right by doing all that we can as enlightened and socially responsible politicians to help to return football to the very people in our heartlands who made it so great.