Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Hopkins and Edward Argar

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

T2. The Government’s latest panic measures to deal with the prison capacity crisis, including expanding the early release scheme to 10 weeks, have simply fuelled the probation crisis instead, with staff warning that many of these releases are unsafe and result in recall in a matter of days. Can the Minister confirm what specific extra resources he has recently put into this struggling service, so that it can cope with the sharp rise in probation workloads?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)]

The hon. Lady is right to highlight the work of probation. I put on record—as I know my shadow would and I know she would—our gratitude to all those who work in our probation service. Over the long term, since 2021 we have put an extra £155 million a year into the probation service, and 4,000 more staff in training. She will have also seen the recent announcement made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor in respect of the probation reset to enable probation officers to focus their time on where it makes the greatest difference and has the greatest impact.

Integration White Paper

Debate between Rachel Hopkins and Edward Argar

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend knows, by virtue of the outcome, the persuasive and compelling case made by him and other right hon. and hon. Members from both sides of the Chamber in respect of Frimley ICS and its boundaries. As so often in this place, my view is, “If you ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” and his ICS is doing a fantastic job and other ICSs can learn from its success. Mechanisms and organisations through which chairs of ICSs get together and share best practice already exist, but we will continue to examine whether that could be better systematised, so that best practice can be disseminated more widely.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

We have heard already how budgets can be pulled, how place leaders can be appointed and, importantly, how shared outcomes can be set between health and care through our health and wellbeing boards with local authorities. Will the Minister assure me that accountability of the single accountable person will come through democratic structures, such as health and wellbeing boards or local authorities, to ensure that that if the public are unhappy, they can change things by voting them out?

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady will know from the debates on the Health and Care Bill that we are moving forward with opportunities for local authorities to be engaged not just at partnership level, as some are already, but more directly with the NHS at the ICB level. Health and wellbeing boards will continue to be a hugely important part of that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Hopkins and Edward Argar

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the impact of yet another of Labour’s disastrous PFIs on the funding available to our NHS, and indeed to social care. We continue to work hard to deliver our manifesto commitment to improve on those disastrous PFI schemes. I am very happy to meet him to discuss the matter.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

Just last month, Luton lost an outstanding champion in the other place with the sad passing of Lord Bill McKenzie of Luton. Just 21 months previously, he had been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis.

Last week I met the chair of the Pulmonary Fibrosis Trust, one of my constituents in Luton South, who told me that there is no current cure for the disease and that for most people there is no known cause. Will the Secretary of State outline what steps his Department is taking to support research into a cure and to improve diagnosis, support and care for people living with pulmonary fibrosis?

Covid-19: Government’s Publication of Contracts

Debate between Rachel Hopkins and Edward Argar

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that the decisions, as I touched on and as the PAC was told, were made following an eight-stage process run by civil servants and not Ministers. He is also right that there has been no evidence found, either by Committees of this House or the NAO, or indeed in any court cases, of any inappropriate involvement in terms of conflict of interest by Ministers. On his final point, he is absolutely right, and I know that going forward, as we always do, the Government will look to co-operate fully with the NAO in seeking to supply all and any information that it seeks, so that it can form its judgments and inform the PAC and the House of them.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) [V]]

Back in December, in the public interest, not just playing politics or sniping, I and other MPs highlighted cronyism and waste in the Government’s pandemic procurement. Three months on from that Westminster Hall debate, does the Minister agree that responding then, by increasing transparency reporting on those companies that won £1.7 billion-worth of contracts via the Government’s VIP fast lane and were 10 times more likely to receive a contract, would have been better than waiting to be taken to court?

[Edward Argar]

In respect of the appropriateness of contract awards and whether there are any conflicts of interest, I refer the hon. Lady to the answer that I just gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). The hon. Lady talked about last December and the debate, I think, in Westminster Hall—although I could be wrong on that—where this was discussed, and I point her to the lines used by the judge in his judgment:

“The evidence as a whole suggests that the backlog arose largely in the first few months of the pandemic and that officials began to bear down on it during the autumn of 2020.”

At the time that she was speaking of—in December—the judge acknowledged that the Department and the Government were working at pace to meet their transparency requirements, so that was already being done.