The National Health Service

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I have good news. Because some colleagues have indicated that they will not attend the debate, I can put the time limit back up to six minutes.

Lower Limb Wound Care

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

Yes. We do not discriminate. We are keen to talk to everyone to get the best possible learning so that patients up and down the country can benefit from all the expertise that is available.

In thanking the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley for making the supreme effort to be here today, I reassure her that both the Government and the NHS recognise the importance of ensuring that patients have access to high-quality lower limb wound care and will continue to support the work of the national wound care strategy programme for England on improving the quality of wound care, including lower limb wound care, in the country. I thank her once again for being here to make her case so incredibly powerfully. I wish her a speedy recovery and send her all our love from this House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I echo the Minister’s warm comments about the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). We are all deeply impressed to see that she has come from her hospital bed on the 12th floor of St Thomas’s to raise this important issue in the House. I have known and been a friend of the right hon. Lady for more than 30 years and I know her courage and resilience so it is not a great surprise that she has done so, but nevertheless we are hugely impressed. Like the Minister, on behalf of the whole House, I wish her a speedy recovery and look forward to having her back full time in September.



Question put and agreed to.

Services for People with Autism

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

Thank you for chairing us this afternoon, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I have heard it said that Parliament is not delivering for the people. May I send a message and invite everybody here to join me in sending a message to people with autism or Asperger’s and their families? With the voices of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan), the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood), the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell), the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), my hon. Friends the Members for Torbay (Kevin Foster) and for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), the hon. Members for Glasgow East (David Linden) and for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff), my hon. Friend the Minister for Care—I thank the Minister for all her commitments this afternoon—and the many others who intervened, the message is that we understand the challenges autistic people have to go through every day, and we will be by your side and will do our best to make sure that you have the services you deserve.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered services for people with autism.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am sure that the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) would have been very proud of all the contributions to the debate today, and I hope that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) will send her our best wishes.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can you advise me, first, how we can get on the record that over 1 million people have now signed the petition calling for the revocation of article 50 as the best way to stop the Brexit madness that seems to be engulfing the country, and secondly, whether you have had any indication from the Leader of the House—she said this morning that if it got to 17.5 million signatures, she would start to consider it seriously, so only 16.5 million more are now needed—that she is planning to make a statement to the House?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I have not received any indication from the Leader of the House that she intends to come here today. He will know that, under the e-petitions system, the Petitions Committee will consider any petition that receives more than 100,000 signatures for a debate. It is a matter for that Committee when such a debate is scheduled. I am sure it will be looking at this petition in due course, and I am also sure there will be ample opportunities in the coming days for the hon. Gentleman to make his views known. In the meantime, those on the Treasury Bench will have heard his request.

NICE Appraisals: Rare Diseases Treatments

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. There is obviously some pressure on time, so we will start with an eight-minute time limit.

NHS 10-Year Plan

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We now come to the general debate on the NHS 10-year plan. Colleagues will notice that there is a bit of a time issue. I know that the Front-Bench spokespeople will be considerate in this regard, but it is only fair to warn colleagues that I will then impose an immediate three-minute time limit on Back-Bench speeches. I call the Minister, Stephen Barclay, to move the motion. [Interruption.] I am sorry. Let me do that again. I call the Minister, Stephen Hammond.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The winding-up speeches will start at 10 to seven. If people take less than three minutes, it will help others.

Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [Lords]

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I am anxious to make sure everybody gets in so I must now reduce the time limit to five minutes.

Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Wollaston]

That is, indeed, a question that I have been addressing. What will happen to expats in Europe? What we absolutely must focus on, however, is what will happen 135 days from now if we do not have a deal and people are left high and dry. It is a very worrying situation.

The issue of the workforce does not just affect nursing staff. We should bear in mind that 5% of members of the regulated nursing profession, 16% of dentists, 5% of allied health professionals and 9% of doctors are EEA nationals. We cannot afford to lose any more of that workforce, or to demoralise them further. I think it shames us all that the Health and Social Care Committee heard from nursing staff from across the European Union some of whom were in tears when reporting that they no longer felt welcome here. That is a terrible Brexit penalty, and no one voted for it when they went to the polls.

This does not just affect the workforce either. The Brexit penalty applies to the entire supply chain of medicines and medical devices, from research and development to clinical trials, to the safety testing of batches of medicines, and right through to the pharmacy shelf and the hospital. There are many unanswered questions about the issue of stockpiling, and about contingency plans for products that may require refrigeration, or products with very short shelf lives that cannot be stockpiled. There may also be brand-switching issues: for people who suffer from conditions such as epilepsy, switching brands is not easy.

I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will bring my remarks to a close shortly. [Interruption.] I understand that you were merely coughing, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will continue.

Refrigerated warehousing and special air freight do not come cheap. The companies whom we met, represented by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, made it clear that they were already having to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on contingency planning. The Government have said that they intend to reimburse companies, but the smaller companies need to know how quickly they will be reimbursed, because they may have cash-flow issues. They need to know the details of how the scheme will work, but they simply do not have the information that would enable them to make plans for the future. I hope that the Minister will be very mindful of that.

As I said earlier, the simple truth is that the many versions of Brexit have very different implications for the NHS, for social care, for public health and for research. Once this deal is published, we will have an opportunity to set out what this means, but, most important, to set all the risks and benefits of the deal that is on offer for the NHS and social care. The Minister will be aware of the important principle of informed consent in healthcare. No one would dream of going into an operating theatre and having an operation without someone telling them what is involved and setting out the risks and benefits so that they could weigh them up for themselves. That is called informed consent, and without informed consent, there is no valid consent.

Let me say to the Minister that we are all being wheeled into the operating theatre for major constitutional, economic and social surgery without informed consent, and let me ask him please to consider how things will be 136 days from now, after we crash out with no deal and when the serious consequences of that start to unfold and unravel and hit real people’s lives. What will he be saying to his constituents and the House if we have proceeded without informed consent?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I have now to announce the result of today’s deferred Division. In respect of the question relating to electricity and gas, the Ayes were 285 and the Noes were 223, so the Question was agreed to.

[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]

Points of Order

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. What I was complaining about was that this was done with no notice—no notice to the shadow Secretary of State, no notice to me or the team, and no notice to Members of this House who were not here to ask questions. We should have had notice that this important issue was being dealt with.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the hon. Lady and the Secretary of State for their points of order. Obviously, the Secretary of State will have heard the point that the hon. Lady has made. I am sure that she will wish to pursue this further. The Secretary of State and the Leader of the House are here on the Treasury Bench, so I am sure that if there is further information forthcoming, that will be the way to proceed.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance as I am a relatively new Member of this House. It came to my attention on Friday that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) was visiting my constituency at the weekend. I did not receive advance notice of his visit. I understand that the purpose of the visit was to hold a rally to do a number of things, but particularly to try to get rid of the Scottish Conservatives. Reassuringly, only a handful of people attended the event. I have given the hon. Gentleman notice of this point of order. Am I correct in thinking that it was appropriate for him to give me advance notice of visiting my constituency?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice that he wished to raise this matter. I am glad that he has confirmed that he also warned the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) that he was going to raise the point of order. The hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that there is a well-established convention that if Members plan to visit other Members’ constituencies for political—not for personal—reasons, they should give them advance notice. It is important that we maintain this courtesy to one another.

Bill Presented

School Uniforms Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Frank Field, supported by Tim Loughton, presented a Bill to require school governing bodies to implement affordability policies when setting school uniform requirements; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 23 November and to be printed (Bill 283).

Social Care Funding

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I wish to manage expectations in this debate. By my calculation, I estimate that when we come to Back Benchers, there will probably be less than half an hour, so I will have to impose an immediate four-minute limit. Colleagues would be very popular if they kept to less than that, because others would be able to get in. Of course, that does not apply to the Scottish National party spokesperson, whom I am about to call. If colleagues want others to get in, I urge them to take even less than four minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. To try to get as many people in as possible I am imposing a three-minute time limit. If people can take less than that, that will obviously help.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barbara Keeley]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yet again the Government sit on their hands and refuse to vote on a key social care motion. We have heard in this debate some moving cases of people whose lives are being damaged by the crisis in social care, but no solutions from the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. We do not need more warm words which we have just heard from the Care Minister and other Ministers. We need action to close the funding gap. If the Government disagree with our motion, they should have the guts to vote on it, and shame on them for not doing so.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

The hon. Lady has put her point of view on the record. As I am sure she knows, there have been undertakings by the Government that in response to situations like this there will be a report back to the House at a future date, and I am sure those on the Treasury Bench will have heard the points made.

Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 15th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope]

The Government’s line seems to be that this legislation is an urgent measure. If it is so urgent, may I ask the Minister—through you, Madam Deputy Speaker—what state the guidance has reached?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is making an intervention on the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), not the Minister.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I invite my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) to ask the Minister whether she agrees that, because of the urgency of this legislation, the guidance is ready in draft form in her office and can be laid before the House tomorrow or in the next couple of weeks. I suspect that the Government have not even begun to draft the guidance, but we need the guidance before this legislation would ever be able to take effect.