Government Plan for Net Zero Emissions

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Sarah Newton

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Newton]

I think the hon. Lady’s intervention is directed more at the Minister than at me.

To return to the theme of my debate, I believe the Government can provide a lot more information. They can share data and expertise on the smartest way to get to work and school and to travel, on what local British food is in season and sustainably grown, and on the suppliers of the cleanest forms of electricity and heating. That information could be provided in one place, where any individual, councillor, business or student can find out all they need to know to reduce their carbon footprint. Information for business and public sector organisations about how to support innovation could also be made more widely available.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (LD)]

We have some of that information already, such as that last year we spent £26 billion on transport, but only £400 million of that was spent on active walking and cycling. Does the hon. Lady think that we need a shift of priorities so we are investing in green forms of transport that will also improve health?

[Sarah Newton]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right about the need to invest in cycling and walking infrastructure. Both of us, with many colleagues, participated in a debate in this Chamber on that very subject. The Government asked the Committee on Climate Change to consider what plans they need to put in place to enable us to reach that target; they are actively considering those plans and the Treasury is looking at the cost.

I have every confidence that the Government will produce detailed plans on how we are to reach the 2050 target, but I want them to set out clear milestones for the intervening period. Judging by conversations this morning with protestors, people think we will wait until 2050 to take any action, but we have already taken significant action, and the ambition is there to go further and faster. To give people hope and clarity, we need to set out the plans and milestones in detail so that people can see what is going on.

Scamming: Vulnerable Individuals

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Sarah Newton

Thursday 8th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising that constituency case. It reflects the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull made that some banks have good procedures in place and some do not, and that some staff have been well trained and some have not. We need to ensure that every person working in the bank is as good as those identified by the Nationwide, which my hon. Friend mentioned. I will come on to address the wider point: what more banks and building societies can do to protect their vulnerable customers.

I am pleased to report that the Government, regulators and private companies are responding strongly to the recommendations that I have outlined. The Government have taken action more widely on nuisance calls, including a new requirement for all direct marketing callers to provide caller line identification. That came into effect on 16 May. The measure increases consumer choice, by making it easier for people to identify direct marketing calls and to choose whether to accept them. It will also increase the Information Commissioner’s Office’s ability to investigate such calls.

Members may also be aware that, in the Queen’s Speech on 18 May, the Government announced their intention to bring forward a Digital Economy Bill. Among other legislative changes, it will introduce a measure making it a requirement for the Information Commissioner to issue a statutory code of practice on direct marketing.

[Dr Wollaston]

I wonder whether the Minister in the legislation will also address the fines that are meted out when people breach the rules. She may be familiar with the case of Pharmacy2U, which, disgracefully, sold the details of more than 20,000 of its customers, many of them very vulnerable, to marketing companies. The fine of £130,000 is derisory and no meaningful deterrent.

[Sarah Newton]

As always, the Chairman of the Health Committee makes a powerful point, and I am sure those responsible for drafting these measures will take them into careful consideration, ensuring that the scope of the measures captures some of the very harmful behaviour of scammers and fraudsters and that there is sufficient deterrent to those considering undertaking these crimes from the regime of punishments put in place, including fines.

The overall aims of the new code of practice will be to support a reduction in the number of unwanted direct marketing calls and to make it easier for the Information Commissioner to take action against organisations in breach of the direct marketing rules.

Secondly, the Government-funded national trading standards scams team is working with the British Bankers Association, the Building Society Association and others to produce a new national banking protocol for doorstep crime and other scam issues discovered at branch level. The Financial Conduct Authority is building on this. Its ageing population strategy will consider how older consumers engage in financial services and make best use of the products and services they use. The FCA intends to release a regulatory strategy and recommendations by 2017.

Care Bill [Lords]

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Sarah Newton

Tuesday 11th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady is right that the amendments would go a long way to addressing that issue. I hope that the Government take that on board.

In response to the fears expressed by many, several amendments were tabled to clarify the circumstances in which the Health and Social Care Information Centre will be able to release data. We need further clarification of the provisions concerning the dissemination of information, which suggest that the information centre may disseminate it only if it considers that doing so would be for the purposes of the provision of health care and adult social care. Clarification is needed for those charities that have contacted many of us in the Chamber. Cancer Research UK, among other worthy causes, would like reassurance that access to data for research is included on the

“provision of health care and adult social care”

and that access to research data will not be restricted on the basis of the amendment. That is the reason I support the proposals.

Cancer Research UK has said that it particularly welcomes the Government’s inclusion of proposals that would give the Health Research Authority the ability to accept guidance on how the governance of particular research should be handled by the NHS trusts and their duty to adhere to it. These proposals were added following calls from Cancer Research UK and the medical research sector, and were supported by many parliamentarians during the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill of which I, with others, was a part.

Governance continues to be the primary barrier to conducting research in the NHS. A single trial can take place across multiple trusts, so obtaining governance approvals from each participating trust, which may have different approval criteria and often duplicate checks, can cause significant delays. New clause 25 would put in the Bill the firmness, accountability and legislative control that is necessary to ensure that the leakage, for want of a better word, of information does not take place. It is important that we do that.

In conclusion, statistics indicate that by 2020 one in two people will get cancer. We had a debate in Westminster Hall this morning on cancer care; it was passionate and well thought out by many Members with personal experience of cancer in their families and their constituencies. The enormity of cancer and what it will do to society is why we have a responsibility in the House to ensure that we help. The need for research and new treatments for cancer is greater now than ever. We must ensure that while protecting people from the unsafe or mercenary use of personal information, we are not hampering the fantastic work done by these charities to discover more about cancer and to help more people win their personal battle. I support these amendments and I ask the House to do the same.

[Sarah Newton]

It is a great honour to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who touched on an incredibly important point: we must not forget the people whose lives have already been transformed by research organisations’ access to data to find cures and prevention for diseases such as cancer. There cannot be anyone in the House who has not been touched by cancer, personally or within their families. It is incumbent on us all to do everything we can to create the right ecosystem and regulatory environment to enable research that will have a life-saving and transformative effect for people.

[Dr Wollaston]

Does my hon. Friend agree that early diagnosis is one the keys to improving cancer outcomes? By linking GP records to hospital records we can identify which practices were not referring early enough and help to improve that practice.

[Sarah Newton]

That is a very important point. Without the sharing of data, such patterns would not occur and we would have the much-talked-about postcode lottery whereby someone’s ability to get timed referrals and access to the best quality care depends on where they live and who their GP is.

I have the great pleasure and privilege of serving on the Science and Technology Committee. We have recently undertaken an inquiry into the regulatory framework for research into all sorts of diseases, including cancer. A very important finding of the inquiry was the essential role of sharing data. It is incredibly important that we come up with the right structures and protections to enable people, and GPs, to have confidence to enable the sharing of that data.

We should be very proud—we in the Chamber must not forget—of the fact that the UK leads the way in many areas of medical research; our universities, our trusts and our foundations are world leaders in what they do. That is very important in terms of our universities’ standing and important to a lot of high-quality jobs in our economy, not only for the benefit of citizens here but people all over the world. We must to do all in our power to maintain a system that enables money to be invested in research at our universities.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Sarah Newton

Monday 31st January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

It is easy to see why politicians continuously want to fix the NHS. The perspective from the green Benches is very different from the perspective one gets as a GP—I say that having worked in the health service for 24 years. My surgeries and postbag, and I am sure those of other Members, are full of stories of delays, frustrations and sometimes really poor practice. The trouble is that not enough people write to their MP to tell them how sensitively or compassionately they have been treated, or how the NHS saved their life. They do feel those things, however, and they do appreciate the NHS. That is why they are understandably wary of any changes, proposed by whatever Government.

Here are the things in the Bill that I welcome. I really welcome clinical leadership. We should be in no doubt about this: there is clear evidence that commissioning works best when there is clinical leadership backed up by excellent management. The Bill will go some way to pushing us towards true clinical leadership in all parts of the NHS.

The provisions will also result in an information revolution. That will involve information about not only whether someone’s treatment worked but what the experience was like—a kind of TripAdvisor for the NHS. We all know that, with information, daylight is the best disinfectant. If people know that their performance is going to be compared with that of others, that is likely to drive up performance in the NHS.

The provisions will allow for that early scan that can make all the difference in an early diagnosis of cancer. When GPs can commission very good early diagnostics much more quickly, we will see a difference. The changes will also give GPs much greater flexibility to respond to their own area. In Devon, for example, community hospitals are really important, but they might not be so important in inner cities. The provisions should also give better choice to services such as mental health, and bring in opportunities for the voluntary sector. I recently met a group of carers for patients suffering from mental health difficulties, and they told me that they wanted better access to talking therapies. Rather than the support that has traditionally been supplied to them, they want better access to other kinds of support. I also really welcome putting public health back where it belongs, with local authorities.

Our spending now matches the European average, and I genuinely congratulate the Labour party on that, but I am afraid that that has also been a wasted opportunity. It is unforgivable that so much of that money was squandered, and that we have seen flat-line productivity. For that level of spending, patients should be able to expect the kind of services that people receive in France or Germany. I am sure that we have all heard instances of people coming back from a holiday on the continent with a minor condition, having had a scan and treatment within a week. We should be able to deliver that here. Health care workers should not have to spend three weeks chasing down a patient’s results. I am sure that we have all heard instances of that, as well.

The challenge is to improve aspects of the NHS, to look at the detail, to listen to patients and professionals and to ensure that we get this right. In Torbay, they have been getting it right for some time. It has been part of a national pilot of integrated care. Baywide, a not-for-profit company of local GPs, commissions health and social care from a pooled budget.

[Sarah Newton]

My hon. Friend mentions GPs working together on a not-for-profit basis. Does she share my huge disappointment at some of the terribly derogatory comments made by Opposition colleagues about GPs’ motivation, comparing them to the worst kind of bankers in the City? Is it not disappointing that they are so disrespectful to GPs?

[Dr Wollaston]

I agree with my hon. Friend. We have heard some terrible slurs about GPs profiteering and lining their own pockets. I am absolutely confident that that is not what we are going to see.

Torbay has been highly successful because it has pooled budgets and it can design integrated care. That saves lives and money. No one should be in any doubt that improving the quality of care, and thereby the quality of life, for those with complex, long-term conditions is the key to improving health care and cutting costs.