Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicola Blackwood]

I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support for a key plank of the childhood obesity strategy, which is helping all children to enjoy an hour of physical activity every day and which will include physical movement as well as specific physical education.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Another target that “Dispatches” uncovered was to be scrapped was the target to halve childhood obesity by 2026. This was compounded by recent national childhood measurement data showing that obesity is on the rise and that obesity rates are more than double in deprived areas compared with more affluent ones. Instead of squandering this opportunity, the Government should be pushing ahead with a comprehensive and preventive strategy. Can the Minister explain, therefore, why this significant target was dropped from the Government’s plans to tackle childhood obesity?

[Nicola Blackwood]

The hon. Lady is right to say that the childhood obesity strategy is one of our key priorities for tackling health inequalities in the UK. Obesity prevalence for children living in the most deprived areas is double that for those living in the least deprived areas, and the gap continues to widen. That is exactly why we will press ahead with the plan, but, as she has said, this is just the beginning of the conversation and we will continue to fight obesity as a government priority.

National Arthritis Week

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this important debate, and for his excellent contribution. I also thank the charities, such as Arthritis Research UK, that work every day to reduce the suffering brought about by joint disorders.

Last week was National Arthritis Week. The pain of arthritis is often invisible. Trying to explain its constant, chaotic pain to someone who has not lived with it can be very hard. A survey conducted by Arthritis Research UK found that 28% of women with arthritis feel that people do not really understand the pain they face. Despite trying to talk about it, they feel lonely with the disease. That is why today’s debate is so important. By talking about arthritis in this place, we can begin to tell people that they are not alone.

I want to do that in a literal sense, by sharing my experiences of arthritis. In March 2015, we were two months away from a general election, which, as Members on both sides of the House know, is a difficult, stressful and busy time to be a politician. As part of the shadow ministerial team, I was driving up and down the country with my tiny dog Cara in tow, visiting fire stations and sharing Labour’s plans for the future of the fire service. It should have been an exciting spring, sharing a vision that I was passionate about, and introducing my little four-legged friend to a bunch of soppy but very brave firefighters. However, it was made difficult as I had been experiencing mobility problems for quite a while, and it was not unusual for me to be in constant pain and experiencing stiffness. However, until that point I had been able to fight through. I had not considered that I had a condition.

In March, I finally hit a brick wall. I felt completely and utterly drained of energy and could barely walk more than a few steps. I had to drag myself up the stairs of my house by pulling on the bannister. I was unable to stand at street stalls for any length of time, or go canvassing. I contacted voters only on the phone, or at meetings where I could be completely sedentary. I needed help putting on my bra. I felt humiliated, embarrassed and a complete and utter failure. At the worst, I was struggling to stay awake for more than six hours a day. It can be imagined what that did to my mental health. The stress of not being able to fight that election on my own terms was overwhelming. The tiredness and pain were looked after by a specialist, but throughout that period I had no idea whatever of what the problem was. At times like that, the internet is not a best friend. My imagination was in overdrive. Only the support of good friends, comrades, my wonderful husband and my family got me through that election.

Let me be clear. I do not want to come across as some kind of stoic hero. I am not. I cried, mainly in my doctor’s surgery as I was trying to get some answers. The staff must have thought I was completely wet. I found it really difficult to cope with the condition and the demands of work at that time. I know that many people have that feeling, and it is little wonder that musculoskeletal conditions account for one in five working days lost to ill health in the UK.

Despite being referred to my arthritis service in November 2014, it was early May 2015 before I was finally diagnosed with seronegative inflammatory arthritis. I now know that fatigue is very common among sufferers of arthritis due to pain, stress and sleep disturbance. More specifically—this is not very well known out there—fatigue is a symptom of inflammatory arthritis. Chemicals called cytokines are found in the inflamed tissues and cause extreme fatigue.

At that point I was put on a course of methotrexate, which thankfully caused the aggressive nature of the condition to begin to recede, but it was still quite aggressive, and I needed additional medication to get me to where I am now, taking methotrexate and injecting myself every fortnight with CIMZIA, a biological injectable medicine. The pain and restrictive movement have now subsided considerably. A number of colleagues have told me as I walk around the House that I seem to be doing much better, and I am.

When I first met my arthritis specialist, she asked me what my goals were. I said I wanted to be able to walk Cara again, to wear heels and to play tennis, which would be some feat as I have never played tennis before. She laughed and said, “Let’s keep this realistic and start with walking the dog.” I am happy to say that with the support of the NHS I can now walk Cara for over an hour, almost entirely pain-free. At Christmas last year, I bought a pair of blue polka dot shoes as an incentive and a symbol of hope. I have worn them twice and, although they are not as high as those of the Prime Minister, or indeed our former shadow Chief Whip, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central (Dame Rosie Winterton), they are a symbol of the progress I am making. What is more, I have just enrolled on a course of tennis lessons, which I will start in March next year, two years after I hit that dreaded wall.

I have had good treatment, advice and support, and I thank my doctors for that from the bottom of my heart. Ten million people in the UK suffer the pain of arthritis and not all are as lucky as I have been. Moreover, I am told that with an ageing population and rising physical inactivity, the number of people living with arthritis will rise. We must make sure that every patient has access to excellent treatment. Due to the high cost of the drugs and the guidelines of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, most patients have to wait at least a year before they can access the transformative biologics that have made such a huge difference to my life. I had to wait just over a year, and that year was hard.

The wait means that we are not controlling the condition at an early stage or enabling patients to stay active, independent and in employment. Surely this wait is not cost-effective to industry and the economy. I know that this is ultimately an issue for NICE, but making these drugs more widely available will transform arthritis care for many, as it has done for me. Let us be honest: there are problems with traditional treatments. Although methotrexate has been really important for me, it can have long-term negative effects on the liver, but coming off it is certainly not an option for me at the moment. I urge the Government to support research on the long-term effects of existing drugs, and to continue to support vital research into new treatments and life-saving drugs, so that we can help people to live pain-free into old age.

I will be positive: there have been substantial breakthroughs in arthritis treatment as a result of research funded by Arthritis Research UK. They include treatment for rheumatoid and inflammatory arthritis, and treatment to prevent miscarriages in women suffering from antiphospholipid syndrome, which again is something I have. If only I had known a couple of decades earlier.

World-leading scientists, working in British institutions, such as Leeds, Birmingham and Keele Universities, the Kennedy Institute at Oxford, and St Mary's hospital, London, developed these treatments. The biological treatments I am on have been developed here in the UK. We should be so proud of these achievements, but we must make sure that our medical research sector remains at the cutting edge. Now more than ever, the UK’s excellence in medical research is under threat. Many of us warned before the EU referendum that funding for medical research would be hit if we voted to leave. Vicky Forster, a researcher, wrote in The Guardian:

“many scientific disciplines will lose EU funding post-Brexit”.

That is certainly the case with arthritis.

Figures provided by Arthritis Research UK show that between 2011 and 2015 the EU contributed over £2.5 million to its projects. Those researchers have gone on to secure more than £18 million of European funding to support the next stage of their work. It should be a priority for the Government to maintain our world-leading medical research sector. To do this, they need to ensure that overall investment in UK science and research is protected and grown in the longer term.

The risk to research posed by Brexit does not stop at funding. Sir Paul Nurse, director of the Francis Crick Institute, said:

“Science thrives on the permeability of ideas and people and flourishes in environments that pool intelligence, minimise barriers, and are open to free exchange and collaboration.”

Leaving the European Union threatens this melting pot of ideas. In 2014-15, Arthritis Research UK committed more than £30 million to research that was hosted in the UK, but had collaborators in 13 European Union countries. If the Government want to make sure that our medical research sector remains as vibrant and as successful as it is, it is important to maintain the current ease with which those involved in medical research are able to travel and work across the EU and the UK.

We should be truly ambitious as a country and aim to expand arthritis research and medical research more generally, not merely preserve what we have. I have been told that structures need to be in place to encourage our NHS clinicians to participate in research. At the moment, this is not possible due to the demands on the NHS and a medical culture that puts research second.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I commend my hon. Friend on making this excellent debate so moving. She shows how important this issue is. She is a living, breathing example of why research is so necessary. She looks 10 years younger than she did last year.

[Lyn Brown]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts.

Today we are debating arthritis and what more can be done to help those who suffer from this terrible health condition. It is very welcome that the Backbench Business Committee allowed this debate to happen today, which is in arthritis awareness week and so soon after World Arthritis Day. I also thank the Members from across the House who secured the debate with the Backbench Business Committee, and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for leading the debate this afternoon. He eloquently and clearly set the tone, and I thank him for that.

As we have heard, this condition can often go unnoticed or ignored by individuals and wider society, and I hope that the awareness work seen this week has helped somewhat in changing that, along with the role that everyone here has played in supporting that culture change. Nearly 10 million people in the UK live with arthritis. The symptoms can vary; there are over 200 known types of arthritis and rheumatic disease. The symptoms include inflammation of the joints, pain, fatigue, stiffness and difficulty moving. It is quite a common misconception that arthritis is a health condition affecting only the elderly, but it can often affect all ages. That is why it is important that we raise awareness, and that more be done to educate the public on the symptoms, and on the support and help that is out there.

However, we must also be aware that, given the ageing population, more people will suffer with arthritis. The number of sufferers is expected to rise by 50% by 2030. It has to be said that the Government’s short-sighted cuts to public health grants will only cause havoc if the proper finances are not put in place to address our nation’s health.

Arthritis may not be a killer, but it does attack the way of life of many people. As has been put so eloquently today, this condition can make life a very painful struggle, with one in 10 people saying that they live with unbearable pain, day in and day out. The words of those who suffer with this condition can make the strongest cases for reminding us just how tough it can be to live with arthritis.

In the words of Sharon—I am not talking about myself in the third person here, Mr Betts—who suffers with psoriatic arthritis,

“It’s the forgotten condition that no-one thinks is important. It affects everything. It’s exhausting, depressing and makes you feel angry and frustrated.

It robs you of the life you thought you were going to have, the one you planned with your family. It robs you of a sense of purpose. You can’t do what you want, when you want, it’s unpredictable.

Life has to be adapted and constantly changed. The drugs make you feel sick and depressed and have side effects as long as your arm. It becomes important not to look back at what is lost and make an effort every day to look forward and think positively. But it’s invisible, other people don’t see any of that, you just look a bit stiff.”

Those are extremely powerful words and should be a reminder to us all of how important it is to do more to help those suffering with arthritis.

Hearing the stories and experiences of those who live with the condition is important to help raise awareness. That is why the aim of the awareness campaign “The Future is in your Hands” for World Arthritis Day last week was to highlight the stories of those who suffer. It reinforced the comments made by the chief medical officer back in 2012, who said that osteoarthritis, the most common musculoskeletal condition, is a

“generally unrecognised public health priority”.

The Government must listen to contributions of medical experts such as the chief medical officer, and to the expert opinion of those who experience arthritis. They must then act to do more to help those suffering with the condition.

The Government could help to prevent the development of arthritis with preventive measures that relate to obesity and physical activity. Studies have shown that obesity is the single biggest avoidable cause of osteoarthritis in weight-bearing joints. With two out of three obese people developing osteoarthritis, it is important that we seriously get to terms with addressing obesity; that will create an environment in which those suffering with arthritis can flourish, rather than struggle.

One key way to alleviate symptoms and support people who suffer with arthritis is by promoting physical activity, as it has been shown that regular physical activity can be beneficial in helping to reduce the impact of the condition on people’s lives. My hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees), who is no longer in her place, pointed out that it was a lifetime of sporting activities—she is a very well-known squash player—that probably caused, or exacerbated, her arthritis. However, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has published clinical guidelines that recommend exercise as a core treatment for people with arthritis, irrespective of the severity of their condition.

We need to know which services are out there, so that we can help people acquire the recommended treatment. That is why it would be beneficial for the National Audit Office to conduct a review into physical activity services for people with arthritis. That would help to ensure that we, as policy makers, have the necessary information to drive the policy agenda, and would help to map areas with a shortfall in support and services for those with arthritis. I hope that the Minister will shed some light on plans to undertake that work. Such an investigation would also be important in the light of the cuts to public health grants under this Government. Those cuts are a false economy, and compound the problems accessing services for people who are seeking to manage and improve their lives.

I quoted the following figures to the Public Health Minister at about this time last week from this very spot, but they are worth repeating to the Minister here today. In the autumn statement, the former Chancellor announced further cuts to public health grants, which amounted to an average real-term cut of 3.9% each year to 2021. That translates to a further cash reduction of 9.6%. That is in addition to the £200 million of cuts to public health grants announced in the 2015 Budget. The Minister must bear those figures in mind when responding to the debate and whenever the Department takes action on public health issues. It really is a false economy to cut funding to already overstretched and burdened public health services, as that will obviously exacerbate the problems with those services in the long term.

The need for further awareness of arthritis and its symptoms was clearly shown in a UK-wide survey of more than 2,000 people conducted by Arthritis Care last year, which found that more than a quarter of arthritis sufferers had waited two years to seek help after their symptoms began. When asked why, some 52% said that it was because it did not occur to them that they could have arthritis, and 28% felt that nothing could be done to address their arthritis. I hope that those who have listened to this debate have heard, loud and clear, that help is out there, and that delaying seeking that help will not aid them or their long-term health and wellbeing. That point was made eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), who, I think hon. Members will agree, looks 10 years younger than she did a little over a year ago.

Raising awareness is vital. Last week, world-famous performer Robbie Williams gave a candid interview explaining that he suffers with arthritis and describing the impact that has had on his performance; as a Robbie fan, that concerns me. The more we talk about the condition, and the more that high-profile people, such as the MPs here today, talk about their experiences, the better.

There have been so many eloquent and personal accounts in this debate. I particularly mention the brave and moving account of my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham. She will be playing tennis soon with our own parliamentary tennis champion, Mr Speaker, and I, for one, definitely want a front-row seat for that one. My hon. Friend is a true inspiration to the 10 million arthritis sufferers across the country.

I hope that the Minister has listened not only to the debate and contributions from Members present, but to the voices of those outside this place who have called on the Government to do more for those living with arthritis and the pain that comes with it. There are many ways for the Government to do something, and ideas have come from across the House to steer the Minister in a direction that will help the 10 million people who suffer with the various levels of pain associated with arthritis. Let us hope that this time next year, when we recognise National Arthritis Week again, we will have helped more people to lead a healthier, happier and more pain-free life.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Mowat]

Don’t take it as a compliment. It has been a long day.

It seems extraordinary, thinking about some of the subjects we debate, that it has been five years since we have debated this subject in the House of Commons. The debate has been such a pleasure, and I am sure that hon. Members here will see to it that it is not five years before we debate it again. An objective of having a debate in Westminster Hall is to raise awareness. People watch these things, so it is right that we do that and it is important that we do it again next year.

I have been a Minister for about two months, during which time I have met many people, so it has probably been remiss of me not to have met with Arthritis Research UK yet. I am keen to do that. Its representatives are pushing at an open door if they would like to come and see me. As the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Philip Boswell) said, it is about action, not words. We will organise that meeting if Arthritis Research UK would like it to happen.

Several hon. Members have mentioned the statistics, but I will repeat them because they are so important. Some 10 million people in the UK—one in six of the population—have an MSK condition. The most common, with 3 million sufferers, is osteoporosis. One in six is an extraordinary figure, and there are 200 variations of MSK conditions. One in 10 people in the UK suffers chronic pain as a consequence of arthritis.

The numbers are mind-boggling. Some 20% of GP consultations are due to MSK conditions, and this at a time when our GP services are stretched in Scotland and in England. MSK conditions account for 30% of GP consultations for the over-55s, and some 7.5 million working days are lost each year. This long-term condition alone costs the NHS between £4 billion and £6 billion, so it is right that we are having this debate.

There have been a number of interesting and useful speeches. Westminster Hall is sometimes a better place to debate such topics. The hon. Member for Strangford talked about lifestyle factors and preventive factors, and he and another Member made an interesting point about DWP and PIP. We need to be more joined up in how we deal with some of these long-term conditions, particularly as they become more prevalent. He also talked extensively and knowledgeably about research—he has clearly been well briefed—and about what we are doing.

The hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) made an excellent speech about her personal experience, and she emphasised the overlap with mental health. She talked about first suffering from this during her election campaign last year. In fact, it prevented her from canvassing. I note that she got 36,000 votes and her vote went up by 6%. I do not know whether those factors are related. Well done on 36,000. We pass on our congratulations and awe at her performance.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Maybe it was a telephone canvass.

[David Mowat]

Maybe it was. The hon. Lady also talked about the delays to the start of her treatment and the one-year delay before she got the right drugs, which have been so transformative for her. That is an impressive story.

The hon. Lady also talked about the concerns about the consequences of Brexit. The Government have made it clear that, whatever version of Brexit we end up with, science research will continue to grow in real terms and ongoing scientific programmes will continue. I was a remainer, and we often talk about the money that Europe gives to programmes. She said that £2.5 million was given to a particular programme, which should be seen in the context of the £20 billion that flows in the other direction. The real point is that we understand the need for science and will continue to ensure that that funding happens.

The hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees) made a good intervention about the consequences of sport and the unpredictable flare-ups that she has. She made the interesting point that arthritis can be invisible for much of the time before flaring up. The right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) is right to remind us of the role of carers. I remind Members that we are putting together a carers strategy, which will focus on unpaid carers in particular. That will come out at the end of this year. We are talking to a number of charities about that because it is important, given the stress and strain on our various systems.

Baby Loss

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Antoinette Sandbach]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. It should not matter what kind of loss a person suffers; they should be able to access that bereavement care pathway whether it is inside or outside hospital.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady has been very generous with her time. Before she concludes her remarks, may I, as an officer of the all-party group, commend her and my fellow officers, including the hon. Members for Colchester (Will Quince) and for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), for breaking the taboo, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) has said? I also commend the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) for her bravery in bringing this important issue forward for debate in the House. My daughter, Lucy, would have been 18 this year. When I became an MP 11 years ago, I intended to raise the issue, but I never had the hon. Lady’s bravery—I just wanted to commend her for that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Will Quince]

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. The all-party parliamentary group is very much looking at that. He is absolutely right to say how important this is. There are people who have suffered what is currently termed a miscarriage when—let us be clear—we are talking about a life, a baby. However, because of our abortion laws and all sorts of other rules and regulations, we are not allowed to register that life and give that baby a name. We are certainly looking at that.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Lucy, my daughter, was born at 23 and a half weeks. Sadly, she did not live; if she had, she would have been rushed straight to the special care baby unit at the Royal Victoria infirmary. I always class her as a stillbirth, but officially it was put down as a miscarriage, and I was not given a death certificate, which was another trauma on top of the trauma I had already gone through. On paper, it was a miscarriage, but she was blessed by the chaplain while I was still in hospital, and we went on to have a funeral, which I felt was right; I had held her in my arms, and she was a fully formed baby. There is an anomaly that has to be addressed.

[Will Quince]

Indeed. I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. Moreover, I thank her for the huge role that she plays on the all-party group, and played in its formation.

To come back to the point that I was making about the importance of today’s debate, we are really lucky—I hope that all hon. Members agree—to have the best job in the world. We have a duty and responsibility to try to use our experiences—some great, some good, and some terrible—where we can to make the lives of others better. Through this debate, we would like to, in the fullness of time, reduce the stillbirth rate and neonatal death rate by 50% and save the lives of 2,000 babies. That is an incredible target to aim for.

Tobacco Control Plan

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Ms Buck. I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing him and others to secure this important debate. As we all know, he has done much during his time in Parliament to address the sale and use of tobacco products, not only in his own constituency, just up the road from my own, but across the country. That includes his excellent work with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) to bring forward the ban on smoking in cars with children. I commend him for his tireless campaigning and commitment to this hugely important area of public health policy.

I thank right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. I pay tribute in particular to the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), the Chair of the Health Committee, for the support and expertise she brings to the debate. Her predecessor plus one or two, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Kevin Barron), also has a huge wealth of expertise and knowledge across the whole health brief. In my new role, I will certainly be calling on him a fair bit—I hope that he is prepared and willing for that to happen. I also want to commend the other right hon. and hon. Members who spoke today: the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) and the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day), who spoke on behalf of the SNP.

I wish to say a few words to the public health Minister. This is our second outing together and I have had this role for only four days, so I think this will be a regular thing. I am definitely looking forward to keeping a close eye on her work at the Department of Health and to debating across the Chamber. I am sure we will do that on many important issues facing our country’s health. If the tireless work of my predecessor, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), is anything to go by, that will be often—surely he has his own seat in here with his name on it because he was in here so much. That is a daunting prospect.

Today we are debating the important topic of tobacco products. It is crucial that the message is put across to the Government that more can and should be done to ensure that we all lead healthier lives. The control of the sale and use of tobacco is an important public health matter not only for those individuals who use it but for all around them.

During Labour’s time in office, we recognised that fact, which is why we did a lot to address smoking in society, most famously with the introduction of the ban on smoking in public places. The ban brought in a culture change in our society. When we used to walk into any indoor public space, it was the norm to be met with a cloud of stale tobacco smoke, whereas now all of us—especially children and families—can enjoy ourselves freely without having to breathe in second-hand smoke or have the overhang of smoke in the air.

The Tory-led coalition Government came into power and brought in their own tobacco control plan, and it was welcome that it achieved so much over its lifetime, including the prohibition of point-of-sale displays in shops; the introduction of standardised packaging for tobacco products; and the national ambitions on reducing smoking, which were all met. However, when the plan ceased at the end of last year, it was vital that the Government published a new plan in a timely manner to build on the work of previous Governments. Sadly, nearly a year on, the Government have failed to come forth with such a plan, despite the promise and a commitment to do so last December.

Last month, the Health Minister in the House of Lords failed to commit to a final date for publication. We were expecting to have sight of that plan over the summer; we are now hopeful that we will see it during the Indian summer. Changes in Government meant the plan was put on hold. The delay is not too dissimilar in some ways to the constant delay to the childhood obesity plan—although at least that was rushed out over the summer.

A change in ministerial personnel should not be an excuse for delaying such an important intervention in the health of our society, especially when the new Prime Minister stood on the steps of No. 10 Downing Street in the summer and committed her Government to

“fighting against the burning injustice that, if you’re born poor, you will die on average 9 years earlier than others.”

We were led to assume that was going to be the driving force of the Prime Minister’s Government, and I hope it is, but the rhetoric has not yet translated into reality when it comes to this serious public health issue facing our country.

The Government have faced a vocal chorus from charities and organisations, including the British Medical Association, Action on Smoking and Health and the British Lung Foundation, which have all called on the Government to get their act together and publish the new plan. In that regard I also commend the work of Fresh, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North mentioned, which does such sterling work in the region with the highest smoking rates and some of the worst health outcomes.

The Minister and her officials at the Department of Health are being told loud and clear to get on with the job at hand and to answer the crucial question that has come out of today’s debate: what is the delay? I hope she will shed some light on that important question in her response and—finally—tell us when we can expect the new tobacco control plan.

I want to set the scene on why it is so important we have a new plan, on top of what has already been said today, by looking at the facts and figures on smoking, including the variation of smoking habits among certain groups of society—especially children, young people and pregnant women. The smoking rate in England is 19%, but that varies from region to region. It is highest in the north-east, where it reaches 19.9%, and lowest, at 16.6%, in the south-east. Those are regional figures. When looking at the figures borough by borough, my local authority of Sunderland does not fare well at all, with 23% of the population smoking. That is much higher than even the highest of the regional averages.

Looking at smokers based on their socioeconomic status, it is clear that the less well-off in society are more likely to smoke. I am not going to go into all of the reasons for that. We just have to accept that it is where we are—but what can we do about it? Smoking rates among those in the professional and managerial socioeconomic group are less than half the rate of those in routine and manual socioeconomic groups, at 12% and 28% respectively. When the net income of a family and their smoking expenditure are both taken into consideration across England, 1.4 million, or 27%, of the households with a smoker fall below the poverty line. If those costs were returned to the families, it is estimated that approximately 769,900 adults and 324,550 dependent children would be lifted out of poverty.

That is a striking statistic, especially given the study published only a few weeks ago that showed that 250,000 children will be pushed into poverty during the lifetime of this Parliament due to the Government’s policies. Getting it right on smoking could totally negate that impact, so it is definitely something worth looking at. The stats show we must do more to address the cycle of health inequality, which spans generations and continues the awful situation in which there are huge life expectancy gaps between the rich and poor, as we have clearly heard today. If the Government want to change that, one way would be to step up and continue the work of reducing smoking in society.

If those figures do not spur the Minister on to bring forward the new tobacco control plan, hopefully looking at the issue of smoking among our children and young people will. It is welcome that smoking among children and young people fell to an all-time low of 6% under the last tobacco control plan, as we have heard, but it remains an issue when two thirds of adult smokers report taking up the habit before the age of 18, with 80% saying it was before 20. That is compounded when children who live with parents or siblings who smoke are three times more likely to take up the habit than children from non-smoking households. It is also estimated that 23,000 young people in England and Wales start smoking by the age of 15 due to exposure to smoking in the home.

[Kevin Barron]

My hon. Friend uses the statistics very well. Do they not defeat the myth that smoking is an adult habit?

[Mrs Hodgson]

They certainly do. The situation on children smoking is quite stark. The earlier children start smoking, the more serious the consequences are for their health. Children who take up smoking are two to six times more susceptible to coughs and increased phlegm, wheeziness and shortness of breath than those who do not smoke. It can also impact their lung growth, which can impair lung function and increase the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in later life. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North, 25,000 people a year die from COPD. Surely we do not want any child in this country to die in that way. The prevalence of these conditions among smokers shows it is paramount that we seriously tackle smoking among our children and young people. We do not want to see the children of today being the COPD sufferers of the future, as well as having those other conditions.

[Alex Cunningham]

I am really pleased my hon. Friend is framing the issue specifically around children. My wife, Evaline, worked as a school nurse and used to hold classes talking to young people about this. She would put forward the economic argument—“If you smoke so many cigarettes over so many days over so many months it costs £2,000, which could buy you a summer holiday.” She was then told, “No, Miss, you’ve got it wrong; it is only £3.20 a packet from Mrs Bloggs down the road.” Do we not also need to ensure we tackle illicit tobacco and ensure children understand the dangers of that as well?

[Mrs Hodgson]

My hon. Friend raises a very good point. The danger and quality of illicit tobacco can often be far worse for health than just long-term smoking. The substances used in those cigarettes can be life threatening.

I will move on to the dangers of smoking during pregnancy, which was raised by the hon. Member for Totnes. While we know the harms of living in a household with a smoker, for some that harm starts before birth as 10.6% of women are smokers at the time of delivery. That equates to 67,000 infants born to smoking mothers each year, while up to 5,000 miscarriages, 300 perinatal deaths and around 2,200 premature births each year have been attributed to smoking during pregnancy.

Smoking during pregnancy has been identified as the No. 1 risk factor for babies to die unexpectedly. According to research by the British Medical Association, if parents stop smoking, that could reduce the number of sudden infant deaths by 30%. Those are shocking figures that show the heartache and pain a mother and the family around her will go through from the horrific events of losing a baby through, for example, miscarriage, stillbirth or sudden infant death. That is especially pertinent this week as it is baby loss awareness week, which I know some of us are wearing little pins to commemorate. There is a debate currently going on in the main Chamber —there was; it has just finished—in which many colleagues gave heartbreaking accounts of their personal experiences or those of their constituents who have suffered the loss of a baby. I was able to intervene and give a personal account of my own experience.

Baby loss due to smoking is preventable if Government action is taken as soon as possible. Important work has been implemented on smoking during pregnancy that has seen the number of pregnant women smoking fall to its lowest-ever levels, but I welcome the calls from the Smoking in Pregnancy Challenge Group to see a commitment from the Minister today to work to reduce the percentage of women smoking during pregnancy to 6% or lower by 2020. It may be an aspirational figure, but it can be achieved as long as a comprehensive plan is put in place to control the use and sale of tobacco.

Regional variations, including those I mentioned earlier, must be addressed; other colleagues have mentioned them, too. We are seeing 16% of women in the north-east and Cumbria smoking at the point of delivery, compared with only 4.9% in London. This stark figure shows that more regional action and support must be offered by the Department of Health to ensure that regional inequalities are addressed. The regional variations and the other variations mentioned show that the slashing of the public health grants is a false economy when it comes to seriously driving forward the agenda on public health, especially in relation to smoking.

In last year’s autumn statement, the then Chancellor announced further cuts in the public health grant, which amounted to an average real-terms cut of 3.9% each year to 2020-21, and translates to a further cash reduction of 9.6% in addition to the £200 million worth of cuts announced in the 2015 Budget. As we know, specialist support and stop smoking services help to get people off cigarettes and to lead a far healthier lifestyle. However, cuts to public health funding have meant that it has proven far more difficult for local authorities to provide that much-needed specialist support.

In a survey of local tobacco control leads conducted by Action on Smoking and Health and commissioned by Cancer Research UK, a total of 40% of local stop smoking services were being reconfigured or decommissioned in 2014-15. In Manchester, we have seen a complete decommissioning of stop smoking services. This is even more concerning when the initial results of the 2015-16 survey show that the rate of decommissioning and reconfiguring is increasing. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will be able to commit to ensuring that we have a substantial source of funding for specialist services that help to support in particular those in lower social economic groups as well as pregnant women to quit smoking. We must end the intergenerational cycle of health inequality that I have spoken about.

It is important that we have a plan and that we have it now—a plan that continues the work of previous Governments to reduce smoking in our society. We have seen inroads into creating a healthier society, but we all recognise we have a long way to go, as the facts and figures show. The Government’s delayed plan must be published now, and it must have measures in place that will address the many variations, from geographical variation to deprivation and socioeconomic background variation.

We must see further work to address the take-up of smoking by children and young people if we are to ever achieve our goal of the next generation being healthier than the last. We need to address smoking among young people head on. Achieving a smoke-free society is within our reach, but what we do not need is further delay and hesitation by the Government; what we need is bold action.

I hope that the Minister can give us that bold action today and that she does so by finally giving us the date when the new tobacco control plan will be published. The longer we wait, the more children will take up smoking, the more people will get ill and, sadly, the more people will die. The time for waiting is over. We now need bold action.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicola Blackwood]

Prevention is a core part of the NHS five year forward view and should be embedded in NHS funding, public health funding and social care funding, as the right hon. Gentleman has stated. We are looking for the STPs to show a joined-up plan for how prevention, acute delivery services and social care will work together. PHE can and does advise and support local councils to tailor their services effectively, but we need to see how we can improve that. The local tobacco control profiles are one way in which we are doing that, but we must ensure that we see some of that work implemented.

At national level, to help drive a reduction in variation, the Government are committed to publishing the new tobacco control plan that all Members have mentioned, which has tackling inequalities at its heart. The plan will build on our success so far and will include renewed national ambitions. We have to maintain the proactive, comprehensive and non-partisan approach we have seen so far. The UK is recognised as a world leader in tobacco control strategy, and we intend to maintain that. However, I am afraid that on this occasion I will not be able to match my predecessor by announcing the date of publication. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] I know; I feel inadequate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East is right in identifying my desire to ensure that the plan is evidence-led. It is reasonable for a new Government to want to check that the plan offers the best possible strategy, based on evidence. On something as important as a tobacco control plan, which is a golden moment, we have to ensure that we do not publish the plan until we get it right. It has been valuable to have the opportunity to listen to and engage with this debate, so that I can hear from colleagues as expert and engaged as those present before going forward. I assure all Members that the Government see the issue as a matter of urgency and are pressing forward with the plan as quickly as possible. I will certainly take away the suggestion from the hon. Member for Stockton North about incorporating respiratory health monitoring into the NHS health check.

I would like to go through a few of the points that we have discussed before I finish. As I have highlighted, it is right to turn our focus to population groups in which smoking prevalence remains higher than elsewhere. In particular, we must turn our attention to reducing health inequalities in populations who already suffer from poorer health and social outcomes, such as those in routine or manual occupations or those who suffer from mental health conditions.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes said, improving maternity outcomes and giving children the best start in life is an important priority for this Government, and supporting pregnant women to quit smoking will be an important factor in working towards that. We all know that smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of stillbirth, as the shadow Minister said, and of problems for a child after birth. We also know that babies born to mothers who smoke are more likely to be born underdeveloped and in poor health. Tackling that was a priority under the previous tobacco control plan, during the period of which smoking prevalence among that group fell by three percentage points, but more can be done to reduce it further and, most importantly, to tackle the variation I mentioned. We will look at that.

Alongside limiting babies’ exposure to smoke during and after pregnancy, we must continue to work to end the cycle of children taking up smoking in the first place. As the percentage of 15-year-olds who regularly smoke has fallen to 8% and continues to fall, we must press our advantage and work towards our first smokeless generation. That would be something that we could genuinely be proud of. Restricting access to tobacco remains key, and we will want to maintain the enforcement of measures mentioned today, such as age of sale laws. Evidence shows that children who have a parent who smokes are two to three times more likely to be smokers themselves. Continuing to support adults to quit is therefore vital to ending the cycle of children taking up smoking and must remain a key part of tobacco control in the future.

In order to achieve our ambitions for the population groups I have mentioned, and to reduce smoking prevalence across all populations to even lower rates, we have to continue to draw on the things that we know work. This is an area in which we have a strong evidence base, and that work will include continuing a programme of evidence-based marketing campaigns such as Stoptober and monitoring the evidence base for e-cigarettes.

Finally, the right hon. Member for North Norfolk is right to say that tobacco use is a global issue and an international priority. Our new tobacco control plan will need to reflect that. As a world leader on tobacco control, the UK will continue to work closely with others to reduce the burden that smoking places on individuals, families and economies across the globe. As he said, we are investing official development assistance funds over five years to strengthen the implementation of the WHO’s framework convention on tobacco control. The project will be delivered by the WHO, and through it, we will share the UK’s experience in tobacco control to support low and middle-income countries to put effective measures in place to stop people using tobacco. That will happen through capacity sharing. We will carefully monitor the progress of that initiative to ensure that it delivers results, using very effective evaluation measures. I am happy to have further discussions about that with the right hon. Gentleman, if he would find that helpful.

We can be proud of the progress that successive Governments have made on helping people to quit smoking, preventing them from starting in the first place and creating an environment that de-normalises smoking. With prevalence rates at an all-time low, there is no question that good work has been done, but as the issues raised in this debate clearly show, there is more work to be done. The Government are committed to doing that work as a matter of urgency. I will take away the comments made today, which are incredibly helpful to me as a new Minister, and I will ensure that as we finalise the new tobacco control plan—

[Mrs Hodgson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nicola Blackwood]

This is literally my last sentence, but I will.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I am very grateful; I thought I could just catch the Minister before she finishes. Can we expect the tobacco control plan this year or next year?

[Nicola Blackwood]

The hon. Lady will have to wait and see.

In conclusion, the Government recognise this area as a top priority and will continue to work on it as such.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicola Blackwood]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue relating to drug and alcohol misuse. We have prioritised this question as one of the local statutory requirements. We have given £16 billion to local health authorities for public health delivery, and we will expect them to prioritise this issue.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Lack of physical activity contributes to obesity. With today’s Health questions falling on World Obesity Day, as I am sure the Minister is aware, it is vital that we recommit our efforts to reversing rising obesity levels in the UK. An opportune moment would have been the childhood obesity strategy—sorry, the plan—that was published over the summer, but sadly it did not go far enough. Therefore, will the Minister commit today to ensuring that the plan is fully realised as a preventive strategy to change behaviours and help to make the next generation healthier than the last?

[Nicola Blackwood]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her appointment. I am particularly pleased to see her in her place. She has played an important role in the all-party parliamentary group on breast cancer. We are very proud of the childhood obesity plan. It is based on the best available evidence, and it will make a real difference to obesity rates in this country. The Government are also consulting on the soft drinks industry levy, and we have launched a broad sugar reduction strategy. She is absolutely right to say that we must now work hard to ensure that we deliver on that with the NHS, local authorities and other partners as we move into the delivery phase of the plan. We are proud that it is a world-leading plan.

Defending Public Services

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

Having had these exchanges over the Dispatch Box for the past nine months, it strikes me that the reality of what people are experiencing in hospitals is sometimes missing from these debates, and that is why I thought it important to quote from those letters.

On workforce challenges, nothing sums up this Government’s failure on the NHS more than the way that they have treated NHS staff. We have had pay freezes, cuts to training places, and the first all-out doctors strike in 40 years—a strike that the Health Secretary did not even try to prevent; in fact he provoked it. He has spoken about seven-day services, but he said little about how he proposes to improve weekend care without the extra resources and staff that the NHS will need. We can only assume that his plan is to spread existing resources more thinly, asking staff to do even more and putting patients at risk during the week.

The Health Secretary also failed to say what experts think about his approach. For example, Professor Sir Bruce Keogh said that the NHS was making good progress towards improving weekend care, but that that became “derailed” when the Health Secretary started linking seven-day services to junior doctors. Fiona Godlee, editor of The British Medical Journal, said that, by picking a fight with doctors, the Health Secretary has set back NHS England’s established programme of work on improving services at weekends. Not only does he have no plan to deliver a seven-day NHS, but he has ripped up the plan that was already in place to improve weekend care. You couldn’t make it up, Mr Speaker.

The Health Secretary often reads out his usual list of stats on staff numbers, but to know what is really happening we must look beyond the spin. A recent survey of nurses by Unison found that almost two-thirds believe that staffing levels have got worse in the past year, and 63% said that they felt there were inadequate numbers of staff on the wards to ensure safe and dignified care—that figure was up from 45% the year before. Whether GPs, nurses or midwives, numbers of staff have not kept pace with demand.

Analysis by the House of Commons Library shows that, in the Labour Government’s last year in office, there were 70 GPs per 100,000 of the population, but that figure has now fallen to just 66. In Labour’s last year, there were 679 nurses per 100,000 of the population, but there are now just 665. No wonder that doctors and nurses feel pushed to breaking point. If we do not look after the workforce, patients will suffer. There was nothing in the Queen’s Speech to help the workforce—no U-turn on scrapping NHS bursaries, no plan to train the staff the NHS so desperately needs, and no plan to improve working conditions.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend’s point about the workforce is important. Does she share my concern about those attacks on doctors and nurses, and the undermining of numbers? If we break the doctors we will in turn break the NHS, and it is a lot easier to get public support to privatise a broken NHS, than an NHS that is well, healthy and working as it should.

[Heidi Alexander]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and motivated staff are essential to providing high-quality care.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I was hoping for a lot more from this Queen’s Speech. I hoped that there would be something to address the ever-growing housing crisis in this country. I also hoped that there would be something on the environment or on the long-awaited and much promised Bill on wild animals in circuses. But mainly, I hoped that there would be some hope for my region and my constituency. Yet again, however, we heard only scant warm words with the brief mention of the northern powerhouse—the Chancellor’s pet project—which does not even seem to reach the north-east.

I do not think the Chancellor heeded my words on the lack of measures for the north-east in his ultra-shambolic Budget back in April, when I warned him that, despite his ambition to be king of the north, he needed to recognise that there was a lot more of the north beyond Manchester before he got to the wall. Mercifully, his time as Chancellor is almost up. Who knows where he will be when winter comes, post-referendum: in No. 10 or in the wilderness on the Back Benches? His legacy for the north-east is, sadly, only more pain and hurt.

Today’s debate is all about our public services, and I want to highlight the damage that is being inflicted on them by this Conservative Government, who are continuing to starve them of proper investment while forcing through damaging and unnecessary legislation. The Tories are now trying to dismantle and ruin two of our country’s greatest and most precious institutions: the NHS and the BBC. These are two public services that we probably all use almost every day and both are central to our national way of life. This Government are hellbent on completely changing the culture and ethos of the two institutions. They have already started the process, but we must not let them complete it.

Since the Conservatives came into office in 2010, the NHS has faced crisis after crisis, all of which could have been avoided if it had been given proper investment and support. Instead, we saw an unnecessary top-down reorganisation of the NHS that disjointed funding streams and placed unnecessary burdens on services through cuts that have been detrimental to our constituents’ experiences of using the NHS. This abysmal mismanagement of the NHS by the Health Secretary and his equally appalling predecessor is compounded by the fact that 3.7 million people are currently on waiting lists, by the understaffing of our hospitals and by patients’ struggles to see their GP. The mismanagement has been acutely felt in the north-east, with the prime example being the underperformance of the North East Ambulance Service NHS Trust. That was the subject of a Westminster Hall debate about two weeks ago in which I and a dozen other north-east colleagues raised our numerous concerns. I hope that the Government have listened to those concerns and will act as soon as possible.

Instead of addressing the issues that the NHS is facing on a day-to-day basis, the Health Secretary took it upon himself to enter into a protracted fight with our junior doctors. They do an amazing job of treating patients in difficult circumstances, yet he has battled with them remorselessly over their pay and conditions. It is welcome that a deal has now been struck between the Department of Health and the junior doctors after everyone was at last brought back around the negotiating table. However, this all could have been avoided, including the recent strike action, if only the Health Secretary had meaningfully listened to the junior doctors’ concerns about the impact the proposed changes to their contracts would have on the NHS.

The Health Secretary must rethink his entire strategy for the national health service and ensure that it does what it was created to do. I want to quote from the leaflet that every home received when the NHS was launched in 1948:

“It will provide you with all medical, dental and nursing care. Everyone—rich or poor, man, woman or child—can use it or any part of it.”

It was Nye Bevan who said:

“Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune, the cost of which should be shared by the community”.

We should have seen something like that in this Queen’s Speech. But wait—no, that only happens in a Labour Queen’s Speech. That is how we got our NHS in the first place.

The BBC is another of our treasured public services that the Government are trying to undermine. The Culture Secretary is using tactics that can only be described as bullying and intimidation to make the BBC accept a new charter—which is in no one’s interests other than those of commercial media moguls—and he has shown his true colours by going on record as saying that the disappearance of the BBC is a “tempting prospect”. Those are the words of the man who is supposed to be in charge of nurturing and championing British culture and talent.

The Government’s proposals aim to hobble the BBC, and they will put its position as an independent public broadcaster in jeopardy by introducing Government appointees to oversee the organisation. That is a clear attack on the BBC’s independence and its ability to hold the Government to account. Putting Government-approved people on the board would threaten the very existence of the BBC as we know it. Peter Kosminsky, the director of “Wolf Hall” and winner of the BAFTA Best Drama award, has said that

“the BBC’s main job is to speak truth to power—to report to the British public without fear or favour, no matter how unpalatable that might be to those in government.”

Those words remind us of exactly why the Government must maintain the integrity that the BBC has come to be respected for, not just in the UK but right across the world.

The BBC is not only one of our main sources of news and information; it also acts as a beacon for British culture and talent and is a true cornerstone of UK plc. From giving that much needed break to up-and-coming artists on BBC radio stations to the many TV programmes that showcase the greatest aspects of British life—commercially successful shows such as “Strictly Come Dancing” and “The Great British Bake-Off”, informative and incredible documentaries such as “South Pacific”, “Frozen Planet” and the many other David Attenborough documentaries that have taken us into some of the most remote and exotic places in the world—the BBC is the very best of British in everything it does, and we get to enjoy all that for the remarkably good-value price of just 40p a day while sitting in the comfort of our own home. However, the Culture Secretary has persistently put the future of commercial BBC programming in jeopardy by saying that the BBC should focus on broadcasting for the public good. He clearly forgets that all shows broadcast by the BBC, whether commercial or informative, are for the public good. The two cannot be separated because commercially successful programmes help to fund world-class documentaries that are viewed across the globe. My Opposition colleagues and I will do everything in our power to ensure that one of our most treasured institutions is protected, continues to drive creativity in the 21st century, and is accessible to all.

Going back to Peter Kosminsky, he also said in his acceptance speech at the BAFTAs:

“It’s not their BBC, it’s your BBC.”

Never have truer words been said about our BBC. We need to defend it at all costs from the damage that this Government wish to inflict upon it. Our NHS and BBC make us proud to be British. When it comes to damaging those two precious public services, the Government will not get an easy ride either from Opposition Members or from the wider public watching today.

[Jake Berry]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the BBC is uniquely able to tackle difficult issues such as controlling abuse? She may have been following the recent story in “The Archers” relating to Helen Titchener, which showcases the BBC at its best. If the hon. Lady goes on to the “Free Helen Titchener” JustGiving page, she will see that the BBC has been involved in helping to raise £130,000 to support women’s refuges across the country.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I am so pleased that I allowed that intervention, because it was excellent. I thank the hon. Gentleman for that, and I do agree with him.

The NHS and the BBC are cherished institutions, providing an essential public good. They are the very best of British. The proposals are a damning indictment of this Government’s attitude towards our country and those two great institutions, of which I believe the whole country is immensely proud. That is why we cannot allow them to be dismantled or diminished in stature or performance. On the day that the NHS was founded, Nye Bevan said:

“The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it.”

His words apply equally to the BBC in this context, as much as he intended them for the NHS. We need to have faith now, and we need to fight for both of them before it is too late. Otherwise, the NHS and the BBC, which our grandparents’ generation so proudly created, will no longer be there for our grandchildren, who will never forgive us.

North East Ambulance Service

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the performance of the North East Ambulance Service.

We as a country pride ourselves on our world-class NHS services, which are the envy of the world. It is therefore always important that we highlight failures and shortcomings to ensure that our services do not fail our constituents when they need them most.

Strains on services are part and parcel of life in the NHS, but in recent years the pressures have been exacerbated by the Government’s policies. Ever since the Conservatives were elected to office in 2010, the NHS has struggled due to their mismanagement. In particular, the Health and Social Care Act 2012 implemented a costly, top-down reorganisation, which was neither needed nor wanted. It led to a disjointed funding model and resulted in my local ambulance trust, the North East Ambulance Service, running an expected budget deficit of £3.5 million for 2015-16. It comes as no surprise that I have received a growing number of complaints and concerns about the NHS in recent years, which is why this northern group of MPs decided that we had to call for the debate.

All the services that the NHS provides are important, but when someone suddenly falls ill in an emergency such as a stroke or a heart attack, or has a fall or an accident, it is understandable that they have high expectations of our ambulance service. The important work that paramedics do in our region day in, day out is undeniable, but, as the cases that my constituents have brought to my attention and those that have been reported in the press show, patient safety is in jeopardy. That is mainly due to waiting times, which, as the cases I will outline illustrate, have increased and are causing distress to many of my constituents.

For red 1 and red 2 cases—potentially life-threatening incidents—the trust remains below the national standard. Although that is reflected across the country—only two ambulance trusts in England met red 1 standards—it is concerning that, in our region, that failure has continued for the past three years, despite the fact that our response time of eight minutes is higher than the national average. That is exacerbated by the fact that red demand calls have increased by 21.3% in the past 12 months. The performance targets for the fourth quarter of 2015-16 were breached, leading to the trust’s third consecutive quarter breach.

I called this debate to give myself and my fellow north-eastern colleagues the opportunity to raise cases and concerns directly with the Government to ensure that our constituents receive the very best standard of service, which they rightly expect. It is right that we raise concerns with the Government, who are ultimately responsible for the service and can ensure that something is done about the problems we raise. I will touch on some of the many cases ranging from 2012 to 2016 that my constituents have brought to my attention, and I know that other Members will do the same.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this extremely important debate. I am very concerned about the management. That was highlighted to me when I wrote a letter to the North East Ambulance Service about ambulance services in Teesdale. I got a letter back headed, “Ambulance services in Weardale”. The worst thing that happened was to Violet Alliston, whose partner rang three times in an hour. No ambulance came, and she died. That is obviously totally unacceptable.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that very sad example, which I fear and predict will be one of many—perhaps not all with such a tragic ending—that we will hear this afternoon.

The correspondence I have received about ambulance waiting times in my constituency makes it clear this has been a persistent problem since 2012. I was first told about the problem with waiting times by the league chairman of the Wearside football league after he raised concerns with the North East Ambulance Service directly about numerous incidents. In his correspondence, he said that waiting times for football players who had broken their leg had continually gone over 70 minutes. In one case, after a player broke his leg, the league chairman called 999 at 11.40 am, but he was called back and informed that no ambulance was available and that he should take the player by car. He rang 999 back and complained that that went against what trained first aiders were told about not moving people with broken bones. An ambulance then arrived at 1 pm—80 minutes after the initial call—and the young man was taken to hospital.

Ever since that case, I have received a range of correspondence from other constituents highlighting failures and shortcomings in ambulances going out to emergencies. An issue particular to my local area—I do not think it is replicated in other parts of the region, although we may hear differently when other colleagues speak—is that ambulances struggle to get to certain parts of my constituency due to confusion in finding the address. That has been repeatedly brought to my attention by my constituent, Mr Walker, who for the past two years has highlighted the difficulty that ambulance crews have getting to the Usworth Hall estate in Washington. When a shocking murder took place in the area in 2014, the ambulance did not arrive for more than an hour and the man died.

An example of that failure happened when a woman was in labour and her sister-in-law had to deliver the baby because the ambulance went to the wrong street. The children of the woman in labour had to search the streets for the ambulance. When they found it, they guided it by foot, as they were not allowed on board, for more than a mile to where it should have been.

I could give many other examples. It has been a persistent issue for the residents of Usworth Hall, who, through Mr Walker, have highlighted their concerns and their exasperation at those problems. On each occasion, I forwarded their concerns to the North East Ambulance Service, which looked into each issue. To its credit, it has tried to address them. That was highlighted in a letter to me in July 2014, in which it explained that it had set up an electronic flag system for all residents in Usworth Hall and had a duty manager from its control room go out and survey the area for problems. However, Mr Walker contacted me again at the beginning of April and informed me that an ambulance was parked outside his house one evening. When he went out to speak to the staff, he found that they were lost and supposed to be in another street.

Paramedics understandably do not have the local knowledge that residents have, but sat-nav equipment is provided to help ambulances get to the right destination at the right time.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend think that those delays could be because of the shortage of paramedics and the fact that, as the service has admitted, it uses volunteers and private contractors to provide ambulances? That exacerbates the problem of people not knowing how to get to where they need to be.

[Mrs Hodgson]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I will come on to the shortage, which is running at about 15%, and the stress on paramedics, to which she alluded.

If the sat-nav equipment continues to fail, and if my interventions on behalf of my constituents and the ambulance trust’s action do not rectify the situation, there needs to be a serious investigation into what is going wrong. We cannot have our ambulances driving round lost on estates looking for the right street.

My most recent piece of casework is from February and is deeply concerning. It concerns my constituent, Mrs Ellen Sherriff. I feel that using the words emailed to me by my constituent’s husband, Mr David Sherriff, can help to highlight the situation and the distress that can come from having to wait hours and hours for an ambulance to arrive. I hope that you will allow me a moment to read out Mr Sherriff’s words, Mr Bailey. He said:

“Ellen became unwell at 10.35am yesterday morning with severe head pain on the right-hand side. She felt like she was going to pass out. I checked her blood pressure which was very high, so phoned 111 at 11am and spoke to a call handler who told me he was sending an emergency ambulance and not to be worried if it arrived with blue lights.

Two and a half hours later no one had come. Ellen remained unwell and could not stand any light.

I phoned 999 and was told the ambulance that was coming had been diverted to Cramlington but that we would be next unless a more urgent call came in.

At 2.40pm, a patient transportation ambulance arrived with two ambulance men. I asked why it had taken so long. They said given the circumstances Ellen should have been seen earlier. They had no equipment, not even a blood pressure machine. They said they couldn’t risk moving Ellen in case they caused the bleed in her brain to become life threatening and they would send for a paramedic. They would also remain here till he arrived. They also complained to the control room regarding the wait.

They sat outside until 5.30pm, 6 and a half hours after I first phoned. When the paramedic first arrived he examined Ellen and said she should have been in hospital 5 hours earlier.”

It was not until 6 pm, more than eight hours after the initial phone call, that my constituent, Mrs Sherriff, was admitted to hospital, where it was discovered that she did indeed have a bleed in the brain and that she should have been there much sooner.

Until Friday, Mr Sherriff was still awaiting a response to his complaint, which was sent in February. Perhaps the prospect of this debate ensured that he eventually got it. The trust has admitted errors in the handling and categorising of Mrs Sherriff’s condition, meaning that it was continually not treated with the urgency required. The trust has apologised and said that a “reflection and learning session” has been given to the original call handler, but this case could easily have had a tragic ending.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate, which is important to all of us. Does she agree that the issue is not only with the ambulance service? Last summer, in the middle of the night, I took a relative to the university hospital in Durham. In the morning, when I came outside, I counted 12 ambulances stood outside the hospital and unable to discharge their passengers and get patients admitted. The whole system in the north-east is now simply not working.

[Mrs Hodgson]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point—we often hear about the queues of ambulances at accident and emergency. Patients have waited hours and hours for the ambulance to come, but when they get to the hospital, they sit in a queue outside. I have raised that with my local hospital. There is a huge breakdown in the system. Something is going seriously wrong, and it is completely unacceptable. Mrs Sherriff, a patient who had a suspected bleed in the brain, had to wait for more than eight hours before getting to A&E. That is truly shocking, and all those cases mentioned highlight concerns that the Government and the North East Ambulance Service must address.

I have one more issue to discuss before concluding, and that is to do with the numbers of qualified paramedics, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon) mentioned in her intervention. When waiting times are going up and demand is rising, we clearly need to look at workforce retention and recruitment. Our paramedics do an amazing job, but they cannot be in two places at the same time.

At this point, I want to place clearly on the record that I am not apportioning any blame or criticism at all to any paramedic or ambulance crew. They do an amazing job, under very difficult and trying circumstances, day in, day out, and they should not be placed in situations whereby, once allocated, they race through traffic to a call, within the appropriate time allowed, only to be faced with stressed and sometimes angry people, who say, “Where’ve you been? I’ve been waiting four, five, six or seven hours.”

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I have an example from my constituency. A young lad, a teenager, had a road traffic accident, getting a compound fracture of the leg, but it took three hours for an ambulance to get to him.

When I met the ambulance chief executive, she told me that the problem is that the organisations that do employment and support allowance assessments are poaching qualified paramedics from the ambulance service, creating a great hole. There is a role there for Government, perhaps, to talk to the whole organisation, to see what can be done to put a stop to that.

[Mrs Hodgson]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point, which I will touch on, although he made the case well. We have to look at the slippage, to where in the rest of the health service the paramedics are haemorrhaging, and why. I will say more about that in a moment.

Paramedics are there to treat people and give them emergency—perhaps life-saving—healthcare, but before they can even start to treat them, they might first have to calm the patient and relatives down, because of something that was completely out of their hands. It is therefore no surprise that, nationally, there is a shortage of qualified paramedics, and all trusts are struggling to fill vacancies so that they can operate at full capacity. The North East Ambulance Service has a 15% shortage, and is plugging the gap with private and voluntary organisations, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside mentioned. The service has said, however, that it will be up to full establishment in a year, but how many more people will wait for hours and hours before we get to that stage?

Something therefore needs to be done about the recruitment and retention of paramedics, especially since evidence has shown that more staff are leaving the profession than ever. Also, mental health charity Mind reported that 62% of blue-light emergency service workers have experienced a mental health problem and, worryingly, one in four has considered ending their own life. It is shocking to think about the stress that those people are working under.

It is no surprise that research conducted jointly by Unite, Unison and the GMB revealed at the end of last year that more than 1,500 paramedics had left the service in 2014-15, compared with 845 in 2010-11—still a high number, but a little more than half the later figure. Of paramedics surveyed as part of other research by the three unions, 75% had considered leaving the profession due to stress and pay.

Action therefore needs to be taken on recruitment, which is why I welcome the work of my local university, the University of Sunderland, which in partnership with the North East Ambulance Service has launched a diploma programme in paramedic practice. It will pair theoretical study with practical training over two years, and it will help to address the shortages faced by not only our regional trust, but other trusts around the country. That innovative work by my local university, alongside that of the outstanding paramedic practice degree at Teesside University, which is seen as a beacon of best practice in our region, if not the country, is important and will help.

It is, however, unsustainable not to address strategically the staffing shortages and the increasing demoralisation of a workforce who are haemorrhaging away, because that is clearly having an impact on waiting and call-out times for emergencies. That is why I hope that the Minister will address those concerns, and outline what the Government are doing to deal with recruitment and retention. How will she work with my local ambulance service trust to ensure that it reaches the target of being fully operational by this time next year? How will the ambulance trust ensure that those who are recruited into the field are retained and do not slip off to work for other parts of the health service, so that we do not see further shortages down the line?

It is important that our emergency ambulance services are up to the standard that we all expect. That means working collaboratively among ourselves, as the local Members of Parliament who represent our constituents and their concerns, and with the Department of Health, NHS England and the North East Ambulance Service Trust. Our constituents deserve the best standards in our NHS, and it is up to the Government seriously to address pressures on our NHS services, especially the case of the workforce in the ambulance service.

I hope that the Minister has listened carefully to my concerns, and will listen to those that my colleagues from the north-east who have attended the debate today express. I look forward to hearing what she has to say at the end of the debate.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (in the Chair)]

I will call the Front-Bench spokespersons at 3.40 pm. Simple arithmetic will demonstrate that if I am to get everyone who wants to speak to speak—I want you to speak as well—you need to confine your remarks to about six or seven minutes. I will be grateful if you follow that guidance.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I thank all who have contributed to this important debate. Some extremely serious issues of principle and general practice and some very serious constituency cases have been raised. I doubt that I will be able to deal with some of the specific issues, particularly in relation to individual constituents, during the debate, but I have made a careful note, as have my officials, of some of the specific points and we will go through Hansard after the debate and ensure that we pick up individual points. I am extremely disappointed to hear that colleagues have not always found the trust as responsive as they would wish. I spoke to the chief executive yesterday in preparation for the debate and will certainly go back to that specific point, but I will come to some of the other general points as I move through my speech.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jane Ellison]

It is quite early, but I will.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I just want to say that we are all aware that the chief executive, Yvonne Ormston, is new and has obviously inherited many of the cases. I would like to say that things have massively improved. I know that she is trying to turn the situation around, but what has happened will not all have been on her watch.

[Jane Ellison]

The hon. Lady makes that point very well and with her characteristic generosity of spirit. I am sure that that will be noted. I will take the issue forward with that very much in mind and I thank her for her comments.

Ambulance services are obviously vital to the healthcare system. We have heard this afternoon some of the reasons why. They provide rapid assistance to people in urgent need of help. Hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber have rightly put on the record their appreciation of the work done by staff in trusts across the country and by the front-line staff in the NEAS. I add my thanks to theirs. Inevitably, we bring problems before the House—that is right, because we want to talk about how we can move things on for our constituents—but it is possible for a member of staff reading the record of a debate afterwards to think that we had only blame and criticism. Today, however, all hon. Members have been careful to praise the very hard-working staff. As has been said, they are working under quite considerable pressure.

It will probably be helpful to provide some context about the national picture. We recognise that the NHS is busier than ever, which is why we are backing the NHS’s own plan for its future, the Five Year Forward View, with an extra £10 billion by 2020-21. The challenges faced by the North East Ambulance Service are reflected in many services across the country. Ambulance services are facing unprecedented demand, delivering over 2,800 more emergency journeys every day compared with 2010. That demand has an impact on performance indicators, such as response times, with ambulance services continuing to struggle with their targets. The Department is working closely with NHS England and with NHS Improvement to monitor and support performance in 2016-17.

In relation to the North East Ambulance Service, I spoke briefly to the service yesterday, in addition to having received quite a detailed briefing from it ahead of the debate. I am advised by the NEAS that the average number of the most serious incidents—red incidents—that it has responded to within eight minutes has changed very little over the past three financial years, but the volume of red incidents to which the NEAS has to respond to reach the 75% performance target has increased by more than 20%, from 370 a day in August 2015 to more than 440 a day now. That change in demand in particular has placed our front-line emergency care services under real pressure, rather than the responsiveness and capacity of service provision.

Meningitis B Vaccine

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend is right. I pay tribute to the charity based in his constituency and to the other meningitis charity, because they have been campaigning for many years on meningitis B and all the other strains.

The point about rolling out the vaccine to the cohorts—I urge the Minister to go further than that—is that my understanding is that once someone is vaccinated for meningitis B with Bexsero, they are covered for life. Therefore, if more cohorts are covered by the roll-out, more of the population will be covered and the entire population will become less susceptible.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

My question follows on nicely from the point made by the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) in his intervention about the long-term costs. I first came across this issue at a reception held by Meningitis Now. I commend that charity and the Meningitis Research Foundation for their excellent work. In terms of special educational needs, long-term costs can come in when a child reaches 12 or 13 and it becomes apparent that they are not developing at the same rate as other children. All sorts of educational implications should be factored into the long-term costs.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I could not agree more. That is why the CEMIPP group study should look at not only the medical costs but the educational costs, the cost of carers and so on. There are considerable costs to the public purse. We tend, under our democratic system, to be quite short-termist in our view of such matters. I am involved at the moment in work on drugs for cystic fibrosis, to which exactly the same issues apply. After the considerable cost at the outset, there is a lifelong benefit to babies from getting such drugs. If we are going to carry out a cost-benefit analysis for the meningitisusb B vaccination, that is what we should consider.

Brain Tumours

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 18th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I start by thanking the Petitions Committee for introducing this important debate and commending my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for her excellent opening speech, in which she eloquently made the case on behalf of the 120,129 citizens who have signed the online petition. I also commend the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), who is the chair of the all-party group on brain tumours, for her leadership on the issue and her very emotional speech, which I thank her for.

Over the years, I have had to deal with a number of individual cases, as I am sure other hon. Members have. Currently, I have three, and 132 of my constituents have signed the online petition. The response from our constituents on the issue is not surprising when we realise that, as we have just heard, malignant brain tumours are the biggest killer among all types of cancer of people under the age of 40 and of children.

Also, survival rates for brain tumours have not improved in the last 30 years; if anything, on some measures they have got worse. Currently, only 40% of patients will live for more than a year after diagnosis and less than 20% will survive for more than five years. However, as we have heard, despite those shocking figures, cancer research funding into brain tumours amounts to little more than 1% of the spend on cancer research. Due to the chronic and continuous underfunding of brain tumour research, there are clear knock-on effects to the services and treatments that patients access and receive. If we continue to limit the potential progress that properly funded research might make, those outcomes will never improve. That probably explains the 30-year plateau that I have just highlighted.

As with all cancers, early detection is key to boosting survival rates. That is why it is so dismaying to find that brain tumours are not included in the Government’s Be Clear on Cancer campaign. Early diagnosis not only helps to prevent avoidable death, but can relieve the stress on a patient’s life, as one recent case brought to my attention by a constituent exemplifies. After visiting their local GP twice about feeling generally unwell, my constituent was told that they had all the classic signs of stress and they were prescribed antidepressants.

[Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)]

My constituent, Rita Magorrian, got in touch with me about her granddaughter, Helen, who collapsed just before Christmas with a brain tumour. Helen had been to see her GP several times and had been told her problems were down to stress, but she had also been to see her optician and was told the same. As well as considering further training for GPs, does my hon. Friend agree that we need to widen the process to include opticians?

[Mrs Hodgson]

That is an excellent point, well made, and I thank my hon. Friend for it.

Two days later, when my constituent lost all strength on the left side of their body, they went straight to A&E, where it was eventually found they had three brain tumours. After receiving brilliant treatment by NHS staff and support from the Bobby Robson centre in Newcastle, thankfully my constituent is now in remission. However, that case clearly shows the need for improved awareness, as the situation would have been better if the GP had been able to spot the signs of a brain tumour sooner. We in the north-east have an excellent research facility in the Bobby Robson centre, but there are always concerns about its future, as it depends greatly on legacy and charitable donations.

It is also important that research considers the needs of patients. According to studies by Brainstrust, patients believe that more research and funding must focus on the quality-of-life issues, such as function and symptom relief, to help to improve life after diagnosis, whether the diagnosis is terminal or not.

That is reflected in the case of another of my constituents, Malcolm, who was given a terminal diagnosis of a glioblastoma multiforme, or GMB, 4 brain tumour. Despite being told by his doctor in the north-east that he was too sick for further treatment, Malcolm, along with his family, sought out specialists in London. He took the difficult and expensive decision to self-fund the life-extending drug, Avastin, which, although licensed for use in the treatment of some other cancers, was not available on the NHS for use in his case.

Malcom is due to receive another dose of Avastin, but he wants it to be administered locally and is unable to find an oncologist in the north-east who is able to do so, even privately, so Malcolm is faced with either travelling up and down to London for that treatment every two weeks, or perhaps up to Scotland, or to Leeds or Manchester. Although Malcolm has responded well to the Avastin treatment, more options need to be available to people in his position, with treatments to improve the quality of life and, where possible, to extend life. However, that is all for nothing when there is a clear postcode lottery on access to specialists and services, as seen by Malcolm and his family.

The chronic underfunding of research into brain tumours is clearly having an impact on the lives of those who are diagnosed with brain tumours, and that cannot and should not go on any longer.

Childhood Obesity Strategy

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) on proposing and securing this important debate, and she will be pleased to hear that I agreed with almost everything she said. Many here in the Chamber will be aware of my strongly held passion to provide all children with a hot and healthy school meal, especially one that is free. The debate around the Government’s impending childhood obesity strategy, both here in Parliament and in the outside world, has focused on the reformulation of foods that are high in sugar and salt and the introduction of a sugar tax. Although I support those measures, I want quickly to discuss how school food can play a significant role in addressing the obesity crisis facing our children today.

I want to say at the outset—I am sure people are thinking this, if not here then definitely on social media—that I am rather overweight myself and that some may say I should practise what I preach. I do try. But that is why I am so passionate about this agenda: I know how much harder this becomes as you get older. I was allowed to adopt bad habits that are hard to break, and that shows why we need to educate the next generation to do much better.

School food has played a role in public policy for more than 100 years. It was first discussed in this place in 1906 when Fred Jowett, former Member of Parliament for Bradford West, used his maiden speech in the Chamber to launch his campaign to introduce free school meals when compulsory education was being rolled out. That led to the passing of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act 1906, which was originally Jowett’s private Member’s Bill.

Jowett’s campaign was driven by his experience as a member of the Bradford school board, where he witnessed the malnourishment of children who then fell behind their more affluent peers. Here we are, more than 100 years later, and those arguments are still being made today.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I was just thinking the same as my hon. Friend about how far we have come in some respects but not in others. She will be aware of the private Member’s Bill of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field). Does she support it?

[Mrs Hodgson]

Yes, that private Member’s Bill is an excellent initiative, and should be adopted by the Government and local authorities. It is very simple to share the data that we already have on families who are entitled to benefits, to ensure that the entitlement of their children to the pupil premium is not lost when universal free school meals are rolled out. That is a very important point.

Although we do not always think about obesity in this way, it is a form of malnourishment. What we are seeing today is very similar to what we saw more than 100 years ago, with children lacking the right nutrients to see them living a healthy childhood and growing into healthy adults. That is especially concerning given that today more than one third of children are leaving school overweight or obese.

The school setting is one of the most important interventions in a child’s life; it is where we nurture and educate future generations. Why should we not feed these children so that they are fuelled to receive the best education and life chances possible? That notion was strongly supported by the previous Labour Government, who introduced a raft of measures that addressed the food eaten by children in our schools. They included nutrition-based school food standards that provide children with the proper nutrition to learn, fully costed plans to extend our universal free school meal pilots, and the introduction of healthy, practical cooking on the national curriculum.

Although much, or all, of those measures were scrapped when the coalition Government were formed in 2010, it was very welcome when, in 2013, the school food plan was published, calling for the reinstatement of lots of those measures as well as new and improved measures in our schools to address the health of our children. Those included introducing food-based standards for all schools, training head teachers in the benefits of food and nutrition, improving Ofsted inspections on school food, and the roll-out of universal free school meals for primary school children, when funding was found.

As we know, that funding was found, thanks to David Laws and the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg). Fortunately, universal infant free school meals were secured by the Chancellor in the comprehensive spending review. All those measures came out of concerns for the health of our children and the growing obesity crisis, especially given that 57% of children were not eating school lunches. Some were opting to take in packed lunches, only 1% of which met the nutritional standards of a hot lunch, while others were opting to go off site to eat junk food at local takeaways.

As research has found, health problems associated with being overweight or obese cost the NHS more than £5 billion a year, and, with obesity rates continuing to rise for 11 to 15-year-olds, especially in deprived areas, it is now clearer than ever that we need seriously to address childhood obesity.

Giving children a healthy and balanced diet during the school day can only be a positive intervention in helping to address obesity. I cannot stress how strongly I believe that one of the most important interventions to help address health issues in childhood is universal free school meals.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

The hon. Lady mentioned that children are consuming junk food from outlets near schools. Does she believe that councils should have powers, as part of planning guidance, to take action on junk food outlets being so close to schools?

[Mrs Hodgson]

Yes, I do. I really welcome that intervention, because it not only makes the point, but stresses it very strongly. Some councils are very good and introduce byelaws to ensure that burger vans cannot pull up outside a school, and that, if there is already a number of takeaway shops nearby, no more can open. Matters such as that need to be addressed by councils.

The pilots introduced by the previous Labour Government in Durham and Newham to look into the benefits of universal free school meals found many benefits to a child’s health, and research continues now that we have universal infant school meals. The pilots in Durham and Newham found a 23% uptake in vegetable consumption at lunchtime and a steep decline in the typical unhealthy packed lunch foods. For example, there was a 16% decline in soft drinks and an 18% decline in crisps. Those are all-important figures that the Government should remember, and both the Department of Health and Department for Education should look further into how best they can use the vehicle of universal free school meals to help improve children’s health.

Although universal free school meals are protected in the Government’s comprehensive spending review—this followed a concerted campaign by school food campaigners, myself and others in the House—there is another area that the Government must consider when looking to improve the health of our children: holiday hunger. Children are in school for just 190 days of the year, and the rest—a total of 170 days—is totally down to their parents. Some may say that that is how it should be and that when we lock the school gates for the holidays it is none of our business what children eat, whether they eat or what they get up to. None the less, with the growing use of food banks in school holidays and the reports that children return from the longer school holidays noticeably thinner and unhealthier, the issue is one that we can no longer ignore.

If there is a push for better food provision in our schools, then we need to be doing much more during the holidays so as not to undo the hard work that goes into improving the life chances of children during term time. That is why the school food all-party group, which I chair, has established a holiday hunger task group, which last year launched its “Filling the Holiday Gap” guidelines to provide organisations and local authorities wishing to provide food during holidays with the resources to offer healthy and nutritious food. Late last year, it published its update report, which called for action to be taken by the Government.

When the Government’s childhood obesity strategy is published, I hope that there will be significant mention of the benefits that school food, especially universal free school meals, can have on a child’s health, and of how it can be used to address the growing childhood obesity crisis. There is evidence out there to support using universal free school meal provision to its fullest, instead of squandering its potential, to improve the health of our children.

This is a moment when the Government can really make a difference to children’s lives and I hope that all options and avenues will be pursued so that children are given the healthy food that they need to fuel their education and to make them as healthy a version of themselves as possible so that they grow into fit and healthy adults.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I am glad to be able to speak in this debate and hope that what I say will provide a different kind of insight into the debate on childhood obesity.

I am a great enthusiast for breastfeeding. Breast milk has many exceptional qualities, the most obvious being that it is exactly the right thing for infants to be eating. In the beginning, there is the double cream of breast milk, colostrum, which appears before a baby is even born in preparation for those first feeds. The milk that comes thereafter changes and adapts over time as the baby’s needs change. Breast milk has everything that a baby needs and, taken directly from source, it has the advantage of being at the correct temperature. It is easily absorbed by the infant gut. It is a miracle of nature.

What breastfeeding contributes to this debate is the impact that it can have on reducing childhood obesity. An excellent study was pulled together by UNICEF a few years ago called, “Preventing disease and saving resources: the potential contribution of increasing breastfeeding rates in the UK”. The report analysed data from many studies to ensure that there was a sound scientific basis for the claims that it made. Although I accept that giving precise figures and modelling on this is difficult, the UNICEF report estimates that:

“A modest increase in breastfeeding rates could result in a reduction in childhood obesity by circa 5%. If this was the case, the number of obese young children would fall by approximately 16,300, and annual health-care expenditures would reduce by circa £1.63 million.”

That would be no mean contribution. Breastfeeding starts babies off on the right track and, with the accompanying health benefits, such an increase could result in a generation of healthier babies and young people.

The Government should bear that in mind and ensure that services to promote, protect and support breastfeeding are well maintained. This is too important to be left to the good will of the wonderful network of voluntary organisations across the country. It needs to be an identified priority of this Government. The newly formed all-party parliamentary group on infant feeding and inequalities, which I established this week with colleagues from across the House, aims to examine the matter further. We will consider the issues of inequality, because there are multiple deprivation issues, with lower rates of breastfeeding in deprived communities.

What is less well known about infant formula is the specific contents of that product. It takes a complex chemical process to produce formula that involves either dry blending or wet mixing and spray drying, in which cow’s milk is treated with added lactose or other carbohydrates, vegetable and other oils, vitamins and minerals. According to the First Steps Nutrition Trust, the current regulations require infant formula and follow-on formula to have an energy content of between 60 kcal and 70 kcal per 100 ml. Those figures are based on the energy content of breast milk, but, as I mentioned earlier, breast milk composition changes in response to the baby as it grows. Breast milk also has more unsaturated fats than cow’s milk and the fats in infant formula tend to come from the vegetable oil. If anyone has an interest in finding out more about this, I recommend that they seek out the “Infant milks in the UK” report that is produced by the First Steps Nutrition Trust. The level of detail is fascinating.

There are differences between the growth curves of breastfed and formula-fed babies, with the formula-fed babies gaining more weight in the first year. Some studies suggest that that may, in part, contribute to childhood obesity. Pressure is also put on mothers to ensure that their baby is gaining the correct amount of weight. We should consider how formula milk is delivered. I have heard many people describe how many millilitres of formula their baby has drunk at any given time, comparing and contrasting this with others. There is an expectation of how much is normal.

There is a risk in the making up of formula milk, because one must ensure that the correct dosage of powder is dissolved in the water. If this is not done accurately, there is a risk of babies being overfed or, indeed, underfed. The risk of that is far lower for breastfed babies, although I admit that I could only really tell how much breast milk my babies had by the amount that they both threw up all over me. There is not really any other way of telling.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I agree with everything the hon. Lady has said so far. As she knows, I took part in the debate that she led in Westminster Hall on this issue. The point that she is making is very important. I was an evangelical breastfeeder myself and still encourage everyone to do it in every which way they can. She makes the point that breastfed babies feed on demand, so they take as much or as little as they need, whereas when babies are bottle fed, there is an obsession with whether they have taken half a bottle, 8 ml or whatever. Parents inadvertently force-feed their baby the amount they think they should have, rather than what the baby needs, so babies get used to being full. As we all know, that is not necessarily good and can lead to the bad habits in adulthood that I spoke about earlier.

[Alison Thewliss]

I absolutely agree with what my good friend says. Bottle feeding tends to be at a set time—“Is it time for the baby’s feed yet?”—rather than when the baby actually needs to be fed, whereas breastfed babies are fed little and often on demand, which is a slightly better habit to get into.

There is also a beneficial effect on breastfeeding mothers. As well as reducing the risk of cancer and diabetes, breastfeeding burns calories and helps to get mothers back to their pre-maternity weight—for me the prospect of burning an extra 400 to 500 calories just by breastfeeding my baby was very attractive, and it certainly helped me to fit back into the clothes that I wore before I had my children, both of whom were breastfed for two years.

I was interested in the findings of the Select Committee report, and I particularly note the points about marketing and sugar content in foods. I was a wee bit disappointed that it does not contain much discussion on baby foods and toddler milks, as there are significant issues in that area regarding the advertising and the content of the products. In evidence to the Committee, Dr Colin Michie of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health stated:

“Follow-on formulas are not necessary for human beings, but it would not seem so if you watch television. The problem is we are all very convinced by the stories. There are other issues that have parallels for what was said earlier in that the milk companies sponsor education, training, events and an awful lot of professional activities, which again does exactly, to our minds, what we heard it does to infants’ minds: when we see brand names, we equate certain things with them. It is an insidious business that we know enough of to be very wary of.”

The artificial creation of a market for follow-on or toddler milks is of some concern, because those products are not subject to the same level of scrutiny as formulas for very young babies. Research gathered by the First Steps Nutrition Trust suggests that

“Growing-up milks and toddler milks contain almost twice as much sugar per 100 ml as cow’s milk, and some Aptamil and Cow & Gate growing-up milks and all SMA growing-up milks contain vanilla flavouring. It is unclear whether repeated exposure to sweet drinks in infancy and toddlerhood might contribute to the development of a preference for sweet drinks in later life.”

It is important to take cognisance of that and consider the issue as part of the obesity strategy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who has established the fantastic all-party group on infant feeding and inequalities. I am looking forward to being part of that as it progresses, and I thank her for setting it up.

The chief executive of NHS England describes obesity as “the new smoking”, and in many ways he is right. Obesity leads to a multitude of health complications, ranging from lack of mobility to cancer. There are also many hidden health risks for people who are obese or severely overweight. Obesity can lead to a lack of self-worth or depression, and it can affect relationships and careers. Because of the growing obesity problem, and the very serious threat to our children’s futures, I am happy that this debate is taking place, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) on securing it.

In my constituency of Portsmouth South, 20% of children and 25% of adults are obese, which is above the average for England. In other ways, obesity is unlike smoking—there is no “vaping” technology for people who struggle to maintain a healthy diet. We know that fast food is an immediate satisfaction, whereas healthy food can take longer to prepare. I am concerned, however, that some studies suggest that healthy food is more expensive than the fast and unhealthy food that we see on offer every day, or positioned conveniently at supermarket checkouts.

I am particularly concerned by a fairly recent report by the University of Cambridge, which found that healthy food was three times more expensive than unhealthy food. I would dispute that. It is perfectly possible to eat healthily on a low budget. As Baroness Jenkin from the other place has shown, someone can live healthily on £1 a day, and I know from my own busy household that it is possible to live healthily on a very small budget. At the local food bank where I volunteered before the election we handed out healthy recipes for the food that was provided, which should have lasted people for three days. I am sure that I do not need to repeat what that issue means for those living in deprived areas, except to say that in my constituency of Portsmouth South, where deprivation is higher than the English average, the challenge to encourage people to eat healthy food is even greater.

The whole House will agree that today our nation’s children are more susceptible and at risk of becoming obese. Children do not control their diets—it is the parents who do the weekly shop—and we would never blame a child for their poor dietary choices. Children who develop obesity at a young age are at risk of developing lifelong conditions, some of which are also life-limiting; as we have heard, cases of diabetes are increasing. During childhood, people develop habits that can last the rest of their lives. A lot of facts have been flying around in this debate, and although I understand the financial burden that a growing obesity problem poses for our NHS, the human cost cannot be quantified.

The solution to this problem is not simply more money. As other Members have said, it requires the energy and commitment of central and local government, health organisations, and our local charities, to educate the population on how to live on a low wage. I am really pleased that the Roberts Centre in my constituency is a family-focused charity. It offers a range of services offering support and assistance, including making healthier lifestyle choices, to some of the most disadvantaged families in the city.

[Mrs Hodgson]

On the hon. Lady’s point about living healthily on a low wage, I take on board that it is very possible to make healthy food very cheaply, but people need the skills and knowledge to be able do that. I wonder whether she will say a bit more about that. The School Food Plan says that education should start with children learning the skills they need to be able to look after themselves as adults.

[Mrs Drummond]

That is exactly what I was going to come on to, so I thank the hon. Lady very much indeed.

Last week, I met Home Start, a national family charity with a strong presence in Portsmouth. It has an army of volunteers who offer unconditional help and support to all families who need help in getting it right, and show them how to cook healthily. There is, however, a major role for our schools in tackling obesity. The school where I am a governor, Milton Park primary, is taking the lead locally in educating children about healthier choices. The cooks at the school have won awards and I can recommend their so-called “chocolate muffins,” which in fact are made of beetroot.

I would like to see cooking classes become mandatory in schools. I know it would be difficult to re-establish kitchens, but the rewards would be worth it. I see that as the only way to prevent future generations from continuing poor eating habits. The only way to do that is by teaching them how to cook healthily and how to budget. Like some of my colleagues, I was against a sugar tax to start with. If we can use the sugar tax to fund cooking classes in schools, however, then I am all for it.

In Portsmouth, there are a number of charitable organisations actively engaging with the community to help to tackle obesity through a more active lifestyle. Affiliated with Portsmouth football club, Pompey in the Community provides education and opportunities for children in the city.