Leasehold and Commonhold Reform

Debate between Siobhain McDonagh and Lord Barwell

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Gentleman is nodding; that is the situation in the case that he mentioned. That can lead to unfairness, because the leaseholder will have no choice but to pay the costs of proceedings as an administration charge, regardless of the proceedings. That discourages leaseholders from exercising their rights to challenge the amount of a service charge, particularly as the landlord’s costs in the proceedings could well exceed the amount that is being disputed. The commencement planned early in the new year of section 131 of the Housing and Planning Act will enable the tribunal or court to consider, on application by the leaseholder, whether it is reasonable for a landlord to recover all or part of those costs.

The complicated nature of leasehold can make it challenging for people to ensure that they follow the correct legal procedures. To help leaseholders to navigate through the system, the Government provide access to free, independent legal advice and information through the leasehold advisory service, or LEASE, as it is known. My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West referred to it in his speech. Last year, Government provided LEASE with more than £1 million of funding, and 850,000 people across the country benefited from free advice.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

May I, through the Minister, thank LEASE for all the work that it does to help my constituents, and for always being willing to attend residents’ meetings to give advice when people feel all at sea about this complicated area?

[Gavin Barwell]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention. It is good that people are paying tribute to LEASE for the important work that it does, and which I know is very much valued by people right across the country.

I want to reassure the House that the Government remain committed to ensuring leaseholders have the best professional advice available to them. Given its increasingly important role, I want to make sure that LEASE is properly equipped to offer help to everybody who needs it. Particularly in the light of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West, we will look again at how it works, its funding model and its membership.

In conclusion, this well-informed debate has raised important issues affecting millions of people in this country. We take all the issues raised very seriously, as I hope has been indicated by the tone of my speech. We have a strong interest in making sure that the system works as effectively as possible, and we are looking at suggestions for alternative systems, but this issue clearly needs attention. The motion states that the House “has considered” this issue, and I want to reassure my hon. Friend that it will be considered by the Government and that we will come back in the new year with proposals on how to tackle it.

Accident and Emergency Departments

Debate between Siobhain McDonagh and Lord Barwell

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Siobhain McDonagh]

rose—

[Gavin Barwell]

I shall give way to my hon. Friend, because I promised that I would.

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend has put the case for his local hospital firmly on the record. I do not know the detail and would not want to comment. I shall try to make time to allow the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden to intervene once I have advanced my argument a little. I referred to her, so it is only fair to give her that opportunity.

The point I am trying to make is that there is a need for balance. Constituents want to be able to access facilities at a local hospital, both from their own point of view and because if they have an extended stay they want friends and relatives to be able to come and visit them easily. There is a balance to be struck between convenience and quality of treatment. For example, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) referred to someone with a serious aortic problem who was able to go to a hospital with specialist expertise.

Let me make a couple of points about improving the quality of care, which was also touched on in the “Better Services, Better Value” review. One concerns the European working time directive’s impact on the NHS. The review states:

“The implementation of the EWTD has resulted in shorter sessions of work with complex rotas as well as more frequent handovers. Resulting difficulties in maintaining continuity of care can have implications for patient safety.”

The review also contained some powerful findings about the four-hour target, introduced by the previous Government for laudable reasons, which included wanting to monitor the level of care people received. The data for south-west London show that A and E admissions spike between 245 and 260 minutes in all south-west London acute trusts, suggesting that internal standards are aligned solely to the four hours rather than other quality issues.

There are a range of issues relating to A and E in south-west London. I want to say a brief word about Lewisham, but first I shall give the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden a chance to intervene.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Last year, 90,000 people turned up at St Helier’s A and E, 26% of whom were admitted to a bed. The idea that we can condescend to 90,000 people and tell them that they turned up in the wrong place is untenable. They are making an entirely rational decision to go to A and E because there is nowhere else to go. The GP out-of-hours service is woeful, its standards are poor and as long as there are no alternatives, people will continue to go to A and E whatever the hon. Gentleman says or does.

[Gavin Barwell]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that point. She said earlier that “Better Services, Better Value” talked about a figure of 60%, but she was actually misleading the House—unintentionally, I am sure—as the report specifically rejects that. It states that

“there is no firm evidence”

to support the Healthcare for London figure. It conducted a local study across south-west London that found that 48% of all activity was coded as minor and that 40% of patients were discharged with no follow-up treatment required. The conclusion was that they could be dealt with in an urgent care centre, which could be attached to the A and E. That would mean we could ensure the provision was available to deal with such cases.

Let me comment briefly on Lewisham. I listened with great sympathy to the arguments made by the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock) and the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd), who is no longer in the Chamber. I have constituents who work at Lewisham hospital and feel very angry, as the right hon. Lady does, about what has happened there. Let me make one point, which I tried to make to the hon. Gentleman in an intervention: we have a national health service and as a consequence when things go wrong in a neighbouring area it has a knock-on effect.