Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Brine Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The King’s Fund, which carried out this survey, says:

“There is no evidence of a real decline in service quality or performance”.

That is what the King’s Fund says about its own survey. Frankly, I would put more weight on a survey of people who have actually been using the NHS. As I said, of the users of the NHS, 92% of in-patients and 95% of out-patients rated their overall experience as good, very good or excellent. I do not think that is surprising, because since the election there are 4,000 more doctors, mixed-sex accommodation is down 96%, hospital infections are at their lowest levels since surveillance began, the number of people waiting more than 18 weeks is also at its lowest since records began, and average waiting times are down as well. The health service is performing extremely well and we should praise all those who have delivered that performance.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Q11. As a constituency MP, the Prime Minister will be aware of the current shortage in primary school places across our country. It is particularly acute in Winchester right now, where temporary classrooms are the order of the day, to accommodate reception year pupils for this September. May I ask the Prime Minister what the Government are doing to help councils in this bulge year, and whether he is confident that enough is being done to prevent a repeat performance when those pupils reach secondary school in six years’ time?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I know that in certain constituencies this is becoming an issue. What the Department for Education has done is put aside £1.4 billion of schools capital for 2011-12 and a further £1.4 billion for the subsequent year. There is also the opportunity, through free schools, to have excellent new schools established in hon. Members’ constituencies, so that we get not only new capacity, but the competition and choice that I believe will help to drive up standards.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The only thing that is appalling is the Christmas cracker lines that Opposition Members dutifully read out. I really hope the hon. Lady will do a little better next time.

The Government are confronting a dilemma in our health care system that every Government in every developed economy and society must face. We have an increasing and ageing population, with an increasingly large number of people with long-term chronic conditions, who spend much more time in hospital than has ever been the case. That is why it is right to give people such as doctors and nurses, who know patients best, greater authority regarding how our health care system works. That remains the key reform in the Bill.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Going back, if I may, to the topical issue of House of Lords reform, may I check with the Deputy Prime Minister whether he believes a 15-year senator who is unable to stand for re-election is more or less accountable than a current Member of the other place?

EU Council

Steve Brine Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The short answer is that the 2020 strategy needs to have a future and we must encourage European Union countries to spend more time focusing on what really drives growth, which is completing the single market, rather than some of these initiatives on medium-term fiscal austerity and big transfers of sovereignty. I know that they are important—and particularly important for some in the EU—but real growth will be driven through the single market.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

May I remind the Prime Minister that we on these Benches and the vast majority of the British people support what he did last week and are very glad that it was this party leader and this party leader alone who was speaking up for Britain at this summit? Does he agree with one of his predecessors? She said:

“Europe is strongest when it grows through willing co-operation and practical measures, not compulsion or bureaucratic dreams.”—[Official Report, 22 November 1990; Vol. 181, c. 451.]

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. The point I made in my statement about Europe being a network, not a bloc, is completely consistent with that. We should not be shy about its developing as a network, with some networks we want to be in and others we do not.

Big Society

Steve Brine Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

There are many voluntary and charitable organisations that derive no income whatever from the state, such as the air ambulance, which one of my hon. Friends mentioned earlier. It raises £48 million a year through a lottery and fundraising volunteers. A dear aunt of mine aged 88 has a standing order for the air ambulance, which is how such organisations get their money. The hospice movement is another case in point. My local hospice, Mary Stevens hospice in Stourbridge, receives only 18% of its funding from the primary care trust and raises the rest of its money itself. I am very much in favour of grants from local authorities. When I was a local councillor, I served on the board of a charity that received virtually all its income from the primary care trust and the local authority, which was detrimental.

[Mr Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

rose—

[Margot James]

I shall make progress, if my hon. Friend does not mind, because I do not think that I will get any more credit on the clock.

Let me make a few points in conclusion. It is the Government’s and the public sector’s attitude to risk that bedevils many of their good intentions. There is an attitude that risk can be and should be eliminated, and we must get away from that mentality. We have to manage risk, of course, but no Government, private organisation or charitable organisation can eliminate risk completely, and we lose a great deal by trying to do so.

The monopolistic provision of public services will be challenged by the big society. I am delighted to see so many of the Government’s proposals coming out now in concrete form. Several hon. Members have mentioned the big society bank. Other proposals include transitional funding for charities facing hardship following a sudden drop in a grant, the training of 20,000 community organisers and the national citizenship scheme for young people, which is a fabulous idea. We have some corporate funding for that, so it does not rely on taxpayers. Leadership and a culture change are needed to encourage more philanthropy.

We must leverage the good will of business. Many large and small businesses have a sense of corporate responsibility, which should be tapped. I am pleased to see that the Secretary of State for Justice is looking at what business can do to rehabilitate and train people in our prison system. There is so much that business can do, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) has pointed out, and we must not forget that individuals, communities and corporations can all contribute to the big society. I congratulate the Government on getting as far as they have done already with this initiative.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I am very pleased to speak in this debate today, which is yet another triumph for the Backbench Business Committee and a tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who instigated it. I know that dozens of colleagues would happily have called for this debate and signed up to say that it should happen.

It is apt that we are having this debate at the start of Fairtrade fortnight. Fairtrade is a great organisation that is very active in my constituency. There has been much mention of the noble Baroness Thatcher and her infamous quote. One of my colleagues said that she was misquoted, but I think it was more a case of her being selectively quoted. I honestly was not a geeky teenager reading such things under my bedclothes, but I do so hate misquoting, especially where Baroness Thatcher is concerned. [Interruption.] Let me keep going—you’ll enjoy this.

It was Baroness Thatcher’s conference speech in 1987 in which she used that phrase. She said:

“I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the Government’s job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant’, ‘I’m homeless, the Government must house me’. They’re casting their problem on society. And you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no Government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.”

If any hon. Member disagrees with that statement, they should not be on the Government side of the House; they should certainly be on the Opposition side, and I guess they probably are.

It is becoming predictable to hear colleagues say, “While others talk about the big society, in my constituency we’ve been doing it for years.” I am sure many of us have uttered those words at AGMs and meetings this past weekend, not least me. However, it is not merely “predictable” to say that in the case of my Winchester constituency; rather, it is most definitely true. Nevertheless, the use of the word “predictable” misses the point. For me, as others have said, the big society is not a revolutionary new idea, but a renewed mission for troubled times. Passing power from state to citizen and encouraging people to be empowered in their own communities and to take responsibility for their own lives is an idea as old as the hills. It is an idea that has always been at the core of what my party believes, of how it shapes policy when in government in good times and bad—and, it must be said, in surplus and in deficit.

In the infamous “sermon on the mound” in May 1988, Margaret Thatcher—I am becoming obsessed with her—said:

“Intervention by the State must never become so great that it effectively removes personal responsibility.”

I cannot disagree with that. There are others. Addressing the Labour party conference for the first time as Prime Minister, the former right hon. Member for Sedgefield said:

“I tell you: a decent society is not based on rights. It is based on duty. Our duty to each other. To all should be given opportunity, from all responsibility demanded.”

Excellent, as always! Our current Prime Minister, on the eve of the general election last year, said that the big society was his “mission” in politics. Of course, there is also the great man John F. Kennedy and his inauguration address in January 1961, which has been quoted twice today, so I will not go there again. For me, those approaches all have one common thread: they present a positive vision; they all have optimism at their core; and they all believe in people over the state. That is not a bad thing.

I believe in the big society—I always have—and I do not think that that is a political risk; nor do I think it is “cover” for clearing up the appalling mess left by the Labour party. For me, it is a principle of faith—a way we want to govern in a country we want to live in. I am happy to stand under that banner, now and at the next election, in this House and outside it.

I understand why some people want to talk down the big society idea—we have heard that plenty of times today—just as they want to talk down our economy and, ultimately, our country. It suits their argument, and I suspect that for some, that has “traction”, as the pollsters call it, outside this place. However, ultimately it will not serve them well. What a very dark place it must be for those who think that Government know best and that only the state can guarantee fairness, when all they seek to do is undermine those who believe we can be better as a society. Politicians, and especially Prime Ministers, have to lead and to believe in something bigger than simply managing Government Departments better than the last lot, passing legislation and bringing about our economic recovery, vital as the latter is right now.

This coalition Government do not want the story of this Parliament to be just one of economic recovery; we want it to be one of social recovery, too. If I look at my own constituency, in the city of Winchester and the villages and towns that surround it, I see a strong society already thriving, but I also see a big state keeping far too many people in their place.

Here is the good part. According to the Charity Commission, we already have 524 registered charities in Winchester, a thriving voluntary and community sector and a sense of community involvement in the form of public consultation, meetings and—dare I say it?—e-mails to the local MP. That hardly constitutes being uninterested. We have dozens of active residents associations, and we have busy community groups that get stuck in. There are groups such as the Alresford Society, the City of Winchester residents association and the Hiltingbury community association. Numerous rotary groups have been mentioned today, and they do great work in my constituency. There is also the Alresford Pigs Association, which will love a mention, and the Dever Society. We have big charities such as Trinity Winchester; the Churches Nightshelter, which I was volunteering with just last week during the recess as part of student volunteering week; and Naomi House, the children’s hospice. We have heard some very good things from my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) about hospices. There also the smaller charities such as Young Carers, Wells for India and the mental health charity the Olive Branch, all based within an infrastructure company called Winchester Area Community Action, or WACA, which recently came here to visit the Minister. I pay tribute to their team, who do so much to make our society in Winchester strong.

Not a week goes by when my office does not receive a request for me to sponsor or help publicise a charity bike ride or some other event to raise money for charities at home and far away. Just this weekend, I was at a dental practice in Winchester to help it launch a bike ride across Tanzania in aid of Bridge2Aid, a dental charity. There are many other such examples.

On the “work to do” side, I had an e-mail just before the recess from a constituent of mine. It said:

“I would like to tell you of my experience yesterday at Winchester Hospital. I have become a member of The League of friends and offered my services as a volunteer. I had helped out one morning on the desk on the Nightingale Wing and decided that I could help on other occasions. I was then told to register and given 4 forms to fill in asking all manner of personal questions. I am just telling you this as many…will be…as I am, put off applying.”

That is a small example, but I bet that hon. Members in all parts of the House can provide similar examples.

There are many other such examples, and one of the biggest misconceptions about the big society remains the idea that it is all about the voluntary and community sector and how much grant central or local government gives to individual charities. Perhaps it is our fault as a Government—our communication failure. Either way, I hope this debate will help in that regard. The big society is about a culture change in volunteering, yes, but it is also about a revolution in the culture of giving and public service reform. Above all, it is about responsibility. We have to reject the perverse and pitiful message we are teaching our children that nanny—the nanny state—knows best.