Childhood Obesity Strategy: Chapter 2

Debate between Steve Brine and Philip Davies

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

That is an easy one to agree with. Tesco has been doing that for years, and my children regularly avail themselves of the opportunity.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

May I urge the Minister not to get into some nanny state, socialist claptrap arms race with the Opposition parties, which will never be satisfied, as we heard earlier from the shadow Secretary of State? May I remind the Minister that he is actually supposed to be a Conservative and urge him to think about this from a Conservative standpoint, which focuses on things like parental responsibility and not seeking to ban anything that moves?

[Steve Brine]

I am very pleased that my hon. Friend made that very helpful contribution. I am a Conservative—I said so in my opening remarks—but at the end of the day this is a publicly funded health service that we all believe in and all love. If we want it to celebrate its 140th birthday, we need to protect it, and that means getting serious about prevention and stopping people coming into the service and getting sick. Everyone in the House—Conservative, Labour and everyone in between—should get behind that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Brine and Philip Davies

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

We are testing the new prevention-focused dental contract, which the hon. Lady knows about, to improve access and outcomes for NHS dental treatment. We have also made great progress on children’s oral health, as I have said. NHS England in her area is currently finalising arrangements for extra funding to support dentists in offering additional access and places. That funding will be available from 1 April, so she and other Members should stand by their phones.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) is absolutely right about this particular issue. The Government have long acknowledged that there is a shortage of dentists in West Yorkshire, and in the Bradford district in particular, where the shortage is pretty chronic. Will the Minister set out what the Government are doing to ensure that there is an acceptable number of NHS dentists in the Bradford district?

[Steve Brine]

I will not pre-empt what the NHS in Yorkshire and the Humber will say to my hon. Friend or to the hon. Lady, because this is a local decision, but I will say that the 13 Starting Well areas—the programme was a manifesto commitment for us—were selected nationally based on overall need and using a wide range of data including access to NHS dental services.

Voting Age

Debate between Steve Brine and Philip Davies

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I would normally, but I want everyone to have an opportunity to speak.

Let me say from the word go that I spend a lot of time visiting schools in my constituency—primary and secondary schools—and that, in my view, some of the most challenging questions that a Member of Parliament is ever asked are asked by people who are at school. I have thoroughly enjoyed debates with very talented people of all ages in schools, some of whom have been greatly interested in politics and some of whom have had no interest in it at all.

As with so many other issues, the voting age is always a matter of judgment. There will always be exceptions to rules. There will always be 16-year-olds who have the deep interest and maturity that would enable them to make informed decisions when voting, and there will always be 18-year-olds who do not possess the same level of maturity and interest. There will always be anomalies of that kind. This debate is not about individual cases; it is about what we think should be the general principle. That is the judgment that must be made.

In my view, the argument that many 16 and 17-year-olds ask very intelligent, very searching questions and are able to engage in a sensible debate is not a sufficient argument for giving them the vote. In fact, I would contend that the most searching questions that I am asked as a Member of Parliament come from kids at primary school rather than from 16 and 17-year-olds. Primary school children tend to throw questions at us that we would never have expected, and which we have never heard of or thought of before. They catch us totally off guard.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Philip Davies]

I would like to, but, as I said earlier, I want to give others an opportunity to speak.

The point is that although those young people are capable of asking very intelligent and searching questions, it does not immediately follow that we should give them the vote. If that were the basis on which we were making these decisions, I would have to agree to give seven-year-olds, eight-year-olds and nine-year-olds the vote because they ask some of the most searching questions. So it is completely spurious to trot that argument out as a way of saying that these people should be able to vote. This is not just about people’s education, intellect or ability to ask searching questions; it is about people’s life experience, too. That is what gives people the basis on which to vote. It seems to me that 18 is a far better cut-off point than 16. I am perfectly happy to concede that these are matters of individual judgment, but I believe that 18 is the right point.

The main point I want to make relates to this idea about people’s education and intellect, and how well-informed they are. Hon. Members have been telling us that that level is higher than ever. If this was a matter of principle, I would have more respect for their opinion. If they held a deep-seated principle that 16-year-olds have the education and information to make these informed decisions, I would have more respect for it, even though I might not agree with it. But that is not the case, because all the people who have so far advocated reducing the voting age to 16 are exactly the same people who voted to increase the age at which people could decide to smoke from 16 to 18. The point is that people are either informed or they are not—they are either educated or they are not. They are not educated on one matter of voting but completely clueless on everything else. They can either make an informed decision or they cannot. I agreed with increasing the age at which people could buy cigarettes to 18, because I believe that 18 is the right age at which to trust people to make such decisions. It is entirely logical to have the voting age and the age at which people can buy cigarettes at 18, because 18 is the age at which people should be able to make those decisions.