Antisocial Behaviour Action Plan

Debate between Suella Braverman and Kit Malthouse

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

The more I listen to the right hon. Lady, the more confused I am about what Labour’s policy is. She criticises our plan while claiming that we have stolen Labour’s, so I am not sure which it is. In the light of the embarrassing efforts of the shadow Policing Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), to explain her own policy on television last week, I am not sure that any Labour Members really know what their antisocial behaviour policy is. Let me tell the House one big difference between the right hon. Lady’s plan and ours: unlike her, we call tell the public how much ours will cost and how we will pay for it—a big question that Labour is yet to answer.

The shadow Home Secretary talks about policing cuts. Never mind that we are recruiting 20,000 extra police officers—the highest number in history. Never mind that we have increased frontline policing, which leads to more visible and effective local policing. Never mind that by the end of this month, we are on course to have more officers nationally than we had in 2010 or in any year when Labour was in government.

The shadow Home Secretary wants to talk about safer streets. Well, let us compare our records. Since 2019, this Conservative Government have removed 90,000 knives and weapons from our streets. Since 2010, violence is down 38%, neighbourhood crime is down 48%, burglary is down 56%, and overall crime, excluding fraud, is down 50%. What does Labour’s record show? That where Labour leads, crime follows. [Interruption.] I know it hurts, but it is true. Under Labour police and crime commissioners, residents are almost twice as likely to be victims of robbery, and knife crime is over 44% higher. In London, Labour’s Sadiq Khan wants to legalise cannabis. In the west midlands, a Labour PCC wants to close police stations. Labour opposed plans to expand stop and search. Labour Members voted against tougher sentences for serious criminals. They voted against the increased powers for police in our Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. So we should not be surprised that, while this Conservative Government are working to get violent criminals off our streets, Labour is campaigning to release them. The Leader of the Opposition and some 70-odd Labour MPs signed letters—they love signing letters—to stop dangerous foreign criminals from being kicked out of Britain. One of those criminals went on to kill another man in the UK, and we learned this week that many others went on to commit further appalling crimes in the UK. Shameful! Outrageous! Labour Members should hang their heads in shame!

The truth about Labour is that they care more about the rights of criminals than about the rights of the law abiding majority. They are soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime. The Conservatives are the party of law and order. Our track record shows it, and the public know it.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

As the Home Secretary pointed out, crime is now at half the level it was when Labour told us that there was no money left in the coffers to continue the fight. I congratulate her on bending her elbow and putting so much effort into driving the number down even further. I particularly commend her on the publication of the plan today, which builds on the focus on antisocial behaviour that we published in the beating crime plan not so long ago.

May I urge my right hon. and learned Friend to examine carefully the routes of supply of nitrous oxide? We need to avoid a situation in which the substance moves from the legitimate market into the illegitimate market and becomes another hook for drug dealers to draw young people into their awful trade. How can she restrict supply to those who genuinely need it without it necessarily becoming an illicit substance that drug dealers use for their business?

[Suella Braverman]

Let me put on the record my admiration for and gratitude to my right hon. Friend for all he has achieved and led—not just when he was at the Home Office but before that, when he worked for City Hall on the frontline of policing and crime fighting. He talked about our plans to ban nitrous oxide. We are clear: there needs to be an exception for legitimate use. It is used in a vast array of circumstances that are lawful, commercial and proper, and those will not be criminalised.

Metropolitan Police: Casey Review

Debate between Suella Braverman and Kit Malthouse

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

Discriminatory attitudes and homophobic, racist or misogynistic behaviour have no place in policing. All the case studies and references in the report make for shocking reading. The ability of the police to fulfil their duties is essential, but what we have seen is a real impediment preventing chief constables from dismissing and getting rid of officers who are not fit to wear the badge, for a host of reasons. We in the Home Office are currently consulting on the dismissals process, and if necessary I will change the law to empower chief constables to better control the quality of the officers in their ranks.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

For anyone who, like me, has worked with the Metropolitan police over many years, this is a dark if not catastrophic day. While our thoughts are primarily with the many victims who have been let down and failed by the force, obviously we all reserve a huge amount of disappointment for the officers who do a startlingly good job every single day. Many of us who have visited the Met will have seen their work over the years.

I hope the Home Secretary will agree that key to turning the force around is ensuring that this becomes a joint enterprise between City Hall and the Home Office. There has clearly been a failure of local accountability—and I speak as someone who has urged the Mayor, both in public and in private, to lean into the governance of the Metropolitan police during his time in office. On that note, would it be possible for the Policing Minister to sit on the new board that Baroness Casey wants to be convened to supervise changes within the Met, and will the Home Secretary discuss that with the Mayor?

I hope that the Home Secretary will also agree that key to turning around policing in general is the professionalisation of the workforce. She recently decided to cancel the policing education qualifications framework route into policing, although it held out the promise of the kind of continuing professional development that many people believe police officers need during their careers to keep them on the straight and narrow, in terms of values and operational practice. Will she reconsider her decision to cancel that project?

Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

Debate between Suella Braverman and Kit Malthouse

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

We are aware that people have been detained, and we have very high numbers at Manston. That is why we are taking really exhaustive steps to ensure that we can procure alternative sites. We are looking at the dispersal mechanism and at sites in other local authorities around the country. We are looking at hotels—unfortunately, we have no other choice at the moment—and we are looking at other immigration detention or removal centres. So we are looking at a wide range of alternative places at which we can safely accommodate migrants.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. Importantly, she says that everybody who arrives illegally undergoes essential security checks before they are released. Can she confirm that that applies not just to those who claim asylum, but also to those who land and do not claim asylum and are, in effect, arriving without a visa and are therefore eligible for temporary release from which they may not return?

[Suella Braverman]

My right hon. Friend is right. The processing is as follows: people arrive and go first to Western Jet Foil where they get dry clothes and are looked after on their immediate arrival on to the territory. They are then taken to Manston for the biosecurity and security checks of the type he has just talked about.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Suella Braverman and Kit Malthouse

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman (Fareham) (Con)]

According to Hampshire police, every town in our county has been targeted by county lines drugs gangs, and in Fareham we had some recent arrests of drug dealers. Will the Minister reassure me that Fareham will not get overlooked in the allocation of police officers as part of the new recruitment wave?

[Kit Malthouse]

In her usual manner, my hon. Friend fights hard for resources for her constituency and I do not blame her, but, as she knows, the allocation of police officers—not least, new police officers—in a specific force area is a matter for the chief constable. However, as a Hampshire MP myself, with a town that has also been preyed upon by county lines drug dealers, she can be assured that how we as a county, and indeed, as a country can combat this scourge is at the front of my mind.

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Suella Braverman and Kit Malthouse

Wednesday 8th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I must confess that I feel as though the Chancellor has dusted off the black polo neck that he apparently used to wear as a young man and has delivered to us a box of Milk Tray, such are the delights that we heard about this morning. I want to run through a few of them before I get to the coffee cream and the nutty centre, which may provide a little more grist to the mill.

On schools and skills, more money in the system is extremely welcome. I particularly welcome the formalisation of training in the new T-levels. A huge number of young people in my constituency will look to those new qualifications with glee and will be pleased to participate in them. Such careers are increasingly developing as an alternative to going to university. A lot of young people want to get straight into the workforce, so the qualifications will be extremely welcome.

Similarly, the new money for the social care system will be welcome in constituencies such as mine, where the average age is higher than the national average. I have a large number of older people, and they often get trapped in the health service and look to the Government to help them to transfer back home, and back to a happy life.

Although the vast majority of businesses in my constituency are seeing a reduction in their business rates bill—hooray!—some smaller pubs in which there has been particular investment, and that have had success in trading over the past few years, have been presented with quite large rises, notwithstanding the transitional relief available. It is extremely welcome that the Government are making more money available to those pubs, and a foaming pint will be raised to the Chancellor at The Wellington Arms in Baughurst this evening.

I will now pick out and welcome one or two of the more obscure items mentioned by the Chancellor that have not been part of the general debate. His commitment to science as part of the British economic mix over the next few years is extremely welcome. His predecessor had a similar commitment, but the current Chancellor has made a point of mentioning science in pretty much every announcement he has made.

The £300 million allocation towards more PhDs and more research into innovative technologies, particularly in academia, is extremely welcome, as is the crucial simplification of research and development tax credits. If we are to bring together the alchemy of private capital and publicly backed science, we need to make it as simple and as easy as possible, so the encouragement to companies to invest capital in order to take advantage of R and D tax credits in a simplified way is extremely welcome.

The Chancellor also announced a Green Paper on consumer markets, which will be critical over the coming years, because notwithstanding the fact that the internet has disrupted a number of consumer markets, including insurance and energy, there is too little uptake by consumers of the advantages that the internet provides in markets such as energy and telecoms. Some 90% of people have yet to consider switching their energy provider, but by doing so, they could save a huge amount of money. Those areas need to be looked at, and I will participate in the Green Paper with enthusiasm.

The NHS capital programme is absolutely key, and it is brilliant that we are getting more support. In North West Hampshire, we are looking at a whole new model of operation around a new critical treatment hospital at junction 7 of the M3. The clinical commissioning group is wrestling with the issue at the moment, so more resources to help it would be fantastic.

Finally, domestic violence is an issue with which we have struggled. When I was doing the policing job at City Hall, we were the world’s first major capital city to introduce a strategy to address violence against women and girls, and we did so with our own resources. That was followed shortly thereafter by the Government, under the leadership of the then Home Secretary, now Prime Minister. It is fantastic to see her ongoing commitment, through the Chancellor, to investing in this important area.

Now on to the coffee creams. I am grateful to the Financial Secretary—this is part of her responsibilities—and the Chancellor for listening to the howls of anguish about “Making tax digital”, the prospect of quarterly returns of information to the Inland Revenue, and the burden that would place on small businesses. The extra year for those below the VAT threshold is extremely welcome. Nevertheless, I am sure that the Financial Secretary will appreciate that many of the small businesses that will be left out of the easing of that obligation will now feel that they should be included. I hope that she and her colleague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will be open to more conversations about how the system can be improved.

I accept that the path, in reporting business taxation, should be towards digital, as there will be enormous savings for the Government and for businesses, but I encourage the Financial Secretary to listen to the professional and business organisations that still think the Government can go further to make the system work. I am more than happy to sit down with her to talk about that, but I am grateful for the fact that she has listened to the campaign by me and others.

Finally, it will come as an enormous relief to an awful lot of businesses that the predictions of doom and gloom before the referendum have not come to pass, and that the macroeconomic picture is improving, forecast by forecast. Every organisation, from the OECD and the OBR to the Bank of England and, indeed, a lot of private forecasters, have revised their ideas about the economy upwards with every month and quarter that passes. That is a great relief.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend pleased that Donald Tusk’s prediction did not come true? He said in June last year that Brexit would bring about not only the “destruction of…the EU” but the end of “western political civilisation”.

[Kit Malthouse]

Yes. Of course, given the comparative economic situation in the EU, his words seem even more hollow.

The economic picture is looking better and better as each forecast is delivered. Having said that, I am enormously reassured by the Chancellor’s continued commitment to sorting out the deficit and trying to get our public debt under control. I know I am not the only person in the House who, on seeing the figures he presented, was reassured about the economy’s path but remained terrified by the level of our national debt and the speed with which it is growing. We accrue national debt of around £5,000 a second. We are spending enormous amounts of money over and above what we earn, and unless we get that under control, we will leave a dreadful legacy to our children and grandchildren. It would have been easy for the Chancellor to ease up a bit—to try to keep Members happy, or happier, by splurging a bit of money here and there and spending even more on the chocolate box—but the fact that he did not, and instead prioritised the notion that we should get our house in order, is enormously reassuring. In the early days of his chancellorship, he is showing great promise in helping us to turn the country around.

North West Hampshire is a part of the county of Hampshire, which is teeming with small businesses. We do not have that many large ones—one or two—but we have hundreds, if not thousands, of small businesses that are extremely sensitive to movements in the national economy. The fact that we are in the hands of a Chancellor who is committed to steering the economy on a steady path, without lurches one way or the other, will be an enormous reassurance to them and will set the course for future success.

--- Later in debate ---

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

I am pleased to respond to the Budget. I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to consolidating the UK economy and investing in the next generation through education, skills and innovation.

I have two main points to make. First, support provided for ordinary families, children and young people is only possible because of a resilient economy. I am delighted by the various forecasts and upgrades that were set out at the beginning of the speech delivered by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. As well as the OBR having updated growth this year from 1.4% to 2%, we should note the jobs miracle in this country and the upturn in employment since the Conservatives were elected to power in 2010. The fact that employment has risen from 70.2% to 74.6%, with a further two thirds of a million in work by 2021, has not happened by accident. It has happened because of a concerted effort to get people off welfare and into work and to create a jobs climate in which employment pays. Despite the higher than target inflation, real wages will also continue to rise in every year of the forecast.

The positive picture is further reflected in the predicted fall in public sector net borrowing and in relation to the debt we still face in this country. When Labour left office in 2010, we were borrowing £1 in every £5 we spent, which was unsustainable and irresponsible. This year, it is set to be £1 in every £15, so we are back on track towards living within our means.

All those elements contribute to and add up to a strong economy. Since the referendum, that strength has been undeniable. We heard today about Nissan and Google investing in the UK, but it goes much further. Despite the predictions this time last year about a recession, with a cost per family of £4,300, and of negative forecasts from the IMF, the IFS, the OECD and the Bank of England, the reality has been very different indeed. UK manufacturing has hit a two-and-a-half-year high, and services are seeing similar growth. The UK was the fastest-growing economy of the G7 last year, and PwC predicts that we will be the fastest-growing economy until 2050. Other companies are making significant commitments to the UK: Jaguar Land Rover, McDonald’s, Facebook, Adobe, IBM, Ford and Toyota have all made commitments to significant job creation and investment in the UK. I say that “Project Fear” is over and that it is time for “Project Cheer”.

[Kit Malthouse]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that economists and forecasters systematically underestimate the growth in the British economy reflects the fact that they cannot quite believe that the British people who voted so overwhelmingly for Brexit feel optimistic about the future and are therefore reacting in that way economically? That is what is driving growth forward. Does she think that if they embraced the idea that the British are optimistic about Brexit, they might get their forecasts a bit more accurate?

[Suella Fernandes]

I agree entirely. The facts and figures and the behaviour in our economy since the referendum reflect the strength and resilience of our consumers, our economy and our businesses. That is laying the ground for a successful future as we leave the European Union.

My second point relates to education and skills. Education is the engine of aspiration and one of the core reasons that I am a Conservative. I believe in self-improvement, personal responsibility and hard work. This Conservative Government have notable achievements, such as 1.8 million children now being in good or outstanding schools. Of course, the job is not done. Much of that success can be linked to the free schools revolution. Today, we have seen £320 million of capital investment to create new free schools and extend this success story, which is empowering teachers and improving standards in schools. Some 70,000 new school places will be created following today’s announcement.

As someone who co-founded, set up and now chairs a free school, I am a fan of them. I have seen in the three years in which I have founded and chaired Michaela Community School, in an area of deprivation in inner-city London, how our teachers have been freed to pioneer new teaching methods and how they have gained more power and autonomy over their spending, curriculum and teaching methods. We are seeing fantastic results.

Free schools work. They perform above average: 28% of free schools inspected by Ofsted have been graded outstanding, compared with 14% of those maintained by the council. Free schools are popular among parents: secondary free schools attract, on average, 3.5 applicants per place, compared with 2.3 applications to maintained schools. Free schools are not just for the middle class: two thirds of free schools have opened in deprived areas. They are also cost-effective, as the National Audit Office found recently. Free schools signify a revolution in education, liberating teachers and communities to deliver high quality, high expectations and high standards for their children.

That leads me to selection and grammar schools. We know that grammar schools also work very well, with 90% of them being good or outstanding. The Select Committee on Education has examined considerable evidence of their effectiveness in achieving high progress rates for their children. In the Netherlands, selection takes place at 12 and it does better than us in the PISA tables, which shows that selection is compatible with good results. The Sutton Trust has showed that there would be no adverse effect on non-grammar schools and ResPublica recently commissioned an independent study that showed that a grammar school would have a transformative effect on a deprived area like Knowsley.

I am a Conservative because I believe in aspiration, in rewarding effort and in fairness. The Budget reflects those values and I am pleased to support it.

Savings (Government Contributions) Bill

Debate between Suella Braverman and Kit Malthouse

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 17th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I hesitate to detain the House by repeating much of what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) in his thoughtful speech, but I particularly wanted to speak in support of the Help to Save scheme, which seems to be the Cinderella scheme in today’s debate.

Rare is the politician who understands the difference between profit and loss and the balance sheet. That is normally left to dull accountants like me. We spend a great deal of time in the House talking about people’s differential profit-and-loss accounts—the difference in earnings, and whether some members of society earn far too much in comparison with others—and we do a fair amount in trying to close that gap. However, we often fail to recognise that the solution to those inequalities in society, and the solution to the problem of poverty more generally, are first multi-generational and secondly as much about the balance sheet—the asset share that those people may have for the future—as about how much they happen to earn at the moment. Anything that enables people with low incomes, who may be on benefits or the like but who are certainly at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, to start to get the idea of saving and, in particular, investing the money saved in assets can only be applauded.

One of our problems in this country is that the collective balance sheet—the assets held both privately and publicly—is concentrated in far too few hands. Over the last 20 or so years there has been a diminution in the number of people who own shares or, indeed, have any asset base, even ownership of their houses. We need to reverse that, but sadly it has been far too low on Ministers’ agendas. A good example is the sell-off of the Post Office. The retail tranche of sales—the shares that were to be sold to members of the public in small lots—was scaled back, while the tranche that was being sold to large institutions such as Goldman Sachs was inflated. It seemed insane that a Liberal Democrat Secretary of State, in particular, would do that. There was a lost opportunity to spread what was known back in the 1980s, in the heyday of a certain politician, as the “ownership society”. The former Member of Parliament for Richmond, Yorks, William Hague, said that we should be a share-owning, property-owning society, and should roll back the frontiers of the state to enable that to happen.

I am keen for Help to Save to be promoted, because it allows people with very low incomes, or no incomes at all, to start thinking about their own asset bases and start saving for the future. However, I should like the Minister to consider a couple of issues. First, I do not understand why there is a cap on the amount that can be contributed. If someone earning a very low wage is able to contribute £20 a week or £20 a month year in, year out, why should we seek to limit that? Why should we not allow such people to build up a fund which they could use in the future, possibly passing it on to their children, who might then decide to do the same? Secondly, £50 seems a rather small amount to me, particularly for someone who is starting to build up an amount and getting into the spirit of saving. Thirdly, especially in the current interest-rate environment, requiring people to hold their savings in cash strikes me as self-defeating. Allowing them to go to their banks and buy, for instance, shares in Marks & Spencer or Royal Bank of Scotland—when, hopefully, they become available—would give them the idea that they could benefit from the country’s asset base.

It is worth noting that, when it comes to the lump sums that people want to accumulate over their lives, their aspirations are often quite modest. Many years ago a great friend of mine who works in television was devising a new quiz show, and wanted to establish what prize money he should offer so that he could deal with the show’s finances. A survey was conducted, and people in the United Kingdom were asked what amount constituted “change your life money”. In this age of the lottery, my friend thought that the answer would be hundreds of thousands of pounds, but in fact it was just over £6,000. That is what the vast bulk of British people thought was “change your life money” which would give them the chance to start to build for the future.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

The Money Advice Service recently found that 21 million families had less than £500 in savings. What does my hon. Friend think about the lack of financial literacy and money management skills among people who do not have the techniques and the basic understanding that would enable them to manage their personal finances?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend has touched on an interesting issue. What she has said reflects one of the observations made by the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford). Over the past three or four decades people have, perhaps, been infantilised in respect of the financial choices that they make, and politicians in the House of Commons may have sought to make their choices for them. Personally, I would like the opportunity to decide between a lifetime ISA, a pension and a normal ISA, for instance, but then I am a chartered accountant of moderate skill—deeply moderate; I resigned on the day I qualified for exactly that reason—but I recognise that plenty of people feel confused and are unable to do so. We have taken the power away from them over the years, and we must start to reverse that. We must either put choice back into their hands, or educate them so that they can make those choices in the future. The financial world is becoming ever more complicated, and if people are to do well out of it—particularly those on lower incomes—they will need to have that kind of knowledge.

Another reason why people should take an interest in acquiring assets rather than the mere ins and outs of their monthly incomes is the fact that a number have missed out, recently in particular, on what could have been a big upswing in their wealth. Brexit has seen a massive rise in the stock market, and anyone who has had stocks and shares over the last couple of months will have done extremely well. Similarly, the housing market has risen prodigiously over the last three or four years.

Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust

Debate between Suella Braverman and Kit Malthouse

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Suella Fernandes]

There is a lot of pressure from the public, patients and families for people to step down, and the resignation of the chairman of the board is a reflection of the seriousness with which Southern Health takes this issue.

The report continued:

“Due to a lack of strategic focus relating to mortality and to the relatively small numbers of deaths in comparison with total reported safety incidents this has resulted in deaths having little prominence at Board level… There are a number of facets to this poor leadership…: a failure to consistently improve the quality of investigations and of the subsequent reports; a lack of Board challenge to the systems and processes around the investigation of deaths…; a lack of a consistent corporate focus on death reflected in Board reports which are inconsistent over time and which centre only on a small part of the available data; an ad hoc and inadequate approach to involving families and carers in investigations; a lack of focus on deaths amongst the health and social care services caring for people with a Learning Disability; limited information presented at Board and sub-committee level relating to deaths in these groups…; and a lack of attention to key performance indicators…indicating considerable delays in completing…investigations.”

The report also found:

“There was no effective systematic management and oversight in reporting deaths and the investigations that follow… The Trust could not demonstrate a comprehensive, systematic approach to learning from deaths”.

In what I consider one of its most damning findings, the Mazars report also found evidence of repeated warnings being ignored:

“Despite the Board being informed on a number of occasions, including in representation from Coroners, that the quality of the…reporting…and standard of investigation was inadequate no effective action was taken to improve investigations”.

The report also stated:

“Despite the Trust having comprehensive data relating to deaths of its service users it has failed to use it effectively to understand mortality and issues relating to deaths of its Mental Health or Learning Disability service users.”

By any measure, those criticisms were immensely serious and required a robust response.

Following the report’s publication, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health expressed his determination to learn the lessons of the report and set out a number of measures to address the issues raised, including a focused inspection by the Care Quality Commission looking in particular at the trust’s approach to the investigation of deaths. As part of that inspection, the CQC was asked to assess the trust’s progress on implementing the action plan required by NHS Improvement and on making the improvements required by its last inspection, published in February 2015. Separately, the CQC was also asked to undertake a wider review of the investigation of deaths in a sample of all types of NHS trusts in different parts of the country. That is particularly important because we need to know whether the problems and failings at Southern Health are exceptional outliers or whether there is a similar problem in other parts of the country.

The trust accepted the findings of the Mazars report and apologised unreservedly for the failings identified. NHS Improvement set out in January 2016 its plans to provide assistance to the trust to ensure that it delivers on plans to implement the agreed improvements, which include the appointment of a new improvement director and the taking of advice from independent experts. All those measures were agreed by the trust’s management, and in January we had a letter from the chief executive officer setting that out.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. She is outlining that there is an improvement plan, that the board has agreed and that NHS Improvement is helping, but one thing that seems to be frustrating people, particularly in my constituency, is the lack of a hard date on which we can judge that the corner has been turned. Does she agree that it would be sensible for NHS Improvement, or the board itself, to set some kind of deadline by which a judgment can be made? Otherwise, improvement is purely on the never-never and we will never know publicly whether the trust has got to where it needs to be.

[Suella Fernandes]

My hon. Friend makes a sensible suggestion, which I echo. A deadline with key targets and dates would be hugely valuable, not only in motivating people and focusing minds but in restoring public trust in all the organisations involved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Suella Fernandes]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend’s observation. There is a challenge here. This is unfamiliar territory for the NHS, and funding will be necessary to support any new attempt to make progress following debates such as this one.

Inspectors from the Care Quality Commission visited Southern Health as part of the planned inspection during January of this year. Following that inspection, the CQC announced on 6 April that it had issued a warning notice to Southern Health, telling the trust that it must make significant improvements to protect patients at risk of harm while in the care of its mental health and learning disability services. The announcement stated that the notice required the trust to improve its governance arrangements to ensure that there was robust investigation and learning from incidents and deaths, to reduce further risks to patients.

The team of inspectors also checked on improvements that had been required in some of the trust’s mental health and learning disability services following previous inspections. They found that the trust had failed to mitigate significant risks posed by some of the physical environments from which it delivered mental health and learning disability services.

On the wider issue of reporting deaths, the inspectors found that the trust did not operate effective governance arrangements to ensure robust investigation of incidents, including deaths; did not adequately ensure that it learned from incidents, so as to reduce future risk to patients; and did not effectively respond to concerns about safety that had been raised by patients, their carers and staff, or to concerns raised by trust staff about their ability to carry out their roles effectively.

All those findings, and the serious step of issuing a warning notice, reinforce the most serious of the Mazars findings. Dr Paul Lelliott, the CQC’s deputy chief inspector of hospitals and lead for mental health, was quoted as saying that the services provided by Southern Health required “significant improvement”. He said:

“We found longstanding risks to patients, arising from the physical environment, that had not been dealt with effectively. The Trust’s internal governance arrangements to learn from serious incidents or investigations were not good enough, meaning that opportunities to minimise further risks to patients were lost.

It is only now, following our latest inspection and in response to the warning notice, that the Trust has taken action and has identified further action that it will take to improve safety at Kingsley ward, Melbury Lodge in Hampshire and Evenlode in Oxfordshire. The Trust must also continue to make improvements to its governance arrangements for reporting, monitoring, investigating and learning from incidents and deaths. CQC will be monitoring this Trust very closely and will return to check on improvements and progress in the near future.”

The CQC published the full report of its January 2016 inspection at the end of April 2016. It confirmed the concerns that had been raised in the warning notice and gave further details of specific issues. The chairman of Southern Health’s board, Mike Petter, resigned the day before the report was published.

On the same day that the CQC published its warning notice, NHS Improvement issued a statement announcing that it was seeking further powers to intervene in the trust’s governance, to ensure that the trust complies with the improvements required of it. NHS Improvement said that it intended to insert an additional condition into the trust’s licence to supply NHS services, which would allow NHS Improvement to make management changes at the trust if progress was not made on addressing the concerns that had been raised.

The additional condition was imposed on 14 April, and the statutory notice contained severe criticism of the trust and its leadership. It stated that undertakings that the trust gave in April 2014 that it would comply with enforcement notices relating to breaches of its governance conditions were yet to be delivered in full. It notes that additional undertakings were made by the trust in January 2016 in response to the Mazars report and summarises the CQC’s findings from its inspection in January, saying that the warning notice had identified “longstanding risks to patients” that had not been addressed. It then said:

“In the light of these matters, and the other available evidence, Monitor”—

that is, NHS Improvement—

“is satisfied that the Board is failing to secure compliance with the Licensee’s licence conditions and failing properly to take steps to reduce the risk of non-compliance. In those circumstances, Monitor is satisfied that the governance of the Licensee is such that the Licensee is failing and will fail to comply with the conditions of its licence.”

On that basis, NHS Improvement, or Monitor, has imposed a new condition to Southern Health’s licence, requiring that it

“has in place sufficient and effective board, management and clinical leadership capacity and capability, as well as appropriate governance systems and processes, to enable it to”

address the failures in governance

“and comply with any enforcement undertakings, or discretionary requirements, imposed by Monitor in relation to these issues.”

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way to me for a second time.

One of the frustrations that I think we have all had throughout this sorry saga has been about the lack of any sense of personal responsibility or line management for particular risks. A thought occurs to me. Can my hon. Friend say who at NHS Improvement will take the decision about whether the trust should be given its licence? I ask that because I have a sense that unless we know who that person is, we will not be able properly to take a view about whether their judgment is right. If the decision disappears into a bureaucratic organisation, it may well never emerge in a timely fashion. Does she have an idea of who is responsible? If she does not, perhaps the Minister could let us know what the processes are regarding the taking of the decision and who finally gets to sign on the dotted line that everything is all right, or not.

[Suella Fernandes]

I agree that there is a real risk, as my hon. Friend says so eloquently, of this issue falling into a bureaucratic abyss. It is absolutely vital that we have clear processes and that the identities of the responsible people and professionals are clear, so that there is a clear line of accountability for users and indeed for MPs.

Following the resignation of Mike Petter as chairman of Southern Health, NHS Improvement exercised its power to intervene to appoint his replacement, Tim Smart, who is now acting as interim chairman. The notice directing the trust to appoint him stated:

“These matters demonstrate that the Licensee”—

that is, Southern Health—

“does not have in place sufficient or effective board management and clinical leadership capacity and capability, as well as appropriate governance systems and processes as required by additional licence conditions. Monitor is therefore satisfied that the Licensee is breaching the additional licence condition.”

Time and again, in report after report, Southern Health has been criticised for its failures of management and leadership, and the effects that those failures have had on the care that it provides. That is why I called for this debate that focuses on the governance of the trust. We all accept that, sadly, tragic failures in care will inevitably occur from time to time, and those at the top of an organisation cannot be held responsible for every incident on the frontline.

Equally, we must pay tribute to the dedicated staff of Southern Health for the excellent care that they give day in, day out for the majority of the time. We cannot and should not tar all of them with the same brush because of the failures of others. However, when clear and systematic problems have been identified, we are entitled to ask that lessons be learned. For me, the most shocking part of the sequence of events that I have just recounted is that right up until this year—indeed, even in the last couple of months—inspectors have stated that necessary changes that have been flagged up as needing action have not been implemented.

When NHS Improvement said in its enforcement notices that the trust was failing in its obligations under its licence and did not have effective border capacity and capability, it used the present tense. That was in April. Since then, Tim Smart has been installed as chairman, and I repeat my thanks to him for meeting my parliamentary colleagues and me yesterday in Westminster. He has been conducting an initial review of governance, and I was pleased to hear that he expects to make some announcements on his findings and proposals within the next month. I am sure I speak for many when I say that we will be looking for some far-reaching changes to recognise the gravity of the situation.

That brings me on to the issue of personnel. I have been asked repeatedly whether I am calling for the resignation of Southern’s executives, and in particular that of Katrina Percy, the chief executive. I have resisted doing so because, as the Minister has said in the House, politicians and Ministers demanding that heads must roll can often cause more problems than they solve. I repeat my thanks to Ms Percy and her team for coming to meet my colleagues and me on a number of occasions to answer our questions. However, I will now say publicly what I told her at our last meeting: I find it difficult to have confidence that she has properly acknowledged the scale of the problems under her leadership or how difficult it will be for patients and families to have their faith in the organisation restored without a visible sign of a fresh start.

Resignations are a matter for individuals, and Katrina Percy has said that she believes her responsibility is to provide stability by remaining in post. I understand that position, but the sheer weight of criticism of the trust’s leadership over a prolonged period while she has been chief executive would lead many to a different conclusion. The fact that NHS Improvement has now taken the power to direct changes at board level if it considers them necessary sends its own message.