Summer Adjournment

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Bob Stewart

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), who was formerly a member of the Select Committee on Health. It is good to see that he has not lost his interest in the health service and that he is keeping up the population at the same time.

These debates are always a good time to raise various issues on behalf of our constituents, and a number of Members have already touched on the theme I want to pursue, which is the relationship between the people and those who make decisions for them and why it is becoming such a struggle for people when their voice is not heard. This was mentioned by the hon. Members for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) and for Kingswood and by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas). In particular, I want to cover how local authorities consult local people. I also want to touch on the NHS and access to treatment and services.

Let me start with the subject of consultation and illustrate it with three examples from Walsall South. In Stafford road, speed humps were installed and residents and I met council officers for a further consultation on removing them because of the noise and vibration they created. The consultation resulted in 34 out of 43 residents wanting the speed humps to be removed. One hundred and forty-eight people were contacted and 43 responded, but the council counted the 105 non-responses as though they were in favour, and therefore kept the speed humps against the wishes of local people.

Darlaston road residents contacted me to say that there had been a number of incidents, including one in which a four-year-old boy had to be airlifted to safety after a car had hit him. There have been other near misses. Residents want a signal-controlled crossing and presented a petition with 300 signatures to that effect, but still nothing has been done. Does someone really have to be injured before action is taken and before my constituents’ voices are heard?

On Walstead road, residents have had to suffer a traffic calming scheme that they did not want. A consultation took place in July for three weeks. Some people were on holiday; some were about to go on holiday. Traffic humps were bolted down along the road. They were different from any I had ever seen before. I have been over them and—you would not believe it, Mr Deputy Speaker—I had to clench my neck because it was so painful. One was placed near a traffic light and one by a zebra crossing. Local resident Tracy Clifford carried out a survey after they were installed, and 97 people responded, of which 73 reported that they had difficulty with noise or when they reversed their car out of their drive. The traffic island gets in the way and then they are abused by passing car drivers just for coming out of their driveway.

At our second meeting, residents came up with a valuable suggestion about having different solutions for different parts of the road. If only they had been consulted and listened to properly. Will the Deputy Leader of the House ask Ministers at the Department for Communities and Local Government to introduce some guidance on how consultations take place with local people? When my office rang the information lines of neighbouring local authorities—Birmingham, Sandwell, Stafford county council and Wolverhampton—they were told that non-responses were not counted as responses in favour, and they placed all their consultations on their website. Bristol city council has seven principles, the first of which is that consultations should be well timed and sufficient time should be allowed for people to respond. That, along with the other six principles, is eminently sensible. Guidance should be issued throughout England to make sure that non-responses are not counted as responses in favour. As one person said to me at a local residents meeting, if we do not vote in an election, we do not expect our non-vote to be counted as a vote for the winning party.

The residents of the park homes at Beacon Heights cannot get a bus at night. Centro conducted its survey in the afternoon when no one was using the buses. The residents did not want a bus service in the afternoon; the 65 residents want a bus service on Saturday and Sunday evenings. They are elderly, and that bus is all they need. We need my constituents to be listened to.

Our constituents need more information and transparency. Many complain to me about their local GP service, Sai Medical. Their complaints went unheeded by the surgery. They were told that they had to complain to the patient advice and liaison service. They were never seen by the same doctor, only by a continuous supply of locums. I had to have a meeting with the local clinical commissioning group, which told me that Malling Health, a company based in Kent, had a contract with NHS England. The Library found out that the Care Quality Commission had issued a damning report on this company. Malling Health at West Kingsdown medical centre used to hire staff who were not qualified to work with patients and had not been through recruitment checks, and there were no effective systems in place to prevent infection. Malling Health’s contract was terminated at the Brambles surgery in Essex. My constituents were right to complain, yet their voices were not heard. We do not have information. I did not have any information that Malling Health was running the GP surgery, yet the Government have just passed regulations under the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014. and with the care.data programme they want to know every single piece of information about citizens.

I made a simple request for a constituent to have an insulin patch pump. I had to write to the Department of Health, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and all my constituent’s GPs to get a vital service. A 13-year-old already has bruises on her leg from having to inject insulin every day, and she will have to do it for the rest of her life unless she has a pump. We should be listening to people and nurturing them, not placing obstacles in the way when they raise issues.

The hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) talked about the reshuffle. I was pleased to see that the Leader of the House is now the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague). Mr Deputy Speaker, you may already have had the benefit of Mr Speaker’s impersonation of the right hon. Gentleman. Now, every Thursday morning, we will have to listen to Mr Speaker refining his impersonations. I hope you will take the message back that they actually go on for far—too—long.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Very good.

[Valerie Vaz]

May I also congratulate the women of the 2010 intake, and tell them, on behalf of the other women members of that intake, that we all knew they could do it? I ask them to bear in mind what Ginger Rogers said—that women have to do it backwards and in high heels. From one Rogers to another, I would like to say goodbye and good luck to Sir Robert Rogers, who was very helpful to me personally. He was very accessible and he gave me a copy—which I bought—of his wonderful tome “How Parliament Works”, which I have consulted on many an occasion. I wish him good luck.

Finally, I know it is not a popular thing to do, but I would like to thank the people who work in the public services, especially those who work in the passport office, who, every time I have asked for an intervention, have produced the passport for my constituents. Thank you to them—and to all the exhausted teachers, who do their job nurturing the next generation. I also want to thank the Library staff for their independent and impartial research and statistics in support of my work, and all the House staff. Lastly, I want to wish you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and all the other Members a very happy recess.