Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vicky Ford and Robert Halfon

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Robert Halfon)]

I am strongly committed to introducing alternative student finance, something my Harlow constituents have also lobbied me about. The issue is that we want, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, to introduce the lifelong learning entitlement, and we will introduce alternative student finance in conjunction with that.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

In Chelmsford, we are very proud that Anglia Ruskin University has more students graduating in health and social care-related subjects than any other university in the country, but the university would not be able to provide such high-quality courses to students from the UK if it did not have the income from overseas students. Can my right hon. Friend categorically confirm that the UK will continue to welcome students from across the word to all our universities?

[Robert Halfon]

I have good news for my right hon. Friend: we were proud to meet our international target of 600,000 students by 2030; we have actually met that target already. It is currently worth £25.9 billion to the economy and it will be £35 billion by 2030.

Shireen Abu Aqla

Debate between Vicky Ford and Robert Halfon

Monday 16th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that 19 Israelis, not including foreign nationals, have also been killed by terrorism since 21 March, and that Jewish lives, and Israeli lives, matter as much as the life of the journalist who tragically lost her life? Is she also aware that a Hamas leader recently incited the Palestinians to act in ways of terrorism with the use of the knife and the gun? What is she doing to help the Israelis to combat terrorism and these awful murders of Israeli citizens?

[Vicky Ford]

This is an important point. Israel does have a legitimate right to self-defence and the right to defend its citizens from attack, but it is absolutely vital that all actions are proportionate and in line with international humanitarian law, and they must make every effort to avoid civilian casualties.

Ofsted Review of Sexual Abuse in Schools and Colleges

Debate between Vicky Ford and Robert Halfon

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We now go to the Chair of the Education Committee, Sir Robert Halfon.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]]

I thank the Minister for all that she is doing. The report greatly focuses on safeguarding failings within schools, but the question must be raised as to why such failings were not previously identified by Ofsted or the Independent Schools Inspectorate in the first instance. Peer-on-peer abuse is one aspect of the wider systemic safeguarding failings and cannot be seen in isolation. Why is there not a consistent approach to safeguarding through the school inspections regime, and does a lack of consistency not perpetuate the problem further? Will she consider a review into the advice provided to schools by the local authority inspectors to ensure that there is a consistent and joined-up approach in safeguarding? Finally, can the Government identify how they will raise parental awareness of safeguarding issues, such as peer-on- peer abuse? Will parental safeguarding induction and engagement programmes be provided to parents and carers?

[Vicky Ford]

As ever, the Chair of the Education Committee makes some very helpful suggestions. May I reassure him that all schools must comply with the statutory safeguarding guidance, and we are already updating it, as we do each year. The report under discussion makes a number of suggestions about how to strengthen the inspection regime. For example, going forward, inspectors will hold discussions with students in single-sex groups, because, through this report, they have found that that has enabled children to be more confident in coming forward with their own experiences. That has helped to provide a better understanding of the schools or colleges’ approach to tackling sexual harassment and violence, including that which occurs online. Going forward, Ofsted will request that all college leaders supply those records and analyses of what is happening within their organisation, and Ofsted will work with the ISI to improve training for the inspectors, especially on this issue.

My right hon. Friend makes an important point about parental advice. Some schools are incredibly good at providing this. I met a headteacher of a school in Liverpool who works really closely with parents, informing them about the online safety risks. We should remember that it is often the parents who buy the phone and own the phone contract. I would like to see more schools working with parents to ensure that they help to make parents as well as children aware of this. I hope that schools will not only dedicate an inset day to discussing how to improve the RSHE curriculum but use part of that day to think about how they can better involve parents. As I said, there is a huge amount of advice out there for parents, much of it in organisations that the Government fund, including things such as Safer Internet Day. That advice is widely distributed, but we need to up that game to ensure that parents know the advice is there and that they access it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vicky Ford and Robert Halfon

Monday 21st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

4. What steps his Department is taking to (a) recruit and (b) retain service personnel.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

5. What steps his Department is taking to (a) recruit and (b) retain service personnel.

Healthcare in Essex

Debate between Vicky Ford and Robert Halfon

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

I hope that my hon. Friend the Health Minister knows that a new hospital in Harlow is supported not just in Essex and Hertfordshire, but in Northern Ireland. This is the second debate on the subject that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has attended, and of course I agree with him.

The maternity department serves as the perfect example of how investment can transform patient care under the successful staffing that is already in place, as the labour ward benefits from nine refurbished delivery rooms and a second maternity theatre. However, it also sheds light on the fact that refurbishment is not a fix-all solution. Therefore, does the Minister agree that, were the Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust to receive the capital funding that it so desperately needs to build a state-of-the-art health campus, that would allow every department to flourish, as the maternity ward has already done?

As I have touched upon before, the dilapidation of the estate is hindering any further progress. A 2013 survey rated 56% of the hospital’s estate as unacceptable or below for its quality and physical condition. That was five years ago now and the situation is only deteriorating. With long-term under-investment, we are continuing to put the capability of the hospital to care for those in need at serious risk—just read the reports of raw sewage and rainwater flowing into the operating theatres. Given that time is of the essence, does the Minister recognise the importance of the release of capital funding to the Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust this autumn?

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making such a powerful case. I would like to add my support, because all across Essex we need to have world-class hospitals. Does he agree that the new facility in Chelmsford, our first ever Essex medical school, will train the doctors of the future and provide the staff to work in his fantastic new hospital when it arrives?

[Robert Halfon]

I thank my hon. Friend for coming here this evening. Her presence is another example to the Minister of how the new hospital in Harlow is supported across Essex. She is a brilliant constituency MP, and she is absolutely right about the staff she mentions in her part of our national health service.

To add insult to injury, the layout of the hospital is convoluted and nonsensical. That is evident to any patients seeking urgent care or any visitor looking to find their loved one. As the former Health Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne), noted in my first debate in July 2017, the hospital suffers from “sub-optimal clinical adjacencies” due to the development of temporary structures. To those who suggest that refurbishment would be a more suitable and less costly solution, I cannot emphasise enough that that is not looking to the long term. The tangled layout of the current hospital, comprising add-on structures and sporadic urgent care, is a direct consequence of short-term financial fixes; my case in point that an Elastoplast solution will no longer stick.

Aside from the natural degradation of the estate over time, the hospital is now forced to deal with new pressures stemming from a rising population and the downgrading of other local healthcare facilities, including Chase Farm Hospital and the Queen Elizabeth II. Cracks are already evident in the accident and emergency department. Back in 1966, the A&E unit was designed for approximately 60,000 attendances per year. It is currently seeing 68% more than that, with 200 to 300 attendances per day. That figure is 10% higher than the national average and, against its size, places the hospital as the busiest A&E department in England.

In the latest board meeting of directors in October 2018, it was suggested that July 2018 was

“the busiest ever month…at the Trust”

for the A&E,

“with attendances as high as 9,400”

in that single month. The influx of patients is only set to continue, with the relocation of Public Health England to Harlow hosting as many as 2,750 workers based at the site, as well as the Gilston Garden Town development, providing 8,500 new homes in Harlow, and the near-completion of Junction 7A on the M11. Does the Minister acknowledge that to support the trust in meeting the 95% four-hour access target, the Government must do all they can to alleviate such pressure? Does he further recognise that the new, expanded health campus would alleviate this immediate pressure, but also future-proof the hospital, accounting for further population growth?

I am grateful for the Government’s capital investment to realise Harlow’s strategic economic and housing plans, but I ask for the same treatment for our comprehensive healthcare plan. It is not the infrastructure alone that is a burden on the staff. Staff shortages—the hospital frequently operates at an 11% vacancy rate—stem from widespread difficulties in recruiting and retaining well-qualified employees. That is due in particular to Harlow’s proximity to London. According to the leadership team at the hospital, the opportunity for career development, or lack thereof, is a much more significant sticking point for potential recruits.

State-of-the-art facilities and a quality healthcare campus would at least offer the hospital the chance to enter the same race. The new campus and medical training facilities would allow the hospital both to attract and retain the very best staff. It would become an apprenticeships and skills centre, offering high-class, nursing degree apprenticeships.

The spiralling health crisis makes the urgency of the hospital campus all the more pressing. According to the Essex local authority portrait, Harlow has the highest rate of premature deaths attributed to cardiovascular diseases and the third highest rate of diabetes in the country. Hospital staff also deal with high rates of substance misuse, and 66.1% of adults are classed as overweight, which is higher than the national average. Harlow has the largest proportion of 10 and 11-year-olds classed as overweight or obese in the country, at 36.2%. There are many reasons why west Essex should have a health campus fit for the 21st century, but these figures clearly evidence a need.

At the former Secretary of State’s recommendation, the trust put forward its strategic outline case—SOC—in August 2017. The board, clinical commissioning group and local authority partners, together with KPMG, concluded that the health campus model would be

“the most affordable solution for the local system”

and

“would deliver the most benefit to our population”.

Since my last debate in July 2018, the timescale for the development plans has changed and the plans are currently in the NHS and NHS Improvement assurance process. The trust is working closely with commissioners, patients and the public to develop a pre-consultation business case and refresh its SOC.

In my debate in October 2017, the former Health Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow, so helpfully highlighted:

“The extent to which there is capital available to support very significant projects will depend on how much is made available by the Treasury.”—[Official Report, 18 October 2017; Vol. 629, c. 352WH.]

As was also noted in the debate,

“upgrading services on this important site will be a priority for a Conservative Government”.—[Official Report, 18 October 2017; Vol. 629, c. 347WH.]

I take this opportunity to thank the Government for the announcement of £20.5 billion additional annual funding for the NHS, and I ask, in the light of this spending and the end of austerity, as the Prime Minister and the Chancellor said, is this not the most apt time to provide the Princess Alexandra Hospital with the bright future that it is determined to have?

My hon. Friend the Minister has gone out of his way to meet me and the chief executive of the hospital trust and to listen to his concerns and mine, and I cannot say how appreciative I am of that. As a key area of contention for my residents, I would be grateful to receive an update on the progress of this funding and a timescale for the economic investment plans. The issues that the hospital faces today are preventable, but all of them are beyond the control of the hard-working staff, patients and visitors. This is on the Government to act. This is on the Treasury and the Department of Health and Social Care to see reason and allocate the necessary funding for a new healthcare campus in west Essex.