Oral Answers to Questions

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concerns and he is right to raise this. He will be pleased that Highways England is conducting a supplementary consultation on the lower Thames crossing to make sure that any benefits are maximised. The consultation will close on 25 March, and I will then look at it carefully. I would encourage him to have his say.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

As a former teacher, I know that a good education is a key driver to economic opportunities for young people, but sixth forms have been heavily damaged by years of under-investment. Will the Chancellor commit to implementing the recent recommendation from the Education Committee and Ofsted to raise the rate of funding per pupil to at least £4,760 in next month’s Budget?

[Rishi Sunak]

Post-16 education and skills are a priority for the Chancellor and the Government. I am pleased to say that the recent spending round delivers a £400 million increase in funding for post-16 education, which makes it the fastest rise in a decade and means that the per pupil base rate that the hon. Lady mentions will go up faster than the schools total.

Special Educational Needs and Disability Funding

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on securing this excellent debate. As a former secondary school teacher, I know that not providing properly for children with special educational needs impacts on the whole school environment. All our children deserve a good education, and at the core of that is how we deal with and provide for those who need support. It impacts on all children if we do not support those with special educational needs.

I want to draw attention quickly to the situation in Bath and North East Somerset. Like the rest of the country, we deal with a growing number of children who require SEND provision, with less funding to do so. More than 1,350 children now need support via an EHCP, compared with just over 800 in 2013. That is partly due to the widening age range of zero to 25—previously it was five to 18. However, it is also because of the expectations that SEND reforms have created, and rising levels of need in BANES. It is most likely linked to autism, and to social, emotional and mental health difficulties.

My main concern is the lack of general direction around SEND. The performance regime that schools must follow means that there is now a low incentive for inclusion in mainstream schools for children with SEND. For BANES Council, there are three things that the Government can do to improve the situation. First, they must provide the local authority with the finance it needs in the high needs budget and provide appropriate funding for the delivery of local authority services. Secondly, they can be clearer and more specific about the role of schools in supporting children with SEND, and link that to school performance and inspection regimes.

Finally, the Government should seek to reward schools that are successful in being inclusive of children needing SEND provision. There are, as has been said, perverse disincentives for doing so—particularly, for example, when children move from junior to senior school. Because it takes so long to secure the funding, often children do not get that at the end of their time in junior school, because the school itself will not benefit from the extra funding. I therefore urge the Government also to look at children’s transition from one school to the next.

Economy and Jobs

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The good news for our citizens, whether in Scotland, England, Northern Ireland or Wales, is that our infrastructure revolution and the funds we intend to use to build new infrastructure will benefit every part of the United Kingdom. When we set out our plans and provide more detail in the forthcoming Budget, there will no doubt be a lot more investment in Scotland.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The climate emergency is real, and we need to transfer quickly to energy resources that are not fossil fuels. That means we need a much bigger electricity grid. Is part of the Chancellor’s proposals for new infrastructure about how we actually get to a fourfold increase in electricity and the infrastructure that needs to go with that?

[Sajid Javid]

The infrastructure revolution will include significant new investment in our ambition—the statutory requirement to get to net zero by 2050, and also our ambition to make great strides towards that. If she will allow me, I will get in a few moments to the amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey), which touches on the all-important issue of climate change.

We will invest in infrastructure in every corner and nation of the United Kingdom. We will invest in roads, in railways and in broadband so that our country can boast the most formidable connectivity on the planet.

We will put significant investment into one of the most critical challenges we face, and that is climate change. Our strategy will take huge strides towards achieving our world-leading commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. We will invest in new technologies and markets as we look ahead to the critical COP26 talks later this year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I assure the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) that no Government Member wants to degrade the rights or the dignity of working people—quite the opposite. We are not interested in turning us into some bargain-basement economy by lowering standards.

This Parliament seems to have a much calmer atmosphere. We seem to have passed through a hurricane, and we now have a solid majority. However, some would claim that we are simply in the eye of the storm and that another hurricane will hit us over a so-called hard Brexit and a failure to achieve a free trade deal. I doubt whether the free trade deal will be so difficult to achieve. After all, we start with exactly the same rules, regulations, tariffs and everything. If there is good will on both sides, as there certainly is on ours, I see no difficulty in achieving the free trade deal.

Much has been made of what the Food and Drink Federation said this week, but I see no difficulty there. Are we going to downgrade the Lincolnshire sausage compared with the Bavarian sausage? Are we going to produce low-grade orange juice? Of course not—we will keep our standards. I look at the Chancellor when I say this: there is use in the Government making it absolutely clear, when it comes to environmental standards, working rights and ensuring that we have good-quality products, that we are absolutely top-notch in the world and that we will not downgrade any of our standards. What would be absolutely intolerable is to sign up to a deal that says that for ever more, we have to follow rules made by another jurisdiction. That would be absurd, which is why I am opposed to remaining permanently in some kind of single market or customs union. I know that the Chancellor will be absolutely robust in resisting that, but the free trade deal can and will be achieved, because we are a party of free trade. We are open to the world—that is what we believe in. I am not a believer in a hard Brexit or a soft Brexit; I believe in a Brexit that is good for business—a business Brexit—and I am sure that the Chancellor does, too.

How will we increase our competitiveness in Europe and the world as Brexit takes place, if we are to maintain these excellent standards? I suggest, by way of a Budget submission to the Chancellor, who is sitting on the Front Bench, that we could learn lessons from the past. I think I have now sat through over 40 Budgets in this Chamber, and most have been frankly unimpressive. They have looked to the next day’s headlines in spending a bit more money here and there. The one Budget that really impressed me was Nigel Lawson’s Budget in 1988, because he had a vision. It was a vision of a lower-tax economy from a Chancellor who was determined to strip away the mass of allowances and ensure that we no longer had the longest tax code in the world after India. I remember when the Chancellor arrived as a fresh-faced young Back Bencher in 2010, a man who had been a success in the City of London, and I saw him as a Thatcherite. I want him to remember those early days and at the next Budget to take a leaf out of Nigel Lawson’s Budget.

Nigel Lawson said, “If you reward enterprise, you get more of it”. We are a Conservative Government with a solid majority. Have we got the courage of our convictions? Nigel Lawson reduced the top rate of income tax from 60% to 40%. Throughout the period of the Labour Government, they kept that top rate at 40%, except in the dying days when Gordon Brown increased it to 45%, and it is still at 45%. There is no economic justification for it, nor was there for George Osborne’s attack on young entrepreneurs through national insurance. Has the Chancellor got the courage in this Budget to do what Nigel Lawson did, to be a visionary and to start simplifying our tax system and rewarding enterprise? I would be very happy to give way to him, if he wants to make that clear. As I said to the shadow Chancellor, given that 30% of all income tax receipts come from the top 1% of income tax payers, I accept that it will be impossible, probably, to ever achieve the dream of a truly flat-rate tax system, but we can simplify it and gradually flatten taxes. Businesses are employing thousands of accountants to help them avoid taxation. Why can we not simplify our taxation system? I hope we can make progress on that.

I hope we can be a radical Government in other respects. I hope we do not feel we have to ape the Opposition in promising more and more public money. Of course, we have to spend more on the NHS—we have an ageing population with more and more treatments coming on stream—but we have to be a radical Government in trying to deliver outcomes. What is important is not what we spend on the NHS or social care, but the outcome, so we must not be afraid of promoting within the NHS private sector solutions that deliver more efficiency. What do the public care about? They care about their operation and treatment being on time. How that is delivered is not really a priority for them. I feel in his heart of hearts that the Chancellor agrees and is committed to achieving free-enterprise solutions.

[Wera Hobhouse]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I remember that the Liberal party in its heyday was a party of free trade and liberalism, so I hope this intervention will be part of that.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will the right hon. Gentleman not accept that the many vulnerable people who need help who come to my surgery, and whom I see on a daily basis, need good public services?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Of course they need good public services, and we are a party of good public services, but we do not believe that the only way of improving public services is by increasing spending in real terms year in, year out. The best way to downgrade productivity and efficiency in the public services is by rapidly increasing spending without tight cost controls on outcomes. I am sure I can rely on the Treasury in that regard.

Where the Opposition have a point, and where we do have an argument, is that some of the big companies, particularly the American digital companies and tech giants, are not paying their fair share of tax. There is also an increasing feeling in this country—this is the one nation point—that the employment rights of some of the people at the bottom of the heap are being downgraded. The Conservative party has an historic opportunity to build on its alliance with working people to improve standards, workers’ rights and the ability of those big companies to pay taxes, and we can do that while also being an enterprise Government and rewarding hard work. By doing that, we can achieve a great deal.

The last part of the jigsaw—this alliance with working people—is the question: why do they vote Conservative? Why did they vote for Brexit? It is because they are fed up with cheap labour being imported into this country and fed up with their rights and employment opportunities being downgraded. If the Chancellor is now looking to the world in terms of immigration, let him ensure that we will no longer downgrade the rights of workers in this country by importing cheap labour. Let us have good-quality labour—people who have something real to contribute.

I believe that there is a real, historic opportunity for the Conservative party to build on this alliance with the working people in the north of England who have felt forgotten for so long. That opportunity is here, and I am confident that this Chancellor will deliver it.

Breathing Space Scheme

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Well, it is merely a question of remaining seated. After that Socratic dialogue, we will leave it for now. The hon. Gentleman can bank his PMQ. Very well done.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Financial difficulties are considered an adverse childhood experience. Facing problem debt in the family as a child can perpetuate cycles of poor mental health, low achievement, poor employment opportunities, prison, drug addiction and so on. I am very pleased that the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) earlier drew attention to ACEs. Will the Minister assure me that the breathing space scheme will include advisers being trained in adverse childhood experiences and trauma, so that the problems of financial hardships are not perpetuated into the next generation?

Oral Answers to Questions

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

My right hon. Friend raises an interesting question, and I will look carefully at the taxation of the national lottery and any future lotteries.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Anti-idling rules are a good start in reducing air pollution, but local authorities need the legal powers and resources to enforce them. Would the Treasury consider making new money available to local authorities to stop cars idling?

[Robert Jenrick]

The Government have committed £3.5 billion to improving air quality for the entire population, and I understand that that involves Bath and North East Somerset Council receiving nearly £6.5 million. I understand that the council is also expected to bid for part of the £220 million clean air fund, and I wish it luck with its application.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend will know that the loan charge was brought into effect in 2016. It allowed three years for individuals to clean up the loans—if they were loans, they could be refinanced on a proper, commercial basis—or to come to an arrangement with HMRC. The most important message that I can give from the Dispatch Box today to those involved in these schemes is to get out of avoidance, to get in touch with HMRC and to settle their affairs. They will have a sympathetic and proportionate hearing.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

14. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education on the adequacy of funding for adult education.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Elizabeth Truss)]

We fully fund adults to take English and Maths to level 2. From 2020, we will also be funding them for basic digital skills. Those are the vital skills that people need to get a job and get on in life.

[Wera Hobhouse]

In the last 10 years, total enrolment of adults in further education colleges has dropped by 62%, including at Bath College in my constituency. Enrolment in health and social care is down by 68%; in engineering, it is down by 68%; and in construction, it is down by 37%. Does the Minister agree that this situation is of huge concern and that the Treasury must look at serious reinvestment in adult skills as part of the upcoming spending review?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We do fund the core courses that are going to help people get work and get on in life, but we also provide adult learner loans so that people can help shape their own future. In 2017-18, we spent £220 million on those loans.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

In this House and across our families and communities, we would love this country to come together and unify. However, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the vagueness of the declaration on the future relationship is making that entirely impossible? Rather than healing the divisions, it will keep them rumbling on for years and years.

[John McDonnell]

I watched the hon. Lady’s contribution to the previous debate; it was interesting how her words coincided with those of Government Members. The use of the words “best endeavours”, “ambitions” and “sought for” gave such uncertainty that it was impossible for the general public and others to understand the direction in which the Government are going in the long term. I concur with the hon. Lady’s view.

I must press on. It is not just Labour Members who are pointing out issues with the finance sector; Members from all parties are doing so, including some on the Government Benches. That view is backed up by economists of many viewpoints in their assessment of the Prime Minister’s deal—including, it seems, the Government’s own. The official analysis produced last week was far short of what was promised, as we said at the time. It took as its starting point the Chequers proposals, which have long been discarded. In doing so, it failed to live up to the standards of transparency that we should expect when engaging in critical decisions such as this.

Even in what they did publish, the Government admitted last week—as the Chancellor has again today, I believe—that their deal would make Britain worse off. In the closest scenario to the possible deal, we could see GDP nearly 4% lower as a result of the Government’s approach to Brexit. To put that in context, this year that would be around £83 billion. In the long term, the damage is likely to be even greater. Worryingly, the Chancellor described £83 billion being wiped off our economy as a “very small economic impact”. Maybe there will be many “little extras” to follow in future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

May I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on his speech, on his prudent and sensible stewardship of our economy at this difficult time and on the extraordinarily clear way in which he expressed his intent?

I should remind the House that I was a staunch remainer. I campaigned vigorously to remain, and I would certainly do so again. I am proud that my constituency voted to remain by 53%. I am personally deeply saddened by the result of the referendum, and I believe that our wonderful country made an historically bad decision that we will long regret. However, the country voted to leave the European Union in the referendum of 2016—the biggest democratic exercise in our history. I am first and foremost a democrat, and I believe strongly that that vote must be honoured.

At the time of the referendum, the then Prime Minister, my friend David Cameron, assured the country that the result would be respected. I echoed that assurance at the last election and confirmed that, however much I regretted it, I must support the democratically expressed wish of my country. I wish to make it clear that, while there are serious disagreements on both sides of the House, I believe we all have the best interests as we see them of our country at heart, and that we fight the good fight with confidence but also proper respect for those who hold long-standing views that are very different.

I was very taken with the speech by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister at the beginning of the debate, and I wish to pay the warmest tribute to her for her tremendous courage, doggedness, diligence and determination to arrive at a deal in the national interest. I believe that she has achieved in this withdrawal agreement an essentially pragmatic compromise, which she rightly justifies as being a realistic conclusion of that which is possible. I hope the House realises that there will not be a better deal on offer and that, if this arrangement is voted down, no different deal will miraculously appear and there will be a profound period of uncertainty and risk that we might crash out with no deal, which would, by common consent, be a disaster for our country.

At the end of the day, this withdrawal agreement will leave almost nobody satisfied, but it gives all sides of the argument something. It is not a perfect deal, and it was never going to be, for that is the nature of a complex negotiation. It is indeed a compromise, and it would be a fatal mistake, as the Prime Minister said, to let the search for the perfect Brexit prevent a good Brexit.

It is also important for the House to acknowledge that the Prime Minister, by ignoring the strident noises off, under immense pressure from all sides of our own party and the House, has managed to temper these negotiations in such a way as to ensure that we will be able, in time, to retain the closest partnership with our European friends and allies. However, I remain deeply anxious that a no-deal Brexit or a second referendum, which would likely be inconclusive after a vicious and harsh campaign, might push Britain into the kind of loathsome and hateful partisan bitterness that now so disfigures American public life and is so damaging to its democratic settlement and political discourse. We do not want that in this country.

What will be achieved by support for the withdrawal agreement is one thing, but as the House knows, there are years of hard and difficult negotiations ahead. After the most careful thought, I have concluded that what is proposed in the withdrawal agreement substantially delivers on the referendum result and must thus be honoured. It is clear that, under these arrangements, the United Kingdom will be leaving the political union, ending free movement, leaving the customs union, leaving the common fisheries policy and the common agricultural policy, ending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and regaining the chimera of our sovereignty. The agreement is thus entirely deserving of the House’s support.

[Wera Hobhouse]

The right hon. Gentleman said at the beginning of his speech that he believes the country made a mistake in the referendum that it will regret. How can he, in his conscience, not continue with that argument and persuade people that the best place for us is within the European Union?

[Sir Nicholas Soames]

I tried at length in my own inept way to explain why that was the case. I believe that the Government must honour the result of the referendum, democratically expressed in the biggest electoral exercise that this country has ever had, and not to do so would be a disgrace. In my view, this plan has very carefully and very cleverly managed to separate Britain from the European Union—46 years of combined earnest endeavour and legislation—with, frankly, miraculously minimum damage to each side. We need to keep it that way for this is a golden prize, given the circumstances. It would be extremely ill-judged to throw it away, which, above all, would be contrary to our national interest.

I am confident that we can then move on to building a stable future framework, as clearly set out by the Chancellor, which will formalise the great importance of our future relationship with our European friends, allies and partners. There is only one agreed proposal on the table. We owe it to our country to lay aside our differences, to accept that our great national traditions of pragmatism, common sense and compromise have never been more vital than now and then to come together, as the Prime Minister said, as “one Union of four nations”, to reassert the confidence that we should most definitely have in the opportunities that lie ahead for our nation’s future, if only we can grasp this nettle and move on. It will be the experience of many right hon. and hon. Members on all sides of the House of Commons that most of our fellow citizens devoutly wish us to get this done and to focus on the things that they really care and worry about daily—schools, policing, the national health service, transport, the environment and just getting from A to B—and all the other issues that, inevitably, have not had the attention they should have had as the Government have had to focus so much of their necessary effort on coming to this moment.

I am approaching the end of my parliamentary life. I am truly sad beyond words that our wonderful country has reached this pass, but I feel very strongly that we really must not reject this agreement and thus go back to square one, which would mean perhaps another deeply divisive and very unhappy referendum. In turn, that would mean the most damaging uncertainty economically and continuing division that will inevitably threaten the jobs and lives of our constituents and investment in our economy. I am afraid above all that the House would earn the undying contempt of the British people if it does not have the courage and vision to grasp this deal, however we may feel about it, in the interests of the greater good.

I am sure that many right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House remember Lewis Carroll’s wonderful poem, “The Hunting of the Snark”. It includes these lines, which I believe are appropriate:

“But the principal failing occurred in the sailing,

And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,

Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,

That the ship would not travel due West!”

To coin a phrase from a greater, kinder and more resolute period in our national life, “Come, let us go forward together and settle this now”.

Eating Disorders

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered reducing stigma around eating disorders.

It is a honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger.

We probably all know at least one sufferer or ex-sufferer of an eating disorder. As one put it to me, eating disorders are the easiest thing to get into and the hardest to get out of. We have come a long way in recent years, but we are nowhere near to providing lasting, successful treatments for hundreds of thousands of people. Many people are suffering alone and in silence, without a support network. We are failing as a society to support people in their deeply personal battles.

This debate is about stigma. There are two stigmas around eating disorders—that from outside and that which sufferers feel themselves. The result is that people often wait a long time before asking for help.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate on such an important issue. Does she agree that one of the ways to tackle the stigma is for people to speak out and then for others to have confidence to speak out as well? That will contribute to more early diagnosis and better treatment and care.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I totally agree. There are a number of people in the Public Gallery today who have spoken out. I will come on to how important it is that people have the confidence and feel secure enough to speak out.

It takes an average of 58 weeks from someone realising that they have a problem to them seeking help from a GP. That is more than a year of self-doubt, self-loathing and self-harm. On average, it is a further 27 weeks until the start of treatment. Add to that the time that the person has suffered with a disorder before admitting that there is a problem and we start to see the real picture.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

In my constituency, there is an excellent facility, Rharian Fields, run by Navigo, a social enterprise. It is rated as outstanding by the Care Quality Commission, but only accepts patients over the age of 17. If we are to tackle some of the deep-rooted psychological issues, does the hon. Lady agree that we need facilities for young people under the age of 17? Such facilities are incredibly difficult to access around the country.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I thank the hon. Lady for that contribution. We do not really understand eating disorders deeply enough and we need to start a lot earlier. We need facilities for people younger than 17; we need to get into the issue at a much earlier age. It is all about understanding what the problem really is. We are a long way from properly understanding the deep-rooted causes. The more treatment available and the earlier we can intervene, the better.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Early intervention is hugely significant. Many eating disorders can be prevented from developing to their full extent with proper preventive care. Is she aware that the Government enable public health bodies in Cumbria to spend only 75p per head for children in the county on preventive treatment? Does she agree that that is a disgrace and that we ought instead to be investing in, for instance, having a mental health worker attached to every single school, to ensure that we prevent people getting to the later stage?

[Wera Hobhouse]

Across the board, and particularly when it comes to public health, prevention is so much better than picking up the pieces afterwards. We can save so much money if we do something early rather than only intervening when somebody is already in crisis. That is particularly true for mental health, and the challenge here is that eating disorders are still not very well understood.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I have a personal interest in this subject. A close member of my family suffered from bulimia. What we found most important was the support provided by the family network. That, above anything else that could be provided, was what carried the family member through to a positive conclusion.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Anybody who has had a close family member in such a situation will understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but families are often pretty helpless too, if they do not really understand what can be done and how they can help their family member to get out of the problem. It is a form of addiction, and like with any other addiction, family members are co-sufferers. They want to help but do not really understand the deep-seated problems. Family members are important, but we need the professionals and their understanding to help families get through together. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that families are incredibly important.

Eating disorders define large periods of people’s lives. How can we shorten that time? We need people to be okay with saying, “I’m not okay.” We need to tackle the stigma around eating disorders, and the message needs to get through to a lot of people. More than 1 million people in the UK have an eating disorder; three quarters are women and one quarter are men. That is a very large number, plus there are the friends and family who suffer with them. So many people with conditions such as anorexia and bulimia blame themselves. It is not their fault and we need to make sure that they know that.

When I announced on Twitter that I was holding this debate, I received a wave of emotional responses and personal stories. Yesterday, a local doctor dropped into my office a book that she had written, which described her fight with eating disorders since the age of 13. That shows how early it can start.

I also got an email from a young woman called Lorna, who experienced serious anorexia while studying in my constituency in Bath. This is what she told me:

“I ended up with an initial diagnosis of anxiety and depression, and was started on antidepressants. I suspended my studies and worked as a carer in my local village, living at home with my mum and brother. People I’d known all my life began commenting on the weight I’d lost, and telling me how good I looked. This is when my anorexia began to take full hold.

I stopped eating completely, lying to my mum and saying I’d eaten at work, began over-exercising compulsively, and remember pacing the corridors at work to burn extra calories. I became obsessed. I weighed myself up to 12 times a day.

My mum was terrified, and didn’t know what to do. Eventually she came with me to my GP and I told him everything. I told him I was petrified of putting on weight, exercising excessively and skipping nearly every meal. His response was ‘Oh, that’ll be your antidepressants.’ He took me off a high dose, there and then. Cold turkey.

Each time...I told him how out of control I felt with my eating. He’d force me onto the scales, shaking and crying, and then tell me my BMI was ‘healthy’ and I didn’t meet the diagnostic criteria. I was devastated. I had opened up and was denied help. I never got diagnosed with anorexia, despite going from a size 16 to a size 8 in less than a year.

I went through the monthly humiliation of being dragged onto scales and told I wasn’t thin enough to be helped yet. And not having that formal diagnosis is hard. When I tell people I was anorexic, they never quite believe me, as even doctors didn’t. I think they always assume I was being dramatic, or ‘it wasn’t that bad then’. Today, I am weight-restored, although struggle with now being overweight.

It took me 3 years to recover. 3 years of misery and obsession. I was dangerously unwell, but not sick enough to get an ounce of support.”

When I read that story, I am amazed by how brave Lorna is. She was brave to ask for treatment and even braver to put her trust into the medical system a second time, even after she did not receive the treatment that she really needed. She was very brave to tell her story. Lorna has gone on to campaign for proper treatment for eating disorders. She is here in the Chamber, and I want to thank her personally for letting me share her story—Lorna, thank you. I am so sorry that you had to go through such an awful experience. I know your words will help others, and I desperately hope that together we can improve the treatment and care of those with eating disorders and end the stigma for good.

We cannot ignore the medical failings in Lorna’s story. We need to use them and the figures that prove that Lorna’s experience is not an isolated case. First, we need to break the stereotype that all people with eating disorders are underweight. Hope Virgo’s campaign to “Dump the Scales” was also a response to being told that she was not thin enough to receive support. She is calling on the Government properly to implement the eating disorder guidance delivered by clinicians, a call that I strongly echo along with over 60,000 signatories to her petition. To judge an eating disorder simply by BMI is not good enough; rather, we need to look at the trend and rapidity of weight loss and the story that sufferers tell.

We know that the Department of Health and Social Care knows this is an issue. We know that if we fail to take action, people not only suffer but, in some cases, lose their lives. When questioned on waiting times, the Minister often says that the Government do have targets, but he ignores the fact—or he does not tell us—that there is none for adult services. On average, adults wait twice as long as people under the age of 19. The Government must do everything to remove barriers to treatment. In particular, young adults are incredibly vulnerable. At our autumn conference, the Lib Dems called for the Government to ensure that all young people can access young people’s mental health services up to the age of 25, because from the age of 18 many young adults move out of home, go into further education or start their first job, all of which can be stressful when they no longer have support from home. We must also introduce waiting times for adults to ensure that they receive help as quickly as possible.

The Minister is likely to mention that in 2015 the Government allocated £30 million of extra resources per year for five years to improve the NHS treatment of eating disorders for teenagers. However, in some cases that is not reaching the frontline, because the funding is not ring-fenced and can be diverted to other priorities.

[Tim Farron]

Leading on from that point, my hon. Friend will be aware that in 2016 the Government pledged money for a specific one-to-one eating disorder service for children and young people under the age of 18. Yet two and a half years on, that service does not exist in Cumbria, and people who present with eating disorders often go through the struggles that she has just talked about, because the people that they see are not specialists.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I will come to that. The lack of proper training is really at the heart of what my hon. Friend describes.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on giving us the opportunity to discuss this very serious issue. Does she agree that, in addition to dealing with the problems that are thrown up by having an eating disorder, the difficulty for people in that position and for their families is access to proper services? That varies from place to place, town to town and city to city. Does she believe that we need a more integrated service that is the same everywhere and that provides an effective service for young people—and older people, for that matter—who are in that situation?

[Wera Hobhouse]

I fully agree with the right hon. Gentleman: the services are too patchy, which is why families do not really know what to do. We need to ensure that there is not a postcode lottery—I will come to that later—and that services follow on from each other and are much more holistic and integrated. There is a lot to do.

Funding for eating disorders must be properly ring-fenced, because it is just too easy for trusts to use that money to plug other funding gaps. If we fail to do that, we end up with tragic deaths such as that of Averil Hart, which prompted a Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman report. She was completely failed by the system. The report not only called for parity of adult eating disorder services with child and adolescent services, but stated that:

“The General Medical Council (GMC) should conduct a review of training for all junior doctors on eating disorders”.

Research conducted by Dr Agnes Ayton in June 2018 shows that, on average,

“medical students receive less than two hours of teaching on eating disorders”

throughout the entirety of their undergraduate training. Some 20% of medical schools do not include eating disorders in their curriculum at all. Of the medical schools that do include eating disorders in their curriculum, 50% do not include in eating disorders in their examination.

In the end, it comes down to the priority that we and the medical profession place on mental health and its treatment. Making mental health a priority and giving it parity with physical health is more than a slogan; it requires understanding and some new thinking. If somebody breaks their arm, we do not sit around for a year and then put on a cast; we treat the broken arm immediately. We need to act quickly to treat eating disorders and mental health in general. If we wait too long, these illnesses can become severe and entrenched—they can last for many years and often have a massively debilitating effect on sufferers and their families. The earlier the intervention, the more likely it is that sufferers will make a full recovery.

In Bath, we have a not-for-profit social enterprise called Brighter Futures, which is funded by child and adolescent mental health services and which provides special services for children and young people. The 30-plus practitioners do an amazing job, but their funding has been cut in half. Such services are perfect opportunities for early intervention to treat eating disorders, but if they are not properly funded, young people will slip through the cracks. Charities are now trying to fill the gap. The Somerset and Wessex Eating Disorders Association is one such charity—the only charity between Cornwall and Norfolk that works in this field. It is based in Shepton Mallet and sees clients from a wide area: from Somerset to Bath, Bristol and Swindon. People self-refer to the service; they do not need a diagnosis. The association is very much pro-recovery and self-help.

There are people all over the country who do not have any access to such services. There should not be a difference in the level of service that people receive, depending on where they live—we cannot leave this to a postcode lottery. Clearly, we need to do better. It is obvious that services are patchy at best, and that people have to travel much too far for treatment and wait too long to be treated. Others really need help but fall under the threshold for treatment.

It is not the just the Government who should act to tackle eating disorders. The focus of this debate is stigma and how we can reduce it. Each and every one of us can help. Eating disorders are widespread, but they continue to be kept secret by so many sufferers, who fear being judged negatively by others. They see themselves as defective and as not meeting societal standards. They feel disgust and self-loathing about their appearance, eating or purging habits, or they worry that disclosure will result in their difficulties being trivialised. The stigma is perpetuated by general ignorance of what eating disorders are. The first step to challenging stigma is providing better education—it is not only our future doctors and health professionals who need to be better trained, but the general public. A successful strategy to reduce prejudice is for people to come forward and tell their stories. Such stories break the silence and the shame. That is why we so desperately need people such as Lorna and Hope, who are brave enough to come forward. I thank them for being here and telling their stories. Together, we can end the stigma.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wera Hobhouse]

I thank everyone who is here, particularly the amazing campaigners, including Lorna, Hope and the representatives from Beat, who do amazing work to help us all to break the silence and the shame that sufferers feel. We can do a lot as a society and social media can help.

Practical things can be done, where Government and mental health services are responsible. We have been talking—I thank the Minister for his response—about waiting times, ring-fencing of funding and proper training for doctors, but also practical things, such as dumping the scales. As he said, there are NICE guidelines, but we need to make sure that they are followed.

The statistics, including the fact that the mortality rate is the highest for any psychiatric disorder, are shocking. A third of people do not get better, and a third suffer chronic consequences. Only a third get better, while a third get worse. Those are terrible statistics for something that we know what to do about. We can do something about it, and we fail to. I see today’s debate only as a beginning; I promise everyone in the Gallery that. I also promise the Minister that I shall continue to bother him.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Food Labelling and Allergy-Related Deaths

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

When the initial regulations were established, stakeholders were involved in framing them, and those stakeholders included organisations involved with allergy work. There are some situations, especially those involving younger people who may not be familiar with packaging, in which people can have a conversation with an individual across the counter so that they can understand what allergens might be in a particular product. I have had those conversations myself. That is a mechanism and we need to make sure that it is properly enforced. As I have said a couple of times at the Dispatch Box, it is really important that businesses look into how they can increase consumer confidence in their work. We will take forward at pace the review of the regulations, in order to play our part, too.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I add my condolences to those expressed for the family and friends of the two victims.

In January, on being notified by the coroner that Celia Marsh had died at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, Bath and North East Somerset Council notified Pret A Manger, but it appears that the council did not notify the FSA, which was notified by Pret A Manger six weeks later—a long delay. What public responsibility does Bath and North East Somerset Council trading standards have to regulate and enforce food safety in our city?

[David Rutley]

I am not able to give a complete update on the situation in respect of Celia Marsh’s death because the investigations are still ongoing. On the hon. Lady’s point about enforcement in her local area, I will gladly meet her and we can decide how to take the matter forward.

Public Sector Pay

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Prison officers will receive a 2% rise and a 0.75% bonus. Prison officers who were newly recruited on fair and sustainable terms will receive additional progression pay to make sure that we retain those really important workers.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Why have the Government announced that school leaders’ pay will continue to be cut in real terms, given that the School Teachers Review Body said that a 3.5% increase was needed across all pay ranges to prevent “deteriorating” trends in teacher retention?

[Elizabeth Truss]

It is very important that we focus the pay rises on the lowest-earning teachers, which I think would be supported across the education system. Where there are specific shortages in education or in schools, there is of course the flexibility to increase pay, and I know that that happens for a number of headteachers.