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Rev. Martin Smyth: I do not want to detract from my hon. Friend's argument in favour of cancer provision, although there may be other arguments to deploy. Does he share my concern, and that of many other people, about the fact that the boundary line and environmental works have been completed, but the hospital that is required first and foremost has not been built?
Mr. Ross: The laboratory has already been built, and the final reassessment has now taken place. That scares the living daylights out of the folk in the area, who feel that the place has been reassessed to death. They want to see contractors on site. A total of £47 million has been committed to that hospital. I have been told time and again that it is safe, but I want to hear the Minister tell me so yet again from the Dispatch Box. I hope that he will also tell me that he will meet the delegation that I want to take to see him. Those people want to know what is needed, and are prepared to argue their case. They do not want to be fobbed off with suggestions that they should go and see members of the trust or the board. The matter should be dealt with by the Minister, and I am becoming a little fed up with being told to talk to someone else.
Another problem--in which the hon. Member for South Down would no doubt have been interested had he cared to remain with us--relates to the use of asbestos cement pipes from Mourne to Belfast. The Minister and I have corresponded about that in the pages of Hansard. I asked a parliamentary question about it, and was told that the asbestos fibres were removed by coagulation and filtration, which removed the bulk of the suspended material. My question was carefully worded, as was the answer. That process does remove the bulk of the material, but it does not remove all of it. According to the Green Book published by the Department just after the contract was let, the use of asbestos cement pipes should be avoided. How does the Minister justify the continuing use of such pipes, which are made outside the country anyway?
At that time, the contract had not even begun. The Government laid down the rule that would avoid the use of asbestos cement--I do not suppose that they did that just because it is good for people--and then, all at once,
we were told that the use of asbestos would go ahead, but that the bulk could be removed by filtration. The filtration fount, however, is at the wrong end of the asbestos pipes. Documents published in the United States raise concerns in my mind, and I hope that the Minister will give the matter careful consideration.
The asbestos problem is probably a bit like BSE. It is pretty safe to eat British beef--I have never stopped doing so, because I do not think that there is any real danger--but there is the question of perception. The perception is that the use of asbestos should be avoided, and it could easily be avoided through the use of pipes made in Northern Ireland, or even steel pipes made in Great Britain. No doubt that would be very useful, if such pipes are still made here.
Finally, let me raise an interesting constituency case. If I do not receive a satisfactory answer from the Minister--or, rather, from his colleague the Minister of State, who is in charge of education--I may raise it in theHouse again. My constituent received the following communication from the Social Security Agency:
The Government, however, knew perfectly well that they had made a mistake in their original legislation. They then introduced regulations that reversed the Court of Appeal's decision by removing certain words from the legislation. The Government had a right to do that, but I feel that my young constituent--who has now left university, and whose parents had to support her during the year that she was out of university--had a perfectly sound case.
The Government may turn round and say that, because of a little loophole in the law, although income support is a United Kingdom benefit and although the person concerned lives in the United Kingdom, they will not grant it. The different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom must all have a case fought through--Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as England. If such a case came to court either of those jurisdictions, the lawyers would immediately call in aid the decision of the highest English court, and would invariably win.
Dr. Joe Hendron (Belfast, West):
I listened very carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross). For years there was all-party support for building a hospital on a green-field site in Coleraine, and I know that he led that campaign. As the health spokesperson for my party, for years I was involved in many meetings, as were the spokespeople for the Ulster Democratic Unionist party and the Alliance party. I am absolutely surprised that the contractors have not yet even been on site.
I should like to start my speech on a happy note, by thanking the Minister at the Department responsible for economic development and the Industrial Development Board for the fact that, as mentioned earlier, 400 jobs are to come to my constituency. The headquarters ofF. G. Wilson Emerson Electric--an international concern--will expand in Larne and will also come to my constituency. The fact that an international company with worldwide markets is coming to west Belfast is a vote of confidence in our available and well-educated work force.
The hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) and other hon. Members mentioned the deprivation and league tables in their constituencies. I understand why they do that, but, once again, I--with the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Walker)--must repeat that west Belfast and north Belfast contain the most deprived wards in Northern Ireland, and probably anywhere in these islands.
I certainly welcome the fact that F. G. Wilson Emerson Electric is coming to our area, and I fully appreciate that that was brought about by the good work and professionalism of the IDB, the Minister and the Department. Their work has also meant that Fujitsu and BCO Technology have recently come to us, and that there have been extensions to Mackeys International and to Deltaprint. Those developments are good news for West Belfast, a constituency in which the news, although about many other things--is not usually about jobs.
I should like to say one thing--this also concerns the hon. Member for Belfast, North--about the Department of the Environment. About three years ago, I was walking on the Shankill road with the Secretary of State. It was a very sunny afternoon, and he mentioned the beauty of the Belfast hills--which run around the periphery of north and west Belfast--to some of the local people. We have often approached the Department of the Environment, the Minister and his predecessors on the development of the hills. I believe that those at Making Belfast Work are considering the matter. Any development of the Belfast hills would be a tremendous asset to the city of Belfast and to the constituencies of west and north Belfast.
I should like to mention the LaSalle and St. Genevieve schools in my constituency. I fully appreciate that all hon. Members are concerned about their constituencies and their schools and about getting a proper financial
allocation, but the LaSalle school is one of the biggest secondary schools in the most deprived part of these islands. I shall not deal with the option that seems to have been accepted by the Government, but the difference between it and the option desired by the schools is£2.4 million. I appreciate that final decisions may not have been taken, and I again appeal to the Secretary of State and to Education Ministers to re-examine that matter.
I do not want to repeat what other hon. Members have said about the Department of Health and Social Services, but I am of course aware that health boards are suffering from a 3 per cent. reduction in their baseline funding. In the case of the Eastern health and social services board, the cut represents £13 million. That is a catastrophic cut, as it comes on top of reductions made in recent years because of capitation shifts. I appreciate that a new formula has been adopted and that the financial position of the board may improve.
In the meantime, however, I am very concerned about the long-term prospects for hospitals such as the Royal Victoria, which not only serves the city of Belfast--as do the City hospital and the Mater hospital--but is one of the main regional hospitals in the north of Ireland.
The time spent on waiting lists for hip-joint replacements at Musgrave Park is increasing. The hon. Member for Belfast, North and I have drawn the Minister's attention to that fact in the past few days.
I am deeply concerned that reduced funding for the North and West Belfast Health and Social Services trust will severely affect the most vulnerable group in our society--the elderly. I appreciate that the Minister has said that funding has increased, but what about the percentage of funding? In 1993, the trust received 27 per cent. of the Eastern health and social services board's allocation for services for the elderly. This year, the figure is 24 per cent., which is a difference of £2.5 million.
The immediate impact of that change in programme is a reduction in care and home help services of 1,450 hours per week. The Secretary of State has drawn attention time and again to targeting social need in the most deprived areas of Northern Ireland. West and north Belfast are at the top of that deprivation league. It does not make sense for the Secretary of State to State to refer continually to targeting social need when services for the elderly are being cut.
It is common knowledge in Belfast, although there has been no official announcement, that Shankill house, a home for the elderly, is under threat of closure. Grove Tree house, on the Falls road, is also under threat. That is just not good enough. There will be a loss of jobs, but what happens to those elderly people is a matter of even greater importance.
On the matter of trust funding, I drew the Minister's attention to how moneys were allocated by the Eastern health and social services board according to a formula, which meant that proper funding was not going to the North and West Belfast Health and Social Services trust. Elderly age distributions are broken down into 65 to 74, 75 to 84 and 85-plus. But populations in deprived areas are unlikely to live as long as those in better areas.
"Regarding your letter concerning your daughter's . . . claim for Income Support from September 1992 and October 1993. The Senior Adjudication Officer has informed us that the judgement in the Clarke and Faul case was not followed in Northern Ireland. The decisions of the Higher Courts in England and Scotland are not binding in Northern Ireland. The Adjudication Officer has looked at your daughter's case again and has decided that there was no error of law, and therefore there are no grounds for review in this case."
That is remarkable. The famous Clarke and Faul case was brought by the students union when two students in Great Britain were refused income support. The Library tells me that they fought their case all the way to the Court of Appeal, where three Lord Justices were divided on the issue. Two said that the students were entitled to income support, and dismissed the case. The students received their money. It appeared that any students who were refused income support would henceforth be entitled to it.
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