House of Commons Hansard Debates for 21 Jan 1997 (pt 38)

11.58 pm

Mr. Douglas Hogg: I am conscious that the debate concludes in five minutes, so I hope that the House will forgive me if I answer many of the points briefly--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Hogg: I should have said, "With the permission of the House". I am so sorry.

I entirely agree with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir J. Spicer). It was very important to complete the removal of the backlog under the over-30-months scheme before we embarked on the selective cull.

My hon. Friends the Members for West Dorset, for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) and for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) asked whether there was a timetable for relaxing the ban. There is not. We will proceed as fast as we can, in stages, but I do not conceal from the House that this will be a difficult task and will take time. I do not wish to mislead anybody on that point.

Mr. Welsh: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Hogg: No, I have only three minutes.

Various important points were made about the suckler cow premium, for example, by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang). I am aware of the point, which relates to the culling of cattle during the retention

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period. We take the view that the culling of cattle during that period is covered by the force majeure principle. We have already approached the Commission on that point. We have not had a concluded answer yet, but our arguments are strong, and I hope that we shall get a sympathetic response.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Gloucestershire (Mr. Marland), and others, asked whether the Commission was happy with the eradication plan as is. The House will remember that the plan as it was submitted at the time of the Florence agreement, was approved by the Standing Veterinary Committee and received the endorsement of the Commission. That does not mean that we will not face suggestions that we should extend the scheme to a cull based on maternal transmission in certain circumstances that I outlined to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East.

There will be tendering for the period after 1 April. The hon. Member for Ynys Mon (Mr. Jones) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) talked about prompt payments. Payments should be made within 21 days of slaughter or registration, whichever is the later. In reality, that will be 21 days from slaughter, and that is extremely important.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale talked about the temporary committee of inquiry. There is only a draft at this stage. Lord Plumb said properly that it is based on prejudice, not on evidence. I take the view that Ministers who are accountable to the House should not be summoned by the European Parliament simply because it is seeking to exercise a supervisory role over nation states. I regret that the Liberal Democrats appear to take a different view.

The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross) raised an important point about the green pound and revaluation. The hon. Gentleman knows that there have been many devaluations over the past few years. He knows also that as regards 60 per cent. of the direct payments there is a freezing at current rates, which is worth about £200 million.

We have been criticised for not listening to the farmers. I do not believe that that is true. We adopted replacement value as a consequence of what was said to us. The second consultation paper on cohorts reflected the points made to us by the farming industry, as did our proposals on consequential loss.

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My hon. Friends the Members for Ryedale and for West Gloucestershire made an important point about the absence of a specified bovine material regime in Europe, and they were entirely right to do so. The absence of such a regime is lamentable. The matter was considered at the December Council and Agriculture Ministers decided not to accept the Commission's recommendation. I regard that as a serious omission.

I take no pleasure in the statutory instrument, for all the points and reasons that have been advanced by other hon. Members. If we do not agree to it, however, there is no prospect of securing any relaxation of the ban. On that basis, I commend it to the House.

Question put and negatived.

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Pinderfields Hospital

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. McLoughlin.]

12.2 am

Mr. William O'Brien (Normanton): I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about what I term my local hospital. Pinderfields hospital, which is located in my constituency, is an acute services general hospital, offering good and much needed services to the people of Wakefield. The hospital has wards in permanent buildings and temporary buildings. The temporary buildings were erected in the early 1940s to provide medical treatment for wounded personnel in the forces during the second world war.

On at least three occasions, programmes have been launched to replace the old outdated wards with new, modern wards with modern facilities. In the past 17 years, the Government have made a number of promises to build new premises. The most recent promise, of 1995-96, was made under the private finance initiative proposals. The publicity and hype about those proposals have now faded, due to the Government's policy on hospital mergers. I want to make it clear to the Minister that we do not need a merger, and that we want to develop our own Pinderfields hospital.

People who rely on Pinderfields for medical services keep asking when the new buildings will be ready. Perhaps I could extract a response from the Minister on that issue. The conditions under which nurses and staff work, and the premises in which patients receive treatment, would not be tolerated by many hon. Members, who would demand changes and improvements.

The hospital has recently been under tremendous pressure because of the number of referrals from general practitioners and the number of admissions through the accident and emergency unit. The local newspaper, the Wakefield Express, is a creditable newspaper with a creditable reporter. On 10 January, its headline read: "Hospital on brink of crisis". That referred to Pinderfields hospital. Health officials admitted that, had there been a major accident or incident in December or January, the hospital would have had to close its doors to all but the most urgent cases. Due to the dedication and sterling work of the staff at the hospital, it remained open and continued its good work.

Wakefield area health authority provided funding for extra beds to cope with the high demand. It opened a short-stay surgical ward at the nearby Clayton hospital to help to minimise the impact on waiting lists. That was sound judgment by the health authority.

My concern is heightened by the fact that the Wakefield area health authority is facing an overspend in its budget of about £5 million in the current year. It also has an over-commitment of almost £6 million on the expected budget allocation for 1997-98. The hospital is facing a financial crisis, and the stress on the staff due to the extra admissions and the heavy work load is exacerbated by the overspend on the budget and the cuts required to keep within budget. The staff are conscious of the fact that further economies must be made to keep within the budget provision.

There is no evidence of unjust spending. The hospital works within the Government's guidelines, and there are no surpluses. The problem is with the formula for the

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allocation of resources, as set by the Department of Health. Pinderfields hospitals faces a deficit of £3 million in the current year, with a further debt of £3 million for the fixed costs of the transfer of neurosurgery from Pinderfields to Leeds later this year. Will the Minister explain how such a crazy situation arose? Pinderfields had a first-class neurosurgery unit, which provided a first-class service. It was a regional unit stationed at Pinderfields, but it was stolen from us and located in Leeds.

Why should we have to pay £3 million fixed costs? That will push the hospital budget further into deficit. Why should the purchasers of services from Pinderfields hospital pay the costs of the neurosurgery unit that no longer exists?

All the health agencies in Wakefield, including Wakefield and area health authority and the three trusts, are concerned about the funding formula applied by the Department of Health for health care in Wakefield. I readily accept that there is no perfect formula for allocating resources, but there are fairer formulae than the one that currently applies there. How, for instance, did the Minister arrive at his decision that the population in our area was falling, which was one of the reasons for reducing our resources? I do not consider that to be true.

Why are we penalised for being a low-paid, low-income area? That is how the formula applies in Wakefield and we are being told that, in some areas where incomes are higher, we do not need as much. Why should the fact that only 1.75 per cent. of our population consists of ethnic communities influence the allocation of resources?

Does the Minister take into account the elderly population who suffer from respiratory diseases? A mining community such as ours contains chronically sick people, and a significant number of children and adults are troubled by asthma. The Wakefield and Pontefract asthma group is committed to addressing the apparent gap in provision between hospital and community, and to developing closer collaboration between primary and secondary care.