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6.22 pm
Miss Anne McIntosh (Vale of York): I am delighted to participate in the debate on the Gracious Address. I am afraid that I do not share the enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) for primary care groups. I have consulted almost every practice in Vale of York over the past six months and I do not believe that primary care groups will work. In two or three years time, we shall have to come back with more proposals. I am no gambler, but I predict that the proposals will not work.
I was disappointed to hear the Secretary of State for Health say that he was removing a tier of bureaucracy. One of the grounds that general practitioners offer for being whole-heartedly against the proposals is that primary care groups will add another tier of bureaucracy. In North Yorkshire, there will be something like seven chief executives--recruitment adverts have gone out over the past two months--and they will cost, I imagine, between £20,000 and £30,000 each. I am not medically qualified. I cannot handle the sight of blood, so I went into another noble profession, the law. However, my father, my brother and my uncle have between them served between 80 and 100 years in the health service. The money intended to pay for chief executives in North
Yorkshire will be multiplied across the country and will total at least £1 million. In my view, and in the view of GPs who have written to me, that money should be spent on patient care, hospital treatment, the training of midwives or an increase in nurses' pay, to which the Government claim to be committed.
Do the Government intend to honour their commitment to raise nursing salaries? We all know that morale in the nursing profession is at an all-time low. In my surgery within the past month, I met a police officer and his wife, who is a nurse. The police officer believed that the Government did not have the money in this year's budget to make good the promised increase. The nurse was keen to extract a commitment that the Government would make good their promise, particularly through a big one-off pay increase that would bring nurses to the level that the profession justifies. Perhaps the Minister might tell us later whether the Government are committed to that increase.
I received a press release today from North Yorkshire health authority. It relates to the future of the Duchess of Kent hospital, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). The hospital is in Catterick, but it attracts patients from Vale of York. The thrust of the press release is that the immediate future of the hospital is secure. It is not to close for, I imagine, the foreseeable future. General practitioners are being asked to run it, which is welcome. In my experience, many GPs are well qualified to do operations, especially small ones, and I hope that that will work successfully at the hospital.
However, North Yorkshire health authority and I, with the support of my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks, are trying to extract a promise from the Government. The hospital was budgeted for in the Ministry of Defence budget, but it has become a direct drain on national health service resources. This year, it will suffer a shortfall of £500,000. I have taken every opportunity to write, to ask questions or to raise the matter on the Floor of the House. I have tried to extract from the Government a promise to make up that £500,000 shortfall. The short-term future of the hospital has been secured. In view of that fact, will the Government assure the House and my constituents that the money will be forthcoming?
The Minister for Public Health, the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Ms Jowell), who is not in her place, kindly replied to my Adjournment debate within the past month on the question of health among those living near overhead line transmissions. I referred in particular to power lines in Vale of York and other parts of North Yorkshire. Would the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, who is here, convey to the right hon. Lady the fact that I am concerned about the important work being undertaken by Bristol university and Professor David Henshall, which I know she values and which is making a major contribution to the debate. The Electricity Association has intervened at the highest level at the university--the vice-chancellor--to try to stop that work. The right hon. Lady committed herself, when she replied to my Adjournment debate, to making more studies available. That work could prove conclusively that health risks exist, and that leukaemia may be formed--cancer is certainly formed--among those living close to overhead lines.
My constituents share my regret about the Government's knee-jerk reaction to a minuscule risk when they banned beef on the bone. A much greater and clearer risk exists from power lines, but the Government are not so quick to react to the very serious health concerns of those living underneath or near overhead lines. I urge the Government to assure me that they will make a similar knee-jerk reaction to that problem. I did not agree with the decision to ban beef on the bone, but the Government must be consistent. If they react with a knee jerk to one health scare, they must do so again for another scare that affects a much larger number of people.
Finally, the link between health, welfare and food hygiene in livestock farming is compelling and serious and I must place on record my concern about the apparent lack of communication in many instances between the Department of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The banning of beef on the bone was just one example of that.
The Minister may or may not be aware that two proposals are decimating turkey production. I speak with heartfelt concern for Moorland Turkeys, a large company based in Vale of York near Thirsk. The Government's proposal to ban the sale in butchers' shops of turkeys that have not been eviscerated--in common parlance, that means with their giblets--is already causing great concern and has affected turkey production. A number of turkey factories, not least some owned by Moorland Turkeys, have closed. Production had to be halted because of that proposal. That was another knee-jerk reaction. There is no consequential health risk from such sales about which we need to worry. I wish that the Government would stop damaging food production in that way.
Another Government proposal affects turkey production. Health checks are to be made on turkeys and vets are to be present during their processing and slaughter. It costs £40 per hour for a vet to be present. I realise that that matter is probably the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, but the two Departments should talk to each other. There is no co-ordination between them. That sort of knee-jerk reaction is threatening to put turkey producers out of production, as other schemes have already done for beef producers and others.
Mrs. Ann Cryer (Keighley):
Today's subjects of health and welfare in the debate on the Queen's Speech and our legislative programme for the coming year are subjects close to my heart, and, for good reasons, the hearts of many of my constituents.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on moving to the abolition of the wasteful national health service internal market, so that co-operation, rather than competition, will become the motivating force. I am also extremely pleased by our move away from general practitioner fundholders. In Keighley, the Aire Valley health consortium three years ago led the way towards
primary care groups, which include all the practices in Keighley--large, small, rural and urban and, more particularly, Asian doctors, who give an excellent service to their community but tend to work alone. The situation there is similar to that described by my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) in relation to his area.
I look forward to fairer provision, regardless of which part of the town one lives in. Nationally, the provision of primary care in the health service will, I trust, be first rate for all, and will be according to a patient's physical and mental condition, not their postcode.
Many of my constituents are more than happy with the existing administration of the Airedale national health service trust. Airedale general hospital at Eastburn is the biggest employer in my constituency and serves an area north as far as Bentham in the dales, west as far as the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) in east Lancashire, east as far as Leeds, and south as far as Bingley, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie). Airedale hospital is extremely well regarded by all the communities that it serves. The staff of the excellent special care baby unit were delighted to be visited by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State earlier this year. That visit was regarded as recognition of the magnificent service given by a dedicated team of carers at all levels and in all specialties.
Recognising the special place that Airedale hospital holds in the hearts and minds of the people of my constituency and the many communities that I have mentioned will, I trust, persuade my right hon. Friend that to merge the Airedale and Bradford NHS trusts would be extremely unpopular and ill advised--in fact, not even worthy of consideration. I hope that those will be the final words on that subject.
I believe that my commitment to universal benefits is known to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security. It may be very old Labour indeed, but universal benefits, available to all with the benefit clawed back where necessary through taxation for those on high incomes--provide the safety net of welfare benefit provision, in particular for the most vulnerable people who are often unaware of their entitlements and simply do not know their way around the system. I am particularly pleased that child benefit will remain universal and that it will continue to increase, although I still mourn the loss of the enhanced rate for single parents.
I am sure that none of us can take exception to the idea of providing support for those who need it most while helping those who can work back into work. Certainly, extra support for families charged with the lifelong task of caring for children born with spina bifida, Down's syndrome, cerebral palsy and other chronically disabling disorders must be welcomed by all. Most of us who have been asked for some form of help by such families know of the dedication of the parents involved.
We are also aware that some incapacity benefit claimants have jobs in the black economy but, judging from my experience as a Member of Parliament and a member of the social security appeal tribunal for nine years, those are the rare exceptions and certainly not the rule. One of my abiding memories is of a man who was
reduced to tears before the tribunal when he graphically described how a Department of Social Security doctor asked him to kneel, but when he said that he could bend his knees only so far, the so-called doctor pushed down on both his shoulders until his knees reached the floor. He had cried out with the intense pain, but he was thus declared fit for work. I trust that our justified enthusiasm for helping people back to work will not put claimants into that sort of painful and degrading situation. No doubt our constituents will tell us if unnecessary pressure is put on those with a genuine illness and we will in turn make Ministers aware of such cases.
By and large, the changes in widows' benefits are an improvement for many, in particular bereaved fathers of young children. The doubling of the lump-sum payment will help many people with the enormous costs encountered on bereavement. However, the universal nature of the benefit long term will disappear, and for many people it will do so at a time when finding a job will be difficult.
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