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Fireworks (Amendment)
12.31 pm
Mr. George Howarth (Knowsley, North and Sefton, East): I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Fireworks Act 2003.
Last autumn, problems were caused on Merseyside and elsewhere, including in my constituency, by a large number of incidents involving imported fireworks, many of which came from China. In particular, fireworks were used to attack fire crews, buses carrying people, and private property. There were even attacks on pillar boxes, and on more than one occasion the lid was blown off—one can imagine the force required, given that they are made of cast iron. Some attacks terrorised elderly people to the extent that they were afraid to go out of their houses during that period. Perhaps most worryingly of all, there is evidence that the materials from those imported fireworks were being used by people involved in organised crime to further the interests of the so-called businesses that they engage in. Clearly, there is a serious problem.
Before I go any further, I should say that I am indebted to the Merseyside police, the Merseyside fire and rescue service, Mr. John Woodhead, who is chairman of the British Fireworks Association, Knowsley borough council and many others for the advice and assistance that they have given me in preparing the Bill—although I should say that any faults are mine alone. I am also in consultation with the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), and his Department about the detail of the Bill, and I hope that at some point he will feel able to support me in my endeavours.
The purpose of the Bill, which borrows heavily from the thinking of Merseyside police and the Merseyside fire and rescue service, is to introduce proper and workable controls to regulate the importation of fireworks from abroad. The Bill seeks to amend the excellent Bill that my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan) introduced last year by requiring importers of fireworks to notify the proper authorities—in most cases, Customs and Excise and the trading standards authorities—of the impending arrival
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of consignments. It will require them to demonstrate that those consignments will be taken to and opened up only on licensed storage sites and to give prior notice to the appropriate authority about where the fireworks will be sold. The measure also provides that fireworks must be supplied only to those with adequate registered storage facilities. The provisions will enable the authorities to get a proper grip on this growing and worrying problem.
I hoped that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) would be present because I intended to direct my next observations at him. I accept that the ten-minute rule procedure does not allow time for proper scrutiny of Bills. I have therefore undertaken to make arrangements for informal pre-legislative scrutiny during three sittings in the second week of May. Any hon. Member, member of the public or representative of any organisation who wishes to give evidence or make representations can do so to the committee that I shall set up. It is an informal procedure and I give a further undertaking that serious note will be taken of any representations. If appropriate, I am more than willing to make proper amendments to the Bill.
I believe that it is important to apply pre-legislative scrutiny not only to Government Bills—that increasingly happens—but to private Members' measures. It gives us an opportunity to ensure that a measure is properly and fully considered.
The Bill is necessary to protect the public from the irresponsible and dangerous misuse of highly explosive materials. The term "fireworks" understates them. The measure is sensible and timely, and I hope that it will acquire the necessary support for it to be enacted.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. George Howarth, Janet Anderson, Mr. Joe Benton, Sir Sydney Chapman, Mrs. Claire Curtis-Thomas, Mr. Elfyn Llwyd, Mr. Alan Meale, Dr. Lewis Moonie, Mr. Edward O'Hara, Dr. John Pugh, Mr. Bill Tynan and Sir Nicholas Winterton.
Mr. George Howarth accordingly presented a Bill to amend the Fireworks Act 2003: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 18 June, and to be printed [Bill 91].
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Opposition Day
Doctors' Hours
Mr. Speaker: We now come to the first debate on the Opposition motions. I inform hon. Members that there is a 12-minute limit on Back-Bench Members' speeches and that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
12.38 pm
Mr. Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire) (Con): I beg to move,
That this House notes the forthcoming implementation of the European Working Time Directive (EWTD) in relation to junior hospital doctors; further notes the changes to General Practitioner out-of-hours services following the implementation of the new GP contract; is concerned by the British Medical Association's estimate that, from August 2004, the EWTD requirements could lose the NHS the equivalent of 3,700 junior doctors; is alarmed by the failure of Ministers to quantify adequately the likely demands of the EWTD in medical manpower and money costs; is further alarmed by the Government's complacency over the 'SIMAP/Jaeger' judgements made by the European Court of Justice and the disproportionate impact they will have on smaller hospitals; notes that cost estimates for GP out-of-hours cover are rising yet the extent of cover is likely to decline; deplores the failure by Ministers to anticipate the impact that the new GP contract will have on community hospitals and notes with alarm that several are already under threat; and wishes to see the implementation of out-of-hours cover in a form that maintains a GP-led service in which the high standards of care and accessibility traditionally associated with primary care in England are maintained.
We would have had an opportunity to discuss the subject before the recess, on the eighth allotted day, but the competition among Departments to register incompetence meant that, on that occasion, the Home Office outdid the Department of Health. However, we have moved on to the Department of Health. While the Government are obsessed with Europe, the Opposition are putting the national health service at the forefront of our concerns.
Today's motion addresses two issues: the impact of the further implementation of the European working time directive, specifically in relation to junior doctors; and the implementation of the out-of-hours services component of the new GP contract. Those two distinct issues are obviously related, and they disclose common concerns. Although there have been positive intentions throughout, the measures are having perverse practical effects, and even when such effects have been identified, Ministers have failed to act to clarify or, if necessary, amend the proposals. Where it has not been possible or appropriate to amend them, Ministers have failed to give the necessary support for the service to implement the changes, in the face of mounting evidence of the problems and associated costs. Not only are the Government showing a lack of support; they are showing a degree of complacency about the impact of the changes.
So, the charge is one of a lack of competence. It is not one of a lack of positive intentions, but, in practice, the Government are not delivering on what they have said they will deliver on. That is the problem with this Government. In the light of what my right hon. and
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learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) was saying at Prime Minister's Question Time earlier, it is clear that the Government did not assess the risks involved and respond to them before they introduced and sought to implement these policies.
Mr. Henry Bellingham (North-West Norfolk) (Con): Does my hon. Friend agree that, while the Government have tried in regard to this issue, they have had one hand tied behind their back, because when Ministers have gone to the European Parliament to seek the support of socialist MEPs on this issue, they have received absolutely none—from their own MEPs in Brussels?
Mr. Lansley: My hon. Friend is right, and I pay tribute to the work that he has done in drawing attention to the impact of the working time directive.
On 8 April, the House of Lords European Union Committee set out its conclusions on the Commission's review. The Committee reiterated its conclusion that the voluntary individual opt-out should be retained. That is important not only for business interests, which my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) represents so splendidly, but for the NHS. Ministers accept that it is important for the NHS that the voluntary opt-out be retained, but on 3 September last year, the Labour MEPs in the European Parliament turned out and voted to abolish the UK's voluntary opt-out. On 11 February this year, the Labour MEPs voted against that opt-out and against what appeared to be the stated policy of this Government.
However, when my hon. Friend, the shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry challenged his opposite number on this matter, she simply would not say that she was going to deal with those Labour MEPs, or that we could feel confident that they would support the UK interest in any future changes to be made to the working time directive. Those MEPs do not support the UK interest, and voters will need to know that on 10 June this year. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to make that point.
Before I address the issue of the working time directive, I want to make it clear that we are not questioning the principle—far from it; we support it—of reducing junior doctors' hours to a level that is consistent with patient safety and the best interests of the doctors themselves. I shall not reiterate the history of this issue; it is well known to some hon. Members, especially to those Conservative Members who have experience of introducing the new deal on doctors' hours. I suspect that the introduction of reduced hours for junior doctors would be achieved in the best interest of the health service without the intervention of the European working time directive. However, we have to deal with the directive, and it is causing inflexibilities.
The agreement was reached on junior doctors in May 2000. In October 2000, there was the so-called SIMAP judgment relating to primary care doctors in Spain, the effect of which was to define the nature of working time when one is resident and on call, and, in effect, to treat all the time that one is on the premises and available for work as working time, regardless of whether one is working or asleep. I know that it was not the Government's intention to treat the time that one is asleep as working time, but that is the practical effect of
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that judgment. It was April 2002 before the Department invited pilot studies from around the country to see how the implementation of the working time directive could be achieved, and July 2003 before Governments collectively, or a number of member state Governments, approached the Commission to try to secure changes in consequence of the SIMAP judgment and its adverse effects on health care in particular.
In October 2003, the so-called Jaeger case made it even more clear that all the time during which one was resident and on call would be treated as working time. In particular, it added the further inflexibility and adverse effect that compensatory rest for the time worked on call, including while non-resident and on call, would need to be compensated for immediately—in effect, before the following period of work. To give my hon. Friends a sense of what that means in practice, an NHS doctor—a senior registrar or consultant—who is non-resident and on call, and who is called up several times during the night, either to go to the hospital or to take consultations over the telephone about patients, must be compensated with additional rest before commencing their next period of work. Of course, the chances are that before they commence their clinic or operating list the following morning, they will have to have compensatory rest. Evidently, as Ministers understand, problems will ensue for hospitals from having arbitrary and, in effect, overnight changes in their operating lists and clinic rotas.
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