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Waiting Times (Hendon)

13. Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon) (Lab): What steps he plans to take to reduce hospital waiting times for residents in Hendon. [182194]

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): Maximum waiting times for hospital treatment in my hon. Friend's constituency have halved since 1997. On 24 June, the Government set out our plans to reduce further waiting times for treatment, which will bring further benefits to my hon. Friend's constituents.

Mr. Dismore: May I celebrate my right hon. Friend's answer and the fact that he, rather than the Conservative party, is running the health service in London? There is still some spare capacity at Edgware hospital. Will he work with Barnet and Chase Farm trust and others to find out whether that extra capacity can be brought into use by some of the consultants there, who seem a little reluctant to travel the short distance involved?

Mr. Hutton: I will certainly look into the matter my hon. Friend has raised.

Patient Choice

14. Andrew George (St. Ives) (LD): What assessment he has made of the potential for patient choice in remote rural areas. [182195]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr. Stephen Ladyman): Increasing patient choice offers all patients, including those in rural areas, the opportunity to have more control over their health care. Choice should also lead to better quality services as health care providers respond to the choices that patients make.

Andrew George: I am grateful for that reply, but does the Minister accept that the reality in rural areas is a choice between whether people have a hospital or not, and a consideration of whether there are enough acute and primary care beds and front-line staff, and sufficient diagnostic capacity in the NHS in such areas, rather than a synthetic argument about the choice to join some elective queue or other somewhere else?

Dr. Ladyman: So in the hon. Gentleman's opinion, Cornish mothers do not want to choose between midwife-led units and obstetrician-led units for their births, and the 3,000 people from the health economy in his area who have already chosen under existing plans to travel to shorten their waiting time for coronary heart disease operations do not want that choice. It is absolutely true that part of what we must do is to drive up capacity and ensure that that is available everywhere. However, one of the great drivers for that—it is also a driver for increasing quality—is giving people choice, and that is just as relevant, and perhaps even more relevant, in rural areas as it is anywhere else.
 
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Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West) (Con): May I join a modest celebration and congratulate Ministers on the way in which they have expanded the choice available to my rural constituents by making use of the availability and capacity of the private sector? Does the Minister, in accepting the success of that scheme, believe that it is time to expand it further to alleviate the suffering of people who have had to dip into their savings to afford life-changing, or life-saving, treatments?

Dr. Ladyman: The hon. Gentleman's party's policy is to force people to pay from their own pockets if they want choice, while our policy is to give people choice without their having to spend extra money. He would unleash inefficiency on the health service by allowing people to buy from the private sector one at a time. When we choose to use the private sector, we negotiate and buy in bulk, and get cost effectiveness as a result.

Life Expectancy

16. Sir Teddy Taylor (Rochford and Southend, East) (Con): What estimate he has made of the impact on health service spending of the increase in life expectancy. [182197]

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): The Wanless review reported that the impact of ageing on future health expenditure is likely to be small compared with other cost drivers.

Sir Teddy Taylor: Does the Minister agree that bed blocking by elderly patients remains a major difficulty in the health service that causes many problems for the medical services? Does he agree that the problem should be faced up to seriously because it will obviously get worse if we have more elderly patients? Does he think that the matter should be examined independently and carefully to determine whether we can find a real solution to bed blocking?

Mr. Hutton: I do agree that we need to examine such issues carefully. I am glad to be able to tell the hon. Gentleman and the House that bed blocking in the national health service has reduced hugely, largely as a result of the new legislation and extra investment that we have put in place, both of which he and his hon. Friends opposed in the House.

Children's Hospices

17. Jeff Ennis (Barnsley, East and Mexborough) (Lab): If he will increase the amount of NHS funding being channelled towards children's hospices. [182198]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr. Stephen Ladyman): Children's hospice services are funded from a number of sources, including services commissioned by national health service primary care trusts on the basis of their assessment of children's needs and their priorities. There are no limits to the amount of funding that may be provided—that is for local decision.
 
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Jeff Ennis: I am sure that the Minister is aware of my early-day motion 667, entitled "Review of NHS Funding for Children's Hospices", which highlights a differential that exists whereby children's hospices receive only 5 per cent. of their funding through the NHS while adult's hospices receive up to 38 per cent. of their funding in such a way. There is genuine concern throughout South Yorkshire about the disparity, so will the Minister meet me to discuss the matter in greater detail?

Dr. Ladyman: I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend, but I must stress again that services for children's hospices need to be based on the needs of individual children, not on the basis of a blanket figure that he or I might think appropriate.

Nutrition (Young People)

18. Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD): If he will make a statement on the nutritional content of meals for young people. [182199]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Miss Melanie Johnson): The latest national diet and nutrition survey of young people aged 14 to 18 in
 
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2000 showed that they consumed too much saturated fat, sugar and salt and too few fruit and vegetables.

Bob Russell: I thank the Minister for her answer as far as it went, but will she have discussions with her colleagues in the Department for Education and Skills, as successive attacks on the school meal service by this Government and the previous one have seriously affected the health and well-being of children? Will she also ask her colleagues in the national health service why they are promoting unhealthy products through the NHS "Popzone", as it is not acceptable for the NHS to promote such products?

Miss Johnson: I am happy for the hon. Gentleman to send me anything about which he is discontented so that I can have a further look at it, but we are in regular discussions with the DFES about initiatives to encourage and enable children and their families to make healthier food choices, including national healthy school standards, the food in schools programme, the school fruit and vegetable scheme, the healthy living blueprint and healthy start. A range of initiatives is therefore under way to improve children's health as well as the food that they eat during and outside the school day.

 
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Roads Policy

12.31 pm

The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Alistair Darling): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a short statement on new measures to encourage better use of our roads and on the M6 between Birmingham and Manchester.

Decades of under-investment and a growing economy have put our roads under severe pressure. Two steps are necessary if we are to reduce congestion, especially at peak times. First, we need to make better use of our existing roads and, secondly, we must provide additional capacity on key strategic routes. I have two proposals to tackle congestion and provide more reliable journey times, including a scheme to make better use of the existing capacity on the road network by encouraging people to share vehicles at peak times.

Car pool lanes have been used to great effect, both in America and Australia, and if it works in other parts of the world there is no reason in principle why it should not work here. Car pool lanes could play an important role in reducing congestion on key commuter routes. I have therefore asked the Highways Agency to carry out a feasibility study of four sites on the motorway network for trialling high occupancy vehicle or car pool lanes, which could be created by widening the road to create an additional lane or in some cases by using the hard shoulder as a running lane. They would be reserved for the use of vehicles carrying two or more people, and would offer faster, more reliable journey times.

The Highways Agency will consider a 6-mile stretch of the M62 between junctions 25 and 27 from Brighouse to Leeds; a 7-mile stretch of the M3 between junctions 3 and 2 from Bagshot to Thorpe; a 20-mile stretch of the M1 between junctions 13 and 7 from south Milton Keynes to St. Albans; and a 7-mile stretch of the M61 between junctions 6 to 3 north-west of Manchester. In general, the Government favour the provision of extra capacity for car pool lanes, but in the case of the M61 it may be possible to use one of the existing lanes, so I have asked the Highways Agency to consider that. An assessment of each site will be carried out over the coming months that will consider operational suitability as well as safety and environmental implications. The proposal extends the measures that we are already putting in place to make better use of our existing roads, including piloting hard-shoulder running on the M42 and, since April this year, introducing traffic officers on motorways to help clear up incidents and get traffic flowing as quickly as possible.

I come to the need for additional capacity on one of the most heavily used road arteries in the country—the M6. We need more capacity on road and rail, which is why, for example, we are investing over £7 billion in the west coast main line. When the first stage of work is complete in September it will cut half an hour from Manchester to London train times. We also need more road capacity, however, on that key route. The House will be aware that the new M6 toll motorway opened in December last year. Today, the Highways Agency has published an analysis of the first three months of traffic on the M6 toll and the existing M6. Copies of that report have been placed in the Library.
 
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The report shows that the M6 toll regularly carries about one fifth of all traffic flowing through the west midlands conurbation every day, with vehicles saving up to half an hour on a journey that can take more than an hour during peak times on the existing M6. Drivers who choose not to pay the toll are benefiting from reduced congestion. Since the M6 toll opened, traffic on the existing non-tolled M6 has decreased by 10 per cent. Friday afternoons have seen a significant improvement in journey times, and there have also been improvements on roads as far afield as Stoke-on-Trent. All this has been widely welcomed by businesses, in particular across the west midlands, and by the AA and RAC.

The M6 links two of the country's most important economic centres, Birmingham and Manchester. It is one of the busiest roads in the country, and drivers regularly suffer heavy congestion. That is why on 10 December 2002 I told the House that I would support the widening of a number of key strategic roads, including widening the M6 between junction 11A near Cannock and junction 19 near Knutsford to four lanes in each direction.

Given the success of the M6 toll in alleviating congestion, it is now right to consider extending the tolled motorway and building a new expressway to run parallel with the M6 between Birmingham and Manchester, as an alternative to widening the existing road. This 51-mile stretch of the M6 between junctions 11A and 19 is being considered as a tolled expressway because of its importance to business and its link to the M6 toll, and because a significant percentage of its traffic travels 20 miles or more.

There are a number of advantages to an expressway. First, it would provide motorists and businesses with a choice of using the existing M6 or paying for a faster, more reliable journey on the new road. An expressway could be designed to suit long- distance journeys with fewer junctions, and could also improve conditions on the original road, freeing up space there. Secondly, an expressway would provide double the extra capacity at a lower cost than widening the existing road by one lane. Thirdly, construction of an expressway would not cause disruption to road-users while it was being built. In comparison, widening the existing M6, which obviously would need to be done in a phased way, would cause disruption for five to six years.

We have also to consider carefully the wider social and environmental impacts, including the effect on landscape, biodiversity and heritage, as well as air quality and climate change. We will need to assess what impact an expressway would have on traffic levels generally and the scope for high quality measures to combat any adverse effects. Sometimes new roads can have a positive impact on the environment. A new route, with good environmental mitigation plus environmental improvements to the existing M6, might overall be better in environmental terms than simply widening the existing M6. That will need to be looked at carefully.

I am therefore publishing today a consultation on a proposal for an expressway to run parallel with the M6 between Birmingham and Manchester, as an alternative to widening the existing road, so that all these issues can be looked at thoroughly. Our approach is to tackle congestion through a range of measures, both road and rail. The proposals that I am announcing today are
 
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intended to give motorists more choice and allow far more reliable journeys. I commend this statement to the House.

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