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The first substantive issue that I shall raise relates to something very sad that happened last week. A certain Mr. Nick Griffin arrived in my constituency. That may or may not be something that Mr. Nick Griffin does regularly, but I should like to think that Members of the
European Parliament must give the same notice as Members of Parliament when they intend to visit constituents. I do not know why Mr. Griffin was wined and dined in Painswick, in my constituency, but he was.
It just so happens that one of my constituents took offence, and happened to spill some beer over Mr. Griffin. I know the young man concerned, and he is totally upstanding. Indeed, he is an outstanding individual, the sort of person with whom I am proud to be associated. As a result of that incident, he was taken outside and given one hell of a hiding. I am not prepared to accept that any politician should have a private army. I am not prepared to have the BNP anywhere near my constituency. In previous times we would have chased these individuals around but I hope that we will take action and look at the actions of the BNP. I do not know whether a court case is proceeding because the young man is too shocked, but it is indicative of what the BNP is like.
My second issue is one that I raised in a previous debate before Easter and concerns school staff. I can now use their names; Roger Lock, the former head of Marling school in my constituency, and Mick Madden who was the head of care at Cam house, also in my constituency. I use the past tense because they have now been summarily dismissed and have lost their appeals. Roger served for 30 years at the school, as well as being the head for a period. Mick served for 27 years at Cam house. Both have lost their jobs. There is an employment tribunal pending in both cases so I shall be circumspect in what I say, but their cases are mentioned in the excellent report from the Children, Schools and Families Committee.
A real issue arises in terms of how staff are removed. Most of the Select Committee report refers to pupil allegations; the cases in question did not involve pupil allegations, but did involve unfair practices. In the case of the second school's head, it is very unfair that allegations of bullying and harassment came suddenly to the surface after a new chairman of the governing body arrived. He became the presenting-or dare I say the prosecuting-officer. He chose the hearing committee. He chose the appeal committee, which involved a parent-the school's internal arrangements make it clear that a parent is not the preferred person to be on such a body-and two external representatives, which again was most peculiar. That case is deserving of proper investigation. A support group, the Friends of Marling School, is fighting on behalf of that head teacher. I wish the group well and will continue to raise the issue because wrong things have been done.
Mick Madden, too, has lost his job. He was seen a something of a sacrificial lamb, given that the deputy head of that school resigned and the head teacher, after 18 months of being suspended, was then reinstated. It just so happens that in the last couple of weeks the head teacher has been dismissed. The three senior members of the school's staff have now lost their jobs. Mick is by the far the most innocent of those individuals and is fighting his corner. He subsequently got another job but, to put it mildly, powers were brought against him and that job was also taken away. There has been a degree of vindictiveness, which is more than unfair and is deserving of proper investigation.
I finish by mentioning three Bills, two of which I have presented to the House and one of which, the Permissible Donors Bill, has been somewhat overtaken by events, I
am pleased to say. I am glad that the Government have now come to their senses in terms of the Political Parties and Elections Bill and have seen that there is a need to restrict donor activity from outside. The first of my other two Bills was the Parliament (Disclosure of Information) Bill, which I hope in due course we will get a chance to talk about properly. The Bill demands financial disclosure, as in the United States where all representatives have to disclose three years' of tax returns in advance of taking office. That is a perfectly reasonable thing to do and I hope that arrangement can come in here.
Finally, the Media Owners (Residency Requirement) Bill would restrict ownership of media outlets to British individuals and British firms who pay full tax in this country. I could go on at length about what I have learned from others about those who have attacked us in this House. It would only be just and proper to look at the tax that they pay. Horrifyingly, many of those media outlets pay no tax at all. They are the key to tax avoidance and I hope that, in due course, we will get a chance to investigate those individuals, who they are and what they do.
8.45 pm
Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con): I was very disturbed to hear the story about the constituent of the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) who spilled some beer over Nick Griffin. I am vice-chairman of the all-party beer group. The hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Greg Mulholland) is the chairman of the "Save the Pub" group. All I can say is, "What a dreadful waste of beer." I take on board the serious point made by the hon. Gentleman. If people were beaten up every time beer was spilled, there would be hardly any room in the accident and emergency department of any hospital in this country. I hope that the person concerned is able to pursue the matter.
I hope that the House will not adjourn until we have had the opportunity to discuss the issue of Mr. John Siddall and his deceased wife who, in September 2004, went to Menorca. What happened to Mrs. Siddall there, and the repercussions since on Mr. Siddall, are of relevance to each and every Member of Parliament, particularly as we are now in the summer season and people are looking forward to their package holidays and generally to going abroad.
Mr. and Mrs. Siddall were an ageing couple, and we should bear in mind that we now have an ageing population in this country. They went to Menorca to enjoy a holiday. Sadly, Mrs. Siddall was taken ill. Mr. Siddall did not know what to do about that in Menorca, so he contacted the hotel front desk and the hotel doctor was called. He had a look at Mrs. Siddall and decided she should be admitted to hospital. Instead of admitting her to the appropriate hospital, however, she was taken past the state hospital to a private hospital. Mr. Siddall was concerned about his wife and does not speak Spanish, and he did not know exactly what was happening in terms of the diagnosis of Mrs. Siddall during this period. Later, it became obvious to him that Mrs. Siddall was not getting any better in this private hospital. She was then finally moved to the state hospital, which had the right people with the right equipment. Sadly however, it was all too late and three days later she died.
On further investigation, we found that this problem affects a growing number of people in this country who holiday abroad. The last thing people think about doing when they are planning to go abroad is check out the local hospitals and the facilities available. They are going abroad to enjoy themselves.
There are suspicions about what has happened in this case. I have spoken to a number of people about it and I have visited the British medical emergency service forum, which deals with such situations on a daily basis, and I have learned that there is often a web of money involved in the choice of hospitals in certain countries. Spain is mentioned time and again, but so are Bulgaria, Greece and a few other countries. In terms of this web of money, I am not making accusations against the tour operator, but there are suspicions about some individuals. There might be suspicions that there is money in it for the doctor to send the patient to the private hospital. There might also be money in it for the receptionist and for a taxi driver. Many different people might be on the take to ensure that the person is put into the private hospital where the money is paid.
Last year in Spain, consular staff were involved in dealing with the deaths of 1,500 people. To put that in context, the figure for Germany was 75, in France it was 170, and in the United States of America it was just 121. Therefore, 1,500 is a huge number. We know that a lot of British people visit Spain and others live there, and people might go and stay with those ex-pats as well. I have talked to some emergency service experts, and they believe that in many cases people should be going to the state hospital, irrespective of the fact that they might have fantastic private health care cover. They are not going to know that the private hospital might not have the right facilities. They are not going to know that the medical staff in the private hospital might not be trained to the same level as those in the state hospital. They might also think that the private hospitals are jolly good, and they might have always dreamed of going to such a hospital and believe that that is the right place to go; but the fact is that it is not. The emergency service forum has speculated that perhaps as many as 400 people a year die because they get sent to the wrong place where they are misdiagnosed or are just dealt with inappropriately.
We need action; I know that the emergency service forum wants action. It wants the tour operators to speak to the Government and the insurance companies to ensure that when people go abroad and something goes wrong, the tour operators follow a set procedure in order that people get to the right hospital. I am sure that the local tour operator will know the best restaurants, tourist activities and car rental companies. They should also know the right hospital to go to, so that if someone who is booked on a holiday with the company falls ill, they get taken to the right hospital. They must not get shipped off to a place where people are coining it at the expense of others. People must not become victims, becoming too ill and then sadly dying as a result of not being dealt with properly. Mr. Siddall has to carry this with him for the rest of his life, and he is doing so. We clearly want justice for him, but what he wants is to ensure that a procedure is put in place so that this never again happens to anybody going abroad on holiday. I
hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will refer to this in her winding-up speech and will ensure that the message gets out to the Foreign Office, the Department of Health and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that there is clearly a serious problem that needs to be addressed and that, at this holiday time, action is urgently needed and should be happening now.
8.50 pm
Greg Mulholland (Leeds, North-West) (LD): I am pleased to take part in this debate. I wish to start by picking up on something said by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner). He wished us all well on our holidays, but I should make the point on behalf of all hon. Members that the recess is not a holiday and we shoot ourselves in the foot if ever we give the impression that it is. I will be working for a great proportion of that time, as I am sure most right hon. and hon. Members will be. I find that I am busier in September with constituency visits to schools, hospitals, homes and so on than I am when I am in this place. We must debunk the damaging myth that the recess is a holiday, because enough damage has been done already.
Mr. Drew: Would the hon. Gentleman like to say what he thinks about the 38 Degrees campaign? To my mind, it is the most simplistic campaign; the survey that I have been asked to fill in is highly dubious, because it assumes that I am on holiday. It is quite a wrong campaign, and I hope that he will be able to say a little on that.
Greg Mulholland: I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. All hon. Members have a responsibility to be prepared to share broadly what they are doing. I will be spending some time in my constituency and some time here, and of course I will rightly be spending some time on holiday. It is important to get that balance across.
I wish to raise, yet again, the problems of public transport in Leeds. People in the Yorkshire and the Humber region are sick of being bottom of the Government transport spending league table, and we are simply not prepared to be at the bottom of it year on year. We have just received another couple of blows, the first of which was the decision by First to scrap a number of bus routes in the Leeds area. Again, the decision was taken entirely in that company's own commercial interest and with little regard for the people who want to use those services. Metro, the passenger transport authority, has estimated that the decision will lead to approximately 14 per cent. of those people not bothering to use the bus network at all.
Even worse than that decision is the as yet unconfirmed report-it is a disgrace that there has been no confirmation-that the Department for Transport is going to reduce from 182 to 106 the number of additional carriages for the Northern Rail franchise. The figure of 106 is a little more than half the original commitment set out clearly in the rail White Paper, which was published in just 2007. The simple reality is that since the late 1990s the number of peak rail passengers in West Yorkshire has almost doubled, and is continuing to grow, yet Northern Rail has had no new carriages in the past five years-during that period, commuter services in London and the south-east have had 580. That
discrepancy is simply not acceptable. We have not even been given confirmation of this reduction in the number of carriages-it has simply been reported. Department for Transport Ministers have not come to this place to give us that announcement. I wrote to the Secretary of State today demanding that we find out as soon as possible whether this decision has been taken. I shall be critical of the Department if it makes a negative announcement during the recess, because that is not acceptable.
I am also keen to lead on the campaign for high-speed rail to Yorkshire and the Humber. Many of us who represent Yorkshire constituencies are very pleased to support the excellent fast track to Yorkshire campaign, which is running in the Yorkshire Post. A number of us from a cross-party group of MPs have this week written to councils up and down the Yorkshire and the Humber region asking them to support that excellent initiative. If we are serious about getting through this recession and kick-starting the economy again, we need foresighted investment; many regions in this country have been held back in that regard. It would be a welcome addition to the rather facile debate about cuts, if we were to talk about the real, long-term investment that this country so patently needs.
I also wish to touch on the issue of the Leeds arena and the "Leeds needs an arena" campaign running in the Yorkshire Evening Post. I am delighted that Yorkshire Forward has come forward with £18 million of funding for this excellent initiative. As all who visit Leeds know, it is a cultural hub. We are proud of that and the city needs a first-class concert arena. It is frustrating that the Government have to rubberstamp this money, and it is disappointing that some Sheffield MPs are seeking to interfere in what we are doing in Leeds. I ask them to keep their noses out. The Government should allow these decisions to be taken in Leeds by Leeds city council and Yorkshire Forward.
I have also to bring to the attention of the House once again the appalling case of Dr. John Hubley, my constituent who died following complications at the Eccleshill independent sector treatment centre in Bradford. The first question is why Dr. Hubley was sent there when he wanted to have his procedure at the excellent Wharfedale hospital in my constituency. It was, of course, because Leeds PCT has a contract with the independent sector treatment centre that it has to fulfil. Dr. Hubley's death was described as unnecessary and the verdict was death by misadventure. The coroner said that the safety procedures at the facility were a "recipe for disaster" and "Mickey Mouse". That is appalling, but the situation was made worse when Leeds NHS decided to put the matter in the hands of its solicitors, who gave Dr. Hubley's fiancée-also my constituent-10 days to respond to what was essentially a threat. She was told that she had to accept a frankly derisory offer of compensation to her and Dr. Hubley's two children and if the family did not accept, they would become liable for legal costs running into hundreds of thousands of pounds. This behaviour by Leeds NHS is despicable, considering what the family has already gone through. It was bullying and blackmail, and to do that to a family who had already suffered the loss of a loved one is scandalous and flies in the face of everything that the NHS is supposed to stand for. It is cowardly to have put the matter in the hands of solicitors, and Leeds NHS's apology rings hollow.
I am also disappointed that the solicitors, Brown Jacobson, claim to have been following legal procedures and principles, but it is extraordinary that the coroner has not had the chance to respond. The offer is on the table and has to be accepted or the family will lose all their money. Frankly, whoever made the decision to act in this way at Leeds NHS should resign, but it is difficult to discover the identity of that person, although I have requested it under the freedom of information legislation.
The case shows the problem with independent sector treatment centres. The National Patient Safety Agency has warned that no surgery should be commissioned or delivered in facilities that lack systems or equipment to deal with emergencies, but the simple fact is that we do not know whether that is the case in independent sector treatment centres. Nor do we know exactly how many operations are being performed under the £2.7 billion contract, because the Government will not tell us for reasons of commercial confidentiality. I have asked several times for a proper debate on this issue, because at the moment the Government are allowing the PCTs to play fast and loose with the NHS's guiding principles.
On a lighter note, I wish to thank all my colleagues in the "Save the Pub" parliamentary group. We have achieved an enormous amount in a short time. I hope that all hon. Members will support the pub and enjoy a pint or two in pub gardens this summer. I hope that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will be one of them.
8.59 pm
Mr. Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD): I wish to take part in this debate to raise several issues that have come out of my constituency mailbag and surgeries. The first of those issues came to my attention at my surgery last Saturday at Worcester Park library, when a couple of my constituents came to tell me about their niece who, at the age of 22, had been diagnosed with cervical cancer. She was given the necessary treatment: she had operations, and she also received chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Before the treatments proceeded, she was offered the opportunity of a cycle of ovary stimulation and egg harvesting, which meant that her fertilised eggs could be safeguarded by being frozen and stored so that they could be used in the future. The treatment made her infertile but the storage of those harvested embryos meant that she had the chance to have children. Thanks to a surrogacy arrangement, she now has a child. So far, so good-but, as was noted earlier in the debate, the law of unintended consequences sometimes operates when we in this place legislate.
Back in 1990, this House passed an Act of Parliament dealing with the regulation and control of embryos that provided that embryos could be stored for up to five years. Just last year, in 2008, another Act was passed to change the framework and extend the storage period to up to 10 years. It also provided that new regulations could be made to allow for further extensions thereafter. The problem is that the five-year period under the old Act expires for my constituents' niece before the new Act comes into force. Her embryos are therefore in limbo, between one Act of Parliament and another. As a result, even though the embryos were stored well within the 10-year period specified by the new legislation, they will have to be destroyed in September of this year. With them will go the hopes of there being any further children for that family.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority was consulted by the Government about this very issue. Its response was very clear, as the consultation documents show. It said:
"An unfortunate matter of timing ought not to be grounds enough to deny access to extension for those who actively desire it".
I can tell the House that the people in this case do actively desire just that.
There is a statutory instrument on this matter currently before the House. It has not been debated yet, although there has been a formal request that it should be. It is really important that people who find themselves in the limbo between the old Act and the new one should not be confronted with having their embryos destroyed before this House has had the opportunity to debate the matter. We need to persuade Ministers to change their minds and accept that, in this case, it is inappropriate for them to cite the wrongness of retrospection. This retrospection is about life and the opportunity for someone to have children.
Mr. Gale: I know that if my parliamentary friend and neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), were here he would be four-square behind the hon. Gentleman. We have a local case that is almost identical to the one that he has described. There are very few such cases, but it is a very tragic circumstance.
Mr. Burstow: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Indeed, the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) is one of the hon. Members from all parties who have signed my early-day motion 1929 on this very issue. I fear and suspect that there are a number of tragic cases such as this, but some very active families are making sure that we in this place are doing our job of representing their concerns.
The second issue that I wish to raise has to do with housing. Last night, I received an e-mail from Jean Crossby, who chairs the federation of tenants and residents associations in the London borough of Sutton. She told me that the long-awaited funding to pay for renovating and updating Sutton's council housing to the Decent Homes standard is to be delayed for several years. The Government aspire to raise homes to that standard, as I am sure do all hon. Members, but the decision means that the 800 box bathrooms installed in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) 40 years ago will not be replaced for years to come, even though they were fit for only 15 years in the first place. The problem is that those box bathrooms are coming away from the properties to which they were attached. They have asbestos in them, and they are a nightmare that needs to be brought to an end.
Chaucer house is a tower block in my constituency. It has leaks, poor plumbing and poor electricity supplies, as well as many other problems that need to be dealt with. Again, its residents face the prospect of more delays.
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