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House of Commons
Tuesday 22 October 2013
The House met at half-past Eleven o’clock
Prayers
[Mr Speaker in the Chair]
Business Before Questions
London Local Authorities and Transport for London (No. 2) Bill [Lords]
Third Reading opposed and deferred until Tuesday 29 October (Standing Order No. 20).
Hertfordshire County Council (Filming on Highways) Bill [Lords]
Second Reading opposed and deferred until Tuesday 29 October (Standing Order No. 20).
Oral Answers to Questions
Health
The Secretary of State was asked—
Tobacco Products (Standardised Packaging)
1. Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op): If he will bring forward legislative proposals to introduce standardised packaging of tobacco products. [900583]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison): As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Government have decided to wait before making a decision on standardised packaging, but the policy remains under active consideration. As he can imagine, I have spent much of the past two weeks, as I get to know my brief, looking at that carefully.
Gavin Shuker: I welcome the Minister to her new role. Stirling university’s systematic review of plain packaging concluded that it made cigarettes less attractive and health warnings more effective. Will she give me a straight answer: has she read the report, and if not, why not?
Jane Ellison: The straight answer is that I have not read the whole report, but I have read the summary, and it reaches some interesting conclusions. It is one of a number of interesting new pieces of information and evidence coming forward to support decision making in this policy area, and from work going on in countries right around the world as well as Australia.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con): Three hundred thousand young people a year start smoking, and the tobacco industry’s last vestige of advertising is packaging. Will my hon. Friend, in her new role, look at the proposal very seriously so that we can stop young people starting this terrible habit?
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Jane Ellison: Stopping children and young people smoking is a priority for us all; all Members care deeply about the health of their constituents. I can certainly assure my hon. Friend that we are looking at that very seriously and assessing all the new information available, not just from this country but from around the world.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab): The vast weight of not only expert opinion but of public opinion says that standardised packaging cuts the risk of people taking up smoking. When will the Government act on that and ignore what is coming from the vested interests—the lobbyists and the big tobacco companies—as an excuse for doing nothing?
Jane Ellison: I can only repeat what I have said: I am a new Minister and I am looking at this very carefully. There are interesting new pieces of information coming through all the time to assist us in making public policy in this area. It is under very active consideration.
Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD): I welcome the Minister to her new role. Will she, when considering the evidence, look at the fact that the tobacco industry, in its marketing and packaging strategies, is aiming at certain markets, particularly children and young people, whom they want to start smoking? Given her desire to ensure that children do not take up the practice, surely she should act on the evidence by ending the existing packaging arrangements and having standardised packaging so that we can deal with this problem.
Jane Ellison: At the risk of repeating myself, all I can say to my right hon. Friend is that I am looking at that very carefully. He is right that we all want to stop children and young people smoking. There is a mass of evidence out there, and we are gaining new evidence and information all the time to help us make decisions. I will continue to look at it as one of the absolute priorities within my brief.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op): I welcome the hon. Lady to her new post. We knew that her predecessor supported standardised cigarette packaging: Labour will table amendments to the Children and Families Bill in the other place and in this place to make that a reality. I have listened to contributions from Members on the Government Benches supporting the policy. Will the Minister tell us today whether she supports standardised packaging?
Jane Ellison: We are very aware of the discussions that have been going on in the other place and the amendments that have come forward, in which we have taken considerable interest. At this stage, we want to look at all the available evidence, because new information is coming through, before coming to a view. I take this opportunity to welcome the hon. Lady to her new post.
Maternity Services (Gloucestershire)
2. Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con): What assessment he has made of the adequacy of provision of maternity services in Gloucestershire. [900584]
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter): On 12 November last year, I announced the allocation of a £25 million capital fund to the NHS to improve maternity services across the country, and that has supported improvements in 110 maternity care settings. I am pleased to say that, of that figure, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was awarded £150,000 to refurbish the Stroud maternity unit.
Neil Carmichael: I thank the Minister for that encouraging answer. We now have 1,400 new midwives since 2010. Coupled with the very welcome recent investment in Stroud maternity unit, does he agree that this represents a real choice for expectant mothers and an excellent maternity service in general?
Dr Poulter: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the fact that when we came into Government there was a historical shortage of investment in maternity and midwifery care. We now have almost 1,400 more midwives in the work force, training commissions are being maintained at a record high, and we are continuing to invest in on-the-ground capital projects to support the birthing environment for women.
European Working Time Directive
3. Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con): What assessment his Department has made of the effect of the European working time directive on patient care and the professional development of doctors. [900585]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter): We are aware that concerns exist about the impact of EU legislation on some areas of training and service delivery within the NHS, specifically the impact of the EWTD on patient experience and continuity of care, and the detrimental effect on the quality of training for doctors.
Julian Smith: Harrogate hospital, which serves much of my constituency, suffers very badly from recruitment and retention issues as a result of the working time directive. Does the Minister agree that it, and other areas of social and employment law, should be front and centre of our renegotiation strategy prior to the referendum in 2017?
Dr Poulter: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight some of the concerns that have been raised by the Royal College of Surgeons and other groups about the impact of the European working time directive in medicine. That is why we have tasked the royal college with investigating and doing some work on exactly what the impact is on surgical trainees and elsewhere in the health sector. We look forward to its reporting back, and I hope that that will be very informative for future discussions on other work force regulations.
NHS Trusts (Financial Deficits)
4. Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab): What estimate he has made of the number of NHS Trusts forecasting a financial deficit at the end of 2013-14. [900586]
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter): The Trust Development Authority and Monitor, for foundation trusts, indicate that there will be a financial surplus across the health care provider sector in 2013-14.
Nick Smith: With so many NHS trusts in deficit and many missing their A and E targets, when will the Minister stop blaming everybody else and get a grip on the A and E crisis?
Dr Poulter: I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman used a pre-prepared question and did not listen to my answer. Throughout the health care provider sector, over 80% of trusts and foundation trusts are in financial surplus, and the overall end-of-year forecast is pointing to a surplus of £109 million across the sector. To support hospitals through what can be very difficult winter periods, with flu and other seasonal problems, we have put in place measures including a £500 million fund for winter pressures. That will take the pressure off A and E—unlike in Wales, where the Welsh Administration are cutting the budget for the NHS. In Wales the NHS has failed to meet A and E waiting targets since 2009.
Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con): While I welcome the fact that the provider sector as a whole is in surplus, will my hon. Friend confirm that some trusts are indeed anticipating that they will be running deficits? Will he also confirm that the National Audit Office has estimated that up to 30% of acute hospital admissions would be avoidable if we had properly integrated services, and that that would allow us to deliver not only better financial management but, much more importantly, better quality care for patients?
Dr Poulter: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the fact that a very small minority—20%—of trusts across the health care provider sector, including trusts and foundation trusts, are anticipating a deficit. Many of those trusts have a direct legacy of debt from the private finance initiative arrangements that the previous Government put in place. That is one of the direct legacies of the poor PFI deals that were arranged. He is absolutely right to highlight the importance of integrated and joined-up health care. That is exactly what the £500 million we are providing for winter pressures is designed to do by focusing on better preventive care to keep people out of hospital.
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab): Trust balance sheets are bound to be affected by the resources allocated to the commissioning groups. On 12 June last year, I asked the then Minister for
“a clear assurance that he will not downgrade the importance of economic deprivation in his resource allocation formula”.
“Yes, I can give that assurance.”—[Official Report, 12 June 2012; Vol. 546, c. 167.]
Why is the Minister’s Department now consulting on doing precisely what the then Minister said he would not do and taking £230 million out of the budget for the north-east and Cumbria?
Dr Poulter:
The right hon. Gentleman has perhaps misunderstood the information imparted on that occasion. It is very clear that the allocation formula is now independently set and NHS England has primary
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responsibility for it. There is legitimate concern. There is a 10% deprivation weighting for some of the poorest communities in-built into that formula. It is also important that we recognise that demographics and an ageing population are putting pressure on a lot of CCG budgets, but these are matters for NHS England.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD): As Morecambe Bay trust seeks to recover from its financial crisis, one of the options put forward by clinicians is for a new, acute hub hospital to be created south of Kendal to improve safety, access and financial efficiencies. It is bound to involve a capital cost to start off with. If the new hub hospital is the option chosen by clinicians, will my hon. Friend give it his backing politically and financially?
Dr Poulter: My hon. Friend will be aware that this is a matter for local commissioners to decide and it is not for Whitehall to impose solutions on them. There are issues and efficiencies that Morecambe Bay trust can drive by better managing its estate and reducing temporary staffing costs. The hospital and trust will, of course, want to look into those issues in improving their financial outlook and the quality of care they can provide for patients.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab): Whatever the Minister claims, the reality is that the Secretary of State has lost grip of NHS finances just as he has lost grip of the crisis in A and E. Earlier this month, we learned that half of all NHS hospital trusts are now predicting deficits—up from one in 12 last year. As a self-proclaimed champion of openness, will the Minister now commit to publishing those deficit figures monthly and guarantee that all NHS acute trusts will balance their books by the end of the year? It is a simple question—yes or no.
Dr Poulter: The hon. Lady is being economical with the figures. I indicated earlier that 70% of trusts and 89% of foundation trusts are predicted either to break even or end the year with a financial surplus. That is hardly a difficult position. Those trusts that have deficits are often a direct legacy of the PFI deals negotiated by the previous Government and the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) when he was Secretary of State. The sector as a whole is predicting £109 million of surplus. That is hardly a deficit. I know that the Labour party is not very good with figures and cannot add up, which is why this country is in such an economic mess, but the figures speak for themselves: £109 million of surplus is predicted for trusts and foundation trusts.
Hospital Trusts (Special Measures)
5. Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con): What recent progress he has made on improving the performance of hospital trusts placed in special measures. [900587]
8. Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con): What recent progress he has made on improving the performance of hospital trusts placed in special measures. [900590]
9. John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con): What recent progress he has made on improving the performance of hospital trusts placed in special measures. [900591]
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12. Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con): What recent progress he has made on improving the performance of hospital trusts placed in special measures. [900594]
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt): Significant progress has been made at all 11 trusts placed in special measures in July, including changing the chair or chief executive officer and recruiting more nurses in every single one them and partnering each of them with a high-performing hospital so that they can make rapid progress in turning things around.
Martin Vickers: I thank the Secretary of State for his reply. He will be aware of my constituents’ concerns about services at Diana, Princess of Wales hospital in Grimsby. There are doubts about the future of the stroke unit and high mortality rates, and there are also problems with the East Midlands ambulance service. Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that he is satisfied that progress is being made at the hospital?
Mr Hunt: I think good progress is being made and I commend my hon. Friend for his campaigning on the issue. The trust concerned has introduced better privacy for patients, hired 154 nurses since the Keogh report and introduced electronic vital signs reporting at the bedside—all because we are being transparent and open about problems in the NHS and not sweeping them under the carpet.
Andrew Bridgen: Burton hospital, which serves part of my constituency, was one of the 11 hospitals placed in special measures following the Keogh report. Will my right hon. Friend assure my constituents that the improvements needed in those hospitals will be carried out in a culture of openness and transparency rather than one of opaqueness and cover-up, which so unfortunately typified the way in which the previous Government ran the NHS?
Mr Hunt: I know that my hon. Friend takes a very close interest in what happens at his hospital and I think that progress is being made in turning it around. What will be of concern to my hon. Friend is that, as far back as 2005-6, Burton’s mortality rate was 30% higher than the national average—it was even higher than that at Mid Staffs—and yet the problem was not sorted out. We are sorting it out.
John Stevenson: As the Secretary of State is aware, North Cumbria trust is in special measures. We have on our doorstep a potential solution to our problems, namely Northumbria trust. Will the Secretary of State give me an assurance that everything possible will be done to get North Cumbria out of special measures at the earliest opportunity and, much more importantly, that every support will be given to Northumbria in is acquisition of North Cumbria?
Mr Hunt:
I can give my hon. Friend both assurances because Northumbria has been doing a huge amount to help North Cumbria turn itself around, including installing its patient experience systems to ensure that patients are treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve.
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The problems have been around since 2007 and he can tell his constituents that we are finally turning them around.
Stephen Metcalfe: As my right hon. Friend will be aware, Basildon university hospital in my constituency is one of the 11 hospitals that were placed in special measures following the failure of the previous Government to act on the information that they had. Will he tell the House what support the new management team, in whom I have great confidence, are receiving and when my constituents can expect to see sustained, long-term improvements?
Mr Hunt: I reassure my hon. Friend that the trust has hired 257 more nurses since the problems emerged this year, has better A and E processes, and has been partnered with the Royal Free in London to help it make even more progress. He will be as shocked as I am that when the Care Quality Commission identified problems at that hospital the last Government sat on the report for six months. That cannot be acceptable.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab): How can NHS patients and staff have any confidence in decisions about their local services when they are taken by the Competition Commission on the overriding grounds of what is best for a competitive market and not what is best for patients? Will he learn from the failure of the merger between the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and take merger off the table as an option for Rotherham hospital?
Mr Hunt: May I reassure the right hon. Gentleman that the competition authorities make their decisions based on what is in the best interests of patients and do not hold competition as an overriding ideology? He is right that we need to work closely with those authorities to ensure that they have the expertise to take decisions in the right way and with trusts to ensure that they have the expertise to ensure that they do not stumble when they go through those processes.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab): How can the public have confidence in their health service when police officers are taking patients who are sick and injured to A and E because ambulances are backed up outside A and E and take longer than an hour to arrive?
Mr Hunt: I will tell the hon. Lady why the public can have confidence in their health service: compared with three years ago, on broadly the same budget, the NHS is doing 800,000 more operations year in, year out; MRSA rates have halved; and the number of people who wait for a year or longer for operations has gone down from 18,000 to fewer than 400.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab): Will the Secretary of State explain why we have had a summer crisis in A and E? We are all used to the emergency services being overwhelmed in winter. Given the crisis that we have had, what will he do to assist the NHS in averting a winter crisis this year, rather than just blaming everybody else?
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Mr Hunt: The figures for September, the last month of the summer, were 95.8% in England and 90.6% in Wales. It was not coalition-controlled England that had a summer A and E crisis, but Labour-controlled Wales.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab): The Secretary of State for Health is clearly not adequately monitoring performance. If he was, he would be aware that serious problems remain across the accident and emergency departments of the trusts that were placed in special measures by Professor Sir Bruce Keogh. On his watch, the A and E performance at eight of the 11 trusts has got worse since Keogh reported, including at my hospital in Tameside. The A and E performance has got substantially worse at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, where the number of patients waiting for more than four hours has doubled since Keogh reported, and at Medway NHS Trust, where the figure has quadrupled. When will he stop all the grandstanding, cut the spin and get a grip on his A and E crisis?
Mr Hunt: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be pleased that something is happening under this Government that did not happen under the Labour Government: we are putting those hospitals into special measures and sorting out the problems, including the long-term problems with A and E such as the GP contract—a disaster that was imposed on this country by the Labour Government.
Acute Hospital Wards (Nurse-patient Ratio)
6. Andrew George (St Ives) (LD): What the current (a) highest, (b) lowest and (c) mean average registered nurse-to-patient ratio is on acute hospital wards. [900588]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter): As my hon. Friend is aware, we do not hold information on registered nurse-to-patient ratios on acute hospital wards. Local hospitals must have the freedom to decide the skill mix of their work force and the number of staff they employ to deliver high-quality, safe patient care.
Andrew George: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The Government should be monitoring the situation, but he will be aware of the concern, which I have consistently highlighted, about inadequate registered nurse ratios in acute hospital wards, and of the Health Committee’s report into the Francis inquiry, which made recommendations in that regard. In inspecting hospitals, what objective measure should the Care Quality Commission use when looking at safe staffing levels on acute hospital wards?
Dr Poulter: The CQC is working with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and NHS England to devise tools to do exactly that. As my hon. Friend will be aware, the number of front-line staff required, whether nurses or doctors, to look after a patient who is in a cardiac intensive care unit will differ from the number required in a rehabilitation setting. The tools that the chief inspector of hospitals will be able to apply are being developed.
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Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab): Why do the Government continue to set their face against the essential recommendation of the Francis inquiry on minimum staffing levels?
Dr Poulter: The simple reason, as the right hon. Gentleman will be aware from his time at the Department of Health, is that ticking boxes on minimum staffing levels does not equate to good care. It can sometimes lead to a drive to the bottom, rather than to addressing the needs of the patients whom the front-line staff are looking after. The Berwick review has borne that out clearly. It is important to consider the patients and the skills mix on the ward, and to ensure that we get things right on the day for the individual needs of the patients.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con): Will my hon. Friend ask the chief inspector to ensure that by the bed of every in-patient there is the name of the nurse and the doctor responsible, so that nobody gets lost in hospitals again?
Dr Poulter: I am very sympathetic to the point made by my hon. Friend. The chief inspector has indicated that he will look at how individual wards are run on a granular level to ensure there is the right skills mix to look after patients on any particular day, with proper accountability for patient care.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab): The chief inspector of hospitals says he will monitor levels of unanswered call bells, but not the ward staffing levels that cause the bells to be unanswered. Is that not ridiculous? Is it not time that Ministers changed their minds on this important issue, as Robert Francis has now done?
Dr Poulter: As the hon. Lady will be aware, on the basis of the Francis report the Berwick review considered that issue in detail and highlighted the fact that safe staffing levels are not about ticking a box for minimum staffing, but about developing tools that recognise the individual needs of patients on the ward. The previous Government went down the route of tick-boxes in health care. I worked on the front line during that time and that route did not deliver high-quality care. We need the right tools to support front-line staff so that they make the right decisions in looking after patients. It is not about tick-boxes; it is about good care.
Fast-food Industry (Public Health Responsibility Deal)
7. Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab): What recent assessment he has made of the effect of the public health responsibility deal on the products and marketing practices of the fast-food industry. [900589]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison): We appreciate the contribution that the fast-food sector is making to the responsibility deal. More than 5,000 fast-food restaurants have labelled calories clearly, which means that more than 70% of high street fast food and takeaway meals are labelled. There is always more to do and we are keen to take this forward. Progress has been made through voluntary responsibility deals with industry.
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Kerry McCarthy: I welcome the Minister to her new post. I do not suppose she has yet had time to look at the authoritative international study of asthma and allergies in childhood, which shows a clear link between the consumption of fast food and asthma and allergies. The Government, however, have refused to discuss that with the public health responsibility partners. When will the Government start to take public health seriously and hold companies to account?
Jane Ellison: The idea that the Government do not take responsibility for public health seriously is ridiculous. Public health will never be improved just from Whitehall. The work has to be done together, among local government—which is keen and has been given the tools and resources—central Government, business and industry. Such long-term partnership working to improve the public’s health can only be done together. I will look at the hon. Lady’s specific point, but I reject the idea that the Government are not taking this issue seriously—far from it.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con): Will the Minister confirm that as far as fast food is concerned, personal responsibility will not be replaced by Government-imposed nanny state regulation?
Jane Ellison: It is good as a Minister to hear the phrase “nanny state” get its first airing. We believe in the informed consumer, and that is the idea behind so many restaurants labelling calorie content on their food. Most of us want to be healthy and most of us know when we want to diet and lose weight. By working with business, we can enable the consumer to make an informed decision about their health.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab): I declare my interest and welcome the Minister to her new portfolio. I wish to support the nanny state to this extent: it is fine for companies to sign up to the responsibility deal, but they have to deliver. As her first act as Minister with responsibility for diabetes, will she ban sugar from all Department of Health canteens, and stop selling in our hospitals fizzy drinks that contribute to diabetes?
Jane Ellison: As the right hon. Gentleman might know, my first outing as public health Minister was to attend a diabetes think-tank, which I hope indicates how seriously I take the issue. I do not think what he asks for is within my powers, but obviously I will take a close interest in the Department of Health canteen. The right hon. Gentleman is right. We have never said that other measures will not necessarily be taken, but the responsibility deal has taken us a long way when many predicted it would not, and we are keen to inject new energy into it.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con): When I was in the classroom as a school teacher, people used to come to school having had Micro Chips for breakfast. I do not wish to see a nanny state imposed on anybody, but we must do a lot more education. I urge the Minister’s Department to work cross-departmentally with the Department for Education to ensure that we get proper health and food education in our schools. Those using fast food at the moment are often those who can least afford it.
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Jane Ellison: I am glad my hon. Friend has raised the issue of working with schools and education, and I have already had initial discussions with my opposite number at the Department for Education. We think we have an exciting agenda to take forward, and I hear what my hon. Friend says.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP): In 2011-12, childhood obesity rose by 37% across the United Kingdom. Will the Minister take into account the child marketing strategy of the fast-food industry when considering how best to address the issue?
Jane Ellison: I am interested in looking at what the hon. Gentleman says, and I will be happy to talk to him about that.
Transparency
10. Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con): What steps his Department is taking to promote a culture of openness and transparency across the NHS. [900592]
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt): We need to change the culture of the NHS so that where there are problems with care or safety, people feel able to speak out. The Government have banned gagging clauses, they are introducing a statutory duty of candour, and they have for the first time published surgery outcomes for 10 specialties by consultant.
Alun Cairns: I commend the Secretary of State for his transparency agenda, which has uncovered previously untold horrors. What more can he do to ensure that in future no Minister can ever cover up failure in the NHS?
Mr Hunt: I know this is difficult territory for the Labour party, but the most important thing is for regulators to feel that they can speak out about poor care without fear or favour. I am afraid that did not happen under the previous Government, so let me just—
Mr Speaker: Order. I told the Secretary of State privately before, and I say it publicly now, that if he intends to devote part of his answer to talking about what happened under the previous Government, he can abandon that plan now and resume his seat. I suggest he resumes his seat.
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab): As part of this openness and transparency, will the Government improve their relations with the police and prison services, so that we can have a clearer idea of why people with mental illnesses are spending time in police cells or being sent to prison?
Mr Hunt: I am pleased to tell the right hon. Gentleman that we are working closely with the police to try to ensure that some of the people held in police cells are given much faster access to mental health services. That includes a street triage pilot, which has had early and promising results.
Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con):
I was informed this morning that the chair of the NHS property board has resigned. That follows the revelation last week, through parliamentary questions I asked, that the board has been raiding its capital allocation to subsidise
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its own revenue funding. In the interests of transparency, will the Secretary of State undertake to review and publish the recruitment and employment procedure of executive and non-executive members of the board—including civil servant Peter Coates who created the board, which oversees £3 billion-worth of assets—and conduct careful audit and scrutiny of the board’s accounts and minutes?
Mr Hunt: Obviously, the suggestions my hon. Friend makes are extremely serious. If she lets me have a copy of all the things she is directly concerned about, I will look into it with the greatest priority.
Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab): With regard to openness and transparency, the Secretary of State’s failure to extend the Freedom of Information Act to private providers delivering NHS services is fostering a culture of secrecy. As he forces clinical commissioning groups to tender more services to the private sector, and if he truly believes in openness and the independence of health regulators, will he follow the clear advice from Monitor and extend FOI legislation to private providers, or is he content to allow them to continue to withhold information from patients?
Mr Hunt: When it comes to transparency about care, there should be an absolute level playing field between private providers and NHS providers. To answer the hon. Gentleman’s question on regulators, what this Government are going to do, Mr Speaker, is ensure that the Care Quality Commission has statutory independence so that no Government can ever try to interfere with the processes of reporting poor care.
Calderdale Royal Hospital (Accident and Emergency Ward)
11. Mrs Linda Riordan (Halifax) (Lab/Co-op): Whether he plans to close all or part of Calderdale Royal hospital’s accident and emergency ward. [900593]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison): I am advised by the NHS that there are no plans for the closure or downgrading of the accident and emergency department at Calderdale Royal hospital. Obviously, as the hon. Lady knows, the reconfiguration of local health services is a matter for the local NHS commissioners. As I understand it, they and the local authorities are currently reviewing health and social care services, including emergency care, across the wider Huddersfield and Calderdale area.
Mrs Riordan: I thank the Minister for her reply, but we need stronger reassurances in Halifax that the accident and emergency unit at Calderdale Royal is safe, particularly given the threatened closures of walk-in centres. Will she give that commitment now?
Jane Ellison: As I have said, those are matters for the local NHS commissioners. As I understand it, they have begun a review. The hon. Lady will want to be deeply engaged with it on behalf of her constituents. Everything that might be proposed will be subject to a full public consultation.
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David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con) rose—
Mr Speaker: Order. I am always pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman, but I simply point out to him that Calderdale is rather a long way from Morecambe and Lunesdale. Calderdale is the subject of the question; therefore, it is essentially closed. I hope that that is helpful to him and the House.
Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Clinical Strategy
13. Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con): What progress has been made on implementation of the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey clinical strategy. [900595]
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb): The local NHS continues implementing the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey clinical strategy, which was approved by the Secretary of State in September 2011 following a review by the independent reconfiguration panel. Enfield council has recently issued an application for judicial review of local clinical commissioning group plans. Unfortunately, I am therefore limited in what I can say in that regard.
Nick de Bois: Department of Health Ministers know well of my continued opposition to the decision. However, does the Minister understand that it is crucial that the investment in primary care first promised by the Secretary of State in 2008 is in place before the reconfiguration takes place? Will the Minister confirm that patients will have access to a doctor on the Chase Farm site 24/7?
Norman Lamb: First, I acknowledge my hon. Friend’s campaigning on behalf of his constituents—he has worked very hard. I understand that, as part of the case for change and for reconfiguring health services at Chase Farm hospital, a doctor will be available to see patients at Chase Farm 24 hours a day, seven days a week. However, given that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has been named as a defendant by Enfield council in the judicial review, it would not be appropriate for me to comment further at this time.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): Does the Minister recognise that the question is not if the changes take place, but when? Does he recognise that all my local doctors say that it is in the best health interests to get on with the changes, not least given that the £200 million invested in the new North Middlesex hospital in Enfield was dependent on them?
Norman Lamb: I recognise my hon. Friend’s work in this regard. Decisions should be based on clinical judgment and the views of local doctors are important. He draws attention to a fantastic new facility. I pay tribute to everyone who has worked to achieve it. It will serve the local community well.
Doctors (Accountability)
14. Priti Patel (Witham) (Con): What measures are in place to hold doctors accountable for their mistakes. [900596]
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The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt): While always paying regard to the superb job done by most doctors, we should allow no hiding place for doctors who endanger patients’ lives by irresponsible or careless behaviour, which is why we have asked the Law Commission to come up with proposals to speed up General Medical Council investigations. We are also considering a new criminal offence of wilful neglect, as recommended by Professor Don Berwick.
Priti Patel: The cancer diagnosis of my constituent, Mrs Julia Wild, was delayed by nine months because of a mistake by the initial doctor at her first assessment. For four years, she has been fighting for an apology, for transparency and for the doctor to acknowledge what went wrong with her case. What can Mrs Wild, and other patients in the NHS who have had similar experiences, do to ensure that their complaints are taken seriously, that these life-changing mistakes are acknowledged and that the individuals responsible are held to account?
Mr Hunt: My hon. Friend speaks extremely well and I fully understand her concern about Mrs Julia Wild and the care she received. I cannot second-guess the clinical judgment of the GMC, but I agree that Mrs Wild is owed an apology. If the local NHS will not give it, I will give it now. We should have spotted the advanced lobular cancer and I apologise to her that we did not.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab): On Friday I visited Cruddas Park surgery in my constituency to see the fantastic work that doctors and staff are doing in the face of huge levels of unmet need, health inequalities and rising mental health issues. If we hold doctors to account for their mistakes, is it not right that they should be able to hold Ministers to account for taking millions of pounds out of their funding and then telling my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) that it was nothing to do with him?
Mr Hunt: Doctors should be able to hold Ministers to account, as should the public. That is why they will be pleased to know that we protected the NHS budget, and did not follow the advice of the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who wanted it cut from its current levels.
Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con): While we are always of course keen to hold doctors to account for their mistakes, I trust that we will be equally keen to reward them for examples of really good practice, such as those my right hon. Friend will see on Thursday when he makes his very welcome visit to the East Surrey hospital. I commend to him the work of Dr Ben Mearns and his emergency and acute team, who demonstrate good practice and also make it transparent to the rest of the national health service.
Mr Hunt:
I am greatly looking forward to visiting my hon. Friend’s hospital on Thursday and going out on the front line. I agree that we need to celebrate success. This has been a difficult year for the NHS as we have learned to be much more transparent about problems when they exist, but one of the advantages of having a chief inspector is that his team will be able to identify and recognise outstanding practice, so that everyone
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will understand that, as well as some of the problems that get more attention, brilliant things are happening throughout our NHS.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab): Is the Secretary of State comfortable with a surgeon such as Ian Paterson flitting between the NHS and the private sector, making the same blunders in both but being subject to different levels of accountability and his victims having access to different levels of redress?
Mr Hunt: As I said in response to an earlier question, the responsibility to be transparent about care should apply equally in the public and the private sector. Obviously, in the public sector we have more levers, because we are purchasing care and we can impose more conditions than it is possible to do in the private sector. The most important thing is to have a culture in which such problems come to light quickly when they happen, so that they are dealt with and not repeated.
Cancer Survival Rates (Data)
15. Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con): For what reasons the publication of data on one-year and five-year survival rates for all cancers within the Clinical Commissioning Group Outcomes Indicator Set has been deferred until March 2014. [900597]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison): I am aware of delays in the availability of source data at a local level. For that reason, it is not possible to publish data on one-year and five-year survival rates for all cancers before March 2014. I know that my hon. Friend is frustrated by this and that he has done a lot of work on this issue as the chair of the all-party group, but I am sure he will agree that it is better to have accurate information to make these vital clinical judgments.
Mr Baron: The Minister will be aware that the all-party group on cancer has campaigned long and hard for the monitoring of the one-year and five-year survival rates as a driver for earlier diagnosis—cancer’s magic key. What assurances can she give that the March 2014 deadline will be met and that appropriate action will be taken against those CCGs that underperform?
Jane Ellison: We have spoken to NHS England, which has advised me that it is not aware of any reason to think that the March 2014 will not be met. As my hon. Friend knows, however, the day-to-day management of CCGs is a matter for NHS England, and I am sure he would not approve of Ministers trying to micro-manage CCGs from Whitehall. His strength of feeling is clear, and I am happy to have an ongoing dialogue with him and the all-party group on this matter.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD): Having heard the Minister’s answer on survival rates and the importance of early diagnosis, may I ask her whether cancer patients in need of life-saving treatment recommended by their clinicians who have waited for more than two weeks because of the commissioners’ delay in agreeing funding have the legal right to insist on being treated once they have gone past the two-week deadline? If so, how would they do that?
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Jane Ellison: If my hon. Friend will allow me, we will perhaps need a separate conversation. I am happy to meet her afterwards to discuss the matter she has raised.
Patient-led NHS
16. Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con): What steps he is taking to ensure that the NHS becomes a more patient-led organisation. [900598]
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt): The big shift we need to make is to turn the NHS into a patient-led organisation. Two measures that will help that are: independent inspections by a new chief inspector that put the patient experience at their heart; and asking every NHS in-patient if they would recommend their treatment to a friend or member of their family.
Steve Baker: I am encouraged by that answer. Long ago, the medical establishment was held to account by what were essentially patient-led co-operatives, and today more and more voices are asking for more patient engagement. Will the Secretary of State consider a paper brought forward by Civitas and Anton Howes calling for the incremental implementation of patient-led commissioning to close this gap?
Mr Hunt: No one campaigns harder than my hon. Friend on the issue of putting patients first in his constituency and throughout the NHS. CCGs have a legal obligation to involve patients in decisions about services and about them personally. The ideas in the paper he mentions are interesting, and I respect them, but given that we have brand-new commissioners and inspectors going out this year, I think we should see how the current reforms work first.
Topical Questions
T1. [900608] Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD): If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt): Today we published a report demonstrating that the NHS could recover as much as £500 million from better systems to monitor and track those who should be paying for the NHS treatment and introducing new charges to certain categories of people currently exempt. This is a significant sum of money that could fund 4,000 doctors, and far from being xenophobic, as some in the Opposition have alleged, the Government believe it is right that overseas visitors who do not pay for the NHS through the tax system should make a fair contribution through charges.
Annette Brooke: Poole hospital, which is much loved locally and has excellent care ratings, has a financial problem relating to tariffs that must be addressed. The £5 million spent on putting a failed case for a merger between Bournemouth and Poole hospitals to the Competition Commission raises questions about processes and openness with the public. I hope the Secretary of State can make some comments today, but will he meet me and other local MPs to discuss all these issues in greater detail?
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Mr Hunt: I am happy to do so. I want to make it clear to my hon. Friend that I am keen to ensure we have a structure inside the NHS that makes it easy for high-performing hospitals that want to work more closely together and share services to do so, if it is in the interests of patients. We need to do more work in this area.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab): The Secretary of State has been in post for a year, and in that time we have got used to his style: everything is always someone else’s fault, be it lazy GPs, uncaring nurses or the last Government. And today we see more diversion tactics—now immigration is to blame. But there is an inconvenient truth that gets clearer day by day and which he cannot spin away: A and E is getting worse and worse and worse on his watch. We have had ambulance queues, a treatment tent in a car park and now police cars doubling as ambulances, with a patient dying on the backseat. The NHS stands on the brink of a dangerous winter. Will he today set out in detail what he personally is doing to avert a crisis?
Mr Hunt: I welcome the right hon. Gentleman back to his place. It is a great pleasure to see him there, even if it is not entirely what the Labour leader wanted.
If the right hon. Gentleman is shocked that I breached the A and E target for one quarter last year, he will want to make a full apology for the fact that he breached it for two quarters when he was Health Secretary.
Andy Burnham: This complacent spin is no good to the NHS. If he wants to compare records, let us do that. Under me, 98 per cent. of people were seen within four hours; under him, over 1 million people in the last year waited more than four hours in A and E—not only a winter crisis, but the first summer A and E crisis in living memory. Today it gets worse. New figures this morning show a further 450 nursing jobs have been cut, taking the total close to 6,000 under this Government. But what were they doing last night? They were voting in the Lords against safe staffing levels. Will he now listen to the experts, stop the job cuts and take immediate action to ensure that all A and Es have enough staff to provide safe care this winter?
Mr Hunt: We will listen to no one on the Opposition Benches when it comes to safe care for patients in the NHS. They presided over a system where whistleblowers were bullied, patients were ignored and regulators felt leaned on if they tried to speak out about poor care. That is a record to be ashamed of.
T5. [900612] Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con): There is evidence that a nutritional meal can be a real aid to the recovery of patients, yet the Campaign for Better Hospital Food found that 82,000 hospital meals are thrown in the bin every single day. Will the Minister update the House on the steps being taken to ensure that patients receive a hot balanced meal, served at an appropriate time?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter):
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance of all patients receiving high-quality nutrition, and a lot of work has gone into promoting time for hospital patients to be fed and into
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protecting mealtimes, as well as into reducing hospital waste. Hospital food waste is now below 7 per cent nationally.
T2. [900609] Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab): We have a crisis in community nursing in Hull, with district nurses being stretched to breaking point. Does the Minister not agree that withdrawing funding from this service is economically short-sighted given that the foundation trust’s deputy chief executive says:
“If the crisis continues, the nurses will not be able to care for patients in the community and it could result in them being readmitted to hospital”?
Dr Poulter: The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the fact that local commissioners have a duty to ensure adequate community health care provision. I hope that that is an issue that he will take up with them. If he would like help in that fight, I am happy for him to come and meet me, and to bring in the local commissioners to talk this through, as it is important that we have enough community nurses to provide good care in communities and local commissioners need to listen to that.
T6. [900613] Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con): Can my hon. Friend update the House on what he is doing to support the earliest relationships of new families through early years intervention? Specifically, will he support the cross-party “1,001 Critical Days” manifesto?
Dr Poulter: I pay tribute to the work that my hon. Friend has done on the early years, and there are many good things in that manifesto. That is why we are investing in an additional 4,200 health visitors by 2015 and why we are supporting the most vulnerable families by increasing to 16,000 the number of families that will be supported by family nurses by 2015. A lot of investment is going into early years, which pays back to the Exchequer and gives much better care to families, too.
T3. [900610] Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab): Wirral council has said that anybody who wants to be involved in providing social care must show their commitment to the ethical care charter. Will the Minister congratulate leading councillors Phil Davies and Chris Jones on taking this initiative, which includes a move away from zero hours contracts? Will he say specifically what conversations he has had with the Local Government Minister and with Treasury Ministers about making sure that each and every local authority has sufficient funds to fulfil their legal obligations in care services?
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb):
I pay tribute absolutely to that local initiative, which is exactly the sort of direction we are going in. I have made the point several times that we cannot get great care on the back of exploiting workers. The idea that people should not be paid while they are travelling from one house to another is, in my view, unacceptable. When employers and care providers breach the minimum wage legislation, we should be absolutely clear that that is completely unacceptable. To ensure great care, the Government are introducing in 2015-16 the £3.8 billion integrated transformation fund, which will pool resources
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between the NHS and social care to ensure that we shift the focus to preventing ill-health and deterioration, and I think that that can make a real difference.
T7. [900614] Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con): I and my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) have long campaigned for the maximum hospital facilities at Frenchay hospital, including a community hospital with an outpatients clinic—as was agreed as part of the Bristol health services plan in both 2005 and 2010. Now it seems that NHS managers are attempting to revisit these plans, something to which I am opposed, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke, who has recently written to the Secretary of State to ask for a meeting to look into the situation. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet us both and investigate the situation?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison): I am always happy to meet colleagues for discussions, particularly when they are championing important health care facilities in their local area. I can confirm that the Secretary of State has received a formal referral from South Gloucestershire council in relation to these proposals, and has referred them to the Independent Reconfiguration Panel. He will of course consider the panel’s recommendations before making a final decision, and I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree that it would be inappropriate to pre-empt those deliberations.
T4. [900611] Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab): My constituent Jemma Hill is 25 and suffers from chronic hip pain, for which a specialist has recommended hip arthroscopy surgery. However, she has now been told that her local clinical commissioning group does not fund such treatment. Does it not make a mockery of GP-led commissioning when a CCG will not fund the treatment recommended by a specialist to whom the GP referred my constituent in the first place?
Mr Hunt: I am very happy to look into that matter, because it sounds like a very deserving case. I will look into the details carefully if the hon. Gentleman gives me the relevant information.
T8. [900615] Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con): Does the Secretary of State agree that we need to learn from the mistakes of the Safe and Sustainable review of children’s heart surgery services and improve the forthcoming review in two ways? First, we should make the process a lot more transparent. Secondly, areas such as neo-natal, paediatric and adult intensive care unit services and transport and retrieval services should fall within the scope of the new review.
Norman Lamb: I agree that we must learn the lessons. NHS England is responsible for conducting the new review into congenital heart disease services, and it is committed to conducting a review that is robust, transparent and inclusive, in the interests of delivering high-quality, sustainable services for all patients.
T9. [900616] Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab):
When the minimum wage increased recently, a working carer on 15 hours a week contacted me because she found herself to be 85p over the threshold for carers allowance, meaning that she would lose £259 a
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month. What work is the Minister doing with other Departments to ensure that carers are not penalised for caring and working?
Norman Lamb: First, we should applaud the work of the many carers around the country who are doing absolutely invaluable work. It is obviously important to ensure that the policies of one Department do not have an adverse impact on the work of another, and I will be happy to look into the case that the hon. Lady has raised.
T10. [900617] John Glen (Salisbury) (Con): Dr Elizabeth Stanger, a highly respected Salisbury GP, recently questioned me about the sustainability of providing multiple treatments for complex medical problems for several generations of the same family of foreign nationals. I welcome today’s announcement, and ask the Minister to reassure me that the mechanism to recover the funds will ensure that the money goes back to the clinical commissioning group so that it can provide a benefit locally.
Mr Hunt: I absolutely can reassure my hon. Friend about that. The point about the new, improved system for recovering charges is that we want the money to go back to the people providing the services so that they will be able to resource them better. This is not the diversionary tactic that some have accused us this morning of introducing; £500 million could have a huge impact on the NHS front line and allow his GPs to do a much better job.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab): This evening, the joint health overview and scrutiny committee for Trafford and Manchester will meet to consider whether the preconditions for the reconfiguration of services in Trafford, including those set down by the Secretary of State, have been met. I understand that the NHS area team has already confirmed that it believes the conditions have been fulfilled, but will the Secretary of State tell me what would happen if, as seems possible, the scrutiny committee were to take a different view tonight and decide that not all the conditions had been met?
Mr Hunt: We will obviously respect the legal processes, but if the scrutiny committee were to take such a view tonight, we would certainly look very closely at its concerns and ensure that we had satisfied ourselves on them before proceeding.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD): A written answer from the former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), to my recent parliamentary question has on this subject revealed that people living in the south-west of England are three times as likely to contract Lyme disease as those in the rest of the country, yet I have a constituent doing what he calls drug runs to the rest of Europe to access the medicines necessary to tackle his symptoms. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can ensure the continuing availability of treatments for Lyme disease on the NHS?
Jane Ellison: I learned a great deal about Lyme disease in the course of answering my first parliamentary questions, so I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend to have that discussion.
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Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab): Given that at least a quarter of a million children aged 11 to 15 take up smoking across the country each year, does the Minister accept that if we wait for two to three years for evidence to emerge from Australia about the impact of standardised cigarette packaging, hundreds of thousands of children will have started to smoke in the meantime?
Jane Ellison: On the Government Benches, we are interested in all measures that might stop children smoking. I do not recognise at all the time scales that the hon. Gentleman mentions. We are looking now at what is emerging in Australia and around the world so that we have more information on which to base an informed decision.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con): When the Secretary of State meets the chairman of NHS England to discuss future priorities for NHS spending, will he ensure a fair deal for rural areas by ensuring that they reflect rurality, sparsity and the number of elderly patients and that we keep the minimum income guarantee for rural GP practices?
Mr Hunt: I can reassure my hon. Friend, as I am meeting some Yorkshire GPs later this week who have concerns about that very issue. The most important thing about the difficult issue of the funding formula is that it should be fair. That is why under the new legislation we have given the decision to an independent body so that it is taken at arm’s length from Ministers and so that it strikes the right balance between the issues of rurality, age and social deprivation.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab): The NHS, with its massive purchasing power, can make a real difference to local areas through jobs and through supply chains. Some hospital trusts are enthusiastically implementing the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, including Barts and King’s. Will the Minister ensure that his new procurement strategy recognises the importance of social value?
Dr Poulter:
The right hon. Lady makes a good point. We want improvements to the procurement process not just to save money, so that hospitals have more money to spend on the front line, but to support small and medium-sized businesses appropriately, such as by simplifying the qualifying questionnaire process, which is often too complex for small businesses to become
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involved in and therefore rules them out of the market. There are a lot of good things and I am happy to meet her to discuss the matter further if she would like.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con): The Secretary of State knows Worthing hospital well; he has rolled his sleeves up there. When I went there a few weeks ago, I was told that the average age of patients in the hospital, stripping out maternity, is 85, yet we have qualified for no winter pressures money and we have a diminishing number of community hospital beds. Will he look into this anomaly, as he well knows the specific pressures we have on the south coast?
Mr Hunt: I understand my hon. Friend’s concerns and I know that there is a large elderly population in Worthing. I thought it was an excellent hospital with a fantastic atmosphere when I went and did part of a shift there. The winter pressures money went to the third of A and E departments that are struggling the most, so it is probably a compliment to his hospital that it did not receive it. We felt that with limited funds we had to concentrate resources where they were going to have the most impact. I hope that he understands why we had to make that difficult decision.
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab): This week, the report of the trust special administrator in respect of Stafford hospital is being presented to Monitor. Given that the preferred option is that the University Hospital of North Staffordshire should in some way take over, will the Secretary of State urgently meet all Members of Parliament for the north Staffordshire area to ensure that health care in north Staffordshire, where we already have a deficit of £31 million with an extra £18 million set to come over, will not be destabilised?
Mr Hunt: We are acutely aware of those concerns. In any reconfiguration, and particularly in this one, we want to ensure that there is no instability in the local health economy. We have given the trust special administrator a little longer to come up with a plan for Stafford hospital to try to secure local agreement, so I have not had a recommendation yet and I am going to wait and see what he says.
Mr Speaker: Order. I am grateful to the Secretary of State and colleagues, but as usual demand has exceeded supply and we must now move on.
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Point of Order
12.33 pm
Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab): On a point of order, Mr Speaker—
Mr Speaker: I am sure that it will not be a continuation of questions, but something novel, innovative and unrelated to what has transpired before.
Mr Reed: Mr Speaker, the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) echoed an untrue allegation made by the Secretary of State concerning a ministerial cover-up of hospital failures under the previous Government. That is a serious allegation and I seek your guidance. Should not the hon. Gentleman either provide immediate evidence or withdraw what is a demonstrably untrue allegation?
Mr Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has put his concerns on the record. Each Member in this House is responsible for what he or she says, but as the hon. Gentleman knows, because his hearing is impeccable, I exhorted him not to continue Question Time. I have known him for more than a decade and he is nothing if not respectful of rules and order, so I know that that is not a cheeky expression on his face but merely his version of an accepting smile.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con): Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker—
Mr Speaker: I do not think that anything further is required. The hon. Gentleman’s proffered assistance is generous in spirit but entirely unnecessary in practice. We shall leave it there for today. If there are no further points of order—[Interruption.] Well, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is in a very good mood, and so he might be. I saw him literally leap from the floor—his feet lost contact with the ground—in his eagerness to catch my eye, and on this occasion he was successful. We shall leave it there—I am glad that the House is in such a good mood.
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Descendants of Deceased Adopted People (Access to Information)
Motion for leave to bring in a Bill (Standing Order No. 23)
12.35 pm
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con): I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Adoption and Children Act 2002 to allow access to information for the descendants of deceased adopted people; and for connected purposes.
The direct descendants of deceased adopted people continue to face significant difficulty when they attempt to access information about their biological, rather than adopted, family. For example, the child of a deceased adopted adult often finds it impossible to trace any information about their biological grandparents. That difficulty is heightened when the adopted individual has made no efforts to trace their biological parents before they die. Information about the biological relatives of deceased adopted people can be fundamentally important, especially in relation to medical conditions.
If an adopted person dies suddenly, their direct descendants often need to inquire into the condition from which they have suffered to discover whether what they died from is hereditary. For example, familial breast cancer typically occurs in people with an unusually high number of family members who have been affected by breast, ovarian or a similar cancer. Those who have a family history of breast cancer often need different medical management from those without such a history because of the clear differences in the potential for developing such cancers.
While it is important that everyone is able actively to look after their own health, the descendants of deceased adopted people are prevented by procedural barriers from doing so. For all they know, a hereditary condition is sitting within them like a ticking time-bomb, and the current legislation prevents them from attempting to defuse it. Particularly in an era when we ask everyone to take more care of their own health and inject some personal responsibility into their well-being, it is crucial that the descendants of deceased adopted people are granted access to the medical information required to undertake preventive measures.
The solution to such a quandary is relatively simple but, as I have learnt in the few years I have been in this place, the simple solutions often appear to be the most difficult to implement. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I welcome the House’s enthusiasm. If we simply insert the term “their direct descendants” into specific clauses of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, the direct descendants of deceased adopted people will be granted access to information to which, I believe, they are rightfully entitled. Such an amendment has the support of the descendants of deceased adopted persons group and the British Association for Adoption and Fostering. Some people have expressed concern that that will lead to a rush of claims, but there is no evidence to show that the proposed measures will open the floodgates to unmanageable numbers of descendants of deceased adopted people wishing to access information through intermediary services.
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I welcome the support expressed by Julia Feast of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, who has been a committed advocate of this important matter. In Julia’s own words, the
“descendants of deceased adopted people should have been included when a description of a birth relative was defined in the Adoption and Children Act 2002. I welcome the measures being put forward in this Bill, and hope that they will pave the way for meaningful change.”
I am also particularly grateful for the advice and support of my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), who raised the prospect of the increased numbers the Bill would benefit because of forced adoptions.
I can assure the House that these measures will not be problematic and complex. The agencies that would provide intermediary services for descendants of deceased adopted people already have the skills, knowledge and experience to process applications received. The sensitivities and complexities would be dealt with in the same way as they are at present for a birth family seeking information about contact with an adopted person.
It must be noted that in 2010 the Law Commission looked at introducing such an amendment via the other place, and there is still the potential for such an alteration to be made in that way. However, given the limits on Government time, of which we in this House are all too plainly aware, such potentially wide scoping currently remains unlikely. Therefore, a small amendment could be made which grants the direct descendants of deceased adopted people access to medical records. I hope the Bill will proceed through the House with the support demonstrated by many Members across the House, for which I am grateful.
That Nick de Bois, Tim Loughton, Mr David Blunkett, Mark Durkan, Sir Bob Russell, Bob Blackman, Mr David Amess, Stephen Phillips, Caroline Nokes, Mark Field, John Robertson and Mr Dominic Raab present the Bill.
Nick de Bois accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 22 November and to be printed (Bill 116).
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Immigration Bill
[Relevant document: The Seventh Report of the Public Administration Committee, on Migration Statistics, HC523.]
12.43 pm
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
We have introduced a limit on economic migration from outside the EU, cut out abuse of student visas and reformed family visas. As a result, net migration is down by a third. Our objective—
Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab): Will the Home Secretary give way?
Mrs May: Well, if the hon. Gentleman really wants to intervene.
Simon Danczuk: The Home Secretary says that net migration is down by a third; the reality is that it has fallen by only a quarter. The House of Commons Library has confirmed that, and the Government are at risk of misleading Parliament. Would the Home Secretary like to correct the record?
Mrs May: It is a bit cheeky for a Labour Member to stand up and complain about the figures for falling migration. Immigration is down since 2010 and net migration is down by a third from its peak in 2010.
Our objective remains to reduce annual net migration to the tens of thousands by the end of the Parliament, and we must also reform the immigration system that manages the flow of migrants in and out of the UK. When I addressed the House in March this year, I explained that the immigration system that we had inherited from the last Government was chaotic and dysfunctional. Having created a separate entity in the UK Border Force to get a grip on border checks, we were left with a UK Border Agency that still lacked transparency and accountability, and to tackle that I split the UK Border Agency into two distinct operational commands inside the Home Office—UK visas and immigration and immigration enforcement. I made it clear that while organisational reform was necessary to transform the way in which we dealt with immigration, it would not on its own be enough to achieve that goal. We also needed to update the IT infrastructure and to change the complicated legal and policy framework that so often worked against us. The Bill changes some of that legal and policy framework so that it will be possible for the immigration system to operate fairly and effectively.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD):
The Home Secretary was clearly right to intervene in the way she did to sort out UKBA, which was clearly dysfunctional, and that was the right move in the right direction. But those of us who are willing to give the Bill a Second Reading—I am one of them—have concerns that there was no draft Bill, no Green Paper and no White Paper; there was consultation on only part of the Bill, and there are sensitive areas that need
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to be looked at across the board, including in connection with the legal aid changes. Why do we have to deal so quickly with such sensitive and difficult issues?
Mrs May: It has been clear for some time, as I have laid out, that the Government want to bring forward legal and policy framework proposals to make sure that we can deliver for people in this country a fair approach on immigration, which ensures that those who come here and stay here and use our public services contribute, and that those who are here illegally can be removed more quickly. My right hon. Friend is a long-standing Member of the House and knows full well that there will be significant opportunities for discussion of this matter in Committee. I can assure him that there have already been a considerable number of discussions on the elements that have gone into the Bill. These are issues that have been addressed by Select Committees in the past.
Mrs May: I give way to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab): We look forward to considering this again in the future. The BBC is reporting that the immigration vans that were introduced by the Government to go around certain cities to ask people to leave the country will no longer be rolled out. When she appeared before the Select Committee last Tuesday, she said that the vans were not her personal idea, but part of a package. Has she now seen the pilot and is she now telling the House that they will not be rolled out throughout the country?
Mrs May: What I said to the right hon. Gentleman was that I did not have a flash of blinding light one day and walk into the Home Office and say, “I know, why don’t we do this?” I have looked at the interim evaluation of the vans. Some returns were achieved, but politicians should be willing to step up to the plate and say when they think that something has not been such a good idea, and I think that they were too blunt an instrument. But we should also be absolutely clear about what used to happen under the last Government. If somebody came to the end of their visa, no one got in touch with them to say that they should no longer be staying here in the UK. That is now happening as a result of the changes to immigration enforcement. As a result of that work, during the last year some 4,000 people have left the UK. It is absolutely right that we do that, but we will not be rolling out the vans; they were too much of a blunt instrument.
Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con): Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we are able, in a sensitive area, to stop some of the abuses, it will allow us to help the very people whom we all in this House want to help, instead of having our system abused?
Mrs May: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to stand by those who have come here legitimately and who have done the right thing, and make it absolutely clear that we are taking action against those who are here illegally and abusing the system.
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Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con): Is it not also the case that the previous Government not only did nothing to encourage people to leave the country when they had overstayed, but instituted a series of amnesties that undermined the credibility of the whole system for overstaying people?
Mrs May: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why any complaints we hear from Labour Members today will ring hollow with the people of this country.
Mrs May: I have taken a number of interventions and will now make some progress.
I will set out the elements of the Bill in context. First, the Bill will cut abuse of the appeal process. It will streamline the labyrinthine legal process, which at present allows appeals against 17 different Home Office decisions—17 different opportunities for immigration lawyers to cash in and for immigrants who should not be here to delay their deportation or removal. By limiting the grounds for appeal to four—only those that engage fundamental rights—we will cut that abuse.
Secondly, we will extend the number of non-suspensive appeals so that, where there is no risk of serious and irreversible harm, we can deport first and hear appeals later. We will also end the abuse of article 8. There are some who seem to think that the right to family life should always take precedence over public interest in immigration control and when deporting foreign criminals. The Bill will make the view of Parliament on the issue very clear. Finally, the Bill will clamp down on those who live and work in the UK illegally and take advantage of our public services. That is not fair to the British public and to the legitimate migrants who contribute to our society and economy.
Sarah Teather (Brent Central) (LD): Did the Home Secretary take advice from colleagues in the Department for Education on the extent to which her definition of article 8 is compliant with our obligations under the UN convention on the rights of the child?
Mrs May: I can assure my hon. Friend that we have had a number of discussions with colleagues in the Department for Education on the operation of the proposals in the Bill. There is an agreement across the Government that we need to do precisely what I have just set out in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott): we must ensure that we are fair to those people who come here legitimately and do everything the right way, but we must also make it easier to remove those people who do not have a right to be here.
Mrs May: I will make some progress before giving way again.
Part 1 of the Bill is about removals. The current process for enforcing the removal of people who are in the UK unlawfully is complex, with too many stages before an individual can be removed. With multiple
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decision points, the current system provides individuals with multiple opportunities to bring challenges throughout the process. That increases the risk of further delays before removal takes place. We want to adopt a system in which only one decision is made. That will inform the individual that they cannot stay in the UK, and enable immigration enforcement to remove them if they do not leave voluntarily.
The existing system, designed by the previous Government through eight different Acts of Parliament, does not work. It was inevitable that such a complex system would be exploited. The Bill remedies that. As well as delaying the removal process, some illegal migrants held in immigration detention may apply to an immigration judge for bail and then use it as an opportunity to disappear. Bail might be appropriate in some circumstances, but can it be appropriate to grant bail when a detainee is booked on a flight in the next few days and there are no exceptional circumstances? Should immigration detainees who have already been refused bail be permitted to make repeat applications day after day? The Bill will bring sense to the law in this area and stop that abuse.
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD): The Home Secretary mentioned the eight previous Acts. During my time in the House it has seemed that we get a new immigration Bill at least every two years, and very few of them seem to have any long-lasting beneficial effect. Can she convince me that the Bill is not another example of the Home Office reaching for the statute book, rather than dealing with the management of the immigration service properly, and can she estimate how long we will have to wait for the next immigration Bill?
Mrs May: This is about putting in place a number of legal changes that will help ensure that the system can be better managed. Alongside that policy change, as I have evidenced in the fact that I have abolished the UK Border Agency and set up the two new commands within the Home Office, we are of course making changes in how we manage and administer the system to make it operate more smoothly and rather better.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con): Will the Home Secretary confirm that limiting the number of bail applications that can be made is nothing new? Under the Bail Act 1976, the number of applications one can make in criminal cases is limited before exceptional circumstances have to be shown, so this is nothing new and we are simply improving the process.
Mrs May: My hon. Friend is right. We have seen cases in which people have made repeated bail applications, which then have to be dealt with, and sometimes all that happens is that the application is withdrawn at the last minute, which of course causes problems for individuals.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con): The Home Secretary is being generous in giving way. Does she agree that a process with so many in-built delays takes a toll not only on the taxpayer but on those going through the process, who have to live through so much uncertainty during that time? Does she also agree that if we are to require the decision makers to make a greater number of decisions earlier in the process, they will need to have greater expertise in order to do so?
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Mrs May: We obviously want to ensure that those making the decisions do so properly. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that it is only fair to those who are making applications that they get a decision that has been properly considered within a reasonable space of time. Sadly, that was not happening in the system we inherited, so we are having to make a lot of changes. I have been clear that that change cannot take place within six months; it will take some time before we can see the system that everybody wants.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab): With reference to the point the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) made about discussing numerous immigration Bills during his time in the House, along with the introduction of the UK Border Agency and the Australian-style points-based system and the huge reduction in the number of asylum seekers coming to this country, does that not make it absolutely clear that claims that the previous Labour Government were totally uninterested in immigration are total nonsense? We can argue about how effective the Acts were, but the fact that the previous Government came back so many times to discuss immigration makes it clear that they were very sensitive to the issue.
Mrs May: Unfortunately, the previous Labour Government were interested in immigration in the wrong way. One of the things this Government have had to do, for example, is root out abuse of student visa applications, which started under the previous Government’s points-based system. I will take no lectures about the previous Labour Government’s interest in immigration.
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con): In June 2003 the then Immigration Minister, Beverly Hughes, said that the impact on migration into Britain of 10 accession countries joining the European Union would be “minimal”, with 13,000 migrants expected a year. That was laughably inaccurate. Can the Home Secretary assure us that the Bill will ensure that there is no repeat of that shocking open-door immigration policy?
Mrs May: I can be absolutely clear with my hon. Friend that, as far as this Government are concerned, full transitional controls should be put on any country joining the European Union. We are also looking at a number of proposals to deal with what we have described on various occasions as the potential pull factors for individuals coming here. The Bill will deal with some of the issues that require a legislative response. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is also looking at concerns about access to benefits and, I am pleased to say, is working well with other EU member states that have similar concerns about the way some of these systems currently operate.
Mrs May: The former shadow Immigration Minister, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), has been leaping up and down, so I will allow him to intervene, but then I will have to make some progress.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab):
I am very grateful to the Home Secretary. I want to raise the issue of EU identity cards. She is suggesting that landlords will be
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required to understand all the EU ID cards that guarantee somebody’s right to be in this country. One of the difficulties is that in Italy, for instance, it is not the national state that provides the ID card but the local authority, which can be tiny. How on earth can a commercial landlord be expected to understand all 444 different EU ID cards?
Mrs May: The problem with the argument that the hon. Gentleman and other Labour Members have been advancing in relation to landlords is that we already have an example of a system where people check the status of individuals: employers do that, and they are provided with support by the Home Office. Exactly the same will happen with landlords. The idea that this is something entirely new is completely wrong. Many landlords already ask exactly these sorts of questions of the people to whom they are renting properties.
Establishing the identity of illegal migrants is a further difficulty in the removal process. Visa applicants are required to give their fingerprints to an entry clearance officer before they enter the UK. Following my border reforms last year, the fingerprints of arriving passengers are checked to ensure that the person who has travelled to the UK is the rightful holder of the visa, but there are gaps in our powers to take fingerprints, and the Bill closes them. When the police encounter a suspect, they have the power to check fingerprints, but when an immigration officer encounters a suspected illegal migrant, they may check fingerprints only where consent is given unless they arrest them. Not surprisingly, not everyone consents. Officers need powers equivalent to those of the police so that when they find an illegal migrant they can check their fingerprints to confirm their suspicion and start enforcement action.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op) rose—
Mrs May: I have already been very generous in taking interventions.
Part 2 is about appeals. The appeals system is complex and costly. Seventeen different immigration decisions attract rights of appeal, and when a case finally comes to a close some applicants put in fresh applications and start all over again. That is not fair to the public, who expect swift enforcement of immigration decisions. The Bill sorts out the mess. In future, the 17 rights of appeal will be reduced to four. Foreign criminals will not be able to prevent deportation simply by dragging out the appeals process, as many such appeals will be heard only once the criminal is back in their home country. It cannot be right that criminals who should be deported can remain here and build up a further claim to a settled life in the United Kingdom.
As well as reducing the number of appeals, we propose to simplify the process. An appeal to an immigration judge is a very costly and time-consuming way of correcting simple casework errors that could be resolved by a request to the Home Office to review the decision. This is what we already do overseas for millions of visa applicants. Applicants will be able to contact the Home Office and ask for a simple administrative review to remedy such errors. That can resolve errors in decisions
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cheaply and quickly, within 28 days, and it is substantially quicker than the average 12 weeks that it currently takes to appeal via the tribunal with all the costs that that incurs. The Bill creates an effective and efficient appeals system that will ensure that the process cannot be abused or manipulated to delay the removal of those who have no basis for remaining in the UK, but it still provides an opportunity to challenge a decision where fundamental rights are concerned. The public are fed up with cases where foreign criminals are allowed to stay because of an overly generous interpretation by the courts of article 8—the right to respect for family and private life. Under the current system, the winners are foreign criminals and immigration lawyers and the losers are the victims of these crimes and the law-abiding public.
The Government first sought to address this issue in July 2012 by changing the immigration rules with the intention of shifting the weight the courts give to the public interest. This House debated and approved the new rules, which set out the factors in favour of deportation and the factors against it. The courts accept that the new rules provide a complete code for considering article 8 where we are deporting foreign criminals. However, some judges have still chosen to ignore the will of Parliament and go on putting the law on the side of foreign criminals instead of the public. I am sending a very clear message to those judges: Parliament wants a law on the people’s side, the public want a law on the people’s side, and this Government will put the law on the people’s side once and for all. This Bill will require the courts to put the public interest at the heart of their decisions.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green): Given that the figures show that first-instance decision making is very poor in this regard, with 42% of family visit visas and 51% of entry clearance applications successfully appealed last year, does the right hon. Lady agree that it would be better to focus on getting the system right than on eroding appeal rights against immigration decisions?
Mrs May: We are going to put in place a system that enables people to have appeal rights in relation to fundamental rights, but we will also put in place an administrative process that enables decisions to be looked at in case administrative errors have been made.
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab) rose—
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab) rose—
Mrs May: No, I have been very generous in giving way. Let me say to Labour Members and to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) that one of the problems we have seen in some family visit appeals in the past—this is why we removed the family visit appeal process—is that people have introduced new information into the appeals mechanism in the time since the original decision. That means that the decision in an appeal that is won is not necessarily based on the original case but may be based on the case put forward on appeal, which may be different. The hon. Lady needs to be careful when she quotes figures.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab) rose—
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Mrs May: I give way to the former Home Secretary.
Mr Straw: May I correct the right hon. Lady on one thing? Long experience tells me that the tribunals do not accept information that has come in after the original application was made; it would sometimes be better if they did. We are all interested in streamlining the system. However, given the very high number of decisions on appeal that overturn the original decisions by the Home Office or the immigration officials abroad, what guarantee can she offer that the quality of the reviews that will now be undertaken by Home Office officials as an alternative to appeals will be subject to proper supervision? In my experience, when we had those reviews before we often got poor-quality decision making and people within the Department saying, “Oh well, if so and so has already said no, I’m going to say no too.” If that happens we end up with more judicial reviews.
Mrs May: First, tribunals do accept, and have been accepting—we have seen examples of this—information that has come forward after the original application was made prior to the appeal. The figures that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion quoted related to family visit appeals. We have already removed the ability to appeal on a family visit visa. It takes less time and is slightly cheaper for people to reapply and, if they have further information, to put it into the appeals mechanism. Of course, we need to ensure that the system is operating properly, and we will be looking to ensure that, through the operation of the ability to challenge administrative error, we ensure that people are making decisions fairly on the basis of the decision that is put in front of them.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): I welcome the fact that this Bill will enable the system to become effective, as well as humane. How will it impact on human trafficking, not least in relation to those who are human trafficked and are dealt with more as criminals than as they should be—victims?
Mrs May: My hon. Friend will know that we are looking at the whole question of how we deal with human trafficking, or—let us call it what it is—modern slavery. Next year we will introduce a Bill to deal with modern slavery, with a particular focus on dealing with the criminal gangs who undertake this activity. The launch of the new National Crime Agency gives us an even greater ability to deal with those gangs. I want to ensure that we not only start to reduce but end this horrible crime of human trafficking—modern slavery.
Meg Hillier: Will the Home Secretary give way?
Mrs May: I am going to make some further progress.
Part 3 is about migrants’ access to services. We want to ensure that only legal migrants have access to the labour market, free health services, housing, bank accounts and driving licences. This is not just about making the UK a more hostile place for illegal migrants; it is also about fairness. Those who play by the rules and work hard do not want to see businesses gaining an unfair advantage through the exploitation of illegal labour, or to see our valuable public services, paid for by the taxpayer, used and abused by illegal migrants.
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Hon. Members will know that the right of non-European economic area nationals to work in the UK is restricted, and where the right to work is granted, it may be restricted to a particular employer or limited hours. Employers are required to ensure that their employees have the right to work in the UK and if they do not, they will face penalties, but the process for enforcing those fines is complicated. The Bill will streamline that process, making employers think again before hiring illegal labour.
Let me turn to the national health service. Many temporary migrants are currently allowed free access to the NHS as if they were permanent residents. Such an approach is extremely generous, particularly compared with wider international practice. Our intention is to bring the rules regulating migrant access to the NHS into line with wider Government policy on migrant access to benefits and social housing. That means restricting access to free NHS care to those non-EEA nationals with indefinite leave to remain and those granted refugee status or humanitarian protection in the UK. Under this Bill, other migrants will have to contribute.
Temporary migrants seeking to stay in the UK for more than six months will have to pay an immigration health surcharge on top of their visa fee. I assure the House that this surcharge will make the system fairer and will not undermine our aim to attract the brightest and the best. We have carefully examined what other countries do and will ensure that the UK offer is a competitive one in a tough global market.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab): Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mrs May: I want to make more progress.
Dealing with migrants is not new for the NHS. There is already a framework for charging other countries. The NHS must enforce it and recover the cost of treating foreign nationals from foreign Governments, and all of us in government will work with it to make the system work.
The Government also want to ensure that illegal immigrants cannot hide in private rented housing. We are already working with councils to tackle rogue landlords who provide beds in sheds and illegal, overcrowded accommodation. Under the Bill, we will go further and have the necessary powers to deal with rogue landlords who rent homes to illegal migrants.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab): Is the Secretary of State able to quantify the number of foreign nationals treated by the NHS who are not entitled to free care and who came here solely and deliberately to get free health care?
Mrs May: I suggest that the hon. Lady look at the audit conducted by the national health service that was released today. It makes it absolutely clear that we are talking potentially about several hundred millions of pounds across the NHS when we consider the number of people who come here and are able to use the service without contributing, who come here as health tourists and who come here and use the service when they should not be able to do so. That is why the Bill is absolutely right.
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I say to Opposition Members who say that somehow it is wrong to ask people who come to this country to contribute, that it is only fair to the millions of hard-working people who pay into the NHS through their taxes that somebody who comes here to live for a period of time should be asked to contribute. It is only fair also to ensure that when people come here to use the NHS, or use it when they are here and their Government should be paying, that we actually recoup that money.
Mrs May: I will give way to the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), because I have not done so yet.
Barry Gardiner: The most recent migration statistics quarterly report by the Office for National Statistics was published in August 2013 and it noted that the net flow of long-term migrants was 176,000, compared with 235,000 in June 2010, when the right hon. Lady’s Government came to power. That suggests that the figure of 25% cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) when he intervened earlier is right and that the right hon. Lady’s figure of 33% is wrong. Will she confirm that those are the latest statistics and that the reduction was by 25%?
Mrs May: If the hon. Gentleman looks at Hansard, he will see the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk). I said that net migration has come down by a third from its peak in 2010. That figure is absolutely correct, because in September 2010 the figure was 255,000 and the latest figure, therefore, is a fall of 31%.
Ms Abbott: On a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker: I hope it is a point of order rather than a point of frustration. I shall discover which.
Ms Abbott: Is it in order for the Secretary of State to suggest that anyone in this House thinks that people who are not legally eligible for NHS care should not have to pay when all I am doing is querying her scare statistics?
Mr Speaker: People are free to suggest what they like. These are matters of debate. Of one thing I am sure, having known the hon. Lady for 16 years: she requires no protection from me or, for the most part, I think, from anyone.
Mrs May: I have to say that this morning’s reaction from the shadow Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), to the proposal to charge for use of the NHS shows that the Labour party is going to be on the wrong side of this argument, because people in this country want to see people being treated fairly in relation to the NHS.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab) rose—
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab) rose—
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Mrs May: I want to make a little more progress.
Of course, as I said earlier, many private landlords already make checks, on a tenant’s identity and credit status, making it difficult for illegal migrants to rent properties from them. However, not all landlords do it, so we propose to replicate the long-standing requirements for employers to check the immigration status of those they are about to employ.
We are not asking landlords to become immigration experts. Those who undertake simple steps will have nothing to fear and there will not be a penalty. Rogue landlords will face penalties, hitting them where it hurts—in their wallets. This will make it harder for landlords to house illegal immigrants and harder for illegal immigrants to settle in the UK.
It is not excessive regulation. It is a proportionate approach to a significant problem and we have listened very carefully to those who have warned us of the consequences of not doing this properly. We will make it easy for homeless and vulnerable people to prove their entitlement through simple documentary requirements. We will have a statutory code of practice, making it clear that if landlords racially discriminate they will be breaking the law. We will exempt those parts of the housing market, such as homeless hostels and student halls of residence, where further regulation would not be appropriate.
The Bill will also introduce new rules to crack down on illegal migrants accessing banking products and services in the UK. Many illegal immigrants are already prevented from opening bank accounts, thanks to existing identification and fraud requirements. However, there is no specific rule to stop illegal migrants opening an account in the UK. This Bill will require banks and building societies, for the first time, to refuse a customer who wishes to open a new current account when they have been identified as an illegal immigrant.
Having tackled the ability of illegal migrants to work, access health care, rent property and open bank accounts, I also want to ensure that illegal migrants are denied driving licences. The Bill will give legislative force to the current administrative practice, but the measures go further, giving us the power to revoke licences. We will do everything we can to make it harder for illegal migrants to establish a settled life in the UK when they have no right to be here.
Part 4 of the Bill tackles sham marriages and sham civil partnerships undertaken by a fraudulent couple for their own immigration advantage. The Home Office estimates that, every year, between 4,000 and 10,000 applications to stay in the UK are made on the basis of a sham marriage or sham civil partnership. Registration officials already have a duty to report suspected sham marriages and sham civil partnerships to the Home Office. The number of reports of suspected sham cases has risen in recent years, with 1,891 reports received in 2012. At the moment we have the ridiculous situation whereby we cannot always stop a marriage or civil partnership that a registrar believes to be a sham. The current 15-day notice period provides very little time for the Home Office to act before the ceremony takes place.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con):
Having listened to the debate so far, I think that hon. and right hon. Members and the public at large will be astounded that these sorts
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of basic restrictions on illegal immigrants have not been the law of the land for so long. It is about time that we passed this Bill.
Mrs May: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I think that members of the public will say it is right that we are fair to people living in the UK and to those who have come here legally, and that we ensure that those who are here illegally do not find it easy to stay and that we are able to remove them.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab): A lot of the individual sanctions will be dealt with by statutory instruments. So far it is clear that if a landlord fails to comply and lets a property, they will face a potential fine of £3,000 for each disqualified adult allowed to occupy the property. What sanctions, fines or prison sentence will be given to a doctor or nurse who treats, or a vicar who marries, a disqualified adult?
Mrs May: We are not talking about people not being able to receive treatment in the national health service. We are talking about two things in the NHS. First, when people come here and use the NHS, we will ensure that the NHS recovers the money from their country that it should be recovering. It has not been doing that as well as it should be. Secondly, when people come to stay here for a limited period—for more than six months, but not permanently—we will ask them to pay a surcharge to reflect the fact that they might use public services when they are here.
The Bill will increase the marriage and civil partnership notice period to 28 days—
John McDonnell: Will the Home Secretary answer the question?
Mrs May: I have tried to explain the point about sanctions in the NHS by pointing out that the hon. Gentleman’s assumption about the system that we are putting in place appears to be incorrect. He also mentioned members of the clergy who conduct sham marriages. If he looks back at the press from the past couple of years, he will see that members of the clergy have been arrested and prosecuted for conducting sham marriages on purpose.
The Bill will increase the marriage and civil partnership notice period to 28 days in England and Wales, and allow for it to be extended to 70 days when there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a marriage or civil partnership is a sham. The Home Office will investigate the genuineness of the couple’s relationship and consider taking immigration enforcement action when we believe it to be a sham. If the couple do not comply with the investigation, we will prevent a marriage from taking place. Should a sham marriage or civil partnership go ahead, couples will not gain an immigration advantage, but will be removed or prosecuted.
Fixing the immigration system cannot be done overnight. There were too many problems with the system that we inherited for that to be possible. However, the Bill will help us further along the road. It is frankly ridiculous that the Government have to operate such a complex system to deal with foreigners who fail to abide by our laws. It is ridiculous that the odds are stacked in favour of illegal migrants. It is unacceptable that hard-working taxpayers have to compete with people who have no
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right to be here. The Bill will begin to address those absurdities and restore balance. I commend the Bill to the House.
1.21 pm
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab): The Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have made a series of claims about immigration and the Bill, many of which do not stack up. They said that there would be action against illegal working, but there is nothing about that in the Bill. The Prime Minister promised action against those who
“deny work opportunities to UK workers.”
Again, there is nothing about that in the Bill. They promised to reduce the “pull factor” for people from the EU. Again, there is nothing in the Bill about that. They promised to
“reclaim our borders and send illegal immigrants home”,
but border control has got worse and fewer people are being returned than ever. They promised—the Prime Minister said “no ifs, no buts”—that net migration would be down to the tens of thousands by the election. It is currently at 176,000 and recent figures show that it has gone up. There has been a lot of rhetoric and a lot of confusion, and people are concerned about immigration.
We know that over many generations, people have come and contributed to this country: they have built our biggest companies, worked in our public services, and become great scientists, Nobel prize winners and even Olympic medal winners. We also know that in a global economy, in which people travel and trade more than ever, pulling up the drawbridge on all migration is not good for Britain.
Stronger controls are needed. Migration needs to be managed and, yes, we should have a proper debate about measures to control immigration, deal with its impact and tackle illegal immigration. Unfortunately, that is not what we have heard from the Home Secretary today.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con): Does the shadow Home Secretary realise that we have already gone a little over half the distance from the very high levels of net migration that we saw under the last Labour Government to our target of tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands? Will she congratulate the Home Secretary on that progress?
Yvette Cooper: The most recent figures for net migration show that it has increased. The hon. Gentleman has chosen to support a target that ignores illegal migration altogether and that includes university students who contribute to the economy. Furthermore, he can claim that progress has been made in meeting the target if the number of British citizens who leave the country or who fail to return to the country increases. That is the target that he is pursuing.
Meg Hillier: Many of my constituents are first, second or multiple generation immigrants who work hard to prop up our NHS and other public services. Does my right hon. Friend agree that penalising people when their families come over by adding extra charges to every application is unfair on those people who are breaking their back for Britain?
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Yvette Cooper: My hon. Friend is right that the system has to be fair for people who have come here over many generations and who have contributed to this country and continue to do so. It is right that people who come here must contribute and be able to support themselves. Equally, the system has to be fair to all. There are considerable concerns that the system is not fair. The Home Secretary’s proposals do not address those concerns.
Mr Clappison: In the light of the right hon. Lady’s comments, will she tell us whether she would have a target for net migration if she were Home Secretary?
Yvette Cooper: As we have said before, the problem with a net migration target is that it encourages more British people to leave the country or to remain in other countries. The Prime Minister has promised—no ifs, no buts—that he would reach the net migration target of tens of thousands by the time of the election. On the Government’s own figures, net migration is going up.
We believe that the pace of migration matters. It is right to support measures that will bring the level of migration down, but we must also have serious measures to tackle illegal immigration and to ensure that the system is fair, including in its impact on employment and the workplace.
Yvette Cooper: I will give way to the Home Secretary if she will tell us whether she regrets using the divisive ad vans in the first place.
Mrs May: I have already answered a question about the ad vans. Given that the shadow Home Secretary has not answered the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) asked about net migration, perhaps she will answer my question. Does she accept that the level of migration under the last Labour Government was too high?
Yvette Cooper: We have said that the pace of migration was too fast. It is right to have measures to bring the level down. We have said that many times. The Home Secretary has had every opportunity to apologise for the divisive ad vans, which she has admitted were a serious problem. I will give her another opportunity to intervene to do so.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con) rose—
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con) rose—
Yvette Cooper: Hopefully the hon. Gentleman will apologise on behalf of the Home Secretary for pushing those divisive ad vans.
David T. C. Davies: May I say—
Mr Speaker: Order. I think that there is an identity crisis that needs to be resolved. I think that the right hon. Lady was pointing in the direction of the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson).
Mr Speaker: We will hear from T. C. another time.
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Mr Stewart Jackson: On the subject of regrets, does the right hon. Lady share the regret of the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), who said in 2010 that having unmitigated and unplanned immigration from the European Union at the same time as 5.2 million people were on out-of-work benefits under the last Labour Government was a mistake that the Labour party needed to face up to?
Yvette Cooper: We have said that we should have had transitional controls for eastern Europe. Government Members need to consider how they can defend the fact that since the election deportations have dropped by 7% and deportations of foreign criminals are down by 14%, and how they can explain why the number of illegal migrants absconding at Heathrow has trebled since the election and why the number caught afterwards has halved since the election.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con): Will the shadow Home Secretary give way?
Yvette Cooper: I ask the hon. Gentleman to explain that point if the Home Secretary will not.
Mr Raab: The right hon. Lady is in a rich vein of contrition. Will she add to her list of apologies an apology from the last Government for signing up to EU rules that made it much harder to tackle benefit tourism and, on the point that she has just raised, human rights laws that made it much harder to deport foreign national criminals?
Yvette Cooper: There is nothing in the Bill about the matters that so concern the hon. Gentleman. Where is his apology for the fact that the number of businesses that are fined for employing illegal migrants has halved since the election? Again and again, action on illegal migration has got worse and enforcement has deteriorated since the election.
Yvette Cooper: I want to make some progress on the measures that are in the Bill, even though a lot of the measures that we need to tackle illegal immigration are not in it. Let us consider the Bill before us. Some measures are sensible and we will support them. Some are confused and we await illumination on how the Government plan to make them work. Some areas raise genuine concerns, and in other areas the Government are not going far enough, particularly on the labour market and on illegal immigration.
I am glad that the Bill includes stronger action against sham marriages. Indeed, we called for those measures. Like the Government, we listened to the concerns of registrars about cases where they feared abuse, but had too little time to ensure that investigations took place. We also called for stronger enforcement powers for UK Border Force officials. The problem is that the UK Border Agency does not use the powers it has in practice at the moment and enforcement has been getting worse.