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Wednesday, 3 February 2010.
3 pm
Prayers-read by the Lord Bishop of Norwich.
NHS: Bad Weather Injuries
Question
3.06 pm
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of people injured as a result of the recent bad weather; and what has been the cost to the National Health Service of treating those people.
Baroness Thornton: The NHS is well versed in dealing with operational challenges such as adverse weather, and these are factored into local contingency plans, including the cost of treating patients. It appears that the system has held up in recent times. We have not made any estimate of the number of people injured as a result of the recent bad weather as this is a matter for the local NHS, and it is too soon. However, provisional hospital admissions data for autumn and winter 2009-10 will be available from the NHS information centre in spring 2010.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that Answer and fully understand why all the figures are not available. Does she agree, however, that it is almost certain that the number of people injured during the recent cold weather through slipping on snow and ice represents a much greater cost to the health service than the grit and salt that would have prevented those accidents? While I am not in any way criticising local authorities, which were faced with a sudden and unexpected winter, would it not be better in future for the Government to encourage local authorities to look at this in the round and say that more salt and grit stored in case of need would save a lot of injuries and a lot of pain and distress to people?
Baroness Thornton: My noble friend will know that the recent cold weather was the most prolonged spell of freezing conditions across the UK for 29 years so, not surprisingly, all public services, including hospitals and care services, were put under pressure. I note from the Statement made by my noble friend the Secretary of State for Transport that the challenge that was faced in relation to grit and salt was actually about demand outstripping supply, rather than whether PCTs had given extra support to the local authorities to increase gritting.
My noble friend will be pleased to hear that we are working with the Local Government Association to understand the impact of gritting patterns. We are looking at where people had their accidents-which parks, pavements, corners and car parks-because that is the most sensible way of working out where we need to spread grit and salt in the future.
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Baroness Gardner of Parkes: Is the Minister aware that you are much more likely to have a fracture if your bones are thinned by osteoporosis? Therefore, is it not important to encourage the diagnosis and prevention of osteoporosis? That would greatly reduce the cost to our health service of fractures.
Baroness Thornton: The noble Baroness makes an important point about a difficult condition that affects older people, particularly women.
Baroness Tonge: My Lords, I confess that I am somewhat disappointed at the Minister's replies so far because I expected a Bill for the abolition of bad weather in winter in the run-up to the general election. I suppose that there is still time.
Accidents happen during cold weather, but I am more concerned about the excess winter deaths where hypothermia is a main factor. That is still a great concern to me. Why has this problem not improved over the past 10 years? The figures are still roughly the same as 10 years ago. We are still among the worst European countries. Why have the measures introduced by the Government so far not brought down excess winter deaths from hypothermia?
Baroness Thornton: I am not sure that I accept that nothing has changed in terms of people keeping warm and well during winter. Indeed, the name of the campaign that we launched in September was "Keep Warm Keep Well". I point out that this Government have increased the allowance for winter weather. We have had a campaign aimed at financially disadvantaged older people, disabled people, their carers and families with young children on low incomes to give them the information that they need and advice about eating and exercise-because it is not just about keeping warm-home heating, energy efficiency and the details of grants and benefits available. It is a very important campaign, which will have helped this winter.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, so much pressure was put on to A&E departments. Did they not have to call in extra doctors and nurses? Also, how much pressure was put on the ambulance service?
Baroness Thornton: Undoubtedly, a great deal of pressure was put on all the public services, ambulances and hospitals. My original Answer made the point that we plan for this. I pay tribute to the staff in the health service for how they dealt with this, how they coped and how they ensured patients continued to receive care. Nurses walked miles to get to work because of the transport difficulties. Staff slept in hospitals to ensure that they could be there for duty the next day. Indeed, this was a great example of British co-operation-different organisations such as the coast-guards, Mountain Rescue and local paramedics helping people in remote areas.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that we would avoid these unexpected cost increases in future if we prepared for global cooling rather than global warming?
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Baroness Thornton: I will leave that to my noble friend who will answer a Question about just such a matter in two Questions' time.
Baroness Coussins: What can the Government do to encourage NHS trusts to employ specialist fracture-liaison nurses? The 24 per cent of trusts that have these specialist nurses have demonstrated that the prevention of treatments and services that they provide can be very effective, including cost-effective.
Baroness Thornton: The noble Baroness is absolutely right that these nurses provide a very important contribution to the rapid recovery of people with fractures. We would like them to be more widely used across the National Health Service.
Lord Naseby: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the case in Northampton where an elderly couple died in their home despite calls to the social services and, I understand, to their general practitioner? Does that not suggest that there is something wrong with the PCTs and their attentiveness to situations such as hypothermia that arise at these particularly difficult times?
Baroness Thornton: The noble Lord points to something that was indeed a great tragedy and which is being looked at right now. It is safe to say that these are very rare occurrences. By and large, people's neighbours, friends, families and the care services have put great effort into making sure that people, particularly those alone and vulnerable, are kept safe at such times.
Food Production
Question
3.14 pm
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to increase food production in the United Kingdom.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Davies of Oldham): The Government aim to ensure that we have a thriving, competitive and sustainable agri-food sector. Reforming the CAP will improve the industry's ability to respond to consumer demand. Our Food 2030 strategy explained that we are also providing funding to increase industry competiveness through the rural development programme for England, funding scientific research into increasing food production sustainably, and working with industry to improve skills across the food chain, tackle climate change issues and reduce regulatory burdens.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response. Might I refer him to his point about reducing regulatory burdens? Is he not appalled that Defra has failed to reach its target of a 25 per cent reduction in administrative burdens for farmers, and has achieved only a 16 per cent reduction this year? What is the department doing about that?
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Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, we are pursuing this issue with considerable energy. I make the obvious point that some regulations are essential. A substantial amount of the pollutants in our water comes from farms, so regulation is necessary there. Of course, some regulations result from European directives and we seek to bring pressure to reduce their impact. I agree with the noble Baroness that we should work with the industry to reduce regulation.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I declare my interest as a dairy farmer. Are the Government satisfied that imports coming into this country from Europe and some other places are subject to the same standards of animal health and care and conditions for farm workers as exist in this country?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, that is a challenging question because the noble Lord will know how much more limited our ability is to control issues in other countries. We certainly control the quality of imported milk, but the conditions under which it is produced and the health of the animals is a different matter. However, that is exactly the area on which we seek to bring pressure to bear within the framework of the CAP to ensure that Europe improves and reaches the standards of which we are rightly proud in terms of our own animal health.
Lord Greaves: My Lords, noble Lords make good points about food production but the other side of exactly the same coin is the amount of food that is wasted. It is estimated that up to half the food produced in developed countries is not consumed as a result of households throwing it away, supermarkets throwing it away unsold, and restaurants throwing it away. It is estimated that perhaps a third of the fruit and vegetables grown in this country never reaches consumers. Is this not an absolute scandal and would not food security in this country be dramatically improved if waste was cut down?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, food provision across the whole world would be improved if waste was reduced. The more advanced countries are more culpable in this respect. The noble Lord will know of the pressure that has been exerted on supermarkets with regard to their waste, and their response to it, one aspect of which is looking at the absurdity of sell-by dates which lead to some perfectly edible food being wasted. The noble Lord is at one with the Government in our determination to reduce food waste. In a world where some are going hungry, it is scandalous that we should have the levels of waste that we have in this country and in other advanced countries.
The Lord Bishop of Wakefield: My Lords-
Lord Taylor of Holbeach: My Lords-
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords-
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I wonder whether we can hear the right reverend Prelate first.
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The Lord Bishop of Wakefield: My Lords, Food 2030 identifies that public sector food contracts need to be made more accessible to small local businesses and social enterprises as one way of improving quality and value more generally. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that this happens in the short term?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, this is part of a longer run strategy that we outlined with regard to the progress of our industry up to 2030, but the right reverend Prelate is absolutely right that this is an area in which we continually need to exert pressure. I assure him that he is speaking along exactly the lines which the Government intend to pursue in terms of policy.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch: My Lords-
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords-
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I wonder whether we could hear the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, first, and then my noble friend.
Baroness Trumpington: Does the Minister agree that the increase in tuberculosis in cattle in this country has not helped food production with regard to beef, milk or any other products from cattle?
Lord Davies of Oldham: The noble Baroness is right. Bovine TB is a very serious disease and we are pursuing every strategy to deal with it. The problem, as the noble Baroness will know, is that there is no defined and clear scientific evidence on the best way of tackling this. Wales is tackling it with an experimental badger cull in restricted areas. We are watching that programme with great interest but we remain, at the moment, unconvinced that it solves the problem.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch: My Lords, does my noble friend support the growing evidence that agricultural resources could be put to better effect if people would agree to eat less meat?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, that is a matter of consumer choice. My noble friend will know that we want to see all aspects of agriculture flourish. There is no doubt that a debate on the increased welfare and health of the nation might be aided by dietary changes being noted by a growing section of the population.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach: My Lords, I am a farmer and a grower so I have an interest. The Minister will be well aware that self-sufficiency in the food we produce here has shown a chronic and persistent decline over the past 10 years of roughly 1 per cent per annum. To coin a phrase, we can't go on like this. Who does the Minister blame for this-the farmers, the weather, or the Government's lack of interest?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the noble Lord must not make too much of this point of self-sufficiency because there have never been, and never will be, a Conservative Administration who could make us 100 per cent self-sufficient in food. The noble Lord will have recognised that in the past decade there have been increases in self-sufficiency to the extent that we are more self-sufficient now than we were in the late 1950s and 1960s. However, our food strategy has to encompass
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Control Orders
Question
3.22 pm
Asked By Lord Lloyd of Berwick
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for phasing out control orders in the light of the unanimous decision of nine Lords of Appeal in Ordinary in Secretary of State for the Home Department v AF (No. 3).
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): My Lords, the Government do not have any plans for phasing out control orders.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. The House will recall the unusual circumstances in which we passed the control order legislation five years ago after an all-night sitting. Do the Government have any alternative plan-plan B, as it were-if Parliament decides not to renew the legislation when it comes up for renewal next month? If so, could the Minister let us know what that plan is?
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, this House has gone over the control order issue at length and there have been numerous Questions on it. None of us likes control orders. I did not like them when I came into post and I specifically asked whether there was any way of getting round them. A detailed study into this was done by the Security Service-SO15 OSCT-and control orders were the least worst option. There are a very small number of them-12, according to the last quoted figure and fewer than that now. We use them on a carefully selected basis.
I believe that they are necessary for the security of the nation. We do not like them and we have a lot of safeguards in place. Three High Court judgments have upheld individual control orders since the House of Lords judgment. Mr Justice Wilkie said of one of the cases that there was overwhelming evidence of past involvement in terrorism-related activity and future intentions to be so involved. It would be remiss of our Government not to look after the security of our nation. Control orders are absolutely necessary and I will fight tooth and nail to keep them because there is no easy alternative at the moment.
Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, is my noble friend aware-
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, perhaps we could hear from my noble friend first, and then from the noble Lord, Lord Elton.
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Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in his capacity as the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, that there is no readily available alternative to control orders? Is he also aware of the interesting document on national security published by the Conservative Party, in which it, too, acknowledge that the best that the party can offer as an alternative is to review the system with a view to reducing reliance on it-which, as I understand it, is the Government's policy?
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, who is the independent reviewer, stated,
- "it is my view and advice that abandoning the control orders system entirely would have a damaging effect on national security".
He went on to emphasise that he had considered the effects of the court decisions on disclosure and did not agree that the effect was to make control orders impossible.
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