Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Margaret Ferrier and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

That is exactly why I wrote to Ofgem. Wholesale gas prices are now lower than they were before the Ukraine invasion. The hon. Lady is right to say it is not a regulated market and I want to find out from Ofgem what it thinks should happen to avoid precisely the problem she talks about.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

Many pubs and breweries are locked into energy bill contracts that are staggeringly high, and they are calling for an opportunity to renegotiate them. What further support will Ministers offer the sector with its energy bills, particularly recognising the financial impact that the increase in alcohol duty will have?

[Jeremy Hunt]

We are doing a great deal. As the hon. Lady will know, we set up a new scheme, the energy bills discount scheme, to help businesses in the coming year. As I mentioned to my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy), we are also giving them 75% relief on their business rates. We will continue to do everything we can for this very important sector.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Margaret Ferrier and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I am very happy to do that for my hon. Friend. The flexibilities that we have since leaving the EU mean that we are able to do the Solvency II reforms, which mean that potentially £100 billion of extra investment will go into UK companies. Indeed, the whole of the Edinburgh reforms give us the opportunity to rethink our regulatory structures so that we do not just remain the world’s second largest exporter of financial services, but go from strength to strength.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

Concerns have been raised that legislation furthering deregulation of the financial sector is paving the way for an economic crash. Revocation of rules on commodity trading is a key concern. What steps has the Chancellor taken to ensure the Financial Services and Markets Bill, when passed, does not cause economic mayhem?

[Jeremy Hunt]

We have taken enormous trouble in our Edinburgh reforms package to make sure that we learn the lessons of the 2008 financial crash, but I would say to the hon. Member that financial services employ 21,000 people in Scotland. In fact, we called this set of reforms the Edinburgh reforms because they will be good not just for London, but for the whole of the UK.

Autumn Statement

Debate between Margaret Ferrier and Jeremy Hunt

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

I thank the Chancellor for his statement, and for remaining in the Chamber to answer all the Members’ questions—especially the last question!

I wrote to the Chancellor on behalf of my constituents about the triple lock, and I thank him for listening to their pleas, but a decade of benefit cuts has meant that families are struggling financially. Will the Chancellor consider allowing families to access more of their benefit entitlement in the face of the cost of living crisis, and will he reduce the maximum amount that can be deducted from universal credit for debt repayments at least to 15% of the standard allowance?

[Jeremy Hunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for her patience in waiting all this time to ask her question. The issues that she has raised are going to be looked at by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the review that he is conducting for the Prime Minister on the increase in the number of economically inactive adults and what we can do to improve incentives, but today we have announced—exceptionally—an increase in the benefit cap to ensure that the families who depend most on the benefits system are given all the extra help that we are promising today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Margaret Ferrier and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

As part of our ambition to make the NHS the safest healthcare system in the world, I will today be speaking at the largest ever conference on learning from avoidable deaths and what we can do to improve care in the future. As part of that, I can inform the House that the NHS Litigation Authority will radically change its focus from simply defending NHS litigation claims to the early settlement of cases, learning from what goes wrong and the prevention of errors. As part of those changes, it will change its name to NHS Resolution.

[Margaret Ferrier]

My constituent Pauline Cafferkey was cleared of misconduct last September, following a very public case surrounding her return from Sierra Leone and her contraction of Ebola. Will she receive an apology from Public Health England and will it reimburse her legal costs?

[Mr Hunt]

With respect to Pauline Cafferkey, who is a very brave lady and who gave very good service to this country and the people of Sierra Leone with her work during the Ebola crisis, the hon. Lady will understand that disciplinary procedures are an independent matter. They are not dealt with by the Government. They have to be done at arm’s length and we have to respect whatever is said or done.

NHS Shared Business Services

Debate between Margaret Ferrier and Jeremy Hunt

Monday 27th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am very happy to follow my hon. Friend’s advice in that respect. I think we all know that although the proper use of electronic records creates huge opportunities, we have to carry the public with us and make sure they are confident that the data will be held securely. That is why we have introduced the new post of a National Data Guardian, Dame Fiona Caldicott, who is the patients’ watchdog in this area.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

NHS Shared Business Services Ltd exists for one reason only, which is to deliver £1 billion in savings by 2020. The results of this Government’s ideological obsession with savings and austerity have surely now been laid bare for all to see, and we are quite lucky that this did not, quite literally, kill anyone. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet the Chancellor urgently to discuss increased funding for a health service that is being starved of the resources it needs to run effectively?

[Mr Hunt]

The result of our “ideological obsession” with savings and austerity is that we have increased spending on the NHS twice as fast in England as the hon. Lady’s party has in Scotland.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Margaret Ferrier and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend knows about these things from his own clinical background, and he is absolutely right. We are now doing something—it is probably the most ambitious programme anywhere in the world—to identify the costs that hospitals are paying. From April, we will be collecting the costs for the 100 most used products in the NHS for every hospital. That information will be shared. We are the biggest purchaser of healthcare equipment in the world, so we should be paying the lowest prices.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

Barts Health NHS Trust, the UK’s largest hospital trust, is set to run up a £135 million deficit this year. That would be by far the greatest ever overspend in the history of the NHS. When will the Minister accept the sheer scale of the austerity-driven crisis facing the NHS?

[Mr Hunt]

It is stretching things a bit to call that an austerity-driven problem when, next year, we are putting in the sixth biggest increase in funding for the NHS in its entire 70-year history. There are some severe problems at Barts, but we will tackle the deficit. We also need to ensure that we improve patient safety and patient care.