Green Economy
Dan Poulter Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
I add my congratulations to those of other colleagues to my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) on securing today’s important debate. As a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, I am conscious—as our Chair, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), who is no longer in her place, mentioned earlier—of the need to have a green thread running through every area of Government policy. That, of course, gives us the opportunity to have a very wide-ranging debate today. I am conscious, however, of the number of Members who wish to speak, so I shall try to keep my comments brief and restrict them to just two areas.
First, we have seen over the last few days the importance of fuel tax as a fiscal measure, and we are all well aware of the impact of high fuel prices on our constituents—not just on motorists, but on the consumers of goods transported by road, which in this country is, of course, absolutely everything. The carbon emissions from road transport make up a significant proportion—over one fifth—of the UK’s total CO2 emissions. Passenger cars, in particular, emitting in the region of 76 million tonnes of CO2 annually, contribute 13% of all CO2 emissions.
Clearly, this is an area where Government policy must be used constructively not only to encourage shifts in modes of transport, but to encourage road transport users to look for cleaner, greener alternatives. I am a big fan of differential rates of vehicle excise duty, as there is nothing that concentrates the mind of the user quite so much as choosing to drive a car that attracts a lower duty tariff. I urge Ministers to ensure that ultra-low levels of duty are retained for the cleanest and most efficient engines.
I do not wish to dwell today on passenger transport and the private car, so I shall move on to road haulage and the freight industry. This is an area of policy relating to green transport, which is a matter of concern to me, and I have asked a number of parliamentary questions on the subject. I particularly emphasise today the duty differential for used cooking oil biodiesel, which expired in March this year. I appreciate that biodiesel is currently little used in the passenger car sector, although it does have potential; it is far more significant in freight transport, which accounted for 26 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2010.
Without the support of the duty differential, many biodiesel users will inevitably switch back to fossil fuels, resulting in higher emissions and risking the loss of up to 3,000 jobs in the low-carbon economy. The double certificates allowed under the renewable transport fuel obligation look unlikely to be able to support this sector, particularly given that recent certificate values have fallen as low as 10p. While this industry is maintaining an ongoing dialogue with the Minister’s colleagues in the Department for Transport, looking to find an alternative solution, Treasury support and awareness is also vital.
The second area of policy I wish to highlight is house building. The hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) mentioned the efficiencies that can be made through better insulation. Better use of water should also be highlighted, as should better and more efficient boilers. Linden Homes, a house building company that operates in my constituency, has come up with an innovative way to help the Government to progress a zero carbon policy. Its proposal to create a “new homes sustainability bonus”, has the potential to contribute towards a zero carbon policy in a sustainable and affordable way, at a time when the industry faces significant challenges.
At present, all new homes constructed in the UK are required to meet stringent Government energy and water efficiency standards—and rightly so. This company’s idea, as part of the policy mix for national carbon reduction, is that developers could, for all new units built from 2013, contribute a new homes sustainability bonus paid into a central fund, which would then be used to find the most cost-effective ways to reduce carbon within the UK’s existing housing stock, which chronically falls behind new home standards and has significantly higher energy and water consumption. Only 40% of all homes currently have energy-efficient boilers.
Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a very good point about existing housing stock, which is the majority of the stock in this country. Retrofitting and improving energy efficiency in those homes is good not only for business, but for consumers, particularly for those on fixed incomes such as the frail elderly and people in other vulnerable groups.
Caroline Nokes
I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. He makes exactly the point I was moving on to.
Last year, the Environmental Audit Committee went to visit the Sustainable Building Centre in Leamington Spa, where we learned that if everyone in the UK with gas or oil central heating installed a high-efficiency condensing boiler, we would save more than 6.5 million tonnes of CO2 every year—and that is only one aspect.
Caroline Lucas
It does not make me feel any better to know it is also closing plants in other parts of the world. It has clearly said one of the reasons why it did not go ahead in Sheerness was that it did not have enough orders for turbines on the order book. If that is a problem here in the UK, we should be addressing that, rather than worrying about what is happening in China.
One measure that would provide huge and tangible benefits both in my constituency and the rest of the UK is a massive investment in making the UK housing stock super-energy efficient. As others have said, that would not only be good in terms of getting our emissions down and creating lots of jobs; crucially, it would help tackle fuel poverty as well. This measure should be funded not through more levies on energy bills—as the Government plan, and which is inherently regressive—but from using funds such as the revenue from the carbon price floor and auctions of carbon emissions permits through the EU emissions trading scheme. That would have benefits in job creation, tackling high energy bills and achieving rapid emissions cuts. Some 118 Members have now signed the early-day motion on the Energy Bill Revolution campaign, which calls for precisely this step.
Members support that EDM because they know that, sadly, as it is currently designed, the green deal policy instrument is extraordinarily weak and the energy company obligation part of it—the bit that is supposed to be tackling fuel poverty—looks set to fail miserably both against the Government’s own objectives and in terms of doing what is needed to cut carbon emissions and end fuel poverty. The truth is that the final shape of that fuel poverty package could result in a 50% drop in the funding targeted at low-income and financially deprived households. There will be far less money in the ECO than there is in the measures that are being phased out—the carbon emissions reduction target, the community energy saving programme and Warm Front.
Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
I think the hon. Lady is being disingenuous, to say the very least, in respect of this Government. It is because of the policies of this Government that we are seeing investment in increasing numbers of offshore wind farms, not only off the Kent coast, but, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) will point out in his speech, off our coast in Suffolk. Will the hon. Lady at least accept that there have been many good advances in green energy—some of which are being delivered right now in Suffolk?
Caroline Lucas
That has probably happened in spite of Government policy, not because of Government policy. [Interruption.] I hear the muttering on the Government Benches, but what I say is true. The measures of investment figures show that under this Government investment in green technologies has decreased.
Caroline Lucas
I apologise, but I will not give way again, as I do not have much time left.
For many low-income households the green deal financial mechanism simply does not stack up. [Interruption.] The mechanism is based on loans with interest rates of between 6% and 7%. That creates the risk that these loans will be taken up by middle-class and well-off households, which might be able to afford to take them up without needing any support, rather than by less-affluent families with next-to-nothing in their pockets. Although there are limitations in respect of this market mechanism, if we are going to use it, we will at least need support to bring interest rates down to a more realistic level—as Germany has done through the development bank, KfW.
Renewable energy enjoys massive public support. That is true even of wind—although judging by the outcry from some Tory Back Benchers, we would be forgiven for assuming otherwise. In November, a YouGov survey found strong support for renewables, with 60% of people supporting wind power subsidies. The Prime Minister said in his half-speech at the clean energy ministerial meeting in April that he passionately believed that the rapid growth of renewable energy was vital to the UK’s future, but, sadly, his Government’s policies do not reflect those warm words. Instead, we hear rumours that he and his Chancellor are seeking backroom deals for a 25% cut in subsidies to onshore wind. Any reduction beyond the proposed 10% cut to wind subsidies would fly in the face of environmental and economic common sense, jeopardising the future of both onshore wind and investment in other renewables across the country, as well as the thousands of jobs they could bring.
The solar feed-in tariff fiasco provides another example of coalition Ministers creating harmful uncertainty. As one solar company in my constituency described it, the industry has had to endure a series of “unsettling knee-jerk changes” that have undermined not only investor confidence, but public confidence in the solar industry. Solar energy has huge potential in the UK and it is a tragedy that we are not supporting it more.
Marine energy also has massive potential. With the right support the UK industry could seize almost a quarter of the world’s potential market, according to the Carbon Trust. That would be worth an estimated £29 billion per annum to the UK economy by 2050 and would support more than 68,000 jobs. Sadly, that potential looks hugely unlikely to be realised, given that we have a Government Budget with a £3 billion tax break for more offshore oil and gas drilling—
Summer Adjournment
Dan Poulter Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
I rise to speak briefly in the time available to me about mental health services throughout the country. The Government are quite rightly focusing on mental health, as well as on provision in the acute sector. Their commitment to “No health without mental health” is absolutely right, and the £400 million being put into the early prevention of mental health conditions through talking therapies is an important commitment.
Before I go any further, however, it is worth highlighting how mental health services have historically been something of a Cinderella service in the context of the NHS budget. A good reason why we need reform to get rid of primary care trusts and put medical professionals in charge of service delivery is that mental health services have been particularly targeted for front-line cuts by PCTs over the past few months. For example, Leeds has seen £3.5 million cut from mental health budgets, with Oxford and Buckinghamshire withdrawing all police mental health liaison officers from their services. I am sure that the Minister would agree that mental health services are already under-invested locally throughout the country, and also that such cuts to front-line services are not desirable given the importance of early primary intervention in mental health. Indeed, that is exactly why we need reform to put professionals in charge of the NHS, so that they can deliver the community-focused services that we need.
It is also worth pointing out that nearly half of all adults suffer from depression at some point in their lives. We know that 60% of adults in hostels and the homeless have some form of mental health condition, while 90% of prisoners are estimated to have one too, so there is a big issue. We know that intervening and helping those individuals earlier in the disease process—through exactly the sort of commitments that the Government are making, with their £400 million commitment to talking therapies, and through commitments on a local level throughout the country—would make both a difference to health care economics, by driving down the cost of care for mental health patients later on, and a huge human difference to the patients themselves.
In the time available to me, I want briefly to call on the Minister to reconfirm the Government’s commitment to early intervention. We know that too many people are presenting with mental health conditions in the acute sector too late, when they are already in crisis, which is expensive for the NHS and bad for those people. The failure of mental health services has been to become a responsive service, rather than what we need, which is a service focused on patients and developing a properly community-sensitive approach, particularly in isolated rural areas and areas of high population churn, such as the inner-city areas over the river from this place.
I am not going to say much more; there is no time to develop a full argument. What I would like to hear from the Minister—I am sure that he will give us this—is a confirmation of the Government’s commitment to one of the key reasons for the NHS reforms that we are putting through, which is that we need much more of a community focus to mental health services, much less reactive mental health services and a much more proactive focus on helping people early on in their condition. Such a service would be good for them and good for the NHS, not only because it would reduce the cost to the taxpayer, but primarily because it would be good for the patient.
Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill
Dan Poulter Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Paul Maynard
It is actually called the family nurse partnership, but I assume that we are talking about the same thing. I know that in Blackpool it has worked with about 200 families in the past year. The numbers are clearly far fewer than those who could access the health in pregnancy grant, but once again the hon. Lady is returning to the debate that we have had over and over again about the universal versus the targeted.
Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the difference with schemes such as the one in Bristol that he and the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) mentioned is that they can show tangible results, whereas the health in pregnancy grant can show no tangible evidence of how it has been beneficial?
Paul Maynard
I agree entirely. That is a very fair point. It was never clear whether the Opposition believed in universality or targeting. It seemed to depend on which amendment they happened to be pressing at any moment in time. It was part of the incoherent approach that they seemed to have to the debate.
The previous Government never tackled the issue of how it took up to eight weeks merely to process a health in pregnancy grant claim. The money often came through not in the 25th week but in the 33rd week—well beyond the time at which there was any hope of achieving real dietary change.
I specifically tackled the hon. Member for Bristol East on the issue of usefulness versus effectiveness. When she said in Committee that this was a useful grant, I asked her how she defined useful. She mentioned access, which I have dealt with, but never really dealt with the issue of effectiveness. That was my concern with the Opposition’s argument. At no point did they try to evaluate properly how effective the scheme was. I know that many amendments were tabled asking for such an evaluation, but all along the Opposition’s rhetoric was to use the word “useful” rather than “effective”. At no time did they argue that the scheme was effective, so we were left with not very much more than the shadow Minister trying to argue that it was nice to hand out other people’s money to other people. It might well be, but that is not a firm or solid foundation on which to build a health in pregnancy grant.
I support the abolition of the grant for the simple reason that we have a number of alternative mechanisms to support families who need assistance during pregnancy. The grant was not paid out at the right time in pregnancy, in my view, and I do not believe that it has achieved its goal. I do not believe that we would even be able to provide the evidence if that were the case. I wholly support the Government in what they are trying to do.
Fiona Bruce
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I made the point at the start of my speech that unless we look at the bigger picture and reduce the deficit that the country is bearing, the generation that those mothers are now bringing up will have to bear the burden of interest on interest for years to come, and their life chances will be far lower than £190 could compensate for.
The healthy start vouchers were described in evidence by Belinda Phipps of the National Childbirth Trust as
“a really good scheme… It has been put together well and people can get a broad range of healthy foods for the vouchers.”
The health in pregnancy grant is poorly timed. Belinda Phipps said in evidence:
“If you are setting out primarily to improve the… health of the baby”
the payment of the health in pregnancy grant
“needs to be earlier. If you… really want to change the future of the baby, it needs to be as early as possible.”––[Official Report, Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Public Bill Committee, 4 November 2010; c. 79-89, Q205-224.]
The 25th week is simply too late.
Although there is no doubt that the grant does some good for a number of families, that certainly does not justify the expenditure of £150 million per annum. Indeed, it is a rich irony that, throughout the evening, Labour Members have been exhorting sound financial management, yet now, in the same debate, persist in pursuing what is an example of a seriously ineffective use of public funds—precious public funds of £150 million a year.
Dr Poulter
We have heard a lot this evening about universal benefits and the need for targeting. I think that we all agree that having a grant that would allow us to give every pregnant woman £190 sounds, in principle, like a good idea, but clinical practice—for me, as an obstetrician—and what we have heard from many colleagues tonight indicates that there is no firm basis or grounding to support a grant of that nature.
Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)
Given my hon. Friend’s experience, does he agree that some of that money would be better targeted on front-line services, especially midwives in areas such as my constituency where there is a shortage?
Dr Poulter
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. He makes the point that I shall develop a little later. If we want to make a real difference to pregnant women, the resources must be given to the front line. I had the experience of working at Brighton hospital for a considerable number of months. There was a great shortage of midwives at my hon. Friend’s local hospital.
Dr Poulter
No, I will not.
The pregnancy grant would be much better directed if it was used to improve care at the time of delivery, when we know that maternity care matters most in reducing the number of foetal deaths and in reducing poor outcomes in pregnancy and delivery.
The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) made the point that we need to be able to measure the effectiveness of the grant, and that it should be a nudge in the direction of good behaviour. I accept that any intervention should encourage good behaviour. Unfortunately, what I saw in my clinical practice, and I speak also as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on maternity, is that unfortunately many mothers from vulnerable backgrounds were spending the grant on, among other things, cigarettes, which we know have a detrimental effect in pregnancy. There is also a high though often unseen rate of drug and alcohol misuse in pregnancy. The grant is potentially spent on those harmful things as well. Giving an intervention, such as the grant, 25 weeks into pregnancy is far too late to help women deal effectively with those substance misuse problems.
Kate Green
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that the majority of mothers are not substance misusers or alcoholics. Indeed, there is considerable evidence over many years, including from the Policy Studies Institute, that shows that if women are given more money, what they do, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said, is spend it on their kids.
Dr Poulter
That is a fair point. Nevertheless, many women smoke during pregnancy and do not necessarily give up smoking. The hon. Lady made the point in her speech earlier about low birthweight babies, a factor which we know is linked to smoking. The grant can be used by mothers to support their smoking habit. To be used effectively, a grant must be tied in with results and effect. We all want mothers to have better nutrition, but unfortunately the grant was often spent on harmful substances. The main problem with the grant is that it was not targeted, it was not effective, and it was not making a difference at the time that we know matters to mothers, which is at birth and delivery.
Kerry McCarthy
I am slightly suspicious about the extent to which the hon. Gentleman speaks with authority on what the women who come to see him in his surgery spend their health in pregnancy grant on. I cannot imagine them saying, “I’m off now to spend my grant on rather a lot of packets of fags.” What is the difference between the point that the hon. Gentleman is arguing now—that during pregnancy women should not be given a lump sum that they can spend in any way they choose because some of them might spend it on the wrong things—and what happens with child benefit after a child is born? Surely mothers could spend their child benefit on cigarettes, drugs and alcohol. If that is pursued to its logical conclusion, is it not an argument against giving them child benefit?
Dr Poulter
We are not talking about child benefit this evening. We are debating the pregnancy grant. On the principle that the hon. Lady outlines, if we want to provide an intervention and if we want to make a gift of money effective, we need to target it effectively. We have no evidence to show that the grant is an effective intervention in pregnancy. No one on the Labour Benches has shown that the intervention is effective in improving nutrition in pregnancy.
Granted, in my clinics I obviously did not discuss in detail where the grant was spent. Nevertheless, I saw in my clinical practice far too high a rate of women smoking during their pregnancy. I would much rather see effective and targeted advice, independent of any grant, being focused on making sure that women do not smoke while they are pregnant. That would be a much better way of dealing with the issue.
Sarah Newton
I endorse what my hon. Friend is saying. I took the time to read in Hansard the entire debate that took place when the Bill was first introduced. The very points that my hon. Friend is making now were made then—that the grant is not the right way to encourage good nutrition in women of child-bearing age, which we all agree is vital.
Dr Poulter
I thank my hon. Friend for her point. On nutrition in pregnancy, we know from all the evidence that the biggest and single most effective intervention in nutritional terms is to give women folic acid pre-conception and in the early days of pregnancy. Most problems or birth defects occur in the first six to eight weeks of development, when the embryo is very small, so if we are to intervene effectively that is the time to do so. We already do, because all GPs, midwives and obstetricians encourage women in the first stage of pregnancy to take folic acid, which is the single most effective intervention to prevent neural tube defects and all others.
We have heard how we need to ensure that when we intervene, particularly with the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, we do so effectively. When the Act was introduced, the whole point of it was to reach those groups, yet people from Traveller communities, Gypsies and people from deprived backgrounds often still do not access maternity services until the time of delivery or when it is far too late. The hon. Member for Bristol East tried to argue that the grant improves access to maternity services among disadvantaged groups, but lots of clinical audits and data prove that it does not. The evidence shows that the grant is not at all effective in helping improve access to pregnancy services. The hon. Lady’s point fails, and I hope Members will bear that in mind later.
We are talking about targeted, results-driven and evidence-based care, but there is no evidence to support the grant as a nutritional intervention or in terms of improving childhood outcomes at birth, so for all those reasons we must target our resources where they belong, on putting those 3,000 extra midwives on to the front line, because they, not a £190 grant, will make the difference.
Mr Hoban
It has been a brief but thoughtful and thought-provoking debate. The amendments that the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) proposes seek to achieve one of three things: keep the health in pregnancy grant in place, delay its abolition or require the Government to conduct a review into the case for maintaining it in another form.
The grant was introduced in April 2009 by the previous Government. When announced in the 2006 pre-Budget report, the provision was to be paid as child benefit from the 29th week of pregnancy to recognise the important role of nutrition in the last months of pregnancy, when nutrition is most important, and in the first weeks after birth, with parents bearing the extra costs. Then, the payment was to be a £190 one-off grant, made from the 25th week of pregnancy with the intention of providing support for the general health and well-being of women in the later stages of pregnancy and helping them to meet costs in the run-up to birth.
Those were laudable objectives, but, as we have outlined on Second Reading, in Committee and again tonight, the grant has been essentially flawed from the outset. There is no requirement to use it for better health and well-being: women can spend the money on whatever they want; and it is paid to pregnant women regardless of their income or need. As Dr Samantha Callan of the Centre for Social Justice said in an evidence session on the Bill:
“There was absolutely no guarantee that the grant would be spent on nutritious food.”––[Official Report, Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Public Bill Committee, 4 November 2010; c. 116, Q279.]
In the context of the unprecedented budget deficit, therefore, we believe that this payment to all pregnant women is a poorly targeted use of limited public funds. Abolishing the payment will help to reduce the UK’s budget deficit, saving £40 million in 2010-11 and £150 million per annum from 2011-12 onwards.
Having decided that we need to abolish the grant, the Government believe it should be done quickly to maximise the Exchequer savings. By delaying the abolition until 2014, as amendments 44 and 45 seek to do, we would reduce those savings, and amendment 3 would keep the grant in place, so additional money would have to be found through other spending cuts, borrowing or tax rises this year. As my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) said, there are other priorities. The coalition Government are clearly committed to increasing spending on health in real terms over the lifetime of this Parliament. Are Labour Members saying that that commitment should be relaxed to enable us to keep the health in pregnancy grant?
Much was said by Opposition Members on Second Reading and in Committee about the importance of a healthy diet during pregnancy, the importance of vitamin supplementation, and, especially, the effect of these on women on low incomes. There is no doubt that maintaining a healthy diet throughout pregnancy is important. However, the evidence suggests that that should start at the earliest possible stage. Belinda Phipps of the National Childbirth Trust said in the evidence session on the Bill:
“If you are setting out primarily to improve the nutrition of the mother to improve the health of the baby,”
the payment of the health in pregnancy grant
“needs to be earlier. If you…really want to change the future of the baby, it needs to be as early as possible. It is not possible easily to do it pre-conception, but the earlier in pregnancy you can do it, the better.”––[Official Report, Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Public Bill Committee, 4 November 2010; c. 79, Q205.]
Amendments 43 and 44 would stop the abolition of the grant and require the Treasury to conduct a review to consider whether the grant should be retained in its current form, means-tested or replaced by a system of vouchers. As I said on Second Reading and again in Committee, the Government are committed to supporting the health of pregnant women in low-income households through the Healthy Start scheme, which provides support from the 10th week of pregnancy, when diet is particularly important in a baby’s development. The Healthy Start scheme provides vouchers worth £3.10 a week for fruit, vegetables and milk, as well as coupons to exchange for Healthy Start vitamin supplements containing the recommended daily amounts of vitamins C and D and folic acid for pregnant women and new mothers. The Department of Health is also co-ordinating a consultation exercise that seeks views on the extension of the scheme to allow vouchers to be used to buy plain frozen fruit and vegetables. This would increase the flexibility and choice for women supported by Healthy Start while encouraging them to include more fruit and vegetables in their daily diet at the time in their pregnancy when that is particularly important.
The amendments would delay the abolition of the grant or keep the grant in place. That would mean that additional money had to be found through other spending cuts, borrowing or tax rises this year. The Government have to face some difficult choices as to where to cut public expenditure, and we cannot afford to continue spending £150 million a year on the cash payment of a health in pregnancy grant regardless of what it is spent on and whatever the income or financial position of the recipient. As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) explained, it is not well focused, well targeted or well timed. That is why I believe that it is right to scrap this grant, recognising that measures are in place to help to support maternal nutrition among families on low incomes. We also have the Sure Start maternity grant, which is a lump sum to help those on the lowest incomes.
Sarah Newton
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in the last moments of the debate. It was an enormous privilege to serve on the Public Bill Committee and to listen to my colleagues on the Opposition and Government Benches, as well as to the many organisations that gave evidence.
Listening for all that time brought home to me why I am so pleased to be sitting on the Government Benches and not on the other side. I believe absolutely that Government Members will form the most reforming Government that I have seen in my lifetime—a Government who are prepared to make the tough decisions that will provide the solutions to the problems, as the Bill seeks to do.
There is no doubt in my mind about the good intentions of the Opposition when they introduced these three measures some years ago. There is also no doubt in my mind from reading Hansard from that time and from re-examining the evidence that we have been given over the course of the past few weeks that there is no evidence base to show that the measures will tackle the vital issues of alleviating poverty and helping the most disadvantaged people in our society.
Dr Poulter
On that note, does my hon. Friend agree that it is a great pity that it has taken the advent of the deficit for us to examine properly some of the previous Government’s policies? We all want to look after the most vulnerable, but the only way to do that is to target our resources properly. At the moment, in difficult economic times, there are fewer resources than there once were, and the only way to do it is to base that targeting on the evidence and to ensure that the resources go to the most vulnerable. That is what the Government are about. We are getting rid of universal policies that do not work.
Sarah Newton
I am delighted to agree with my hon. Friend. It is essential that we use the evidence base, and I find it frustrating that the evidence was available when the legislation was introduced a couple of years ago. Let us consider the debate on maternal health—I know that my hon. Friend has great expertise in this area. It was very difficult for my colleagues who were in the House at the time to get evidence on maternal health from the then Government, but it was demonstrated that the data set that could reasonably be used to measure the impacts of any additional nutrition on maternal health did not exist. When hon. Members are pouring out their crocodile tears, as we have seen for weeks, saying how poor the affected people will be and how we must take more time and evaluate these measures, they know full well that the data set does not exist to measure the impacts.
We should listen to my hon. Friends, and to midwives and clinicians up and down the country as they give their practical experience of working with women of child-bearing age to improve maternal health. We have heard about policies and projects that deliver. For example, we know that not enough women understand how to cook nutritious meals on a low income. Much more needs to be done about cooking in schools and in the community so that people on low incomes can cook nutritious food, and plenty of evidence supports the idea that that is an effective thing to do.
As my hon. Friend said earlier, we know that the single most important thing that we can give to a mum in her early stages of pregnancy is folic acid. All the support that the Government are putting in place through their reforms to the NHS will target help at women of child-bearing age and at those who are the most vulnerable in our society and who need such effective services from the NHS.
This Government are all about giving people a hand up, not a handout. Week after week we sit here and Opposition Members’ answer to every problem is to throw some money at it. We in the Government will ensure that hard-earned taxpayers’ money is spent where the evidence shows it will be most effective.
Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill
Dan Poulter Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Hanson
My hon. Friend is exactly right, and from her background outside the House as well as inside it, she will know how important that contribution is, but let me move on to the Saving Gateway Accounts Bill, which was introduced in 2009 by the Labour Government, again to encourage people on low incomes to save for their future.
Cash savings accounts were created for those on lower incomes, providing a financial incentive to save, with the Government matching, pound for pound, the money that people saved in the scheme. The scheme was proposed in 2001: 22,000 people have so far taken part in the pilots, and £15 million has been invested in savings through those pilots. The accounts have run for two years, and they have been a positive way for people to start to save, with help and support for those in our poorest communities.
The first pilot ran between 2002 and 2004, and 1,500 saving gateway accounts have been opened in Cambridge, Cumbria, east London, Manchester and Hull, in the part of the world of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). Additional pilots have been run recently in South Yorkshire. Those schemes have shown that we can generate new savers, new saving and, indeed, help people on poorer incomes to put aside money to meet some of the challenges that they face in their daily lives.
Hon. Members need not listen to me about the importance of those schemes; let me give them an authoritative voice on the Saving Gateway Accounts Bill:
“The Bill serves a valuable purpose in encouraging people, particularly those on low incomes, to save. People on higher incomes have an opportunity to smooth out fluctuations in income and expenses to which those on low incomes do not have access. If the Bill is successful in encouraging people to save, it will enable them to create a modest buffer against variations in income, such as the unexpected expense of being laid-off for a short period. It will give people a degree of financial security they have not had hitherto.”—[Official Report, 25 February 2009; Vol. 488, c. 323.]
Those are not my words, nor those of my right hon. and hon. Friends; they are the words of the Minister, who is now introducing proposals to end such schemes, although he supported the 2009 Bill—doing one thing in opposition and, yet again, another thing in government. At a time when potentially 500,000 people are being laid off because of the public sector cuts as part of the comprehensive spending review, the Government will take that support away from those who need it most.
In the absence of the saving gateway scheme, how does the Minister propose to promote the culture of saving among people on lower incomes? As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said, how do we ensure that saving is not the preserve of the rich and that it is done throughout society, so that people can help themselves and ensure that they save for the future in partnership with the state?
If we turn to the last part of the Bill, we see the full force of the coalition’s new politics turning itself on those who are pregnant. Any hon. Member who is a parent knows that raising a child is a uniquely rewarding experience, but we all need to recognise that it can be financially challenging in the run-up to a birth and that it can be difficult for young mothers and young families. Not only was the health in pregnancy grant introduced in recognition of the health benefits of covering some of the additional costs involved during pregnancy, but it was paid universally to all mothers to ensure that they could buy help and support during the last weeks of their pregnancies. Such support covered healthy eating, vitamins, medicines, books on healthy pregnancy or the cost of maternity clothes or folic acid, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi). Folic acid can help to reduce the risk of spina bifida, but 400 mg costs £9.99 at Boots. The health in pregnancy grant can be used for those costs and put towards getting help and support for health, and it is linked specifically to ensure that advice is given to mothers in pregnancy as part of the deal.
Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House agree it is important to target resources at the most vulnerable, but in dealing with pregnancy specifically, can the right hon. Gentleman point to any evidence that such help has improved the outcomes of deliveries, or births, or the health of ladies during their pregnancies?
Mr Hanson
If the hon. Gentleman cared to listen not just to me but to a range of groups that support pregnant mothers—from maternity groups to the Fawcett Society and others—he would find that there is a real input. He has a medical background, but if he is telling me that the grant does not matter to individuals who pay extra for healthy eating and minerals, who take medicines to reduce the risk of spina bifida and who need to buy maternity clothes and so on, I would like him to stand up and tell his constituents why that is so.
Dr Poulter
The right hon. Gentleman is making points about a grant that is given later in pregnancy and talking about minerals that are given earlier in pregnancy, so he needs to understand the issue a little better, but can he give any evidence of how the grant has improved the outcomes for mothers during pregnancy? Can he produce such evidence from any birthing group, any obstetric group or any midwifery group?
Mr Hanson
The hon. Gentlemen need not listen to me but should listen to the groups that are arguing for the retention of the grant. It is important not just for health but for costs of pregnancy, such as maternity dresses or equipment for the home, or covering time taken off work through ill health. Women on poor incomes need help and support to cover those important things, and this universal grant can help individuals to meet those needs at a time of great stress in the 25th week of pregnancy.