Cancer Task Force

Lord Flight Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, during the Covid pandemic, radiotherapy services have continued. We are working to ensure that the need to travel to hospital is kept to a minimum, using drugs where they present an alternative to radiotherapy. The recovery of our radiotherapy services is massive and we are using the latest technology to ensure that this is delivered as impactfully as possible.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, is the cancer task force, now in the fifth year of its five-year programme, to become a permanent organisation? What is the basis for allocating funding and research?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the Cancer Recovery Taskforce I refer to is the group of people focused specifically on the recovery from the Covid pandemic. The overall cancer recovery programme will be published later in the autumn, and it will have budgets associated with it.

Social Care Workers

Lord Flight Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the increase in the number of social care workers but there is more to be done not just in social care but across the wider NHS. Can my noble friend update the House on progress on wider NHS recruitment and, in particular, the manifesto commitment of 50,000 more nurses for the NHS? I hope, too, that there will be a reduction in the proportion of expensive agency-employed staff.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the recruitment of nurses is extremely encouraging. We have had an enormous response, with more than 10,000 nurses already recruited and recruitment rates to universities for nursing qualifications also up. We have an enormous marketing campaign supported by broadcast and social media. However, more needs to be done and we are very focused on this area. The use of agencies provides some surge capacity for hospitals—it has a role—but I completely acknowledge my noble friend’s point that agency support needs to be used in a considered, thoughtful and commercially intelligent way.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions on Gatherings) (North of England) Regulations 2020

Lord Flight Excerpts

Friday 25th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I support the common sense of lockdown measures being managed on a local and regional basis. As we are all aware, new rules on social gatherings are required in certain areas of the north; that is what we are engaged in today. Regulation 5 of 2020/828

“prohibits gatherings of two or more people from different households (apart from linked households) in private dwellings in the protected area and prohibits people living in the protected area from participating in a gathering in a private dwelling outside the protected area, unless those meeting are from linked households.”

Regulation 7(4) prohibits indoor gatherings of more than 30 people but permits more than 30 people in a public outdoor space under defined specific conditions. I have just read all this. Can things not be drafted in a more straightforward and understandable way? No wonder there has been confusion. I call upon the Government to explain why there is this unnecessary complexity to the organisation of regulations.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings in a Relevant Place) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Flight Excerpts

Friday 18th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, taking the Motions we are discussing now and the previous ones, there are 50 speakers in total. It speaks for itself that 50 people care about this particular area of legislation. I see it rather as Sweden versus lockdown, in that there are very much two camps of thought on this territory. Bit I start by congratulating my noble friend Lord Bethell on the thoroughness of his explanation today.

Sweden gets to be known as the herd immunity group. People are obliged to wear masks but there is no facility for fining them. The UK laid down statutory instruments requiring people to wear them, with fines if they do not. The face coverings are with the aim of reducing the spread of Covid-19 and the regulations include a list of places where people must wear face coverings. The regulations add places to be covered when they are reviewed every year. The approach is designed to shelter people from contact but does not grow immunity, whereas the Sweden approach is in essence to permit immunity to grow and so far looks as if it has been successful. Not many masks are yet compulsory. There is the key issue of older people who may have health failings such as asthma and diabetes and need full medical treatment. It will be interesting to see how Sweden deals with that aspect of things.

I conclude by saying that, properly managed, health masks work. I have a son who is training to be a doctor in New York. He and other young men and women are regularly in hospitals that are badly affected by the current problems. Remarkably, there is almost a nil incidence of paramedics working in his hospital being struck down by Covid-19. That says that masks work. They will work in the short term, but my worry is the long term and the potential repeat of the illness. That is where the Swedish approach needs more attention and application.

Major Trauma Centre: Westminster

Lord Flight Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

As ever, the noble Baroness makes a very sensible suggestion about wider CPR training. I will take up that point.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, with the closure of the fire stations in Victoria and across the river in Lambeth, is the Minister comfortable that the firefighting support for Westminster is adequate?

Queen’s Speech

Lord Flight Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register. This is, to my mind, an excellent document and the Government are to be congratulated on getting it out so promptly. I strongly agree with the points on education and productivity made by the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bull. The one problem I see with the document is that I cannot see that it can all be legislated within a single Parliament—I reckon about 50 pieces of legislation will be required—so it is appropriate to consider which are the most important proposals.

A key objective must be to improve our infrastructure, boost productivity and level up opportunities across the country. Here, the political message is overwhelming. The Conservatives have succeeded in attracting major political support in the Midlands and the north of England. This needs to be rewarded, cemented and sustained by boosting the economies in these areas and by increased public spending. Fortunately, some element of economic catch-up is starting to happen. I note that SMEs have been doing better in the north than in the south in recent months. The national infrastructure strategy will be important to help carry all this forward. I am also a supporter of the proposed national security and investment Bill to strengthen the Government’s powers to investigate and intervene in business transactions—for example, takeovers and mergers. Reform of business rates to protect high streets is also well overdue.

The national infrastructure strategy, to be published alongside the first Budget, will be fundamental to sustaining improved economic growth. It will set out the Government’s long-term ambitions across all areas of economic infrastructure, including transport, digital infrastructure and infrastructure finance and delivery. It has two key aims: to unleash Britain’s economic potential by levelling up and connecting every part of the country; and to address the critical challenges posed by climate change. It is crucial to exploit the coming revolution in digital technology. Broadband legislation will also be needed to support the rollout of gigabit-capable broadband across the UK, to achieve national coverage as soon as possible and to make it easier for telecoms to install broadband infrastructure in blocks of flats. All new homes will be required to be built with reliable and fast internet.

Minimum service railway legislation is proposed to reduce the disruption caused to the public by rail strikes and, following the excellent report of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, it looks to me as though HS2 is dead—and it should be dead. A Midlands hub to improve services around Birmingham and the Midlands, northern powerhouse rail and a programme of significant upgrading of urban commuter and regional services outside London look to me much better value than HS2.

Both politically and economically, I perceive parallels between the Disraeli Administration and the Boris Government. Disraeli was successful in securing the votes and political support of the newly industrialised Midlands and north; his Government also introduced major political and economic reforms, governing in the national interest. Neither Disraeli nor Boris is a focused economist, but both appreciate the importance of selecting good people to lead reforms.

I am concerned that Boris may have overcommitted on increased NHS, police and education spending, but let us hope that the figures are manageable. The problem with free goods is that demand is limitless and the main problem with the NHS is its management. Nor do I believe that the public would support major increases in taxation.

There are also no apparent proposals to reduce the level of stamp duty hitting the property market in London and the south-east and, in fact, reducing potential stamp duty revenues. I also believe that it would be counterproductive to seek to outlaw pre-packs, as they provide a speedy way of sorting out businesses that have got into trouble.

The key missing commitment is to reduce and rationalise the excessive levels of regulation, particularly in the financial services market, which are now costing a fortune and having a significant drag on productivity. In many respects, they achieve little or nothing. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, made essentially the same point; it is our biggest industry, and the productivity figures from the last 10 years, as the regulatory industry has taken grasp, tell the story. It needs addressing.

Carers over 80: Support

Lord Flight Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I cannot give a specific figure for those over 80 but I think that, in so far as you can monetise something like this, the total amount for all unpaid carers is estimated to be around £1.3 billion a year.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Manzoor (LD)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Flight]

Thank you. My Lords, does the Minister recognise that there are large numbers of older people who simply look after each other? This is at the heart of the institution of marriage and they may not be registered as a carer because they are of similar age and shape. This whole issue is about not just the carer situation but older people who happily look after each other in old age.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

Yes, we are talking about not just people who are registered carers but in particular where older people are looking after each other reciprocally, whether that is within marriage or a long-term partnership. Again, you cannot monetise something like that. It is part of a loving relationship. One of the tragedies in this is that it can sometimes change that caring relationship of husband and wife to one of a carer and a cared-for person, which can have a quite difficult psychological impact on individuals.

NHS: Private Companies

Lord Flight Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the answer to that question will need to wait until Monitor has reported to the Secretary of State, which it has not yet done. I know that it is considering a number of aspects of the fair playing field generally, and that may well be one of them. When I am in a position to answer that question, I will be happy to do so.

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, what will the Government’s policy be towards the term of contracts? One of the big problems with PFI has been that the contracts were too long, but it is quite difficult to combine getting both commitment to service and investment and prices updated.

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Various contracts have been criticised for being too long: PFI is perhaps a good example. Other types of contract have been criticised for being too short because they do not enable providers to invest on a sufficient timescale in order to be able confidently to bid for work. I have little doubt, once again, that this is an area that Monitor will look at and make recommendations upon.

Department of Health: Budget

Lord Flight Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, will the Minister say how much NHS spending has risen in the past 20 years in cash and real terms? I believe that in cash terms it is of the order of about £11 billion to well over £100 billion.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I would be happy to write to my noble friend. I do not have the figures for the past 20 years in front of me but I can tell him that, unlike the party opposite which promised to cut NHS expenditure had it been re-elected last time, we are protecting the NHS budget. It is now well over £100 billion. As I said earlier, it will be increased by £12.5 billion over the course of this Parliament.