Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alun Cairns and Ann Clwyd

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alun Cairns]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. The UK’s industrial strategy has invested £1.5 billion in automotive research and development, to ensure that we maximise the opportunities of the shift from petrol and diesel engines to electric vehicles. A great demonstration of the success of that is that 20% of electric vehicles sold in Europe are manufactured here in the UK.

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

8. What recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of redeveloping the former Phurnacite works in Abercwmboi; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Alun Cairns)]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Lady for the proactive approach she is taking to redeveloping this site, which has been an outstanding issue for decades. I was pleased that we were able to bring together the current owners of the site with her to come up with a positive plan for the future.

[Ann Clwyd]

I thank the Secretary of State for coming to the area and knocking heads together in a way that we have waited for for 30 years. The people of Abercwmboi have lived in dirt and dust on the site of what was the worst industrial polluter in the whole of Britain. I am grateful for the interest he has taken and the way he has managed to knock heads together.

[Alun Cairns]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Lady, who has highlighted this issue for some time. I am keen to work closely with her to bring the landowners together and see what plans can be made. The local authority is playing a key part. We need to establish a clear plan of action, and we are well on our way to delivering that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alun Cairns and Ann Clwyd

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alun Cairns]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, particularly when responsibilities are split between the Welsh Government and the UK Government. In seeking to address these sorts of issues, and cross-border infrastructure projects in particular, the strategic roads in Britain group has been established—of which the Welsh Government and the UK Government are part—to prioritise how we can best resolve these issues.

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

9.   The Chancellor said last week that there was not one extra penny for the environment in Wales. Who is going to clean up the 100 acres of polluted land in Abercwmboi unless the Government do it?

[Alun Cairns]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Lady for her work on seeking to clear up the phurnacite site. She has been working on this project for many years. I would perhaps enhance the comment she made about funding for Wales for environmental projects, because that is devolved and would be part of the Barnett block. I am keen to work with her to see how we can best influence the Welsh Government in this devolved area of policy so that we can bring benefit to her constituency.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alun Cairns and Ann Clwyd

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alun Cairns]

The hon. Lady is naturally a true champion not only of her own constituency but the whole of north Wales. She will welcome the significant investment in the prison in Wrexham and the £20 billion investment that Wylfa Newydd will bring. She has also shown interest in the modular nuclear projects at Trawsfynydd. I recently met the leader of Gwynedd Council to discuss the prospects that could result from my right hon. Friend the Chancellor’s announcement in the Budget making £250 million available for this scheme.

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

9. When he expects the report of the Macur review to be published.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alun Cairns and Ann Clwyd

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Alun Cairns)]

This Government will not shy away from the financial and social responsibility of reforming the way in which housing benefit is allocated. There are no plans to change Government policy following the report from the Auditor General for Wales. We plan to use this report to support local authorities to respond better to local needs.

[Ann Clwyd]

As the Minister will know, there has been a large number of Government reports on the Government’s welfare policies. A Sheffield Hallam university report, for example, shows that the south Wales valleys will experience a £430 million cut in income, endangering 3,000 local jobs as a direct result of Tory welfare reforms. Is not the Minister ashamed?

[Alun Cairns]

The report that the right hon. Lady mentions is an important contribution to the debate, but it focuses on only one element of Government policy. It does not take into account the wider package of welfare reform—something that the previous Administration, sadly, shied away from. This Administration will not do so, because of the important need to tackle Government finances.

Welfare Reform (Welsh Valleys)

Debate between Alun Cairns and Ann Clwyd

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Alun Cairns]

I will happily look at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s report, but I again emphasise that universal credit will leave people with an average of £163 more a month and 75% of them will be in the bottom 40% of income distribution. My point is that the very poorest in society and the community will not only be incentivised by universal credit to get back into work, but receive an uplift in their monthly income as a result, as they stand. People will always be better off in work than in one example I have highlighted in which people were happy to work 16 hours a week because they retained their benefit, but working the 17th hour was simply not worth their while. That was not what they wanted, nor was it what employers wanted because of the inflexibility that that built into the labour market.

[Ann Clwyd]

What about the workers at Remploy? We heard all the arguments for shutting Remploy and getting rid of many disabled workers. I understand that very few of them have found alternative work. What about them?

[Alun Cairns]

With credit to the right hon. Lady, who has been a strong champion of constituents with disabled rights for many years and has gained respect throughout the House, I underline the comments made at the time by Disability Wales that Remploy and the segregation of disabled employees was something for the last century rather than this century. It wants the mainstreaming of disabled people. Disability Wales clearly recognises and champions that.

Francis Report

Debate between Alun Cairns and Ann Clwyd

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) on his eloquent presentation. The Francis report carries lessons for everyone involved in health care—whether it be hospitals and their boards, regulators, professionals or Governments. However, those lessons need to be learned all over Britain. It is a matter not just for England, but for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

The letters keep coming. When I gave evidence to the Health Committee the other week, I was asked what had changed. I said that I did not know and could not honestly answer the question. Perhaps I will know when the letters stop coming. Every time I open my mouth, I am punished by yet more letters. I have had hundreds of letters from Wales; and hundreds too from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. When I was carrying out my review, I received 3,000-plus letters and e-mails, and they still keep coming.

My concern today is for my constituents in the Cynon Valley and those elsewhere in Wales where health is a devolved function. I will not be popular for saying this, but when this House is asked to give yet more powers to Wales, I will ask many questions, because the main things for which the Welsh Assembly is responsible are health and education. I was a keen pro-devolutionist in two campaigns, but in future I will think very carefully before giving any more powers to the devolved Administrations.

Many people were to blame for what happened at Mid Staffs, just as there were many people to blame for the worrying situation that was revealed at several other English hospitals in subsequent investigations by Professor Sir Bruce Keogh. There is nothing to be gained by politicising such catastrophic situations and everything to be gained from being honest about the problem and seeking appropriate solutions. After all, we are talking here about sick and vulnerable people who are often afraid and in pain. Political bun fights here or in the Welsh Assembly are of little interest to them; they just want something to change for the better.

What was so shocking in Mid Staffs of course was that no one spoke out and the warning signs of a trust in meltdown were ignored. Robert Francis has listed some of those warning signs and they read directly across to many of my concerns about the NHS in Wales.

The first warning sign is an accumulation of patient stories that detail adverse incidents, bad practice or neglect. As I have said, I have had literally thousands of those, and they continue to arrive in my office every day from all over Wales and from England.

The second warning sign, said Francis, is the level of mortality statistics. In fact, they appear to be dangerously high in many hospitals in Wales. Confusion remains on how accurate the data are. The system by which they are collected is questionable, to say the least, and there is a backlog in the coding of cases for inclusion in the risk-adjusted mortality index—RAMI—so we are now seeing retrospective alterations in the figures in at least one hospital, thus making it difficult to compare hospitals in Wales, or to compare England and Wales.

[Alun Cairns]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Lady for her work in championing patients and in drawing attention to some very unpleasant outcomes in many hospitals across the whole United Kingdom. In relation to the higher mortality rates that she refers to, does she share my concern about the political rebuttal to an e-mail from one clinician in England to another clinician in Wales simply asking for further investigations?

[Ann Clwyd]

I am grateful to Professor Sir Bruce Keogh for offering to assist. Given his vast experience, the people whom he offered to assist would be sensible to take the offer very seriously indeed.

The Transparency and Mortality Taskforce, which was set up by the Welsh Assembly a year ago, has today announced recommendations on a measure of mortality for Wales. Although I welcome its finally releasing the recommendations, I will await details on their implementation, which is unlikely to start until the autumn of this year. On mortality statistics, the taskforce provides an interesting academic discussion of the pros and cons of using mortality statistics as a measure of service quality and a means to compare hospitals and countries. Of course, none of that is new, but neither approach is impossible.

After almost a year, it is disappointing that a taskforce of 31 members has failed to arrive at the benchmarks on mortality that are urgently needed, so that fair international comparisons can be made between Wales, England and other countries. That was the taskforce’s job. The promise of a further statement in September 2014 appears to put the resolution of this matter even further away; one can only speculate on the reasons for that. Some good intentions may be expressed, but that is not enough, given the high level of public concern.

We continue to have only the published RAMI figures to go on. Six Welsh hospitals have RAMI figures of between 105 and 115, with 100 showing cause for concern, as we all know by now. A figure of more than 100 was described as a smoke signal. If the figure is way over 100, there is a big fire. It is not surprising that people are worried about what is actually going on. This is horribly similar to the murkiness that surrounded the mortality statistics for Mid Staffs.

We now know for certain, however, the position as reported by the Royal College of Surgeons after visiting the University hospital of Wales at Cardiff in April 2013 to investigate poor standards of care. It describes certain parts of the hospital as dangerous. It was worried about people dying on hospital waiting lists while waiting for heart surgery. Even those who got their surgery had deteriorated on the waiting lists. When they got their surgery, they were much more ill than they would have been.

Last week, the Royal College of Surgeons wrote to Healthcare Inspectorate Wales to ask what action has been taken about concerns raised last July in a report about patients dying while waiting for heart surgery. Following its initial report, the Royal College of Surgeons wrote to Healthcare Inspectorate Wales in August to claim that 152 patients had died in the past five years while waiting for heart surgery at the University hospital of Wales and Swansea’s Morriston hospital. I put on record my alarm about the lengthy delay in the promised revisit of the Royal College of Surgeons to those hospitals. It was promised in September, but it still has not taken place.

Other warnings to be heeded, said Francis, should come from complaints made by patients. Well, what do we know about this in Wales? Complaints trebled last year, according to the Welsh ombudsman, but the system for dealing with complaints, let alone learning from them, is highly unsatisfactory, so much so that an inquiry is under way after several high-profile cases. Obviously, we look forward to seeing the outcome of that, mindful that the retiring Welsh ombudsman said in November last year that accountability in NHS Wales has “broken down” and that there is a “lack of challenge” in the system. He asked:

“Where is the voice of the patient in the NHS in Wales?”

The fourth warning sign that Francis mentioned was signals from staff and whistleblowers. Many of them have reached me, too. Some people have told me that they are no longer able to do their jobs properly. I have had several phone calls from consultants who will not even give their names and who say that, if they gave their names, they would be sacked from their jobs.

More people are speaking out openly, and this week a letter appeared in the Western Mail from a consultant paediatrician, who said:

“The intervention of Sir Bruce Keogh, Medical Director of NHS England, expressing concern regarding high mortality rates in several Welsh Hospitals may not be welcome… It deserves to be taken seriously.

Mortality rates are ‘risk adjusted’, which means that the mortality rate is ‘adjusted’ for hospitals that deal with a disproportionate number of seriously ill patients, some of whom, sadly, but inevitably may not survive their treatment. It’s therefore appropriate to review clinical practice in all hospitals whose mortality rates are above 100. The recent publicity relating to high death rates at the University of Wales following liver surgery, where an independent Royal College of Surgeons’ report identified 10 deaths that were deemed ‘avoidable’ highlights the sluggish response of the hospital’s own management to information that should have been spotted far earlier.

A ‘Wales-wide’ investigation...or indeed a ‘health board-wide’ investigation would be too general, and would probably fail to identify clinical practice where there is a need for improvement.

Any review needs to be ‘department-wide’. All health boards have sufficient information available to them that allows identification of individual departments, possibly individual practitioners, where clinical outcome falls below the norm”—

the outliers.