Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Selous and Jane Ellison

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

I am sure that, like me, the hon. Lady welcomes the news this morning that food price inflation is at an annual rate of 0%, so food prices are at the same level as last year. On the issue that she raises, that is exactly why programmes such as Change4Life are important. It is also important that we see other measures across government. The school food plan is important for its emphasis on nutrition, as are free school meals and the Healthy Start programme. The Government are doing lots of things to try to make it easier for less well-off families to eat healthily.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Will the Minister applaud the work of Colin Kaye in my constituency, who, on his own farm, is producing cheap, good quality food to help reduce the cost of food so that people can eat more healthily and have lower food bills?

[Jane Ellison]

That sounds like a fantastic local initiative, and I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting it. Taken together with our advice and support for families on how to use healthy food to make healthy meals, initiatives such as that are to be applauded.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Selous and Jane Ellison

Tuesday 26th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

We are aware of those additional costs, and I know that my hon. Friend recently met my right hon. and noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health. We are very conscious of those costs and of the difficult decisions. It is the subject of ongoing negotiation between the Welsh Government and NHS England.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

12. What lessons he has learnt from the findings of the report of Professor Timothy Briggs on improving the orthopaedic surgery published in September 2012, entitled “Getting it right first time”.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)]

In 2012 Ministers welcomed the publication of the report and acknowledged that its recommendations could help build on improvements in orthopaedic care. I believe that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State met Professor Briggs.

NHS England is now responsible for securing high-quality outcomes. Peter Kay, the national clinical director for musculoskeletal services, is also supportive of the report’s findings.

[Andrew Selous]

Growing numbers of orthopaedic consultants accept that collaboration across networks of hospitals could improve the quality of orthopaedic care, which frankly has not always been good enough in the past. Will my hon. Friend accept the recommendations of the “Getting it right first time” report?

[Jane Ellison]

We know that NHS England has welcomed Professor Briggs’ recommendations. They are contributing to a substantial body of work on orthopaedics, with the sole objective of improving outcomes for patients. I am sure that my hon. Friend will welcome the fact that this year for the first time data about surgical outcomes have been published at both hospital and consultant level, with the objective of driving up quality and supporting patient choice.

Public Disorder

Debate between Andrew Selous and Jane Ellison

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

The rioting that affected Clapham Junction, which is in the heart of Battersea—to make a boring geographical point, it is not in Clapham, but in Battersea, as Clapham is several miles away, a point that causes great confusion—affected many businesses, leaving some of them very damaged, and left the community badly shaken. I live very close to Clapham Junction and once the police made it clear that serious trouble was expected, from about 8 o’clock, I spent an hour or so visiting businesses that were still open, particularly takeaways and restaurants, to advise them of what was going on and to urge them to take precautions. Many of them felt that they had not been given sufficient warning by the authorities and felt rather let down, and that has resulted in a loss of confidence in the authorities.

I am also glad that, although we all acknowledge the bravery of the police and what they did, the Prime Minister said in his statement that senior police offices have acknowledged that some of the tactics need to be reviewed. In truth, parts of my constituency were a free-for-all for hours, with scenes broadcast on rolling news of people helping themselves that made it far harder to restore order. The numbers piling in were increasing as that carried on. Many people were appalled to see open criminality being tolerated on the streets.

I do not know what shocked me more: passing the giggling groups of teenagers phoning their friends to check on their trainer size, the van that parked opposite my house with eight or nine balaclavaed youths piling out of it who went up to Clapham Junction, gathered up armfuls of stuff, got back in the van and drove off—obviously I have given the registration number to the police—or the fact that the first person convicted lives in Battersea and is a 31-year-old school worker in a south London primary school. We have to be very careful about reaching for easy solutions about social exclusion when we look at some of the people who have been convicted.

[Andrew Selous]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if that school worker is convicted—I say this in the presence of the Secretary of State for Education—it would perhaps be a good move for the school to consider dismissing them from its employment as a poor role model to the children?

[Jane Ellison]

In truth, I cannot see how someone convicted of that offence could possibly be a role model. I am sure that the authorities will take the right action.

I want to say a word about the mix of police skills, and about numbers. A lot of points have been made—some of them a bit party political—about numbers, but in my conversations with my area commander, the emphasis has been on having the right skills mix available to the police. The skills that a safer neighbourhoods team constable has are quite different from those of a trained public order officer, and the two cannot easily be substituted for each other, so it is not purely a police numbers issue; it is about those on the ground having the right skills mix to deploy, and being able to react to a very fast-moving new challenge.

On the effect on retailers, I think people have been shocked to realise that loss of livelihood does not feature as high in the priorities as many feel it should when it comes to public order. It is a very serious thing for people to lose their business or their job, particularly in retail; the ultimate irony is that retail is an area of the economy that provides entry-level jobs to young people straight from school. It is the most stupid area of all to attack, and to deprive people of jobs in. If JD Sports pulls out of some of the areas that have been badly affected, the people affected would have a very similar demographic profile to those who attacked it. That is absolutely crazy and self-defeating, so I very much welcome the measures that the Prime Minister announced on business rates holidays and so on.

I should like to make a plea, and I am sure that hon. Members will take this up with their councils. As we know, many small businesses do not apply for the relief that they are due. I have said to my council, which has been very responsive to the idea, that it should provide a form-filling service to very small businesses, to make sure that they hit their deadlines and that nothing is rejected because the forms are not in order. Wandsworth has been very responsive to that idea, and I very much hope that other councils will do the same. We do not want to hear of people missing out because they missed the deadline.

There will be a lot of focus in the coming months on the causes of the problems. Essentially, there will be a focus on the gulf between the values of the young people who marched towards Clapham Junction on Monday night, armed with a brick, and the many more young people who descended on Clapham Junction the next morning, armed only with a broom, to help with the clear-up.