Higher Education Reform
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Chris Bryant(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Sheerman
Obviously not very well.
I am also a visiting professor and have a long-term interest in this area, and I have worked with the Secretary of State before. I am worried about some of the unintended consequences of this. I am worried about the long-term impact on many, many people’s lives of higher tax burdens. I am not thinking of the high-fliers, such as those who go into high finance and merchant banking; I am thinking of the core of our skills, the people who became teachers, doctors, nurses and social workers. May I ask him to make this inclusive and, as far as possible, to secure all-party agreement on some of the aspects? As for lifelong skills, many people have tried it but no one has really cracked it. Please value FE as well as HE.
Acquired Brain Injury
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Chris Bryant(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend has done a lot in this field herself. She has met with that group, which has been to see us here in Parliament, and I hope that they will be taking part in our lobbying event in a couple of weeks. Next week is Brain Injury Awareness Week, which is why this is such a timely debate. Tomorrow, I am going with the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) to visit the National Star College outside Cheltenham, which does an awful lot of work.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning the damage that long-term exposure to carbon monoxide can have on the brain. He knows that I was one of those who organised the seatbelt legislation 25 years ago. One of the really worrying things that the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety found last week is that we are getting relaxed and that people are beginning not to wear seatbelts and not to put their children in vehicle restraints. If that continues, people are in terrible danger of serious brain injury or death.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One reason why carbon monoxide exposure matters so much to me is because it involves an element of social justice. Children from poorer backgrounds are four times as likely to have a significant brain injury before the age of five as those from wealthier backgrounds. We do not fully understand why as yet, and we need to do more work on that. However, it is also true that elderly people, who maybe cannot afford to have their boiler checked as often as others or may have landlords who do not check their boilers as often as necessary, may be suffering low levels of carbon monoxide poisoning over such a long period that they are not even aware that they are being poisoned. The memory loss, the fatigue and the problems they are having may be associated with their boiler rather than with anything else. We need to look further at legislation in that area.
The thing about brain injury is that it is often internal and completely unseen. It can add a whole new layer of stigma because people can often misjudge a sufferer standing in a queue in front of them or coming to work with them as being drunk. However, the reason why the person is slurring is because they have had a brain injury. That is why I and others—I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Blaydon (Liz Twist) and for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) and the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings—wanted to set up an all-party parliamentary group on acquired brain injury to look at the issue, which is a hidden epidemic. Every 90 seconds, someone in this country is admitted to hospital with an acquired brain injury.
The APPG produced a report because we wanted to see more evidence. The Select Committee on Health produced a report in 2001, and some of its recommendations were implemented, but many were not. We wanted to go further, so we produced the “Time for Change” report, which calls for real investment in neuro-rehabilitation. We have major trauma centres that have saved so many lives—I pay tribute to the Government for the brave decision to take them forward—but it is depressing that a quarter of trauma centres still have no neuro-rehabilitation consultant. That means that people sometimes fall between two stools when they leave the acute setting and go back to their home and to their community.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Chris Bryant(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Business of the House
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Chris Bryant(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. You took me by surprise. In the old and less enlightened days when I was at primary school, we could have a good old pinch and a punch for the first day of the month—
Mr Sheerman
No, it was not in Queen Victoria’s time.
May we have an early debate so that many of us can give a good pinch and a punch to the private sector partnerships that benight so many hospitals in our land? So many of us want a new deal for our hospitals and health sector, but we are being dragged down by private finance initiatives that were badly negotiated many years ago. Let’s have a debate on this, please!
Business of the House
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Chris Bryant(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Leader of the House might not be aware that, before I entered the Parliament, I had a proper job outside this place—
Mr Sheerman
No, in the 18th century, with you! One of my employers was ICI—Imperial Chemical Industries—which has now become Syngenta. Is the Leader of the House aware that Syngenta is one of the three largest chemical companies in the world, and that it now looks as though it could be taken over by ChemChina, a Chinese Government-based organisation? This will put thousands of UK jobs in danger and could eradicate them from the market. May we have an urgent debate to discuss this? Just like steel, the chemical industry is a big employer at the heart of our economy.
Future of the BBC
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Chris Bryant(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Chris Bryant
There is a balancing act. I agree with the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan that the BBC should not pursue every sports rights battle. In the end, that cannot be in anybody’s interest. I worry, however, that when one broadcaster in the land is much bigger than the BBC in terms of financial value and has deeper pockets, namely Sky—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) seems to be disagreeing. The BBC has £3.7 billion a year, with which it produces TV, radio and online content. Sky has nearly double that—£7.2 billion—yet produces far less. In those circumstances, there is a danger if the BBC merely ends up in a competition for further sports rights.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I know my hon. Friend will not go on about sport, which is not my strength, for too long. What he has not mentioned—he is making such a good speech that I am sure he will come to it—is how the BBC invests in talent right across the piece, from technology and technicians to new artists and comedians. Companies such as Sky do not invest in new talent in the same way.
Chris Bryant
It is an utter delight to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. In whatever small way I contributed to your election, or at least did not prevent you from being elected by supporting you, I am delighted that you are there.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In many cases, the only training programmes in the industry are run by the BBC. For example, its contribution to the high arts, by funding orchestras and choirs, is one of the things that manages to keep many of our concert halls and classical concerts going. Broadcasting is one of the things we can rightly say, without any sense of British arrogance that often applies to many other things, we do better than any other country in the world. I am conscious that that is not just about the BBC. I once worked for the BBC in Brussels. I got into a taxi and the driver asked me who I worked for. I told him I worked for the BBC and he said, “I love the BBC. I love ‘Midsomer Murders’, ‘Inspector Morse’ and ‘Brideshead Revisited’.” I did not point out to him that they had been made by ITV. We get a double benefit from the BBC, because it creates a competition for quality. It is not anti-competitive—quite the reverse. It is profoundly competitive, because it creates a competition for quality.
Contrary to the grand sweeping statements by hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan about how the BBC never investigates itself, I have heard every director-general, and most directors of programmes, quizzed on BBC radio and television programmes with an aggression equal to that shown to any politician. I do not recall, not even throughout the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World, Rupert Murdoch ever being interviewed by Sky. That is not to say that I do not think Sky is a good broadcaster; I think it is a great news broadcaster—it adopts a different attitude and that is great. I would just point out that, if anything, the BBC racks itself with guilt almost too much on occasion. It did not do a good job with regard to Savile or Lord McAlpine. It did not cover itself with glory in its approach to the National Audit Office, as the hon. Member for Maldon said, and to which I have referred to many times before.