Evidence-based Early Years Intervention

Debate between Darren Jones and David Drew

Thursday 21st March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Darren Jones]

I agree with my hon. Friend; that was why the conference we held in Bristol was so popular—so popular, in fact, with over 400 delegates wanting to come, that they had to run the conference twice, because they could not fit everyone into the setting to do it together. More than 50 partner organisations across education, policing, probation, the voluntary sector, health, social care, public health and the Mayor’s office have signed up to our vision in Bristol.

This is also a question of political leadership, because Bristol knows that multiple ACEs lead to other factors that make for a negative environment in the communities in which we live. We know they will have an impact on problems such as knife crime and gang activity, and that they cause problems with mental health for people and therefore a lack of positive environment in the community, but also problems for economic productivity. That is why, in our “One City Plan” in Bristol, we have a clear and specific target of ensuring that children,

“grow up free of adverse childhood experiences having had the best start in life and support through their life.”

That particular strategic target for the council is linked to other targets, such as reducing knife crime and gang activity, dealing with period poverty and ensuring affordable childcare.

However, the access point is really important—returning to the comments by my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield). We cannot just rely on police or a school; we need a way to ensure that intervention, support or just someone being there when you need them are available. I reiterate the comments that the Chair of the Select Committee made about the lack of delivery on the health visitor programme where, as has been said, many people have no intervention or access point for much of their early years.

That is why, in Bristol, we have been able to protect all our children’s centres. The financing has clearly been cut because of austerity funding from central Government, and the services that can be made available have gone down to the bare minimum, but we have kept them all open for that reason. I pay tribute, as I have on previous occasions, to my friends the Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, and the cabinet member for children and young people’s services, Councillor Helen Godwin, for ensuring that sustainability in Bristol.

In a previous debate in this place on the funding of maintained nursery schools, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) made a powerful point about a constituent of hers who said that she was in a domestic violence situation and the only way that she could get access to support was by taking her child to the children’s centre, because it was not seen to be going to the police or going to get intervention for the abuse she was suffering from her partner. She was taking the kids to nursery, but because the services were co-located in that environment, she was able to get support.

[Dr Drew]

It is good to hear that children’s centres still exist in some parts of the country. In my constituency we only have two left. Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem is that it is locking the NHS in? That may be only a Gloucestershire problem, or it may happen further afield as well. We seem to have failed with the idea that it should be education, police and children’s services in general; it always seems that the NHS is the weak link. Is that true in his part of the world, or is it just a Gloucestershire phenomenon?

[Darren Jones]

All I know in my part of the world is that the health service and our schools are having to pick up more and more of the work that others used to do in the past. Certainly, if I talk to headteachers in some of the more challenging parts of my constituency, they tell me that they are having to invest more and more in family support staff, who work with families and young pupils in a way that schools were never placed to do in the past. We all know that school budgets are extremely tight, so that particular school is using some of its pupil premium funding to help children in those scenarios. I am pretty sure that the original intention of pupil premium funding was not to offset cuts to children’s centres or local councils; it was to give an extra hand to pupils from poorer backgrounds to get on and do well in life. In fact, it is just covering cuts made from the centre, and is therefore ultimately not having a positive impact on the bottom line, either for individuals or for the country.

However, this is not only about council leadership, because we also often rely on the charitable sector for the delivery of services. In my constituency is the Southmead Project, led by a chap called Dr Mike Pierce, who received an MBE for his work in this space. Mike was born and bred in Southmead and was himself the victim of adverse childhood experiences, and he speaks powerfully on the issue. I have done so before, but I again pay tribute to him. His leadership over the 24 years that the project has supported young people in that area has been quite remarkable.

However, Mike is not optimistic about the future. He relies on generous charitable fundraising, philanthropic donations and sponsorship from local businesses in order to keep his project afloat, in the face of cuts not only to the council but to organisations such as clinical commissioning groups and the police, which previously supported his charitable organisation. At the same time, demand is increasing. The project has a waiting list of young people in households where domestic violence or drug or alcohol misuse—or worse—are present, and it cannot get around to giving those young people the support that they need because it does not have the capacity to do so.

As a consequence—this is often the case when there are cuts to public services—residents end up coming to see their MP because there is nowhere else to go. It really is heartbreaking when constituents are in front of me in tears, with no access to support. Quite frankly, there is very little I can do, as the Member of Parliament, other than raising issues such as this in the House. We must understand that the decisions we make on public policy, funding and national strategies flow through directly to the lives of these young people, whose potential is being lost.

Draft Import of and Trade in Animals and Animal products (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 Draft Trade in Animals and Related Products (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Darren Jones and David Drew

Tuesday 19th February 2019 General Committees

[Dr Drew]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Sharma. I am also happy that this Committee Room is more suited to the number of Members here than Committee Room 14, where we met the other day. We will be in the Chamber tomorrow. This is one of three days when I will be taking part in the great scrutiny of statutory instruments.

I will put my usual caveat in place: this is not the way to pass legislation—we are doing things in a great hurry. As the Minister himself says, we are expected to scrutinise the legislation. We could go through it page by page; I am sure that the civil servants have done a wonderful job of cutting and pasting the European regulations, but we will know exactly what we will end up with only after we leave in March, or whenever. It is important that the Opposition do their best to find out what the Government are doing, why they are doing it and whether they are doing it in the right way. That, however, is problematic, given the background: we are trying to keep on top of so many SIs that are coming our way.

I will begin with a couple of general points before I ask a number of questions of the Minister, including about the point made by my neighbour, the hon. Member for The Cotswolds. I have argued that for each of the SIs there should have been regulatory impact assessments, because these do have an impact on business and communities, but we have had none—so we do not know what the cost implications are. If the Minister does not answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, I will try to.

We need to keep our finger on the pulse. There will be implications: we are not just taking across a series of regulations in the form of an SI, but we have to make changes and employ people to undertake them. That will cost something. Someone is going to pay; if it is not the Government, it will have to be the people on whom those changes are imposed.

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour in the south-west for giving way. Does he agree that we need to understand the implications for our constituents? Many of us receive correspondence asking whether the regulations will prevent the import of lesser-quality animal products from countries such as the United States as part of a trade deal and whether constituents have to do anything to make sure that their pet passports continue to apply so they do not get stuck at the border. The regulations do not give us clear answers about any of that.

[Dr Drew]

That is helpful. My hon. Friend puts his finger on something important. To some, this is a very dry subject—about semen, ova and embryos—but we are also discussing pet passports; some of us, in our previous incarnations, had a bit to do with getting those introduced. With the best will in the world, that issue will not necessarily be plain sailing if and when we leave the EU. Most people who take their pets abroad go somewhere in the EU and it will be problematic, to put it mildly, if they want to move there for work or study. They may find additional difficulties with the pet passport situation.

I want to make four general points. The regulations clearly have a lot to do with post-Brexit agreements and trade relations. We have to do what we can to make sure that there are no unnecessary barriers, otherwise trade will suffer, whatever one’s views on what trade there should be and with whom. As a backdrop, there is the key issue of animal welfare. It would be a tragedy if the high standards that we have introduced were threatened in any way, and it would be economic madness if we allowed things like rabies to come in because we did not have enough people to check as a result of having a different process for allowing animals with such diseases to come in. It is frightening to think what diseases might be coming our way, as I said in a previous statutory instrument Committee, so we have to be on our guard.

If we have different standards, it is not just the immediate impact that we need to consider. There will be a longer-term impact on our ability to work with other countries, because they will react against us if we have lower standards, which will have a huge impact on the agricultural sector. One of the questions I want to ask the Minister stems from the debate, which was quite testy, I think it is fair to say, with the Secretary of State about where we are today—this is from the National Farmers Union conference—with regard to the UK becoming a third country in relation to the EU. How are those negotiations going? It appears that they are stuck in transit, as I gather that the Secretary of State did not have the easiest time answering questions at the NFU. One of the key concerns was when we would be able to say that that relationship was properly embedded.

Finally—this point is not to be ignored—this has a huge impact on science, innovation and research, because many materials that come in are used by our research laboratories in tandem with our colleagues in the EU. Clearly, that may not necessarily continue, but we have to look at ways in which we can try to make that as seamless as possible. I suppose that that is an example of frictionless trade.

On the draft Trade in Animals and Related Products (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, the pet passport is something of which we should be very proud. It took a long time to put it in place. It would be useful to know exactly how the Government intend to make sure that the measure passes into practical operation as seamlessly as possible. A lot depends on what relationship we have with the EU, but as page two of the explanatory memorandum identifies, various highly pathogenic avian influenza strains and Nipah disease in cats and dogs are ever present, and we need to understand how, when pets move around, the passport can be used to make sure that there is proper control and enforcement. It will be useful to know what the Government are doing in relation to that.

That came up in the Lords, which asked for the affirmative procedure. Originally, this was to be dealt with under the negative procedure, but the Lords thought that the issue was important and needed the affirmative procedure route. Following the intervention by the hon. Member for The Cotswolds, I have touched on the need for a regulatory impact assessment—that theme always arises in relation to these SIs.

I have some questions for the Minister. He may not be able to answer them all, but he can write to me later. The NFU’s main concern is about shipments from other parts of the world—the example it gives is south American beef arriving in Rotterdam that is found to be not fit for human consumption—and what involvement the UK will have in such a decision. At the moment, that is a pan-European decision, but it cannot be for us if we are not in the EU. Do we put officers alongside those in Rotterdam or must we have our own checks this side of the border?

Food safety and harmonisation have a lot to do with who we sign free trade deals with. Some of us have grave concerns about signing one with the US, for the reasons we know about—chlorinated chicken, antibiotics and the rest of it—but it would be useful to know how many additional staff the Government intend to employ to guarantee that food safety will not be sacrificed. That links to the issue of antimicrobial resistance. Last week, I went to an interesting drop-in about the impact on human beings of AMR; I am sure that other Members went as well. I raised the point that the issue also affects animals. How do the regulations relate to AMR? At the very least, we should be doing more; if nothing else, we should be investing in science and technology to make sure that we are ahead of the game.

NOAH, or the National Office of Animal Health—an organisation well known to the Minister—has asked about animals and derivative products used in biomedical and veterinary research. How can we continue with existing research—again, that is pan-European? That is crucial to continuity in the life sciences sector. What analysis have the Government done about what happens after March—what needs to be rethought and what can carry on, hopefully, seamlessly?

The supply of animals and animal-derived products cannot in any way be delayed, because that would invalidate their use in science and have huge animal welfare implications. Although NOAH welcomes both sets of regulations, we come back to the crucial issue, which I have raised in previous SIs: where are we in relation to the TRACES database? So far, the Government have not been able to answer that. Are they looking for special dispensation? Are they willing to pay to be part of the database or will they have to investigate setting up their own one? Previously, the Government have said that they are putting money into setting up their own IT system, but with the best will in the world that will not happen before the end of March, when we might have a no-deal scenario.

My last point, about the Balai directive, which we have signed up to as part of our commitment to the convention on international trade in endangered species, has been raised by various organisations. At the moment, we sign up as a member of the EU. What contingencies do the Government have in place to make sure that we do not just drop out but continue with our clear statement of intent on the directive?

Many of these points have been reiterated in the material I received from the European Animal Research Association, which really stresses how important the import of animals and animal materials are to the life sciences sector. Its worry is that no deal will not only add to the time it takes to get the materials in, because of the additional checks that would almost certainly have to be done, but increase transport costs. What analysis have the Government made of potential additional transport costs resulting from the greater time taken because of more checks on what will no longer be an open border? The association clearly stresses its worry about a no-deal scenario and what the Government intend to do about that

The main concern of the British Veterinary Association is about who will do some of the checking. We have a shortage of vets. We will need more vets. Where will they come from? What level of skills will they have? The BVA wants a guarantee that the role of the veterinary professional will remain key to the whole process of trade. It would therefore be useful to know how that will continue at a level at least equal to now, although one would always hope that animal welfare requirements could be improved.

A very specific question to the Minister is on the tripartite agreement between the UK, France and the Republic of Ireland that allows the relaxation of procedures required under Council directive 2009/156/EC. It largely relates to the free movement of horses. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) was rather concerned, as a devout Brexiteer, about whether racehorses will be racing at Aintree in the grand national if anything gets in the way. Do the Government intend to carry on with that tripartite agreement?

I am sorry that I have asked a number of questions, but they are important and are about seamless trade. The trade is out of sight, and most of us do not know what goes on. When I made a trip to Heathrow when I was a member of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I was shocked by the things that came through illegally. We went to look at the illegal trade in baboons, monkeys and so on—it was quite frightening—and who brought that in. That is one extreme of the trade, and it is illegal. There will clearly be continuity in regulation, one would imagine.

The regulations are about the legal aspects of what animals and animal products are allowed in, and it would be useful to know how the Government are approaching research and how we work on a pan-European basis. We are approaching the end of February and the particular date that we all dread for one reason or another. It is important that we know what contingencies the Government have in place, and that goes wider than the two SIs that have been put together—I do not demur from that.

There are some detailed undercurrents that we as the Opposition need to know about. The wider agricultural sector certainly needs to know, because it is its stock in trade. It needs to know with some certainty what the impact will be. We dread crashing out, but even if we have a deal or perhaps a realignment of our relationship with the EU, what are the long-term implications? The Government have to be very clear on that. As I go through these different SIs, I am not sure whether we have clarity or more confusion. Perhaps it will all come right on the day.