London Olympics
Debate between Jason McCartney and Jim Dobbin(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Jason McCartney
On a point of order, Mr Dobbin, I would like to hear the Minister’s response. A lot of questions are being posed and I would really like to hear the Minister’s response.
Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)
I am sure that the Member leading the debate would like to hear the Minister’s response as well, but unfortunately time is running out. If the Member who is in charge of the debate wants to get complete answers, he must take that into consideration.
National Blood Service
Debate between Jason McCartney and Jim Dobbin(13 years, 1 month ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Jim Dobbin
Yes. That is exactly right. Those staff, who are well trained specialists in their area, are very concerned about the damage that this proposal would do to the blood transfusion system and they are very angry about what is possibly going to happen. Of course, they also fear that donors will walk away. There are 1.4 million volunteer donors at the moment. They donate about 200,000 units every year, which is a huge amount of blood, and all of it is donated voluntarily. Privatisation of the blood service has been tried in New Zealand and it drove down the number of blood donors. It deterred them from making that contribution freely, because donors do not like to see their organs or blood as part of a private sector business.
Why should the private sector profit from blood that is given freely? There is no private sector organisation that has the expertise to provide the range of services—blood supplies, tissue, organs and specialist products, plus the specialist research expertise—that are provided by the NHS blood transfusion service.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He raised an important issue when he said that there are a number of reasons why people give blood. Personally, I gave blood at the Galpharm stadium in Huddersfield a couple of years ago because I was inspired by Adrian Sudbury, the journalist from The Huddersfield Daily Examiner. Before he died, he also inspired people to sign up to the bone marrow register maintained by the Anthony Nolan Trust. So there is a lot of good work going on and the hon. Gentleman has identified that. I hope that the Minister, in her deliberations, will think about the other roles that the National Blood Service plays. The hon. Gentleman quite rightly identified that the service is not only about giving blood but about giving tissue and other material. I thank him for making that point.
Jim Dobbin
I thank the hon. Gentleman very much. That was a very positive contribution, based on his own specific experience. There is a petition about this issue, there are now some 35,000 signatures on it, and it is building up all the time.