EU Structural Funds: Least Developed Regions

Debate between Jim Shannon and Sarah Newton

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Newton]

I will come to that in a moment. At the last debate, the Minister invited us to put forward our suggestions. We do not need to wait for a formal consultation; my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) has demonstrated that. There have been consultation meetings with local enterprise partnerships and with the business community all over the country. It is up to us; we are leaders in our own communities. We should be making the most of these opportunities—today is one opportunity—so I will make some suggestions to the Minister, as he has invited suggestions about how we should go about allocating the funding.

First, we want to have designated funding for our regions. The EU funding that has been used so successfully is seldom the only source of funding. As other Members mentioned, it is often an opportunity to leverage additional funding. I want to get across the message that the huge investment in rail and buses in my constituency, where we have two universities, was enabled by European funding, but it was brought about by leveraging and working in partnership.

The way that the Treasury allocates funding and looks at gross added value often disadvantages areas with populations that are dispersed over large geographical areas. In the last five years, investment in cities and city regions has been successful, but those of us without cities—or even towns that meet the Government’s criteria of a population of 135,000—are disadvantaged. That geographical designation is really important for us to meet the opportunities of our local economy to grow, through the regional industrial strategies that feed into the national industrial strategies.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Because of the processes that the Government and the EU structural fund have followed, Northern Ireland has been able to access the fund. The simple reason is that we have lower wages and higher energy costs, and therefore a higher cost of living. It has proven to be the case that Northern Ireland needs the structural fund, and it has been a success. If the Government were able to ensure that something happens in the future along the same lines, it would be positive.

[Sarah Newton]

I agree that it is important that the Government honour their commitment to provide regions with the same sort of money as they would have got had we remained in the European Union. That was a clear commitment made by our party at the last general election. We will be working hard to make sure that whoever leads our party honours that commitment.

We should have opportunities to make decisions about how that money is spent, and I want those decisions to be made locally. The great city regions—I know the hon. Member for Barnsley Central is doing a good job as the Mayor of the Sheffield city region—must work in partnership. When I was a Minister at the Department for Work and Pensions, I saw the opportunity for central Government Departments to work in partnership with the metro mayors to innovate in their regions; that is something Government should be proud of and advancing.

It is not only regions or metropolitan areas with mayors that can work with Government in that way. Single-tier authorities, such as Cornwall Council and the Council of the Isles of Scilly, in partnership with our local enterprise partnership, can work on greater devolution and have far more say about how the money should be spent in our region.

In my remaining time, I want to touch on the European social fund. Debates are usually about roads, bricks and mortar rather than about the ESF’s work helping people who have been out of work, and far from the labour market, into work. There has been a huge amount of innovation under this Government, particularly led by the Department for Work and Pensions, working with metro mayors. The hon. Member for Barnsley Central has been pivotal to that work, and there has been a great deal of learning.

I would like the big, national work programmes contracted by the DWP to stop at the end of this round, and I would like that money to be spent by devolving it into partnerships in regions. We have an excellent local enterprise partnership in Cornwall, with a good skills committee, which is addressing the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives articulated so well: the need to develop skills and get people into work for the economy of the future. The best approach would be to enable regions to commission employment services that meet the needs of their communities.

Obviously, we have to be mindful of the market. We have to have a thriving market in people who provide those services, but that could be done at the same time as enabling greater local partnership. Then we would see the real progress in our economy that we want to see, in Cornwall and in every part of our community, and closing the unacceptable gaps in people’s life chances.

Infant First Aid Training for Parents

Debate between Jim Shannon and Sarah Newton

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Newton]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. I hope that in our small way—as a result of this debate, the people watching it from outside the Chamber and the media coverage we secure—we will encourage people to take up that opportunity. That is a really good idea.

I have been listening very much to healthcare professionals in my constituency. Dr Simon Robertson, a consultant paediatrician at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, told me:

“I have been a consultant general paediatrician for the last 12 years. I see children referred into hospital from their GPs, and the emergency department.

From the view of a general paediatrician a child illness and resuscitation course for all parents makes practical sense for the families and NHS services.

Parents are expected to make important decisions about their children’s health and about seeking medical advice. But we know they find it difficult to work out if their child just has a minor viral illness, or something more serious. Unfortunately not all parents are educationally equipped to read instructions from their red book, NHS Choices or health advice apps like the ‘HandiApp’. For them, we know they really need time and practice in a supportive environment to learn these decision making skills. We repeatedly see this in the families we teach resuscitation to on the wards.

What is needed in my opinion, is a course for all parents and those in child care on how to manage the common emergency problems like choking, diarrhoea and vomiting, a seizure, recognising sepsis, managing a head injury, or in preventing accidents, drowning or cot death. These learnt skills could help keep children safe and healthy, so should be the skills highly valued by families. Vitally, early action may help prevent some medical emergencies deteriorating to life threatening illness.

This can only be good for the health of children, and for children’s acute NHS services.”

I completely agree.

In 2013, the Department for Education undertook a confidential inquiry into maternal and child health in England. It conducted a meticulous audit of deaths of babies and children, and reported identifiable failures in children’s direct care in just over a quarter of deaths, and potentially avoidable factors in a further 43% of deaths. The University of Northampton’s 2017 report “Before Arrival at Hospital: Factors affecting timing of admission to hospital for children with serious infectious illness” stated that parents often find it difficult to access relevant health information or to interpret symptoms, and that it can even be difficult for GPs to determine how serious a case is in the early stages.

I have been working with Cornwall Resus, which was established in 2012 by two paediatric nurses to give parents and carers the necessary skills to empower them to recognise when their baby or child is unwell and to respond appropriately. It runs courses for parents in community centres around Cornwall. Those courses last two to two and a half hours and include practical training on choking and resuscitation using lifelike dummies, with lots of time for questions and discussion at the end. I know that I would not be happy to undertake those actions unless I had practised them on a dummy first; having just looked at instructions or a diagram, I would still be very nervous about the amount of pressure to apply, so using dummies and having practical sessions and reassurance is really important.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing this subject forward for consideration, and I commend her for the work she did as a Minister. I am very pleased to see her active on the Back Benches with the rest of us. I became a grandfather for the third time just before Christmas, when my grandson Austin—I already had two granddaughters—was born. I am very mindful that parents are immensely stressed after the birth of their baby, given the care babies require. For each parent to have just a bit of knowledge about these things at that time can be the difference between life and death. Does the hon. Lady agree that there is an opportunity, through the antenatal classes that mothers do with their local trust and GP, to instil in parents the basic skills she refers to?

[Sarah Newton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. I will come on to what I would like the Government to consider doing. I do not think we should be prescriptive about how this training is enabled. Lots of organisations provide such training—Kernow Resus is one such organisation, but we have also heard about the Red Cross, St John Ambulance and Millie’s Trust—and of course there is the NHS workforce themselves: maternity nurses, and healthcare professionals who visit families at home. We should not be at all prescriptive about how we might enable this training, but it is important that all parents have the opportunity to participate.

Most courses cost around £30, which will seem to most of us like a very modest investment, but not every parent will be able to afford that. That will be a real barrier for some families. That is why I would like the Government to enable universal access to high-quality, evidence-based training delivered by fully qualified providers. That would give us the opportunity to reduce morbidity and mortality and, importantly, family distress. It would also help tackle the associated costs of treatment, hospital admissions and even possible litigation. We have seen huge improvements in child and infant health in our country. The number of deaths of babies and small children has fallen significantly, but it is still far too high, so I really hope that the Minister will consider seriously how we might take forward this relatively modest, straightforward intervention.

The NHS is rightly focused on preventing ill health and injury, and I am delighted that the Government are investing so much in it. I am sure everybody in the Chamber is fully supportive of that investment. It would require only modest investment to pilot this training in a couple of geographical areas and work with a couple of local commissioning groups to see how they might go about delivering it. We have heard about a range of options they might pursue. By giving commissioning groups responsibility to see how they might go about that, we could collect proper evidence about not only the impact on families and the reduction of deaths and harm to children, but the impact on acute trusts and primary care in an area if, as a result of being more confident, parents do not engage with the NHS quite so much.

This would be a small but vital step. It would be such a positive contribution. We would have more Rowenas, and far fewer families would have to cope with the dreadful grief of losing a loved one.

Employment and Support Allowance: Underpayments

Debate between Jim Shannon and Sarah Newton

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I would of course be delighted to meet her and discuss Gillian. Clearly something is not right. It does not sound like it is related to what we are talking about today, but clearly something has gone wrong and I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady as a matter of urgency.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for her response so far. Underpayments to my constituents have ranged from £3,000 to one massive sum of £22,000. The issue affects some of my constituents when it comes to housing benefit. Can the Minister assure me that none of my constituents will be disadvantaged by something that is not their fault?

[Sarah Newton]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that question. This was an official error, so the income disregards do apply and his constituents should not be disadvantaged in the way he describes.

ESA Underpayments

Debate between Jim Shannon and Sarah Newton

Thursday 19th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

Let me absolutely clear: I do not want anyone in our country to be living in poverty. Nobody on the Conservative Benches wants to see anyone living in poverty, which is why we have put so much effort since 2010 into lifting people out of poverty, including people with disabilities. We have been increasing benefits each and every year, and we will continue to do so. We are also increasing the amount of support for disabled people and those with health conditions who tell us they would very much like to work.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I, too, thank the shadow Minister for bringing this urgent question to the House, and the Minister for a very comprehensive response and for righting the wrong. Well done, Minister. With some 70,000-plus people who have transferred to ESA from another benefit not being paid the full amount of ESA, does the Minister have any idea at this stage of the number of those in Northern Ireland who have been underpaid, and who is looking after the Northern Ireland applicants who are seeking reimbursements?

[Sarah Newton]

Every person who deserves their payment will be treated fairly and equally—I absolutely assure the hon. Gentleman of that—but I will write to him with specific details about people in Northern Ireland.

Work Capability Assessments

Debate between Jim Shannon and Sarah Newton

Wednesday 13th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Sarah Newton)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I very much welcome this afternoon’s debate, and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden)—I hope I can call him that—on the manner in which he introduced it. Making sure that the most vulnerable people in our society have the support that they need must be something that rises above all party politics. I appreciate the contributions from so many Members today: 11 speakers, with 16 interventions. That shows how important this issue is to Members of all parties across the House.

Today’s debate is also very timely. Only last week, we published our response to the Green Paper consultation proposals for reform in “Improving Lives: the Future of Work, Health and Disability”. I will not have time today to give detailed responses to all the points that have been raised, but if hon. Members were to read that response they would see that many of their ideas for improving the work capability assessment are reflected in the plans we have set out. We have set out a very ambitious programme of testing and learning to make sure that we get this right. I will of course write to Members if I have not been able to address their individual concerns.

We have heard passionate contributions from Members who have rightly talked about their constituents’ experiences. I am a constituency MP first and foremost, as is every Minister. I have had similarly harrowing experiences with my constituents and I have listened to their concerns about the process. I assure hon. Members that I am as motivated as them to make sure the process is as good as it can possibly be. I invite them to send me the individual cases they talked about today so I can take a closer look at them and respond fully.

I have had a month in my new role. After dealing with a number of colleagues who have spoken to me and reading the correspondence I have received, I think it is important that I set up a series of meetings about PIP and ESA so Members and their caseworkers can meet me and the officials in my Department. It will be a kind of teach-in. We will listen to their concerns, explain the improvements we are putting in place and communicate the support that is available. That series of meetings, which will be available to all Members of Parliament, will start in January.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Newton]

I will not—I have very little time. I can of course follow up the hon. Gentleman’s point after the debate.

The timing of the debate is important for another reason. I welcome the fact that the Work and Pensions Committee is doing an inquiry into ESA and PIP assessments. I assure hon. Members that I will not only participate in that inquiry—I look forward to going along to the Committee next week—but pay attention to its findings and consider them. It is clear from this debate that we are all committed to ensuring that people with health conditions and disabilities have the right support.

In the past couple of weeks, I have visited assessment centres that are undertaking work capability and PIP assessments, and I have seen NHS doctors, nurses and health professionals bring their professionalism and compassion to their work. They are the same people we could meet if we go to an appointment to see a GP or are treated in our local hospital. I have seen compassion and professionalism in the assessments, but I accept that there are improvements to make. We can always do a lot more.

Returning to some of the fundamental points that hon. Members made, it is right that our system focuses on what people can do, not on what they cannot do. We embrace the social model of disability. We want to break down barriers to work and ensure that people can truly reach their full potential in our society and in work, because we know that good work is good for health. I have met many people who would be considered severely disabled, and they tell me that they want an opportunity to participate in society and to work. In my few short weeks as a Minister, I have already seen inspirational work in our NHS and among providers of support for people with disabilities that enables people to have a role in our society. People who have been cast aside, rejected and put on the scrap heap for the past 30 years are now being supported into work.

I am pleased to see the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), with whom I work in partnership in the Department of Health, here today. We visited a fantastic project run by a mental health trust in London. The doctors said, “We had written off these patients. We never thought that somebody with such a severe mental health problem would ever work, but we have changed our minds because of the programmes we have been putting in place in our hospitals.” We have to focus on listening, learning and developing our systems so that more people like those my hon. Friend and I saw last week have an opportunity to play their full part in society.

Of course, some people are too poorly to work, much as they would like to do so. Every year, the Government spend more money on disability benefits and benefits for people with heath conditions, and it is clearly set out in our spending that we will continue to do so. We are spending more than £50 billion—more than the defence budget—on such benefits, so the idea that we are cutting support to people, as many hon. Members said, is simply wrong.

Any financial support system has to go through a process of evaluation to ensure we get the right support for the right person, and it must be individually based. My vision is very clear: each person is an individual, and no two people are the same. People who on paper have the same medical reports for the same condition will have very different prospects and will be able to do different things. The system must be tailor-made to support them. That is what we are doing in our future strategy, which we set up last week.

Labour introduced the work capability assessment in 2008, and we all agreed that it was not good enough and was not fit for purpose. Since then, it has been under constant review, and we have made more than 100 recommendations. Whenever we find good new ideas to improve it, we implement them. We regularly engage with disabled people and stakeholder groups to ensure that we listen, learn and make improvements. Probably the most significant improvements have been in mental health. Work capability and PIP assessors, and frontline staff in the DWP—the people in the jobcentres and those who make decisions about benefits—have all undertaken mental health training to ensure they are sensitive to the needs of people with mental health conditions.

There is a person behind every statistic, so I am leery about using statistics, but I cannot allow some of the misinformation we have heard today to remain unchallenged. We undertake 1 million ESA assessments every year. Since April, 8% have been appealed and only 4% have been upheld. I know there is a person behind every statistic, and I know the impact that that can have on people, but it is not fair to say that, in the majority of cases, the system does not work. In the majority of cases, it does work.