NHS Funding (Ageing)

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Sarah Newton

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Dr Coffey]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Funnily enough, I do not think that the formula was strong enough in reflecting the demands of age. It could have gone a lot further. The sparsity challenges are also a constant issue for those of us who represent rural seats. There is no doubt that a patient’s health care experience is somewhat diminished when a cardiac check-up means a 200-mile round trip. I realise that we cannot have a cardiac hospital within five or 10 miles of everybody—that might be the case in London, but I will not get into the London health funding debate. There is no doubt, however, that such trips are not helpful with regard to the patient experience. The funding formula has had negative consequences. We have seen a more rapid reconfiguration and regionalisation of services. The quality of care for patients has been affected and there are funding challenges. The problem is particularly acute where there is a high proportion of elderly patients. That is not good enough.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case for patient care in rural communities and I wholeheartedly agree with her. Does she agree that the market forces factor is having a negative impact on rural communities in poorer parts of the country where average incomes are much lower? People within the NHS and the care system are often paid national wages, but the funding formula discounts for local wages.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I have not gone into that level of detail and do not have that level of understanding, but she makes an important contribution to the debate. Local clinical commissioning group and NHS trusts must contend with that challenge and should make that point to the board of NHS England.

I come back to the formula. I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) that the focus on age may have slightly increased, but that it did not go far enough. The correlation between age and per capita funding increased only marginally between the old formula and the partially adopted current formula. South Sefton receives 40% more per capita than Ipswich and east Suffolk, but it has 50,000 fewer pensioners and a lower proportion of pensioners. Life expectancy in my part of Suffolk is considerably higher than in others, which is good, but that does not necessarily mean that people, in particular the elderly, do not have complex health needs that need addressing. At the moment, the formula continues to discriminate against the elderly and even further against people in rural areas.

Women’s Contribution to the Economy

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Sarah Newton

Thursday 6th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Dr Coffey]

I am sure nobody was talking about you, Mr Robertson. I recognise that issue, too. I will not get into the discussions that I have had with other colleagues, but I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire that it would be useful for there to be such training in the current Parliament.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is being incredibly generous in giving way. I want to give grist to her mill by saying that the oldest law firm in our country routinely undertakes unconscious bias training. If it is good enough for that firm, it must be good enough for Members of Parliament.

[Dr Coffey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. I understand that the management board and Ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills were invited to do unconscious bias training, although I believe that the only Minister who was able to do it was my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson). I agree that we should be proactive. There are companies that have offered to run courses for MPs. That has been on my to-do list for some time, and I will ensure that it gets done.

Our report recommended that companies should normalise flexible and part-time working. We should encourage companies to review their culture so talent does not drain away from the pipeline unnecessarily. Evidence shows that the best way to make flexible working a standard practice is to ensure that it is a non-gender issue. Companies know that they have a role in inspiring members of the next generation in the subjects they take and their career choices.

Finally, I come to our recommendation about head-hunters, for whom there is already a voluntary code of conduct. I want to draw Members’ attention to the review undertaken by Charlotte Sweeney at the instigation of the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable). It was launched earlier this week, and it looks at the voluntary code of conduct.

Head-hunters can play a significant role in helping us to reach Lord Davies’s target of ensuring that 25% of board members are female. I welcome the report’s ambition that the code should be a minimum standard and that we should aspire to more. To achieve that, we must encourage as many head-hunters as possible to sign up to the code.

One way of promoting the code is for the Government to lead by example. I am encouraging the Cabinet Office to ensure that all head-hunters used by the Government and their agencies are signatories to the code. We know that currently they are not. I had a conversation with my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden about that issue, and I will take it up further.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Sarah Newton

Friday 23rd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I definitely agree that the framework is a big step forward, and protecting our precious marine environment, which supports the whole fishing industry and ecosystem of parts of the UK, is important, but we need to balance that with our economic growth, stability and jobs, which is really important too.

The Budget reports on the review that was set in train in the autumn statement in order to analyse the implementation in the UK of the EU habitats directive, to which I think my hon. Friend was referring, and which can create so many problems for our port operators. In reading through that review, I think there is a great deal to be welcomed. It has engaged with a range of stakeholders, all of whom acknowledged that the implementation of the habitats directive caused considerable problems for our ports operators, and many positive measures have been put in place in terms of collecting data.

Many disputes about planning applications arise because there are no accurate data, and a lot of work is going to be put into that area, and into ensuring that the various regulatory bodies—ultimately, the Marine Management Organisation will make the licensing decisions for our ports, but many are involved—engage earlier and more constructively with ports operators, which should make them more confident that proposals for development can go forward.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

My hon. Friend and I have made common cause in trying to help those matters along, as we share similar issues. I understand that she welcomes much that was in the review, but does she share my concern that it missed the opportunity to look at certain regulations and determine whether we should have them at all? Indeed, the review’s terms of reference included looking through that and making appropriate representations to the Commission.

[Sarah Newton]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I think that the review is a work in progress. The review team did not have much time, but I think they managed to cover a lot of ground. Certainly, if we look at the terms of reference the Chancellor gave them, we will see that there are things that subsequently have been passed over to the Law Commission for its consideration. I was somewhat perturbed to read in a footnote in the review document that the Government would consider the Law Commission’s recommendations “in due course”. I would like reassurance from the Chancellor that he will ensure, through the all-departmental working group he set up, that regulations are not standing in the way of economic growth and development of our ports, that this “in due course” is acted on speedily, because in due course without reform we will not have the ports to enable us to import our energy or the food and other vital materials we need. I would like to see that “in due course” in the footnote turned into something a little more urgent.

I think that eventually representations will have to be made at an EU level. Interestingly, the review showed that other European countries with ports have had experiences similar to ours when interpreting and implementing the habitats review. I am sure that all Members with ports in their constituencies or an interest in ensuring that Britain returns to being the great trading nation it always has been will want to watch these things and help the Government constructively to tackle these issues.

With regard to other vital infrastructure, a number of colleagues, including my hon. Friends the Members for Bedford (Richard Fuller) and for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), mentioned that for those of us living in the more remote parts of the UK a lot of transport is by road, so fuel prices and levies on fuel are of great significance to us. All the goods and services and the great things that are manufactured in Cornwall need to be able to get to market in the rest of the country. Although I was disappointed that fuel levies will go up in August by 3p, I understand why, given the huge mess that the Government are trying to sort out and the economic legacy they were left. That is something we have to bear.

One thing I would like the Minister to consider is a recent precedent. We have heard from colleagues today about the extent to which we believe fuel companies are profiteering from customers in our parts of the world, where the price at the pump is 3p, 4p, or 5p more than it is in other parts of the country. The Office of Fair Trading has the task of looking at whether there is a proper competitive market working in the region. The Department for Energy and Climate Change recently referred the fuel oil market to the OFT, because the winter before last many of us experienced the most appalling hikes in the price of fuel oil, which many people in remote, rural areas use to heat their homes. After the referral to the OFT, some very good work it did and the implementation of measures, we saw no repeat of such hikes last winter. With that recent precedent in mind, I think that the OFT could play a useful role in ensuring that our regional fuel markets are working efficiently. Based on that, hopefully we could see real pressure to reduce the profiteering that I believe is going on at the pump so that people in constituencies further away from the south-east of England will not feel the full impact of the 3p rise.

I welcome the measures in the Budget to support infrastructure. The investment in rail will affect not only HS2 but places such as Cornwall, and the connectedness of the remoter regions of the UK is vital to our economic future. I very much support and commend the Government’s single-minded focus on making sure that we have an infrastructure that is fit to get Britain working and Britain back to work.

Marine Management Organisation

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Sarah Newton

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I thank my hon. Friend for that very helpful intervention.

Richard Gates, the Falmouth town centre manager, has added his voice to the chorus of local residents opposing the plans, commenting:

“We live in a beautiful part of the country and certainly are very environmentally aware but this cannot be at the detriment of people’s livelihoods and leisure when many people are working so hard to develop the area”.

I am sure that Falmouth and, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) has pointed out, other parts of Cornwall are not the only coastal communities that feel that the current recommended sites for marine protected areas are inappropriate because they fail to meet the fundamental aim of creating areas that strike the right balance between sustainable economic, social and environmental protection.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

My hon. Friend’s description of her beautiful constituency could be substituted for mine, with Aldeburgh and the River Alde. Is it not the case that constituents feel that designations are being slapped on top of existing special protection areas simply because the data are available, rather than other parts of the coast being sought that could easily fulfil the criteria for marine conservation zones?

[Sarah Newton]

I am very grateful for those comments. My hon. Friend anticipates a point that I was going to make but now do not need to make. I think that issue is a real problem.

Perhaps it is not surprising that this has happened because the lead agencies tasked with drawing up the list of potential sites, the JNCC and Natural England, have as their primary purpose environmental protection and conservation. What is not part of their remit is what the Act clearly set out to achieve—balancing the social, economic and environmental needs of communities.

I appreciate that the Minister has inherited the current process and would not have designed one that led to the current situation, where there is so much genuine outrage and concern, but that is where we are today. It is a matter of great importance to coastal communities that measures are urgently taken to enable greater use of all the available evidence base by decision makers, rather than their relying almost entirely on Natural England and the JNCC. An open, transparent appeals process for both pre and post-designation decision making needs to be established urgently.

Given that the deadline for the establishment of the marine protected areas sites is 2012 and that the sites are being consulted on as we speak, I hope the Minister can reassure me that he will consider these recommendations so that the implementation of the very worthy aims of the Act command the respect of coastal communities. It is vital that people who might be adversely affected by the implementation of the Act are thoroughly involved, which they have not been so far. Making the new planning system work depends on building a consensus and support that can be achieved only if all concerned have confidence in the system that is used to reach conclusions. Sadly, that is very much missing at the moment. Politicians are elected to use their judgment and are democratically accountable. I hope that the Minister can reassure us tonight that he will exercise his judgment and democratic accountability to ensure that there is a common-sense approach to marine planning.