Oral Hormone Pregnancy Tests

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Baroness Primarolo

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank the Minister for that reassurance. I am sure that those from the victims’ association who are watching the debate will be reassured too.

I thank the Minister again for what the Department has offered to do. We hope it will be done speedily and that there will be a resolution. As we know, many of the victims are now approaching their 40s and 50s. Their medical conditions are worsening and some have died. It is important that they understand what has been happening. They have never, ever asked for this—they have never even suggested it—but perhaps after the investigation we could think about some kind of financial settlement or compensation. As I have said, this is something that I am saying. I think that that would be only fair after all their suffering.

Finally, I have spoken in the Chamber from time to time, but today is the first time that, when I came into the Chamber, I got a little butterfly in my stomach. It reminded me of when I was a barrister before I became a Member of Parliament. I would have that feeling when going into court for a special case of particular significance. When I came in I almost felt that I was going to present a legal case to ask for—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Does the hon. Lady intend to talk her own proposal out? If not, perhaps she should allow me to put the question now.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes that children were born with serious deformities due to hormone pregnancy test drugs taken by expectant mothers between 1953 and 1975; also notes with concern that as the surviving victims enter their forties and fifties many of them face a host of new problems as their bodies continue to suffer; further notes that no official warnings were issued about these drugs until eight years after the first reports indicated possible dangers; further notes that some doctors continued to prescribe the drugs for pregnant women after official warnings from the Committee on Safety of Medicines; calls on the Secretary of State for Health to fully disclose all documents relating to the use of Hormone Pregnancy Tests held by the Department from the period between 1953 and 1978; and also calls on the Secretary of State to set up an independent panel to examine these documents.

Hospital Car Parking Charges

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Baroness Primarolo

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I did not know about the Nottingham tram, but I am pleased that people there will have a tram stop to deal with the problem. Something like that would be brilliant in my constituency. There is a bus that goes to my hospital, the Royal Bolton, but because of its location the service is not frequent, so getting there is quite difficult. Such public transport solutions can help people as well. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that many older people cannot drive, so they also have that challenge.

Perhaps we do not think enough about the number of appointments most older patients have, as do those who are generally ill and have to go in and out of hospital for appointments numerous times. The way forward may be to abolish car park charging full stop, so that a scheme can be applied nationally. The minute we have a discretionary system and leave each hospital trust to decide for itself, some—perhaps because where they are located means they have a large parking space—can charge a small amount, such as 50p, while other hospitals that lack space because of where they are must charge a bit more. Leaving things to discretion means having, as everyone says, a postcode lottery. A better solution might be to make special dispensation, across the whole country, for those going to hospital appointments or those who are in hospital for some days.

Although I have a legal background, I am not normally an advocate for a lot more law, because it is not always a good idea to have loads of legislation. In this case, however, it is worth thinking about having legislation or a directive with the even more novel approach of abolishing such charges altogether. At the end of the day, nobody goes to hospital for pleasure; they go out of necessity and because they are unwell. Therefore, a hospital that raises £500,000 or £1 million, with all the budget it has—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order.

Welfare Reform (Sick and Disabled People)

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Baroness Primarolo

Thursday 27th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

This is one of the most important debates that we have had, certainly since I have been a Member of Parliament, because it concerns 11.3 million people who are the most vulnerable in our society. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and those who signed the petition on securing the debate, and the Backbench Business Committee on providing time for it. We know that the mark of a decent society is how it treats the vulnerable—the sick, the disabled, the elderly. There may be a case for reforming welfare and introducing reforms, but reforms that impact most on the disabled are wrong. I will not go into the statistics because they have already been referred to, but I think it is universally accepted that the benefit cuts hitting the disabled mean that they are about 30% worse off than other people. My mind boggles as to why we should put the greatest burden of cuts on the disabled and the unwell—the vulnerable in society. That is why I welcome the opportunity to debate this matter.

I want to refer in detail to the effects on deafblind people. The changes—the stress from the form filling, the assessment and the convoluted process, and the changes in the payments—are having a tremendous impact on the 365,000 people who are both deaf and blind. A mother of two deafblind adult sons describes how one of them uses the disability living allowance. She says:

“I worry that MPs don’t understand how deafblind people communicate and just how important communicating is to them. It can be very lonely and frustrating for the deafblind person and can ultimately affect the deafblind person’s mental health. My eldest son uses his DLA to pay for his 1-to-1 support; that money gets him the life he wants. Before he had the right support, he exhibited very difficult behaviours because he was frustrated.”

She says that he could cause danger to himself and to others, but when he got his one-to-one support, his life completely changed. She continued:

“My son is a sociable friendly man who is now able to take a full part in everyday life and make decisions for himself, the difference is amazing! It would have been a waste of money”—

and obviously cost more—

“to place him in the secure residential accommodation.”

He is now much happier and his family is happier as well. We must always remember that saving money at one end might mean spending more money later and so be a false economy.

I also want to mention the closure of Remploy factories. I used to visit my Remploy factory in Bolton all the time. The people there were really happy to have a job to go to. They wanted to work and earn a living, not to take state benefits. The closures were very much an ideological decision by the Government. There were difficulties in the Remploy system, but they were with the management at the top of the hierarchy, who were keeping a lot of the money. The changes that were needed to make Remploy more effective should have been made at the top, where money was being wasted. The ordinary disabled person working in the factory was not causing that waste. Rather than looking properly at how to make Remploy work better, the Government managed to abolish it. As a result, many of the people who worked there have ended up unemployed. They are sitting at home, claiming state benefits and getting incredibly depressed, because—let us face it—with so many people unemployed, their chances of getting a job are negligible.

Lastly, I want to talk about work capability assessments and Atos. Much has been said about that in Parliament. My constituent, Mr Jason Froggatt, lost his job because of illness, but Atos then said that he was fit to work but needed to do so near a toilet—that was actually in the assessment. He, his wife and their son now face losing their home because they do not have enough money. I wrote to the Secretary of State a few weeks ago about that case but am yet to receive a response. We have heard many other examples of people who are very ill being told that they are fit for work.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Baroness Primarolo

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I apologise for not being here for the start of the debate. The Home Secretary referred to her powers where someone has obtained citizenship by fraudulent means. There may have been strong mitigating circumstances when someone made such an application. For example, we know that some years ago many people came to the country on false documents because they had been persecuted. They may have applied on a false basis, but there were strong mitigating circumstances—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I know that this is complicated and many Members want to speak. May I clearly ask for your assistance. Will any Member making an intervention try to make it brief?

Banking (Responsibility and Reform)

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Baroness Primarolo

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) said that we must reward the risk takers, but is not the problem and the reason for this debate the fact that the risk takers took too many risks with the world economy and completely destroyed it, and that while destroying the world economy, they got massive bonuses, pay and entitlements to which they were not entitled? That is why we need to look at these risk takers, who he says are the wealth creators.

Opposition Members have no problem with business or with people who want to work hard, achieve, create jobs and stimulate the economy, but it is important to remember—this is what this debate is about—that, as the Leader of the Opposition said in his party conference speech last year, there are producers and there are predators. As always, those comments were taken out of context, but what he talked about is what the Prime Minister now talks about: responsible capitalism and responsibility in society.

In the light of that, we are having this debate, which is not surprising—in the light of that, we are having this debate. I repeat myself because it is important to know why we are having the debate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) said, this debate on the crisis is timely but, more importantly, the question is: how do we prevent the problem from reoccurring? We should be concentrating on that, instead of the point scoring that we have seen.

We realise that there have been problems with the regulation of the banking and the financial services over the past 20 or 30 years. As my hon. Friend said, the Opposition have accepted responsibility and acknowledged that the Labour Government could have done more to regulate the sector, but as has been pointed out no one in the Conservative party at the time complained or argued that regulation should be tighter—if anything, they asked for even less regulation. Nevertheless, they continue to say, “We didn’t do anything.” We have accepted our mistakes, but Government Members made them as well. Furthermore, as everyone knows, the relaxation of regulation started in the ’80s, when a Conservative Government were in power. It is about time that they apologised for getting this whole thing going.

I do not want to get into a party ding-dong. I want to talk about what we can do to help to create a situation in which businesses and banks can work properly and the country can prosper. The Opposition have argued that the Walker review, which states that, if a banker’s remuneration is more than £1 million, that information should be published, should be implemented as soon as possible. That, coupled with the recommendations of the independent High Pay Commission, should be implemented in full, with investors and pension fund managers required to disclose how they vote on remuneration decisions, so that those paying into pension funds know where their money is going. Additionally, to boost transparency, the Government should publish figures setting out the largest pay ratios.

Another thing that we should be doing is using our influence in the banks in which the taxpayer has a stake to restrain excesses and promote good practices. Where the Government—the state—have discretion, they should intervene, such as with Network Rail recently. We should introduce a framework for fair pay across the economy, including through employee representation on remuneration committees and measures to enable greater shareholder activism. We should repeat the tax on large bank bonuses and use the money to get 100,000 young people into work. In tough times, when there is less money around, fairness matters more than ever. Instead of providing leadership, the Government have been dragging their feet on tackling excessive pay and rewards for failure. They have taken 20 months to come forward with any plans, and they are delaying even those that they are implementing. That is in stark contrast to the autumn statement, which took three times as much from families with children as it did from the bankers.

As we know, Robert Jenkins, a member of the Bank of England’s interim Financial Policy Committee, told the Select Committee on the Treasury:

“Every £1 billion of less bonus would support £20 billion of additional small business lending.”

I urge the Government to act on that, and to support Project Merlin—which we do not think has been as successful as it should have been—to ensure that the banks involved in the scheme lend more. Evidence has shown that investment and credit lending by those banks has decreased by 6% in real terms, whereas investing and giving more credit would be a real step to boost the economy. At the end of the day, some of the banks have been bailed out with public money. They and the Government should be doing more to—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order.

NHS Reorganisation

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Baroness Primarolo

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Lyn Brown]

My hon. Friend must have noticed the chuntering taking place on the Government Front Bench. The same happened during the speeches of a number of other Opposition Members. Does she not think that that is really poor form, especially when the Secretary of State did not seem able to take interventions when it was his turn?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. That is a matter for me to control. The hon. Lady will continue with her speech. I am sure that all Members of this House, including those on both Front Benches, will behave appropriately in this debate.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

We are told by the Government that the reorganisation is not ideologically driven, but is somehow a way of maximising efficiency and making the systems better. At a time when we are being told that there is not enough money, commentators and experts are saying that this reorganisation will cost at least £3 billion. We are not talking about a small amount of money; we are talking about £3 billion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Some years ago, when that sort of process was introduced in the legal system, with solicitors able to apply for franchises, the big firms benefited and the smaller, local firms went bust. A similar thing will happen. Some GPs, who run small surgeries in the heart of a community, will not be able to form consortiums. What happens to them? Does it mean that people in parts of Kearsley in my constituency will have to travel seven miles to go to a big GP consortium rather than being able to walk down the street and speak to their GPs, as they currently do?

The reform means that private patients will have a chance to pay for faster care in the NHS. Now that the restriction on the income that can be made from private patients is being lifted, cash-strapped hospitals will find it difficult to resist that income stream. Patients could routinely be offered that route to faster treatment. Thus wealthier people can queue jump, while NHS patients will linger on a lengthening waiting list.

I know that the Secretary of State—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I am sorry, but time is up.