Cass Review

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to work constructively with me on ensuring that we deal with this report and the evidence in a caring and careful way, for the benefit not just of children and young people but of the wider trans community, I would welcome his support in so doing.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Although I welcome the call from Dr Cass for all young people, including young trans people, to be

“treated with compassion and respect”,

I share concerns about important elements of the review, particularly given the context in which it was published. Last year, transphobic hate crimes hit a record high. A United Nations report noted deep concern about the increase in

“harassment, threats, and violence against LGBT people”

in the UK, and blamed the toxic debate about sexual orientation and gender identity. Will the Minister join me in condemning the rise in transphobia, in acknowledging that trans rights are human rights, and in recognising that we will only deliver high-quality healthcare that everyone deserves when we respect the rights and dignity of all?

[Victoria Atkins]

Not only have I tried to espouse those principles in every ministerial role that I have held, but it is the guiding light of this Government to try to ensure that we get the right healthcare and support to patients as quickly as possible. We also want to ensure that we are treating not just the condition, but the patient as a whole. As some of the complexity of the debates that we had this afternoon shows, young people are at the very heart of this. I think this is the final question, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will end with the young people that we are concerned about. [Interruption.] I am so sorry; I have one more question from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). The children and young people who are the focus of this report have to be, and will be, the focus of our work going forward. We want to get the right services to the right children at the right time.

NHS Strikes

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Monday 17th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

As ever, my right hon. Friend raises an extremely important point. As part of the negotiation with the AfC staff council, a number of non-pay issues were discussed. Job evaluation is one such issue. Likewise, for junior doctors, areas such as e-rostering are extremely important. I share his desire for investment in technology, and to look at the time spent by clinicians that could be spent by others in the skills mix or through better use of artificial intelligence technology and a better estates programme. That is why it is important that we continue to have that funding, as well as reaching the offer that we have with the AfC staff council.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Nurses, junior doctors and paramedics do not take strike action lightly; it is a last resort after more than a decade of working harder and longer for less and less. The Secretary of State will say that there is no money for a fair pay deal, but that is not true: it can be paid for by taxing the richest and redistributing the wealth. Ending non-dom status would raise £3 billion; introducing a 1% tax on assets worth over £10 million would raise £10 billion; and equalising the capital gains and income tax rates would raise £14 billion. What do the Secretary of State and Conservative Members prefer: nurses having to use food banks, or taxing the richest and making them pay their fair share?

[Steve Barclay]

The odd thing is that the hon. Lady seems to be disagreeing with the trade union leadership, which is not her usual position. Unison described it as a “decisive outcome” when 74% of its members voted in favour of the deal. It is odd that she wants to deny the GMB and other trade unions the space to vote on what their leaders have recommended—the GMB leadership has also recommended the deal to its members. Even the RCN leadership recommended the deal to its members. As Pat Cullen herself said:

“Negotiations work by compromise and agreement. We did not get everything and nor did the government. Ministers made improvements every day of those three weeks because we were able to say that returning to striking was the clear alternative. No union could enter negotiations and flatly say ‘no’ until you get everything you want. These talks will not be reopened if members reject this pay offer.”

The leadership of the RCN recommended the deal, as did the leaderships of the GMB and Unison. It is odd that the hon. Lady does not want to recognise that.

NHS Strikes

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

Of course I am happy to do that, and I think these things are put on the public record in any event. I do not know when the Secretary of State met specifically with the RCN, but I can tell the House that I have met the unions, I believe, on 9, 12, 25 and 31 January.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I have just come from the nurses’ picket outside St Thomas’s Hospital, on the other side of Westminster bridge, where nurses made the point that they were not striking against the NHS but to save the NHS. They have been underpaid and overworked for too long; their pay is down 20% on what it was when the Tories came into power, and now there are a record 50,000 nursing vacancies in England. That is not just unfair but incredibly unsafe. As one nurse said, “Patients aren’t dying because nurses are striking. Nurses are striking because patients are dying.” Will the Minister finally listen to NHS staff, get around the table to talk about pay and give them the pay rise they deserve?

[Will Quince]

Despite what the hon. Lady says, there are 47,100 more nurses this year than there were in 2010 and 10,500 more than last year, and we have 72,000 nurses in training. The Government hugely value the work not just of nurses—I remind the hon. Lady that she is also talking about the 1.245 million people who work on the Agenda for Change contract. She is right that we have to get pay and other matters right, and that is why we have an independent pay review body process where we look at affordability, reward and recognition, and pay, alongside recruitment and retention and achieving a package that is fair to taxpayers. That independent pay review body will make a recommendation, and it is then for the Government to look at it and accept it or reject it.

NHS Winter Pressures

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Often the debate is about beds, but in reality it is as much the workforce that go with those beds that we need to consider. The point about step-down care is that it has a lighter patient-staff ratio compared with what is necessary for more serious patients at the acute stage. It is important that we look at the end-to-end capacity, and that includes step-down care. That is why NHS England set out 7,000 additional beds in its summer plans. We are also doing things differently using technology. Virtual wards allow some patients to be at home, which many patients prefer, but with wraparound clinical support. Virtual wards and step-down care in the community are part of that wider landscape.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Iqbal fell seriously ill on Christmas eve. His family rang for an ambulance, calling 999 three times and pleading for help. They waited for three hours, but by the time an ambulance arrived, it was too late. Paramedics tried desperately to save his life, but the 58-year-old father tragically passed away. His daughter Minnie was clear about who was to blame, saying that it was not NHS staff but Tory Governments who have left the NHS in what she called a “disastrous state”. Will the Health Secretary heed Minnie’s words and undo 13 years of running down our NHS by giving NHS workers a proper pay rise, ending all forms of privatisation and giving the NHS the funding it desperately needs?

[Steve Barclay]

As I said in my opening remarks, I regret the fact that some patients in emergency care did not receive acceptable care in recent weeks, but I gently remind the hon. Lady that the pressure, particularly around flu and covid rates, is something that has put huge pressure on the NHS in Wales and Scotland, as well as across Europe and across the globe.

Childhood Cancer Outcomes

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Anum Qaisar (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

I begin my contribution to this important debate by extending my sincere congratulations to the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage). She was very eloquent in speaking of Sophie’s legacy.

In the past few weeks I have been speaking to my constituent Nadia Mahjid, who lives in Airdrie and whose son Rayhan sadly died from a brain tumour. I asked Nadia what she wanted me to say, and she asked me to tell his story. These are her words:

“Rayhan Majid was a happy, sweet and caring four-year-old boy… He loved sports and all things yellow including the Transformers Bumblebee and the Minions.

Rayhan was born in June 2013 in the midst of a heatwave and when he arrived, everybody remarked that he had brought the sunshine with him.”

Rayhan was

“always an active and healthy boy who was rarely unwell however, in October 2017, he started having severe headaches and sporadic episodes of vomiting.”

As with Sophie, GPs did not detect anything and it was not until Rayhan was taken to A&E, in his case six weeks later, that the decision was taken to conduct further tests. Sadly, an aggressive and cancerous tumour was detected in his brain:

“At that point the tumour had already grown…and as a result it was not able to be completely removed during surgery.”

Nadia says that,

“the aggressive surgery left our son Rayhan unable to talk, walk or swallow”,

and that he

“had to have a second surgery to have a shunt permanently inserted into his brain to prevent fluid build up.”

Devastatingly, however,

“the tumour re-grew and spread immediately after surgery even before radiotherapy and chemotherapy was commenced…it was decided to press on with the original treatment plan. Our Rayhan underwent 6 weeks of radiotherapy at the highest dose permitted for a child his age.”

The radiotherapy

“had no positive impact on Rayhan’s cancer either, a post treatment MRI scan showed the disease to be present and even more widespread than it was to begin with. The final treatment offered for our son Rayhan was high dose chemotherapy… A few hours after receiving his first dose of chemotherapy drugs, Rayhan’s heart rate and breathing started to be negatively impacted as well as him developing an allergic reaction to one of the many drugs he had received that day.

Rayhan tragically died a cruel, slow and painful death over the course of the 5 days of chemotherapy treatment, at the end our son was completely paralysed and unable to talk or even blink his eyes.

Rayhan was our ‘little ray of sunshine’. His light was cruelly extinguished by a relentless disease”.

I have a number of questions for the Minister, but she graciously offered to meet me after I wrote to the Prime Minister, so I will ask just one as I am pressed for time right now. Does she accept calls from Cancer Research UK that the UK Government should commit to maintaining a regulatory environment that facilitates international cancer studies, including a commitment to maintain the UK-EU data adequacy agreement and the compatibility of UK and EU trial regulations?

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way, especially as she is giving such a heartfelt, passionate speech on behalf of her constituents. Ben was a young Coventrian who tragically passed away aged seven after just one year following his diagnosis with a rare childhood cancer—alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma. In his memory, his parents set up Pass The Smile For Ben, raising funds for treatment and research into rare childhood cancers. Will the hon. Lady join me in paying tribute to Ben’s parents, Sarah and Scott, and echoing their call for more funding and better treatment for children with rhabdomyosarcoma?

[Ms Qaisar]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and I completely agree.

Every year in April, the month that Rayhan died, the neighbours of Rayhan’s family decorate their street in yellow, his favourite colour. His nursery has a bench to commemorate him. Rayhan was, and is, a much-loved boy. He died four years ago this month. This was a tribute from his mum, Nadia, on the anniversary of his death:

“When you were born you brought the sunshine with you and when you left, the colours drained out of our lives and this world has not been the same since.

You had to experience many things in your short life here that no child should ever have to, and many adults do not even experience in a lifetime.

We hope wherever you are it is worlds apart from all the pain, procedures and trauma you had to endure here and that we couldn’t protect you from.

We hope that in your new world, you are healed, happy and free to play, run and be a child again.

We are sure that you will be lighting up the heavens with your brilliance, that your laughter is echoing through the gardens of Jannah, that you are surrounded by friends aplenty and that you are having the most amazing, wondrous time, seeing and doing things that we cannot even imagine.

We love and miss you beyond measure Rayhan. Your Dad, your big brother, your little sister, all your family and I.

We include, remember and honour you everyday and we will never let you be forgotten. You are still our boy and the heart of our family even though you are not in the same world.

Our beautiful little Ray of Sunshine, our darling child, we miss you always, we love you forever.

4 years with you didn’t feel like enough, yet 4 years without you has felt like a lifetime.

Rest in Peace our darling boy.”

Health and Care Bill

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 14th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

When a Labour Government proposed a national health service after the second world war, promising free universal healthcare for all, it was a radical idea opposed by the Conservative party, which complained—I quote from an amendment tabled at the time—that it

“discourages voluntary…association…and undermines the freedom and independence of the medical profession”.

The Conservatives did not like it that the NHS was centralised, public and free for all. They condemned it as Marxist and voted against it 22 times. Fundamentally, they opposed the NHS for taking healthcare out of the market and for putting public good before private profit, but they saw its popularity and begrudgingly were forced to accept it.

Those fundamentals have not changed. This NHS corporate takeover Bill is another step away from the original truly public healthcare system, free from the corrosive influence of profit. The Conservative party still opposes that idea. Conservatives should not just take my word for it; they should take the words of their own Members. The Prime Minister, when he was a Back Bencher, slammed the NHS as “monolithic” and “monopolistic”, and called for privatisation. Four senior Cabinet members, when they were Back Benchers, wrote a manifesto in which they argued that two thirds of hospitals should be run outside of the NHS, and run privately or not for profit. We also have a new Health Secretary, who in the last year, alongside his role as a Back Bencher, has been on the books of US megabank JP Morgan. He has been making £150,000 a year from a company that—I quote from its literature—

“see the opportunities that lie ahead”

for private healthcare. The Health Secretary’s ideological hero, Ayn Rand—whose work he says he rereads every year—was an extreme right-wing libertarian philosopher, who detested socialised healthcare.

It is not just words; it is deeds too. The Government are breaking up the NHS, not all in one go, because they know that the public would not like that, but piece by piece. Privatisation by stealth—that is what they have been doing. Since coming into power in 2010, more than £96 billion has gone to non-public healthcare providers and nearly 20% of healthcare bids now go to private providers. This Bill will not reverse that. It will simply entrench it. It will put private companies on healthcare boards, giving them a say over our care and public funds. It will add steroids to the cronyism on steroids that we have seen in this pandemic, whereby Tory mates and donors have been handed billions of pounds in dodgy covid Government contracts. It will implement a healthcare model that incentivises cuts and closures, and rations funding to health boards.

This dangerous Bill is another step towards privatisation. In its place, we need to reinstate the NHS as a truly public service with a proper pay rise for its workers of 15%, making up for a decade of falling pay.

Children and Young People’s Mental Health

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting Positive Youth Foundation in my constituency. I had the best time, as videos on my social media show. It is a fantastic organisation providing young people in Coventry with a huge range of activities and opportunities. Visiting the centre, I saw the bonds that had been formed between the staff, volunteers and young people and the confidence and support that gave them. I want to begin by paying tribute to everyone at Positive Youth Foundation from its founder and CEO Rashid Bhayat to all the staff and volunteers.

As staff and volunteers made clear to me, this is an incredibly challenging time for young people, with more than half of safeguarding reports at the centre being about children’s and young people’s emotional wellbeing and mental health. The pandemic, and the new stresses, strains and isolation it has brought, has added to what was already a mental health crisis for children and young people. Before coronavirus hit, one in five young people aged between 16 and 24 suffered mental ill-health, and for school-aged children the figure was one in six. That has only got worse in the last 12 months. University students have been trapped in accommodation, away from friends and family, and have missed out on what should be the most exciting time of their lives. Almost two thirds of the people who have lost jobs during the pandemic are under 25. Schoolchildren have been missing out on vital education and have often been stuck in overcrowded homes with overstretched parents.

Things have got even worse for oppressed groups. Nearly three in four children with autism have a mental health condition, but in Coventry waiting times for autism assessments have been growing, and were doing so even before the pandemic. Working-class and LGBT+ young people, and children from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities all have greater rates of mental ill- health. What makes this not just a crisis but a scandal is the totally inadequate support for children and young people’s mental health.

More than a decade of austerity has cut away the support that was once provided, while deepening the problems that give rise to mental ill-health. Since 2011, mental health trusts have faced a real-terms cut of more than 8%. Huge cuts to school funding have put even greater pressure on budgets, forcing schools to have bigger classes while cutting mental health services. Nearly half of young people with moderate to severe mental health needs have to wait more than 18 weeks to start treatment. That is a cruel failure for children and young people. Mental health support needs the funding across the board that it deserves—for services such as NHS services and school counsellors—to guarantee that every single young person who needs support can get it when they need it.

Although funding for support is vital, the mental health crisis cannot be tackled with funding alone. It is getting worse, and more and more young people face mental ill-health. It is estimated that depression has tripled for those aged between 16 and 39. We cannot look just at the consequences; we have to look at the causes, too. Asthma, for example, is a health condition, but people do not suffer from it totally at random. If someone lives in an area of high air pollution, they are more likely to suffer from asthma. It is an individual problem, but it has social and political causes. The same is true for many mental health issues. The more stress, anxiety and trauma there is in people’s lives, the more likely they are to experience mental ill-health. For children and young people who have grown up under austerity, life is getting more stressful and less secure. That is what is driving this mental health crisis, so although funding is vital, so is building a society that nurtures people, gives them security and safety, and truly values and cherishes them.

A report presented to the United Nations in 2019 argued that the best way to tackle the global mental health crisis is to build a supportive environment, including everything from the building of good homes to secure and well-paid work. If we are to solve the mental health crisis faced by children and young people, we must build a society where basic needs are met, where young people find decent and secure employment, where housing is both affordable and liveable, where education is understood to be a right and a good in itself, and where people do not have to work every hour of the day, but instead have time to live their lives to the fullest.

NHS Pay

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I would like to begin by congratulating my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker), for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) and for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) on securing this debate.

An extra £16 billion for the military, £37 billion for the private Test and Trace system, and billions more in dodgy contracts handed to Tory donors. But for nurses just £3.50 a week. The Prime Minister says it is all we can afford, but the fortunes handed to arms dealers, Serco bosses and the Health and Social Care Secretary’s former neighbour and pub landlord tell us something different. When inflation is factored in, the 1% “pay rise” for NHS workers is really a pay cut—from clapping for carers to cutting their pay. Even for this Government, this is shameful.

While Tory donors have been getting rich off this pandemic, it has been NHS workers getting us through it. On the frontline, nurses, doctors, cleaners, porters and all of our healthcare workers have been truly incredible, battling the virus, working overtime, enduring stress and trauma.

Nearly 1,000 health and social care staff are estimated to have died from the virus, with workers too often not provided with the protective equipment they needed. Nearly half of intensive care staff report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression or anxiety. All of this comes after a decade of NHS staff being overworked and underpaid, with nursing vacancies in the midlands alone standing at 7,500 and pay down as much as 30% for some staff. Now, according to research, two in three nurses have to work overtime to pay the bills, and reports of nurses forced to rely on food banks are far from uncommon.

Tory Ministers call them heroes. They clapped for them while cameras were watching, but now they think they can get away with a cut in their pay. They pit NHS workers against other workers, saying that if one group has had their pay frozen, it is not fair for another group to have their pay raised. They say that if private sector workers are losing their jobs, others should make sacrifices, too. It is classic divide-and-rule tactics. It is an attempt to turn working people against each other, leaving all of us worse off, while their donors and wealthy mates laugh all the way to the bank.

Here is an alternative plan: instead of spending billions more on new weapons of war or giving more fortunes to private Test and Trace consultants, we could give NHS workers the pay rise they deserve—15% to make up for a decade of lost pay. Instead of letting tax dodging run riot and corporate greed dominate, we could bring in a new windfall tax to make the likes of Amazon pay their fair share and to raise the pay of all our key workers, public and private sector alike. NHS workers are always there for us. Now it is our turn to stand with them.

Covid-19: Government’s Publication of Contracts

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my right hon. and gallant Friend for his question. He is absolutely right to highlight that our No. 1 priority, as I think the people of this country and Members of this House would expect, was, in the face of an unprecedented demand for PPE, that this Government did everything that they could to massively ramp up the supplies of PPE that were available and to get them to the frontline. Of course, transparency is hugely important and the court did find that there was no policy to deprioritise compliance with transparency regulations and requirements. However, he is absolutely right to highlight that the absolute priority must be to get the kit to save lives.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab) [V]]

It has been revealed that almost £2 billion has been handed to Conservative party friends and donors in dodgy covid contracts. That includes the likes of Steve Parkin, who has donated over £500,000 to the Conservatives. He is the chairman of Clipper Logistics, which was awarded a £1.3 million PPE contract. Another Tory donor, David Meller, has given £65,000 to the Tories over the past decade. His company, Meller Designs, was awarded PPE contracts worth over £150 million. Those people did not get rich giving their money away for nothing, so does the Minister believe that it is appropriate for the Conservative Government to hand out fortunes—public money—to Conservative party donors?

[Edward Argar]

I refer the hon. Lady, once again, to the answer I gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough. I also highlight that, to the best of my recollection, no court and no Committee of this House has found any evidence of inappropriate conflicts of interest or inappropriate involvement by Ministers in the award of contracts. What I would say to her in conclusion is that what matters here is whether companies supply what is needed to standard. I pay tribute to all companies who came on board, stepped up and did what was necessary to help us get the kit we needed to protect those on the frontline.

Covid-19 Update

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I have been watching the progress of those at NHS Northamptonshire, who are going great guns, and I know they are working incredibly hard. This does not happen by magic; it happens by hard graft, especially of the GPs and the pharmacists, and the support teams and the volunteers, who are doing such a great job in Northants.

I am very grateful for what my hon. Friend has said. We did take decisions at risk early, before we knew whether they were going to come off, and knowing that we would be criticised if it did not work out. However, that meant we could get those contracts signed ahead of many other places, and it means that we will be able to deliver vaccines for UK citizens and then, of course, play our part in ensuring that everybody across the world can have access to this life-saving vaccine, too.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab) [V]]

The Government’s catastrophic mishandling of the virus has meant that, in the past month, there were over 32,000 covid deaths in the UK, an average of more than 1,000 a day. In New Zealand there were zero, in Vietnam zero, in Australia zero and in Taiwan one. The difference is that these countries pursued a zero-covid strategy—suppressing cases, saving lives and reopening economies. The vaccine offers hope, but so long as the virus circulates, there is a risk of thousands of more deaths and, now, of more dangerous new variants. Does the Secretary of State regret his Government’s decision not to pursue a zero-covid strategy, and will he now commit to this strategy?

[Matt Hancock]

All countries that have attempted a zero-covid strategy have found that this virus transmits and gets round the boundaries that have been put in place. There were parts of this country that tried a strategy of zero, and in fact we were urged to do so in this House, but what matters is making sure that we get the tools that are going to be used permanently for us to get through this, and that we get them deployed as fast as possible. That means testing, with the hundreds of testing sites that are now available and, crucially, it means getting this vaccine rolled out. The hon. Member said the vaccine offers hope, and I think that is where we should all focus—on getting this vaccine rolled out as quickly as we possibly can.