Sir Jeremy Wright
MP for Kenilworth and Southam · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I applaud my right hon. Friend’s passion and clarity on this issue. On the subject of democratic accountability, he knows that if, as the hon.”
“I welcome the intent that the Secretary of State has set out this afternoon, and the urgency with which she will require the relevant companies to act.”
“The Electoral Commission has made no formal assessment of this. It would be a matter for Parliament to introduce such legal protections. It is prescribed in law that poll cards and ballot papers must be provided in English or Welsh, but there are no other prescribed language requirements relating to election materials.”
“We can all cynically speculate about the reasons why this sudden about-turn has taken place this week, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), who spoke from the Front Bench, said earlier, it is our job to scrutinise this legislation and to ensure that whatever we put in place does justice to the determination o…”
“In today’s version of the amendment paper, for the first time, that amendment has disappeared and been replaced not with the detailed compromise that Intelligence and Security Committee members, who have been engaged with this process, have been working towards, along with many others, but with Government amendment 157.”
“As the House would expect, we engaged with that process as diligently as we could, with no partisan politics, in an effort to make good law in the pursuit of greater state transparency while preserving our national security equities. As the hon.”
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“That includes £3.75 million for the three police forces where most knife crime occurs, and, as he would expect, that includes London. It is also important, as my hon. Friend said, that we support those community projects that help to deter young people from involvement in knife crime. On that front, he will be interested to know that the Government have committed £400,000 to an organisation known as Kids Taskforce, which helps to educate school pupils about knife crime. He may have come across the organisation, because its materials are used by schools in Harrow. My final point—I know my hon. Friend would support this—is that we must make those who are tempted to carry a knife understand that doing so does not, as they might believe, make them safer but makes them less safe.”
“Friend knows, a prison sentence is available not just for adult offenders but for young offenders, and in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which is making its way through the House, the Government propose a new offence of having an offensive weapon in a public place and threatening someone with it. That offence will receive a mandatory six-month prison sentence, unless that would be unjust in all the circumstances. My hon. Friend is also right to point out that we need to ensure that resources find their way to the problem. On that front, he might know that the Home Office has committed £18 million over the next two years, up to 2013, to support police, local agencies and the voluntary sector in tackling crime involving weapons and youth crime more generally.”
“It is not simply the Home Office that must act but the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for Education and the Department of Health. Let me turn finally to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who spoke, as he has before, about the tragic and worrying events in his constituency. He is right, of course, that the Government should be very clear about the consequences of knife crime not just for the victim but for the offender. Let me make it very clear that so far as this Government are concerned, those who commit a criminal offence using a knife can expect to go to prison. As my hon.”
“We can raise awareness of the issue, which remains in many ways a hidden crime, and we will therefore attempt to get more Government guidelines to teachers, general practitioners and nurses, who need to understand the signs of such offences so that they can identify them. We also need to broaden awareness more generally and we have sent out some 40,000 leaflets and 40,000 posters to schools, health services, charities and community groups, because wider society needs to understand what is happening. We also need to assist victims, which we are doing with 15 specialist NHS clinics offering a range of services, including so-called reversal surgery. Women can go to those centres direct and do not need to be referred. Finally, this is a cross-government issue.”
“Friend would probably also agree that there are a number of things we can do. We should look not only to punish those who are responsible for committing these offences but to improve the guidance available to prosecutors so that they can prosecute more often. She is right that there have been no prosecutions, but it is worth noting that there have been some 58 investigations into this offence. If there are difficulties with prosecuting, they might be to do with the types of information and understanding that Crown prosecutors need to have, and later this summer the CPS will therefore be issued with new guidelines to assist, we hope, in taking forward prosecutions where appropriate. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that we can do more.”
“Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison). As she said, she has spoken in this House before—and powerfully—on female genital mutilation. She has done so again today and she is right to say that this practice constitutes horrific abuse of often very young children. It remains a crime, as she says, and it has been a crime since 1985. More specifically, under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 the maximum sentence for this offence has been increased to 14 years’ imprisonment. Crucially, as she said, this Act allows the behaviour of British citizens abroad to be punished, whereas previously it could not be. That is an important point for the reason she gave, which is that occasionally such activity was transferred abroad to avoid the effect of the criminal law. My hon.”
“Admittedly, that represents a reduction, but the average annual reduction over the four-year period is less than 1% in cash terms. Central funding is also available and the Government are making available £28 million of stable Home Office funding over that period for specialist services, including independent domestic violence advisers, independent sexual violence advisers and co-ordinators for multi-agency risk assessment conferences. Those are all important services that she will recognise, and they co-ordinate with the types of services at the refuge in her constituency that she is describing. I was discussing the Government’s commitment to preventing violence and abuse against women and girls, not just in the UK but more broadly so I shall move on to deal with the comments made by my hon.”
“Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) to visit the Fortalice refuge, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will consider it. The hon. Lady was right to say that the people who work there do a remarkably good job and offer a service that many people find extremely valuable. However, I do not think it is right to conclude that the funding difficulties with which the Government certainly have to contend on a range of fronts mean that these types of services cannot be provided. The hon. Lady will know that a substantial part of the local funding to refuges such as the one in her constituency comes from the Supporting People programme. In relation to that programme, £6.5 billion-worth of funding has been secured for the current spending review period.”
“That would be acceptable only if the effect of these drugs was not as damaging as it is. The hon. Lady says that she is interested in evidence when it comes to drugs policy, so she must accept that the evidence clearly shows that illegal drugs of the type we are discussing are extremely damaging. They are damaging to the individual who takes them and to their family, and to the wider community. Therefore society should not take a neutral view on whether these drugs are a good or bad thing; society should take a strong view that they are a bad thing. The Government’s view is therefore that those drugs should remain illegal. I will certainly pass to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), the invitation from the hon.”
“It is right to say also that young people need to understand exactly what they are dealing with when faced with a variety of illegal drugs and they need to be discouraged from taking them. That brings me on to the second area. I understand that the hon. Lady had a very limited time in which to make her case on this important issue. I have an even more limited time in which to reply, so I understand that we are restricted in what we say. However, I disagree with her view that the right answer is to decriminalise the drugs that we are discussing. The simple reason for that is that legalising something that was previously illegal sends out a very clear message, and that message is that society no longer disapproves of this item in the way that it previously did.”
“It is right that drugs policy should be based on evidence and that it should be balanced, not just on criminalisation but on other issues. The title of last December’s drugs strategy, to which the hon. Lady referred, starts with the words “Reducing Demand, Restricting Supply, Building Recovery”. All those elements are important, and we will continue to evaluate the strategy to make sure that it is delivering what it should. The strategy set out, for example, that the commissioning of drug and alcohol treatment services will be a core responsibility of local directors of public health, so there will continue to be a health-related element to the Government’s drugs strategy, and that is as it should be. There will also be an education element to the strategy.”
“Friend would not expect me to prejudge the outcome of that ACMD review, and I will not do so. However, I can tell him that it will be thorough, and I am also sure that the ACMD will be interested in any evidence he and others can bring forward for its consideration. As I say, the decision that it takes and the decision that the Government then take will be based on evidence. That brings me neatly to the remarks made by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). She made two proposals to the Government, the first of which was that drugs policy should be evidence-based and the second that we should move away from the criminalisation of drug use towards a more health-based model. I shall deal with both of those in turn. The first point to make is that we already have a balanced drugs policy.”
“I can tell him that there are now—since, I think, October 2009—questions in the British crime survey about the use of khat, and I hope that will lead to the Government having more information in making appropriate decisions. In 2006, the previous Government decided to accept the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs not to ban khat at that point. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary wrote to the ACMD in February of this year asking it to review the available evidence now, and to reconsider the question of controlling khat under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. I can tell my hon. Friend that that work will begin in the autumn, and that we therefore expect in the fullness of time to have a good deal of information available from the ACMD and conclusions the Government can consider in deciding what to do next. My hon.”
“I am delighted to have the opportunity to respond to this short but varied debate. I should apologise to all Members who have taken part, however, as I will not be able to give them the detailed answers their contributions deserve in the time available, but I do want to respond to some of the points they raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster) expressed concerns about the drug khat. The Government share his concerns. He rightly pointed out that we do not have a great deal of information about the extent of the use of khat. What we know at present is based on a 2010 estimate that about 0.2% of the population reported using it. My hon. Friend asked about acquiring more information.”
“Although I understand that there is a great deal more work to do and that more effort needs to be put in not just by the Government and High Speed 2, but by those who wish to change the route, it is important at this stage that we have absolute and clear undertakings from the Government that the route is capable of being moved if the arguments are powerful enough for that to happen. We also need confirmation that, within very short order, we will have all the technical information we require from the Government in order to mount a serious and sensible argument against the proposed route. [Mr. David Wilshire in the Chair ]”
“I know that the Minister will accept there is a great deal of work yet to be done both by the Government and by my constituents to defend their interests in response to what the Government propose. We need absolute clarity from the start, first, that the Government have done their homework; secondly, if they have done so, that they are open to persuasion that they may have got it wrong and there might be a better route; thirdly, if there is no better route and this is the route that must be followed, we must be clear why they have chosen, for example, embankments not viaducts and cuttings not tunnels to reduce the environmental impact to the maximum effect.”
“That strikes fear into the hearts of my other constituents, because if the places they are concerned about are not mentioned specifically, the suggestion is that the Government are confident they have got the route right there. If we have not got all the information I referred to on the map and marked route already, how do I know that the Government have that part of the route clear in their own minds and can persuade us it is the right one? I also want reassurance that if we can make a decent argument for doing so, we can move the route so it goes the other side of the village or 100 yards this way or that way. I am assuming that that part of the argument will only be relevant if the Government can persuade us that their chosen route, rather than an existing transport corridor, is the right one.”
“I want reassurances for my constituents that the consultation process allows for the possibility that the route can move substantially to follow a completely different corridor. If that is not possible and we can be persuaded that it is not possible, I want a reassurance that the route can move in various different ways throughout various parts of the country. Those different ways must be made clear, so that we know exactly why the Government have proposed the current part of the route to which we are referring. In relation to changing the route, it might be useful to consider Stoneleigh. That is a good example because, as the Minister will know, Stoneleigh is specifically referred to in the Command Paper, as it is one of the places where the Government are not quite confident they have got the route right.”
“I know that because several constituents have come to me with a map and have shown me where the listed buildings are, and they are certainly not appearing along the route in the Government’s documents. Conservation areas are also not comprehensively listed in the documents. It seems that we do not yet know where the oil and gas pipelines in the ground match up to where the proposed High Speed 2 route will go. If there is more homework for the Government to do on the matter, is there not a danger that route 3 will be proposed and perhaps settled on, but we will discover later that it cannot be followed in its current form because of other factors that have not yet been considered?”
“I understand the Government’s argument that they have not produced four or five potential routes for fear of blighting half of southern England in the process. However, it seems that if only one proposed route is produced, it suggests to those who live along that route that although the Government might not quite be concrete in their choice of route, they will certainly take a lot of persuading to move away from it. I find that concerning. I want to be reassured that if that is the case, the route has been proposed as a result of the Government having done their homework properly. Having read the document—the Command Paper—very carefully, it seems that there remains a bit of undone work here. We still do not know exactly where all the listed buildings are.”
“I hope all that information can be made available to us, so that we can understand exactly what the argument is. Many of my constituents accept the logic of a high speed rail line in principle, but do not follow why we are cutting a scar through a great deal of virgin countryside to achieve it, as the hon. Member for Carlisle said. How do we persuade those people—I have to say that, at this stage, I am one of them—that although we might slightly reduce the speed by having a few more curves, we could not still gain a significant time saving, which I accept is important? If we cannot do that, we need to know why. I hope that the technical information to support the Government’s argument, if that is what it is, will be made available to us. A further point is, again, about the existing route.”
“If the Minister’s answer is, “Ah, yes, but you cannot run a train at 250 mph along a very winding piece of track and, if you put it alongside an existing transport corridor, that’s what would happen,” the next question would have to be why 250 mph was the magic number. Exactly how do we work out what time savings are involved in a train going at 250 mph? However, I note from the Command Paper that a train travelling at 225 mph is far more likely, even though the capacity of the line is for 250 mph. If that is the argument, I hope that the Minister can assure me about the technical information required to match up the straightness of the line with the speed at which a train can travel along it, and whether time savings would be inadequate if the trains did not travel quite as fast.”
“The advantages are obvious: we would not be cutting through virgin territory, as it were, but through areas already affected by a major transport link and, therefore, the environmental damage would be less. The answer to why an existing corridor cannot be used may very well be that, from a technical perspective, we cannot get a straight enough railway line to carry trains at the required speed unless we build a brand-new railway line across a completely different part of the country. I am in favour of a separate set of tracks, for the reasons of future congestion given by the hon. Gentleman. However, we shall have to explain clearly to my constituents and others why we cannot use an existing transport corridor.”
“The first question of my constituents, certainly those directly affected by the Government’s proposed route, is why on earth the high speed rail line cannot go along an existing transport corridor. It has already been said that there will be considerable damage done to open areas of the British countryside, through Buckinghamshire, through Oxfordshire, as my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) said, and through Warwickshire—most importantly from my perspective. If such a case can be made, part of the case must be to explain clearly why the railway line cannot follow either a motorway corridor—for example, the M1, which would be the Milton Keynes link mentioned, or the M4 corridor—or follow an existing railway line such as the Chiltern line. A number of existing transport corridors could be followed predominantly.”
“For me, and for most Members of the House and indeed most of the Government, that is one of the best arguments for a high speed rail link. I note from the document and the Government’s Command Paper that they have asked High Speed 2 to look at the possibility of linking the two directly. I hope that the Government will go further than that or, if they will not, that the next Government will go further than that, and make it clear that the project does not stack up or give us all the benefits it ought to unless we make that direct link. My second point is about the route. I am interested in the route laid out by the Government, for the reasons I set out at the beginning.”
“Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the High Speed 2 line must connect directly to the High Speed 1 line because—again as I think the right hon. Gentleman said—one of the primary arguments that I find persuasive in favour of a high speed rail link in principle is the opportunity for us to use that railway line instead of getting on a plane for a short-haul flight. It seems unlikely that we would succeed in persuading potential short-haul air passengers to use a high speed rail link instead unless they can travel directly from Manchester or Birmingham through London and the channel tunnel to Paris, Brussels or wherever their eventual destination might be. The link between the points at which High Speed 2 enters London and High Speed 1 leaves London would be crucial in persuading potential air passengers to use the train instead.”
“I also agree with him that it is sensible, therefore, to plan for a railway line for the future, rather than one for the past, with a high speed railway line. Support for the principle of a high speed rail line, however, must be conditional on certain things. First, having a line simply between London and Birmingham is not adequate—it must go further north than Birmingham, whether as a Y-shaped or an X-shaped structure. The new line must connect to Heathrow, although as my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) has already made clear, it would not be a choice of either central London or Heathrow but would include both. In the same way, current plans make no choice between Birmingham city centre and Birmingham international airport, but include both.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) on securing the debate, which is on an important subject. I agree with a great deal of what he said and, somewhat disturbingly, with quite a lot of what the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) said. Quite a lot of the constituency that I represent—even more after the boundary changes, I hope—would be cut through by the proposed route for High Speed 2, so I have a direct interest in the subject. None the less, I support the principle of a high speed rail link between London and Birmingham for the reasons given by the hon. Gentleman. We will have capacity problems on our existing railway lines, whether the west coast main line or the Chiltern line, by 2026 when we hope the new line will be operational.”
“The hon. Gentleman said that he welcomes the route but that the Liberal Democrats are not committed to every aspect of it. Would he clarify whether that means that they have ruled out the prospect of an alternative transport corridor being used for High Speed 2?”
“Has the Minister had the opportunity to look at the latest report of the all-party group on dementia on what has happened to money allocated for the implementation of the national dementia strategy? If so, does he share my concern that very few of the PCTs that were asked could tell us what they had done with their share of the £60 million allocated for the first year of the strategy, or at least explain how what they had done with it related specifically to dementia? Can we do better for next year?”
“As the Minister knows, the proposed line would run right through my constituency, including Burton Green, which the hon. Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham) mentioned. In respect of the impact of the construction work, may I ask that information be made available on two specific matters? First, will there need to be any extra land-take in order to complete the construction work? As the Minister will appreciate, the proposed line passes very close to residential properties in Burton Green and elsewhere, and if people’s gardens are to be affected, it would be helpful to know about that. Secondly, can he inform residents about any particular implications that may arise from the building of access shafts?”
“Will the Minister of State reassure us that the consultation process on the line of route will not be just for show, but will be a genuine and open consultation process, allowing for the prospect that the route can be changed? In particular, will he take account of the sensitivities involved, for example, in what happens to narrow belts of green-belt land between urban areas such as between Coventry and Kenilworth in my constituency and to sites of strategic interest such as the royal agricultural centre at Stoneleigh park?”
“I believe that the Bill would support the kind of society that we all want to see, and I commend it to the House. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Jeremy Wright, Mr. Mark Harper, Mrs. Maria Miller, Mr. David Lidington, Mr. Philip Hollobone, Rob Marris, Mrs Siân James, Tim Farron, John Hemming, Angela Watkinson, James Duddridge and Mr. Stephen Crabb present the Bill. Jeremy Wright accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 5 March, and to be printed (Bill 58).”
“I do not doubt that the Bill’s drafting could be improved if it were to make progress, but it is meant to send the message that if someone makes an effort to do the right thing, the law will stand behind them, not in their way. We need people to do their bit. January 2010 will not be the last time we have heavy snow, or the last time local councils run out of grit when there is heavy snow, and we want people to feel able to help their neighbours when the authorities cannot. More generally, in times of snow, flood or any other form of adversity, our communities are at their best when people come together and help each other with individual acts of kindness and consideration. That is what strengthens society, and it is our job as legislators to encourage that—or at the very least not to discourage it.”
“The court would not be prevented from finding someone negligent if they had gone about that desirable activity in a wholly incompetent or irresponsible way, but it would start from the premise that those who act to help their community should get a very strong benefit of the doubt. I believe that that will succeed in sending to the public the message that section 1 of the 2006 Act seems to have failed to send. In many ways, this is a modest Bill. It does not seek to affect what anyone does as part of their employment. It does not seek to compel anyone to act nobly, or to condemn those who do not. It seeks simply to remove an obstacle from the path of those people in our society who are willing to put themselves out for others.”
“It sets out householders’ responsibilities in considerable detail, including the substances to be used for gritting their part of the pavement, the maximum grain size thereof and the specified minimum width of the cleared area. The House will be relieved to know that I do not propose the same legislation here. I propose that we amend section 1 of the 2006 Act so that when a court considers a claim of negligence against someone who has done something for the benefit of their community, it will not simply regard their public-spiritedness as one factor among many that it may or may not take into account. Instead, there should be a presumption that someone who has engaged in that sort of desirable activity has satisfied the relevant standard of care.”
“In addressing the specific issue of a private citizen’s involvement in clearing snow and ice from pavements, we could go much further and make that involvement compulsory, as is the case elsewhere in the world. In the United States, for example, various municipal codes require homeowners and tenants to clear all snow from the sidewalk adjacent to their homes within a specified number of hours after it has fallen, or after sunrise, if the snow has fallen at night. In Germany, the rules are set out in the Satzung über die Verpflichtung zum Reinigen, Schneeräumen und Streuen auf Gehwegen, which, as you will immediately recognise, Mr. Speaker, is the “Statute concerning the obligation for the cleaning, removal of snow, and sanding on walkways”.”
“During the passage through the House of the Bill that became the Compensation Act, the Government made it clear that section 1 did not, in their view, represent a change in the law. It was instead a restatement of the existing law, intended to reassure those involved in what the Act described as “desirable activities” that in carrying out those activities, they should not fear negligence actions. The Compensation Act has now been on the statute book for three years, and I am afraid that the national conversation on snow clearing that we have heard over the past few weeks demonstrates that the Act has not succeeded in that aim. I believe that the House must go further.”
“Section 1 of the Act states, broadly, that a court considering a claim for negligence or breach of statutory duty, in determining whether a defendant should have taken particular steps to meet a standard of care, may have regard to whether a requirement to take those steps might prevent or limit a desirable activity or discourage people from organising or taking part in it. In other words, the desirability of the activity the defendant was engaged in at the time of the alleged negligence, and the benefit to the community of what he or she was doing, constitute only one of the factors that the court may consider, and it is not obliged to consider that factor at all.”
“Large legal advertising budgets are spent on persuading us that “Where there’s blame, there’s a claim”, and that there almost always is blame. We have been conditioned to believe that there is no such thing as an accident any more, only a negligent act for which somebody owes compensation, even if they were trying to be helpful at the time. So the safest thing is to leave the snow shovel in the shed. That is not a perception that this House should allow to persist. Others say that there has been a problem, but that the passing of the Compensation Act 2006 has solved it.”
“Of course, some say that there is not really a problem, because the courts are very unlikely to find the public-spirited domestic snow shoveller negligently liable for any injuries, in the absence of spectacular incompetence. They may be right, but I do not think that the public-spirited domestic snow shoveller feels reassured, and many such people, to be on the safe side, remain deterred from doing the right thing by a fear that the law would not be on their side. What matters in that deterrence is not just the likelihood of a negligence action succeeding, but the likelihood of a negligence action being brought in the first place, incurring all the worry and potential expense needed to defend it. We now live in a Britain where such negligence actions look more likely than they have ever done.”
“To their great credit, some people decided to help their neighbours and the wider community by clearing not just their own driveways and garden paths but the pavement outside their houses or their children’s schools. Others read their newspapers and decided not to. That was substantially because those newspapers quoted a variety of lawyers who said that if people were to clear the snow off their part of the pavement and then someone were to fall over on it, they might be sued for negligence. Inaction, the lawyers said, was the safer option—and so the pavements stayed uncleared, because the council could not do it and householders would not do it. That is the type of situation that the Bill seeks to address.”
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Compensation Act 2006 to ensure that courts considering a claim of negligence or breach of statutory duty apply a presumption that defendants undertaking a desirable activity have satisfied the relevant standard of care; and for connected purposes. Last month, a large part of Britain was brought almost to a standstill by significant snowfall and freezing conditions. Local authorities up and down the land ran short of salt and were unable to grit many roads—and in particular, many pavements. Those pavements became impassable, or even dangerous, resulting in slips and falls and keeping some of our most vulnerable citizens virtually prisoners in their homes.”
“Although I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s argument, may I draw his attention to the concern that his Bill raises? It may be something that he intends to deal with, in which case I apologise for diverting him. He has explained clearly the difficulties that councils face in providing enough housing. There is huge pressure on them to do so. As I understand it, the original purpose of section 106 agreements and planning obligations was to prevent a failure to provide the necessary infrastructure to go with those housing developments. If he enables councils to spend that money on housing, are we in danger not only of failing to solve the problem of inadequate infrastructure, but of adding to it by bringing in more housing without that attendant infrastructure?”
“Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wish to clarify that the objection came not from the Conservative Benches, but from the Government Benches.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that those figures may not tell the whole story on dementia? He has described the number of people who have been diagnosed with dementia but, as we know, many cases have not yet been diagnosed.”
“The Secretary of State asked my hon. Friend whether dementia should be part of the NHS tier 1 priorities. Does he agree that that was an odd question, given that dementia does not feature specifically in any of the Government’s tier 1, 2 or 3 priorities?”
“The right hon. Gentleman has dealt with the point about why he decided not to ring-fence that money, but will he deal with why he did not ask PCTs to report back on how they had spent that money, so that we could at least have ascertained whether they had spent it on what the Government had expected them to spend it on? The Government have not asked PCTs to report back on the strategy under discussion, and that is unlike what was done for the national end-of-life strategy.”
“May I return briefly to the operating framework? The Secretary of State is technically right that dementia is mentioned, but it is mentioned extremely fleetingly, and the importance that the Government have given to it is not in any way reflected in the priorities of the strategy.”
“I will not, of course, engage with the hon. Gentleman on the details of what is happening in Nottinghamshire, which I do not know anything about. However, I assume from what he says that his case is not that there are not excellent examples of good quality dementia care in the private sector.”