Clive Efford
MP for Eltham and Chislehurst · Labour · United Kingdom
“Thank you for allowing me to take part in this statement, Madam Deputy Speaker, given that I was not here at the beginning—I was carrying out my duties elsewhere in the House. I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. What is she likely to do in my part of south-east London for technical and vocational places?”
“I rise to speak to amendment 97 in my name, which would remove clause 10 from the Bill. Clause 10 gives powers to the Secretary of State to vary the proportion of public and private provision of health services if they consider that to do so is in the interests of the health service.”
“Labour’s 2024 plan to make work pay set out a welcome desire to bring more essential services back into public control—something that is welcomed by health workers across the country, because so far the “biggest wave of insourcing in a generation”, as was promised, has felt more like a trickle when it comes to the NHS.”
“The explanatory notes for the Bill say that this new flexibility is necessary “where there may otherwise be a breakdown in provision of a health service.” Can we imagine a situation where the Secretary of State has concerns about a health service and that an approach to assist a local provider would be rebuffed?”
“There are ample powers to enable the Secretary of State to intervene and resolve breakdowns in the provision of a health service. On clause 10, we must balance what it adds in those situations against its potential misuse by an ideologically driven Government that are determined to privatise our NHS.”
“It was a pleasure to join my right hon. Friend at Greenwich council’s development of 435 council properties in my constituency for the launch of the social and affordable housing programme. Some 70,000 homes are planned, and that is welcome and overdue.”
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“We have all celebrated what has gone on in Sheffield over the past year, but it did not come either cheaply or at a moment’s notice. It started back in the 1980s, when Sheffield planned for the World student games. It has built on that legacy, showing an innovative way of approaching sports development—years ahead of other local authorities. It planned to have not just a centre of excellence for sport, but a place where major entertainment events could take place and to use the income generated from that to cross-subsidise a state-of-the-art sports facility. Sadly, time has caught up with that; competition from other venues has meant that it has not been possible to sustain that business plan over many years.”
“Why are athletics tracks up and down the country—not just in Sheffield—having to close? All of these errors could have been foreseen. That is the point of legacy—investment and planning.” Across the whole sporting community, we consistently hear the same comment: this Government have no coherent sport strategy to deliver the legacy. There is a lack of cross-departmental, joined-up thinking, threatening the 2012 legacy. Sheffield has become a centre of excellence for sport. It hosted the student games in 1991 and laid the foundations for a sporting legacy in that city. If we look back to the 1980s, when I was in local government and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East was on Sheffield city council, Sheffield was showing the way for planning for sport for a generation.”
“Local government has an essential role to play in encouraging participation in sport and physical recreation, but what we see from the Government are consistent attacks on local government and precious little evidence of working in partnership with it. Research by the Local Government Association, published last Friday, shows that demand is growing in local authority areas post-2012, but with the cuts imposed by this Government, we are moving in the opposite direction from the one in which we should be moving. The lack of any strategy from the Government is highlighted by the comments of Toni Minichiello, Jessica Ennis’s coach, with regard to Don Valley. He asked why the Secretary of State for Education “twice had to delay announcements on sport in primary schools? Why have school sports partnerships been cut?”
“There is discussion about legacy in one section of Government—that we must deliver and build the legacy—but in another section of the Government— the Department for Communities and Local Government —we see a complete failure to have any strategy whatever and to plan ahead for sports facilities, in order to ensure that the enthusiasm inspired by 2012 can be met by the capacity to provide sports services for people. This debate highlights the Government’s reckless approach towards local authorities and sport services. We consistently find that the Government have no coherent plan when it comes to sport.”
“It is a pleasure to participate in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Leigh. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing this debate, and my hon. Friends the Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) and for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) on the way in which they have represented their constituencies in this important debate. This debate is important because Sheffield is synonymous with sport in this country; it has made itself so over a long time. This debate is about fairness, consistency and planning.”
“Flexibility for schools is welcome, but what is the minimum time parents should expect their children to spend on sport and physical activity under the new national curriculum?”
“Today’s report by Ofsted on sport in schools calls on the Government to devise “a new national strategy for PE and school sport that builds on the successes of school sport partnerships”. Those partnerships have been totally undermined by this Government. It is unacceptable that six months after the Olympics, we are still waiting for the Government to deliver a coherent sports strategy. If they continue to delay, they will fail the generation that we should be inspiring. How many more damning reports need to be published before the Minister gets it and the Government deliver the sporting legacy that our children deserve?”
“We can only live in hope that Hong Kong, Massachusetts and Singapore do sport in their schools. The Secretary of State has presided over a reduction in the number of hours that PE teachers spend outside the classroom organising sport, and the children in our schools are spending less time on PE and physical recreation on his watch. What is the position of sport in his new, strengthened national curriculum?”
“The Secretary of State inherited a mess that was created by his Conservative predecessor, who abandoned the “A picture of health” process. That led to the betrayal of my constituents in respect of what they expected to come out of that process, particularly at Queen Mary’s hospital Sidcup. When he opposed “A picture of health”, the former Secretary of State said that he would decide on that closure based on what local clinicians said. In this process, it is clear that local clinicians are opposed to the closure of the A and E. Will the Secretary of State therefore say what value he places on the views of the local commissioners, who are completely opposed to what he proposes?”
“Will the Minister say why there are fewer people in the offshore investigation and affluence investigation units in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs than there are working on cutting child benefit for families?”
“I suspect that the hon. Lady is coming to a conclusion, but I was expecting her to refer to discussions she has had with the Government about her Bill. I cannot help noticing that the clauses in her Bill are—with one exception—almost identical to those in the Government’s Bill, which suggests some form of dialogue between the hon. Lady and the Government. It would be desirable for that part of the Bill to make progress. Has she discussed with the Government when they intend their Bill to complete its progress? Perhaps we could succeed in that and deal with the levy separately. Has she considered that?”
“The levy is important, as it provides essential funds for an important industry, particularly in rural areas, but will the Minister explain how he intends to proceed with the Bills? Will we see legislation in this Session? It is shame that his draft Bill was not submitted to the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport any earlier, given that there has been a paucity of Government business to fill the time. We could have completed scrutiny of this piece of legislation had it been introduced earlier. In the time remaining today, the Minister will want to contribute to the debate as much as possible, so I shall leave it to him to answer those points.”
“I feel like I have been under starter’s orders for four and a half hours and I have finally got out of the traps. I congratulate the hon. Members for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) and for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on securing this debate. It has been an interesting debate, although it has been heavy going at times. I feel like I have been waiting for a taxi: you wait for a Bill, then you get two at once. I will leave the Dispatch Box after asking the Minister if he can clarify where we are. We have two identical Bills: the only thing that is different about the Offshore Gambling Bill is clause 4—where have we been before on clause IV?—which deals with the levy.”
“Q3. Can the Prime Minister confirm that his Government are the first for 30 years not to offer hard-pressed consumers a Government-funded energy efficiency scheme, following the closure of Warm Front last week?”
“Are the Government considering taking legal action to retrieve any of that money, as is being considered in the USA? I am conscious of time and I want to let the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) speak, so I shall move on. As has been said, the recommendations fail several tests, and they clearly fail the test of satisfying local GPs and receiving local GP support. The chair of the local GP commissioning body, Helen Tattersfield, wrote an article in T he Guardian under the headline: “GPs are already wise to the scam of new commissioning groups”. She absolutely lampooned what is being proposed by the Government.”
“That should have been recognised, and the Government should have worked with that hospital trust to work through those difficulties. We all know that PFI has not caused this problem, but it has added to it. PFI accounts for roughly a third of the deficit, which is not to be ignored, but one issue that has come to light recently, in relation to PFI in general—not just in relation to South London Healthcare NHS Trust—is the effect that the manipulation of LIBOR has had on the rates that hospital trusts have had to pay, in terms of interest, as a consequence. I do not expect the Minister to have an answer to this question, but will she go away and consider what the cost implications of LIBOR manipulation have been for every PFI in the NHS?”
“Waiting times in A and E improved, and Dr Foster reported on a significant and consistent improvement in the standardised mortality ratios over a couple of years. On those performance indicators, it outperformed Lewisham hospital. When the decision was made to put the trust into administration, its performance on quality of care for local patients was improving. Anyone who was concerned about care for local patients would have worked through the financial difficulties with the trust. It was a big ask in that short period to improve clinical performance as it did, to merge the hospitals as it did, and to improve financial performance as it was required to do. It was always a big ask, and I think it was impossible.”
“All have gone through the same scenario as Mr Kershaw, and all have given me assurances about the areas—I will not go into them because I do not have enough time—where financial performance needed to improve and efficiencies needed to be made. Always, they made the point about the need to treat people close to where they live in the community and reduce pressure on acute services. All have made that point, and all have needed to improve clinical performance. Just over a year ago, the South London Healthcare NHS Trust had only one case of blood-borne MRSA, which was the best performance in the country. The improvement in the quality of care under the new trust was significant indeed.”
“When the hospitals—Bromley hospital, Princess Royal University hospital, Queen Elizabeth hospital in Woolwich and Queen Mary’s hospital at Sidcup—were merged approximately four years ago into one healthcare trust, there were serious difficulties with clinical performance, but very quickly the trust improved its performance significantly, and so much so that it was one of the best performing on many indicators. That is why it was so sad that when the trust was put into administration, unattributable sources in the Department of Health put out rumours that that was about not just financial mismanagement, but the fact that standards of care were failing. That was completely and utterly untrue. I go back several years, and I am on my fifth chief executive at my local hospital.”
“It is a pleasure, Dr McCrea, to speak under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) on securing this important debate. I want to start by defending South London Healthcare NHS Trust. Its financial difficulties are enormous and there is no disguising that, so people have tended to roll up its performance into something that is failing on all fronts, but that is clearly not the case.”
“To make one last point, we have seen the closure of an A and E, despite the promises of local Conservatives. The Leader of the House of Commons, when he was shadow Secretary of State, was going to save the A and E at Queen Mary’s, Sidcup, but it never came about. Under “A Picture of Health”, there was a proposal to have overnight stay, elective surgery at that hospital. It was promised to my constituents, who welcomed it and wanted to see it. I ask the Minister to reconsider removing that planned service from that hospital, because it was beginning to work and people welcomed it. It will be a serious cut to the quality of health care.”
“We can pray in aid what the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice said. The headline on the relevant article read: “Hunt faces Cabinet split over A and E closure after Justice Secretary blasts plans as ‘sticking two fingers up’ to patients”. We also have the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow)—the former Minister of State, Department of Health—who lamented, when he was still a Minister, the proposed closure of St Helier: “This is a flawed conclusion from a flawed process. There is still a lot of water to flow under the bridge before final decisions are made. The panel have ignored the pressure on all the A and Es and maternity units in south west London.” We can pray those people in aid to defend our A and Es, and the Government should go back and look again.”
“We are little more than window-dressing for central planning geared to the needs of large foundation trusts, and open to the interests of the private sector.” That comment alone just about sums up where we are. I will finish soon to allow the hon. Member for Beckenham to speak, but I just want to ask the Minister whether she will consider a review of proposed A and E closures across London. We are seeing a piecemeal, salami-slicing of A and E services, which is putting the safety of Londoners at risk. As we know, we have seen a 50% increase in people waiting in ambulances for 30 minutes or more outside A and Es to gain access, and we have seen a 26% increase in those waiting for 45 minutes. We know that they are under pressure, so before we see any closures, that review must take place.”
“The point made by my hon. Friend is self-evident, but if I may, I will not be drawn down the road, because I want to get the next point on record. Lamenting the fact that local commissioners have not been listened to, Helen Tattersfield says in her article: “No argument has any weight, however, against the needs of a failing trust, foundation trusts and potential private companies eager to expand their areas of influence, and NHS managers convinced of the merits of their model of fewer larger hospitals. Those of us who have spent hours acquiring the skills supposedly to lead commissioning have been shown that, in fact, decision-making and influence remains where it always was: with central managers, computer-derived models and reasoning that takes no account whatsoever of human behaviour in real life.”
“No, I will not, because I want to allow the hon. Member for Beckenham to speak. It will be a serious cut to local services, and we should not allow that cut to go ahead.”
“When the Minister next meets the Mayor of London, I urge him to discuss the Silvertown link between North Greenwich and Silvertown on the north side of the river. More importantly, many people are concerned about the need for public transport links along that stretch of the river, so will the Minister discuss with the Mayor the need to introduce a link for the Docklands Light Railway to come to North Greenwich, as it is essential for that to be part of the river crossing?”
“May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Health on the performance of the Food Standards Agency? We have just had a poor performance from the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), who failed to reassure the House about the FSA’s performance. There are concerns that if horsemeat can be labelled as beef and enter the food chain via supermarket shelves, other sources of meat that have been banned—perhaps because of concerns about BSE—could also enter the food chain. Will the Leader of the House ensure that we have a statement from the Department of Health, so that we can be reassured about the performance of the FSA?”
“An Olympic legacy must begin in our schools, yet this Government have cut school sport partnerships, the school sport survey and outdoor play spaces in our schools, and abolished minimum targets for school sport. We are still waiting for their announcement on school sport, which we all expected before Christmas. It is no wonder that less time is being spent doing sport in our schools. When will her Department get to grips with the Secretary of State for Education and lay the foundations that we need for a true sporting legacy?”
“The Secretary of State has to recognise the serious contradictions between the proposals in the trust special administrator’s report and the Conservative manifesto before the last general election. If he were to accept the proposals, particularly in relation to A and E, that would be a serious betrayal of promises made to the electorate. There are also the changes expected from the “A Picture of Health” proposals for Queen Mary’s hospital in Sidcup in relation to overnight elective surgery. How much is the Secretary of State bound by the specific promises made in the Conservative manifesto before the election when it comes to making a decision on the report?”
“The argument coming from the Government Benches is wholly founded on misinformation, particularly in respect of the claim that the Government have created 1 million jobs in the private sector. Is my right hon. Friend aware that, according to the Office for National Statistics, 196,000 of those jobs are due solely to the reclassification of sixth-form colleges and further education colleges?”
“When the Secretary of State reads out the spending capacity for my area, will he include the spending capacity of the 14,800 people who will become eligible to pay council tax next year under what has become known as the Pickles poll tax? What thought has he given to those people in the announcement that he has made today?”
“It is an enormous opportunity for Yorkshire—and the surrounding areas, as we have heard—to benefit from sport and bring in business, tourism and economic investment. Members who have spoken so far have shown no shortage of determination to achieve that, on the back of the bid. Congratulations are due to Gary Verity, and to the chief executive of Leeds city council, who must be extraordinarily pleased that his city will host the grand départ of the Tour in 2014. I welcome the fact that there will be an all-party group, because the sporting event will gain enormously from Members of this House working together to maximise the benefits that the Tour can bring to Yorkshire and the surrounding areas. I hope that the group will be based on the Tour, rather than on Yorkshire, so that Members who want to participate and put their case can do so.”
“It is a pleasure to join in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) on securing the debate. As has been said, congratulations are due all round, including, obviously, to Yorkshire for pulling off a coup in winning the bid from under the noses of British Cycling and UK Sport. I agree with the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) that it should not be forgotten that although the event will end in London—and the Mayor of London has welcomed that—this is very much Yorkshire’s bid and Yorkshire’s success. It is an example of what sport can achieve in generating economic activity away from the south-east.”
“I have been involved with a group that has got together entirely on its own initiative. In my constituency, people are enthusiastic about cycling, and the group will set up a cycling bank so that young people—indeed, people of any age—who do not have access to a bike can go cycling. More importantly, they are providing bikes adapted for people with disabilities, so that they, too, can enjoy the sport—sometimes with the assistance of other members of the club, cycling for them—on bikes that are specially adapted to take wheelchairs. Cycling is a growing area of sport, physical activity and community participation, and I am sure that the cycling banks played a significant part in the success of the Yorkshire bid.”
“Nearly 2 million people a week participate in regular cycling activity, which is a phenomenal achievement for cycling. Quite rightly, cycling has been recognised for that achievement in Sport England’s allocation of money, which was announced this week: there is to be a substantial increase to £32 million. That allocation recognises that cycling can deliver. Cycling has not only been successful in the past; the process of allocating money through Sport England is about what cycling intends to do in the future. The allocation is very much about all sports’ plans, and cycling clearly has something to contribute in the future, as regards increasing participation. We have heard from hon. Members about the bid for the Tour to go to Yorkshire, and part of that bid was the proposal that cycling banks be set up across the community.”
“I am grateful for those comments, which are reassuring. I assumed that that would be the case, and that we would all want to make the most of this tremendous sporting event, which comes on the back of not only an incredible year for British sport—I could spend the next half hour listing the successes in British sport in this golden year of 2012—with the Olympics and Paralympics, but outstanding success for cycling. Over the past decade, cycling has shown the way for other sports, as regards not only how to succeed at the elite end, thereby inspiring participation at all levels, but how to create a base of participation at grass-roots level. In the Active People survey published two weeks ago, the figures for cycling stood out because of the success in steadily increasing weekly participation over a sustained period.”
“I am sure that all of us, working together, will achieve that success and bring benefits to the UK that will be sustainable in the long term.”
“I sincerely wish every success for the event. Every one of us will work together to make it an enormous success, and not just for Yorkshire. The event is a well deserved success for Yorkshire, and it is an enormous shop window, as were the Olympics and Paralympics, to show off the UK. With London 2012, we successfully encouraged more visitors to come to the UK and more people to consider the UK as a place to do business. A survey published today by the British Council suggests that that is one of the major successes of 2012. A major international sporting event on the scale of the Tour de France, starting in Yorkshire and travelling south towards London, will be another enormous sporting event for this country, and hopefully it will be the start of an event that brings even more sporting success for this country.”
“I am sure that UK Sport is willing to put behind it any differences there may have been over which preferred bid should have been supported, and to discuss the event with the organisers to ensure that it goes forwards. I know that is the same for British Cycling. As many of our top British cyclists supported the Yorkshire bid, I am sure there will be a swift coming together. Regardless of whether there was any significant difference of opinion, everyone will now be moving in the same direction and seeking to ensure that the event is an enormous success. I cannot resist referring to the intervention of the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), who extolled the virtues of fish and chips from his constituency; I assume that they will now be known as fish and French fries. I am sorry, but the temptation was just too great.”
“I am glad that I gave the hon. Gentleman that opportunity to finish his speech, and I am sure that the young men are grateful for his comment. I say that in the spirit of today’s debate. I will not go through the list of colleagues who have spoken, because I am sure the Minister will want to mention every contribution. There were many questions for him to answer. The bid was entirely independent of UK Sport and British Cycling, and with that in mind, I sincerely hope that all parties involved can come together to discuss how we can get the best for the UK out of the significant, fantastic sporting event that is coming our way. UK Sport has an enormous amount of experience in organising and running major international sporting events, and its contribution will be significant.”
“It is not just on the budget that the Government have let people down. They promised that they would not close accident and emergency departments. Before the general election the former Secretary of State went to Bexley and said he would not close the accident and emergency department at Queen Mary’s, Sidcup, and it closed after the general election. Now they are planning to close the A and E at Lewisham—another broken promise about the NHS. It just goes to show: you can never trust the Tories with the NHS.”
“The 2010 Conservative manifesto stated: “We will stop the forced closure of A and E and maternity wards, so that people have better access to local services,”. They then closed the accident and emergency department at Sidcup, having promised to save it, and they now plan to close the A and E at Lewisham hospital. Is that not a betrayal of people in south-east London and the NHS?”
“The “Chance to Shine” survey published this week shows that the majority of parents who were surveyed—54%—said that since the Olympics their children have played less than two hours of sport and PE per week. Participation in sport in school is on the way down. The PE and sports survey published in 2010 told us that over 90% of schoolchildren were doing sport in schools. If we are to have any chance of instilling a sporting habit for life in our young children, we will have to start in schools. Will the Minister tell us what the Government intend to do to monitor what is going on in our schools?”
“The Secretary of State said in his statement that he knew that the FSA had received allegations about the fixing of gas market prices on Friday afternoon, but rumours about it existed before that time. Will he say when Ofgem first became aware of those rumours and what action it took on them? Would he not expect Ofgem to have made his Department aware of those rumours prior to this issue coming to light after the whistleblower made his information available?”
“I believe that the plan was ill-conceived from the outset, but today’s announcement was not about the science, it was about incompetence. The Government have had plenty of time, and this is not an uncontroversial issue. It has been scrutinised to death from this side and that, yet they came up with the figures on how many badgers there are very late in the process. What we need a cull of is Ministers who waste public money—we have had the west coast main line, and now this. How much has been wasted this year, and how much more will the cull cost next year?”
“Will the Minister arrange for the impact assessment of the Prime Minister’s announcement to be placed in the Library, so that we can all have a look at it?”
“May we have a debate on the place of plebs in society? The worst aspect of what the Chief Whip said to those police officers was that they should know their place, and such a debate would not only give him the opportunity to get on his feet and give us the truth about what happened but give those of us who consider ourselves to be plebs an opportunity to know exactly what our place is.”
“Will he admit that cutting £162 million from school sports partnerships was a mistake, and will he join the Opposition in calling for the Secretary of State to re-ring-fence that money so that we can have a sporting legacy?”
“The Government have set up a programme to encourage local sports clubs to engage young people and to get them involved in sports after school to create a sporting habit for life, but that will not work unless we have quality sports education in earlier years. In response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), the Minister said that the delivery of school sports partnerships was patchy, but that is not what he said before the general election, when he said that we should be building on school sports partnerships. Sadly, in the past two years, there has been a 40% drop in school sports partnerships and a 60% drop in hours spent outside the classroom by teachers organising sport, and the Government’s PE teacher release money is due to end in August 2013.”
“The chair of the South London Healthcare NHS Trust has written to the Secretary of State to correct inaccurate information given out by the Department of Health regarding the trust’s performance. [Interruption.] Instead of barracking me, would the Secretary of State— [Interruption.] Instead of shouting at me now, it is a shame that the Secretary of State did not meet the local MPs when he had the opportunity. Will he distance himself from the false information put out by unattributable sources in his Department, which will undermine the performance of the hospital and shows little respect for the health service workers who are working to improve services?”