Sir Christopher Chope
MP for Christchurch · Conservative · United Kingdom
“When was the last time that an allotted Opposition day was withdrawn in the way that the Leader of the House is withdrawing this one? I was looking at my calendar of business, otherwise known as the Order Paper, and it says that “The selection of the matters to be debated will be made by the Leader of the Opposition (Standing Order No.”
“The Climate Change Committee has condemned the Government for failing and falling short of adapting to climate change and accepting the reality as it is, which is that by the end of this century, global temperatures will have increased to between 3.5° and 4.5° above pre-industrial levels.”
“The Minister has referred to the grooming gangs inquiry carried out by our friend, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe), and early-day motion 380 makes a number of recommendations. Will the Minister engage with the hon.”
“The landmark 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence by the United States takes place in the week commencing 29 June. I have applied for an Adjournment debate, but will the Leader of the House enable more Members to be able to participate in marking that historic event?”
“That is exactly what I did on behalf of my constituent Paul Kenchington: I wrote to the Secretary of State about the specialist steel that he uses, and I have not had a reply.”
“Next week, can the Leader of the House produce a Government statement in response to the Hallett review on covid-19 vaccines? Lady Hallett recommended major reform of the vaccine damage payment scheme.”
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“As not all those who died shortly after vaccination will have died because of the vaccine, I thought it was fair to ask a further question as to the number of such cases where the yellow card analysis showed that the death would have happened regardless of the vaccine or medicine being administered. I asked this question to help promote vaccine confidence and to prevent inaccurate conclusions from being reached. Much to my disappointment and dismay, that question has not been answered in a timely fashion or at all. Why not, one asks? Surely the Government must have this information, and their failure to produce it can only help further raise suspicions of a lack of transparency. The Government almost seem to be in denial about all this.”
“In answer to question 92799, the Minister confirmed that, as at 15 December 2021, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency had received and analysed a total of 410,232 yellow card reports: 145,446 from people who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, 240,065 from those who received the AstraZeneca vaccine and 24,721 from those who received the Moderna vaccine. Some patients were reported to have died shortly after vaccination: 666 in the Pfizer reports, 1,164 in the AstraZeneca reports and 23 in the Moderna reports. There are people dying from this vaccine, but not many—well, actually quite a large number, and far more than we see in the tragedies that quite rightly detain this House for hours on end. I think this is a tragedy that demands the attention of the House and of the Minister.”
“Why should the Government force those people to go through the ordeal and delay of having to seek expensive legal help instead of enabling their representatives in Parliament to be given the information necessary to establish their claims? That is why those parliamentary questions and this debate are relevant, because it would enable our constituents to establish their claims without having to go to the law. The scale of this vaccine nightmare is now such that the number of vaccine damage cases exceeds all cases arising from previous vaccine programmes.”
“Will the Minister also answer the part of my question relating to whether the Government will notify those 427 families affected by that particular aspect of the availability of the VDPS? Surely that would be the most basic humane response. Why have the Government not responded to that at all? As you can probably tell, Mr Deputy Speaker, this is making me angry. In my point of order, I referred to five other named day questions that had not been answered and they remain unanswered. Will she apologise and explain? Many correspondents from constituencies across the United Kingdom remain sceptical about whether they will qualify under the VDPS. The issue has all the hallmarks of becoming a bureaucratic nightmare for victims and their families.”
“Following my point of order yesterday, complaining about the Government’s failure to respond to my questions, I received a response from the Minister yesterday evening, which stated: “Following a scientific assessment of all the available data and a review by the Commission on Human Medicines’ COVID-19 Vaccines Benefit Risk Expert Working Group, it was determined that an association between the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and TTS”— thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome— “was likely.” I hope that she will unravel the jargon in that answer and confirm in simple terms that that means that in the cases to which I have referred, causation has now been established and there should be no bar to the compensation scheme coming into effect.”
“At the moment, I am afraid that there is no evidence that the Government are on the side of those hapless victims of vaccine damage. In recent months, I have received hundreds of emails reporting deaths and serious illnesses involving immune thrombocytopenic purpura, which causes the number of blood platelets to be reduced. On 10 January, in question 100420, I asked the Minister what was being done to investigate the 427 suspected cases of that and if the Government will make it their policy to inform those affected of the availability of the vaccine damage payment scheme.”
“Absolutely. I have been in correspondence with constituents who work at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital and Poole Hospital who have expressed their concerns. One of the reasons many people with medical expertise are worried about it is that they have seen such examples in their work. My hon. Friend refers to the issue of encouraging more child vaccines to be administered, but if we are going to do that, as well as it being important for the parents of those children to appreciate the risk as they are thinking about it, surely we should be able to give them the secure knowledge that if something goes wrong and if against everybody’s expectations, those vaccines turn out to have dire and life-changing consequences that last for 40 or 50 years or longer, the Government are on their side.”
“My hon. Friend will not have time to answer all my questions, so will she meet me to discuss the issues I have raised that she is unable to deal with now? Also, on this issue of evidence, does she require more evidence than a coroner’s verdict to enable the relatives of somebody who died following the vaccine to get compensation?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing to a meeting to discuss the further issues that she cannot cover tonight. On the £120,000 payment, that has not increased since 2007, so in effect it should now be worth £177,000. Why will the Government not give in on that point? That would be a great victory tonight.”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your assistance, because Mr Speaker has generously granted me the end of day Adjournment debate tomorrow on the effectiveness of the Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979. In anticipation of that debate, I tabled a series of named day questions. As of today, seven of those have been outstanding for more than one week and one of them, which names the 1979 Act, has been outstanding for more than six weeks. That seriously inhibits my ability to properly hold the Government to account, because I need answers to those questions before the debate begins. What can you do to ensure that the Department of Health and Social Care delivers?”
“Can I give my hon. Friend another example? In Christchurch there was a turnout more equivalent to that at a general election, and its people voted 84% in favour of retaining their independence, but were nevertheless run roughshod over by the Government.”
“If we have 15 minutes for the SNP spokesman and 15 minutes for the official Opposition spokesman, that will give us a little more than 15 minutes for the Minister and the short response to the debate. I call Kirsten Oswald.”
“If we are to have this system, let us make sure that it works. This NHS document makes it clear that a person is not allowed to pay towards the NHS in various other sectors. Why are they are not allowed to pay towards the NHS? Our NHS is, by all accounts, still short of resources. Why do we not do everything in our power to encourage more contributions towards healthcare in this country from private individuals? Is that not a reasonable objective? It seems as though the NHS policy is to prevent people contributing towards their own NHS costs unless they fall into the categories to which I have referred. That is really the essence of this debate. I will not be able to get this Bill on the statute book in the next quarter of an hour, but I hope that I will be able to open up a debate that has been closed for far too long.”
“It is necessary to pay towards NHS care when it is described by some bureaucrat as social care and not healthcare. We know that an enormous amount of bureaucratic time is taken up with trying to argue that people are not in receipt of continuing healthcare, but are actually in receipt of social care. If they were in receipt of continuing healthcare, they would not have to pay for it—it would be free—but because it is deemed to be social care, they have to pay towards it either in full or in part under the system that is in place. The Government have now said that they wish to bring together the health and social care sectors. If they are to do that, then surely they need to be thinking through the issue of means testing and co-funding and co-payment as it relates at the moment to social care.”
“I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. It is a great pleasure to introduce the Bill. Its proposals are not really novel, because co-funding and co-payment within our national health service already exist. Indeed, the NHS website, under the heading “When you need to pay towards NHS care”, states: “Patients often need to pay towards the cost of: prescriptions dental care eye care wigs and fabric supports”. It goes on to say: “The money raised helps fund the NHS.” The payments in respect of those items are co-payments. Sometimes they are fully funded by the individual, sometimes partially funded, and sometimes there are exemptions, but the money raised from the co-payments then goes into co-funding, and it helps to fund the NHS. Of course, other items could be added to that list.”
“We have fewer diagnostics with computerised tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography scanners—CT, MRI and PET scanners—than the average OECD country, by which I mean the 38 countries to which I have referred. The average in the OECD is 45 scanners per 1 million population. In this country, it is only 16 per 1 million population. Is that not a scandal? When we look at the gargantuan waste within certain aspects of the NHS machine, it brings home the gravity of those figures and why we need to draft more resources into the NHS, including resources from the private sector.”
“We have information now that compares OECD figures, and it shows that, in the United Kingdom, in 2019—before the pandemic—the rates of fatalities from cancer were 216 per 100,000 people. In the United States, which has a very different system from ours, it was 178 per 100,000 people. In Australia, it was 180 per 100,000 people, and, in Mexico, it was 118 per 100,000 people. The OECD average across 38 countries was 191, so we are an outlier in this country with our NHS in having much higher death rates from cancer than comparable economies and, indeed, much higher death rates than economies that are much less successful economically than our own. We also have a pretty poor show in terms of diagnostics.”
“No, I will not give way. I just want to make my point. Today is World Cancer Day. This morning, the Secretary of State launched a new document, talking about a 10-year plan for cancer. That reminds us that the NHS is free at the point of delivery, but it is not often free, or even available, at the point of need. Those are two separate propositions. Often, when people talk about how wonderful our NHS is, they omit to point out that, very often, the NHS is not available at the point of need. That is highlighted by the fact that there were 50,000 fewer cancer diagnoses across the UK during the pandemic, and that, during that time, NHS cancer treatments fell by some 6%.”
“Wait a moment. That could include, for example, all those facemasks with ear loops that had been ordered at a cost of £155 million. If the NHS did not want them, because it insists on having better-quality facemasks with head loops, surely it could have sold them off to try to get some income from the private sector, but it did not: it just wrote that money off. Similarly, because of an official error in drawing up the specification for hospital gowns, it wasted £70 million on them. There is no reason to be complacent about the state of our NHS. That is not to say that there is not some fantastic work carried out by people who work in the NHS across the country. In many respects, the NHS is a centre of excellence.”
“As the columns of this Journal and many others…have detailed, the combination of increased demands from patients and an onerous system of accountability has led to widespread and serious workforce stress, demoralisation, and flight to early retirement.” The article then describes the situation in New Zealand, where it says: “There is strong support from general practice to retain co-payments both as a mechanism to manage demand and as a way to encourage self-management of minor ailments.” Why are we not considering that in the United Kingdom? We know that GPs are under enormous stress and that people feel deterred from going to the GP or that their GPs refuse to see them, which is contributing to the examples of undiagnosed cancer that I referred to earlier.”
“The increased patient demand is exacerbated and compounded by the burdensome opportunity and transaction costs of a powerful, centrally orchestrated, and financially-incentivised framework. This framework is designed to drive (or buy) ‘quality’ through a complicated and time-consuming matrix of accountability measurements.”
“Not long ago, an article was published in the British Journal of General Practice , “Patient co-payment for general practice services: slippery slope or a survival imperative for the NHS?”, that asks: “Is universal zero cost at point of general practice care a time-expired and unaffordable NHS sacred cow? Is it time to question the unquestionable?” In a sense, that is what the Bill does: questions what has, hitherto, been unquestionable. The article continues: “International observers of the NHS note increasing despondency within the general practice workforce,”— and not just within the workforce, but among their patients— “with much talk of a broken system tracking an unsustainable trajectory.”
“My final example of the consequences of too many people working from home and not answering questions from parliamentary colleagues is: “To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 21 December 21 to Question…on Coronavirus: Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura, what steps his department is taking to investigate the 427 suspected cases of major thromboembolic events with concurrent thrombocytopenia; and if the Government will make it its policy to those affected by those suspected cases of the availability of the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme.” I have not had an answer to that either, even though it was due on 13 January and is directly relevant to all the issues about vaccine confidence that many hon. Members take very seriously.”
“Another question that was due for answer on 5 January was: “To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason his Department has taken over responsibility from covid-19 vaccine manufacturers for negligence claims arising from their vaccines causing serious illness or death; and when he plans to return producer liability to those manufacturers.” Again that is an example of where, if the responsibility is taken away from the manufacturers, the taxpayer will end up footing the bill. Have we had an answer to that question due on 5 January? No, we have not.”
“The question was: “To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) deaths and (b) adverse reactions have been officially recorded against covid-19 vaccinations; and how many have been examined to establish the cause and/or trigger.” That is a fundamental question to which the Government should have an answer. Now, however, a month later, on 4 February, the question that should have been answered on 5 January has still not been answered. If some of those staff had not been working from home, perhaps they might have got round to answering that question.”
“How is it that our NHS, which we are told is the envy of the world, can manage with so many of its staff working from home rather than from their workplace? What is this new model of hybrid working and why are we transitioning to it? Why has nothing been done before? If we had had action before, perhaps so many of my questions to the Department of Health and Social Care would not have gone unanswered—for example, a question due for answer on 5 January. I am delighted to see the vaccines Minister on the Front Bench.”
“The question was: “how many staff in his Department will be permitted to work from home after 1 February 2022; and if he will make a statement.” I think there is a lot of concern that some staff in the NHS are not at their posts and are working from home when they should not be. What answer did I get? “The Department is transitioning to a new model of hybrid working. Staff are expected to work partly in the office and partly from home, with a minimum of four days a month in the office unless there is a business or wellbeing reason not to do so.” A minimum of four days a month in the office? I thought at first I had misread it, and they were talking about a maximum of four days a month working from home.”
“She is currently sharing a ward with people who are all being sick.” She then makes some rather rude, disparaging remarks about the NHS, which I will not share with the House, and says: “I know there is an option to go private, but let’s face it that’s for the wealthy upper class”, and asks why we do not give people more choice without having to bankrupt them. She goes on to say: “Is anyone in the UK seriously looking at the state of the NHS and working to make real, positive change? Thanks and Regards”. She is saying that we must not be complacent. We must start addressing those very real concerns. I am conscious of time, so I will refer to an answer I received on 2 February from my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health.”
“No—I am just coming on to a constituency case, and my hon. Friend may be able to intervene on this point. I do not know whether the person in question knew I was raising this matter in the House, but at 8.19 am today I received a letter from a lady whose mother is one of my constituents. She says, “My mother has avoided Covid for two years by staying home, she is going to be 81 tomorrow. She had urgent surgery on Monday on her spine. She now has COVID. Everything I have heard about her treatment by all at the hospital is dreadful.”
“I will not, because I am afraid that there are only 30 seconds left. I hope that this short speech will open up a proper debate on a really important issue. We cannot keep ducking it.”
“I proposed the Second Reading of the Bill and, through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to hear from the Government as to what statement there is. Having seen that answer to my question, I assumed that the statement was going to be, effectively, no objection and that the Bill was then going to be able to get its Second Reading. That has not materialised.”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not normally whinge about the Government objecting to my private Member’s Bills, but I wish to on this occasion because on 28 January I tabled a question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities asking why the Government’s policy is to object to the Mobile Homes Act 1983 (Amendment) Bill having a Second Reading. The Minister replied on 2 February; I will not read out the first part of his answer, which is not relevant: “The Bill printed on 24 January 2022 set out a new proposal to change the pitch fee review inflationary index from the Retail Price Index to the Consumer Price Index.” That is, of course, Government policy. “We will consider the proposal in detail and make a statement at the Bill’s Second Reading.” Well, we have had the Bill’s Second Reading today.”
“Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think I have also had more Bills to which an objection has been made than any other Member, but I will leave that on one side. When Second Reading today was blocked, I moved that the Second Reading be put over to 25 February. Normally, no Bill receives a Second Reading, if there is a debate, until after the Government have spoken and after there has been an opportunity for a vote on it. So I had assumed, from the answer I received from the Minister, that the Government were going to make a statement at the—”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that the issue goes even further than what he is describing, because we have the spectacle today of the Metropolitan police seeking to interfere with the content of Sue Gray’s report on the specious justification that it wishes to prevent prejudice to a criminal investigation, yet the only law on the statute book in relation to prejudicing a criminal investigation relates to proceeds of crime legislation, which is certainly not what we are talking about at the moment?”
“It seems that the Metropolitan Police is usurping its position by seeking to interfere in the affairs of state without there being any criminals offences or grounds to carry out such interference.”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know that there was reference to current events in the last debate, which was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), and I wonder whether you and Mr Speaker have been able to express your views about the issues currently confronting the Government that relate directly to the separation of powers. I thought that it was this House that held the Government to account for their policies, not the Metropolitan Police. As I made clear earlier, there is no reason for the Metropolitan Police to require Sue Gray not to issue her report in an unamended way for the benefit of the Prime Minister, who ordered that report, and of this House, which is eager to see it.”
“That is a small but important point, and I hope that we will get a constructive response from the Minister. If there is resistance to accepting the amendment in this place, perhaps it can be considered in the other place. However, we need to have more than just words about the importance of good quality; we need to ensure that the legislation facilitates it.”
“224WH.] How will we ensure that we have that quality, which we are told will increasingly be assessed by Ofsted, if it is going to be constrained? If Ofsted goes to a school and says, “Your provision is not of sufficiently good quality”, the school will be able to say, “Under the guidance—under the existing legislation—we think, or the person giving the advice thinks, that that is the right advice to be given for this child,” and there is no objective test. If the provider thinks that what it has done is correct, there is no possible way of criticising that or exercising any sanctions against it. That is why removing these words is of absolute importance if the Government want to deliver much better quality careers guidance in our schools.”
“Ferndown Upper School has made enormous progress over recent years under excellent leadership and has expanded its numbers accordingly. If we were able to see an equivalent increase in the quality of careers guidance in schools across the country, we would all be absolutely delighted. Let me turn to the response to the Westminster Hall debate from the Minister for Higher and Further Education. She said: “The foundation of making that a reality is careers guidance in our secondary schools.” She went on to say: “That is why we are strengthening the legal framework so that every secondary pupil is guaranteed access to high-quality, independent careers guidance. Careers guidance, in itself, is not the panacea; the quality is absolutely crucial.” —[ Official Report, 11 January 2022; Vol. 706, c.”
“Friend the Member for Tatton, in concluding her remarks in the Westminster Hall debate, said: “How do the Government plan to ensure that careers guidance is of a high quality for all pupils, irrespective of where they come from?” —[ Official Report, 11 January 2022; Vol. 706, c. 212WH.] That is the issue. I am delighted to see the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), who was not able to attend the Westminster Hall debate, on the Front Bench. In welcoming him to the debate, may I say how much I appreciate his decision to give Ferndown Upper School in my constituency a significant capital grant for its T-levels programme, which was announced just before Christmas? That is much appreciated.”
“Everybody seems to agree that the Gatsby benchmarks should be the standard, yet we know that only one in five schools meet any of them. The question I want to pose, in moving the amendment, is this: what are the Government doing to ensure that we get not just careers guidance, but good-quality careers guidance? I remind the House of the eight Gatsby benchmarks of good careers guidance: a stable careers programme; learning from career and labour market information; addressing the needs of each pupil; linking curriculum learning to careers; encounters with employers and employees; experiences of work places; encounters with further and higher education; and personal guidance. The fact that so many schools do not even comply with any of them should raise significant alarm bells. That is why my right hon.”
“Friend went to say: “The latest report from the Centre for Social Justice says that there is a growing need for tailored, innovative and inspiring career guidance with links to role models and employers.” —[ Official Report, 11 January 2022; Vol. 706, c. 211WH.] I think everybody agrees that that is so, but it is a concern that there is no single place where a young person can get comprehensive Government-backed careers information. The Centre for Social Justice also found that schools are not consistently delivering good-quality careers advice. About one in five schools does not meet any of the eight Gatsby benchmarks, a series of internationally respected benchmarks that help the Government to quality assure careers advice in schools. That is very serious.”
“However, it was difficult because her teachers said, “Well, I’m not sure you’re going to be suitable for science A-levels”, and obviously without them she would never have been able to get the qualifications to go to veterinary school and attain the qualification that she has. The good advice she got from a teacher at the school meant that she could embark on science A-levels. That is a personal example from my own experience of the importance of quality. I do not doubt that some people at the school would have taken the view that the best thing was for her not to do science A-levels, but on any objective assessment it was the right decision. I therefore agree absolutely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton. My right hon.”
“I was delighted that in the debate that took place in Westminster Hall on Tuesday there was much emphasis on quality in careers guidance, and a lot of reference to what the Gatsby rules set out. Let me briefly tell the House about some of the points raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey), who introduced that debate. She said how important it is that children know what they want to do when they leave school, but that they will not be able to do that if they are not told about all the career opportunities available to them, the qualifications they will need, and the different educational paths they can take. For example, when my daughter was at school she aspired to become a member of the veterinary profession, and I am proud to say that that is what she is.”
“Let me put the amendment in context, for colleagues who have not looked at the text of section 42A of the Education Act 1997. Under section 42A(4)(c), the Act states: “The responsible authorities must secure that careers guidance provided under subsection (1)…is guidance that the person giving it considers will promote the best interests of the pupils to whom it is given.” In other words, the test is a subjective one on the part of the provider, rather than an objective test. My amendment would remove the words “the person giving it considers ” thereby making it an objective test for the responsible authorities when securing the careers guidance required by the Act. The context of the amendment is very much about quality.”
“However, I invite him to reflect further on amendment 1, because at the moment the Bill says that “The responsible authorities must secure that careers guidance provided under subsection (1)…is guidance that the person giving it considers will promote the best interests of the pupils to whom it is given.” Surely, the school should be taking the responsibility for ensuring that the careers guidance that is provided promotes the best interests of pupils. The Minister did not really address the points that I was making about the number of schools that are not complying with any of the eight Gatsby guidance principles.”
“I much appreciate the Minister’s comments, and his exemplification of the importance of Christchurch—of Tweoxneam—in the history of our country. I am glad that he is so well read in his subjects and knows the locality. I am sure that that had nothing to do with the decision to award this money to Ferndown Upper School, but nevertheless, it is very much appreciated. I accept what the Minister says about amendment 2—it was very much a probing amendment.”
“The school will always be able to say in defence, to an Ofsted inspector, for example, that the provider thought that it was working in the best interests of the pupil to whom guidance was being given.”
“I appreciate that, but one in five schools is not complying with any of the eight Gatsby principles that I read out, so surely we need to take action sooner than on the timescale to which the Minister refers. That is not a matter for legislation—his Department needs to get a grip on it. If schools are not complying with the basic principles set out in Gatsby, why is that, and why are they not being held to account? I return to amendment 1. If a school transfers responsibility for careers guidance that is in the best interests of pupils to a provider who gets it wrong, there is no way in which that school can be held to account for having chosen a duff provider.”
“The Minister shakes his head, but if the Bill retains the phrase “the person giving it considers”, surely we are accepting a subjective test rather than an objective one. I will give way again to the Minister.”