John Healey
MP for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough · Labour · United Kingdom
“Mr Spock, I think some would say, Mr Speaker! My hon. Friend is right. Despite global conflicts, trade tensions and rising threats in the world, which are pushing up inflation, bearing down on growth and pushing up borrowing costs, the UK economy is demonstrating huge resilience.”
“The Prime Minister and I have been clear that we must cut the costs of welfare. On levels of taxation, we had a period of Conservative Government, with low growth and high debt. They crashed the economy with the mini-Budget, and we had levels of taxation that were putting pressure on business, adding to the cost of living.”
“The hon. Lady is talking to the person who led the work to establish a defence and security partnership with the European Union and bilateral agreements with other countries, on which we now build both our economic strength and our national security strength. On the question of the Budget, I ask the hon.”
“Since day one in the job, the Prime Minister and I have been in lockstep in our determination to meet Britain’s fiscal rules. This is the bedrock on which we build good growth and help give a bit of breathing space to families and businesses.”
“May I start by paying tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves)? I am proud to have been a member of a Government with the first female Chancellor in 700 years.”
“My hon. Friend speaks up very strongly for his local area. He is right about the importance of pubs, social clubs and live venues, and about the importance of the 20% cut that we announced in July. These are the things that make the places where we live the places that we also love.”
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“Allowing them to run the roll-out without clear Government leadership risks damaging confidence in the overall purpose and benefits of smart meters. The Government’s hands-off policy therefore risks the very future of smart meters, and I think the collapse of consumer confidence and the failure of smart meters in other countries, such as Australia and the Netherlands, and in the state of California, are cautionary tales for us in the UK. My third C is controlled testing and pilots. As the Government are letting energy companies lead the installation of smart meters, activity is patchy. Some suppliers are holding back and one or two others, such as British Gas, are taking a market decision to move fast.”
“The Minister should accept that if the programme is to be perceived as one that is directly tailored to maximise the benefits to consumers, the way he manages it and such arrangements must reflect that intent. Secondly, on consumer confidence, the net benefits of the programme are said to be on average about £25 a year for a household with both electricity and gas meters. The benefits, both environmental and financial, can only be fully realised if there is widespread take-up and if consumers use the information to reduce their consumption, to change tariffs and to switch suppliers if needed to get the best deal. Confidence, knowledge and trust in the smart meters are therefore essential, but they are also fragile. Fewer than one in four consumers—only 23%—consider energy suppliers to be trustworthy.”
“The Government and Ofgem have some powers under the Energy Act 2011 to obtain information from suppliers on cost and performance, and as a start they should use them directly. The Minister also needs to rethink the membership of the panel he proposes to oversee the implementation of the smart meter programme. It is set out in one of the update papers he published earlier this month, the “Smart Energy Code”, which shows on page 73 that the governance panel to oversee the implementation consists of 13 full members with only up to two consumer representatives, no representatives from companies that specialise in metering and—potentially, as it says “possibly” in brackets—only one Government appointee, who will not have voting rights.”
“The Minister will be well aware that the Public Accounts Committee shared some of those concerns in a report last year. The first conclusion of its report, “Preparations for the roll-out of smart meters,” is: “Consumers will have to pay energy suppliers for the costs of installing smart meters through their energy bills, but many of the benefits will pass in the first instance to the energy suppliers.” That paragraph concludes: “The Department is relying on competition to drive down prices, but Ofgem have clearly found that the energy market is not functioning effectively as a competitive market.” That was the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) made so clearly. At present, the Government are writing a blank cheque for the industry.”
“They see energy companies making huge profits, little real competition to keep down prices, no help from the Government and no action from the regulator. The cost of the meters in total will be about £12 billion—at least on current estimates. That is more than £100 per smart electricity meter and more than £130 per smart gas meter. All costs are going directly on to the bills of consumers, yet there is no requirement to report these costs or show these costs in consumer bills; there is no guarantee that companies will pass the considerable savings on to the consumers in their bills; and, above all, there is no control over costs of installation, other than the Government’s assertion that market competition will do the job.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right: a perceived lack of proper competition is responsible for a large part of the loss of confidence among consumers. It is also responsible, in large part, for the frustration of many smaller suppliers, who feel closed out of what should be an open and competitive market. As he will see as I proceed, I pinpoint those doubts about proper competition in this sector as underpinning some of the difficulties that I anticipate this programme may have if the Government do not adjust their approach. Let me deal with my first C—cost—which is central to this matter. People have seen their energy bills go through the roof recently. Many people are struggling to pay, more report falling behind with their payments and some report being forced to choose between the very basics of eating and heating.”
“1, 3 to 5 and 24. 5.30 pm. Nos. 2, 189 to 194, 196, 217 to 220, 243, 168, 169, 240, 170 to 172, 177 to 181 and 206 to 216. 8.15 pm. Nos. 31 and 32, 6 to 23, 25 to 30, 33 to 167, 173 to 176, 182 to 188, 195, 197 to 205, 221 to 239, 241, 242 and 244 to 326. 10.00 pm. Subsequent stages 4. Any further Message from the Lords may be considered forthwith without any Question being put. 5. The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.— ( Stephen Crabb.)”
“83A(7)), That the following provisions shall apply to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill for the purpose of supplementing the Orders of 29 June 2011 (Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (Programme)) and 31 October 2011 (Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (Programme) (No. 2)): Consideration of Lords Amendments 1. Proceedings on consideration of Lords amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 10.00 pm at today’s sitting. 2. The proceedings shall be taken in the order shown in the first column of the following Table. 3. The proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the times specified in the second column of the Table. TABLE Lords Amendments Time for conclusion of proceedings Nos.”
“She simply wanted Jane to have the same joy as a mother that she had had with her own son, Archie. She said, “It’s just what you do for family. It wasn’t an option not to do it.” Together they make a powerful case for legal change. This is their campaign. I hope that the House will back them today and back the Bill. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That John Healey, Mr Clive Betts, Katy Clark, Chris Heaton-Harris, Julie Hilling, Simon Hughes, Margot James, Mrs Eleanor Laing, Mr Denis MacShane, Fiona Mactaggart, Valerie Vaz and Mr Mike Weir present the Bill. John Healey accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 27 April, and to be printed (Bill 328). Legal Aid, sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (Programme) (No. 3) Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No.”
“It is wrong that such a legal step can be blocked completely by the surrogate mother or her husband and wrong that it might take months to get the order in place if a magistrates court is busy. Above all, it is wrong that mothers such as Jane Kassim are denied the same basic right to the time they need with their newborn babies that other mothers have. In Jane’s case, her employer was ready to give her leave early, although still unpaid, so that she could be at the hospital with Amy for the birth of her twins, Isla and Ivy, and stay there to look after the babies until they were all allowed to come home. I am told that the going rate for a surrogacy these days is about £20,000, but Amy tells me that all she received was a pair of maternity trousers and a couple of big tops.”
“Surely there must be a good case for Britain, like some states in the US, to have a system of pre-birth orders. But the first and most important step is to secure basic maternity rights so that mothers like Jane, who have their children born through surrogates, have the same rights as other mothers who give birth themselves or who adopt children. That is the purpose of my Bill. It is wrong that thousands of mothers who have their own babies or who adopt have a legal right to 39 weeks maternity pay and a right to up to 52 weeks maternity leave, while others have a right only to 13 weeks parental leave, unpaid. It is wrong that such parents cannot put their names on their children’s birth certificates or make decisions about medical treatment for their children until they have a formal parental order in place.”
“The surrogate mother and her husband can exercise an absolute veto over this happening. Furthermore, as the leading lawyer in this field says, the conditions for a parental order do not place the child’s welfare first, and ultimately children born through surrogacy do not have the same protection as other children for the time to bond with their parents in the early months of life. That is from Natalie Gamble, a leading legal expert in the field, who has probably conducted more cases and seen through more parental orders than any other lawyer in the country. Surrogate births may still be relatively uncommon in this country. Probably about 100 babies are born in this way each year, but the number is growing as society changes and science advances.”
“I am grateful also to the Minister with responsibility for employment relations for agreeing to meet us as a cross-party group to press the case further. I was asked on the radio this morning why mothers who have their babies through surrogates do not have the same rights as other mothers automatically have. I found that hard to answer, but I think the answer lies partly in the fact that surrogacy is largely made possible by IVF, and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 was a piece of legislation based principally on the concern about the risk of coercion and commercialisation of pregnancy. This means that the right to and the legal control of any child remain with the mother giving birth, unless and until they are formally ceded and legally transferred to the commissioning mother.”
“But unlike other mothers, because she is having her baby through a surrogate mother she is entitled to only 13 weeks parental leave, unpaid, and then entitled to it only when she and her husband have a parental order in place formally transferring the legal responsibility and legal rights from Amy to them. That means that mothers like Jane are faced with a choice of going back to work very quickly or giving up their jobs entirely. Today is the day when I hope the House will take the first step to closing this legal loophole. I am grateful for the support that I have had from colleagues right across the House. I am grateful for their backing and for the presence of many of them in the Chamber.”
“When Jane first heard about Amy’s being pregnant it was the news that she and her husband had longed to hear, because she had been told at the age of 15 that she could never bear children and Amy had offered to be an IVF surrogate mother to their baby—or twins, as it turned out. Like any mother, Jane had begun to make preparations for the birth. She had asked her employer for maternity leave and was stunned a few weeks later when she found out that she had no legal right to maternity leave and no legal right to maternity pay. She had confidently expected to take up to 52 weeks leave. She had expected to get 39 weeks maternity pay, just as any mother giving birth to her own child or adopting a child is able to do.”
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision to introduce leave, pay and allowance arrangements for parents of children born to surrogate mothers equal to those available to parents whose children are born to them; and for connected purposes. Almost three months ago, I had nearly finished a long Saturday morning advice surgery—we all do them—when in came two sharp, slightly sassy young women, Jane Kassim and Amy Bellamy, who are cousins. Jane is a teaching assistant in a local Rotherham primary school and Amy works part time in a betting shop. She was seven months pregnant and was certainly showing.”
“Will the Secretary of State confirm the provision in regulation, reinforced by his new guidance, that no GPs should use 0844 numbers for their surgeries? Some patients are having to pay over the odds to contact their GPs.”
“We deprive those who need such assistance of being able to obtain it in this country; we deprive ourselves of the proper—sufficiently strong—safeguards against it being misused; and above all, because of the situation we are in, we deprive too many people of control and dignity in dying, and it is high time we changed that.”
“In circumstances in which someone does not have the means to travel abroad to die, we are not just in no-man’s land legally; we have a clinical and ethical fudge. Doctors do hasten the end of some patients’ lives in some circumstances, and they get around the prohibition on doing so through continuous sedatives, excessive sedatives, dehydration and starvation. Discussion on that treatment and care is often clouded in ambiguity, is disguised by the “Doctor knows best” attitude, is not open, is not honest and is not properly recorded.”
“She reminds us that this issue is as much about living as dying, as much about independence as dependence and as much about the family as the person facing the decision on their own death. But above all it is about control over what is perhaps the ultimate act and decision, to end one’s own life, taken by people who are mentally competent to decide but physically incapable of acting to do so without assistance. My concern, despite the policy, is that we are left in this country in a legal no-man’s land. For those looking to travel abroad to die, we have a policy of non-prosecution for compassionate assistance but a law that still makes it a criminal offence, and that law, in circumstances in which it exists but is not enforced, is flawed.”
“Before the policy, we did not know how the DPP used his discretion on whether to prosecute under the 1961 Act, but we do now, and I hope that this House will strongly endorse that policy, because it is compassionate and reasoned. Thinking about this debate, I remembered Debbie Purdy, to whom tributes have been paid, and that it was the power of her personal arguments, as much as her legal arguments, that had such force. At the time, she said: “I was preparing to lose and was in the middle of organising to go to Dignitas. Winning was like being given permission to be alive… I was reliant on somebody loving me enough to risk his liberty in order to support my choices. Now, I know I am not dependent on that”.”
“Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock) is, in my view, not necessary and not sufficient. We are blessed in Rotherham with a superb hospice, 15 beds, day places and a community hospice team. The hospice is supported by a dedicated team of staff, by more than 330 volunteers and by residents throughout Rotherham, who raise more than £2 million a year to support its work, but no care, however good, can entirely relieve suffering at the end of life, and some will choose to hasten their own end and will require and request assistance in doing so from those closest to them. That is the subject of today’s debate, and of the DPP’s policy, which clarifies and does not change how the law is applied.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), who I think led the Adjournment debate in January, about which he told the House, and spoke very clearly this afternoon. I pay tribute to the Backbench Business Committee, because as far as I can see, notwithstanding the hon. Gentleman’s debate, this is the first substantive debate that we have had in the House, probably since the Suicide Act was passed in 1961. We are asked to welcome the DPP’s policy for prosecutors on assisted suicide, and I do. I also strongly support the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), which stresses the importance of better palliative and hospice care, and we need to look at and go further with the law in this country, but the amendment in the name of my right hon.”
“Will the Minister concede that the Chancellor has shot himself in the foot with such widespread leaks, because all that he had to announce yesterday was the tax grab on grannies, which he hoped people would not notice? Will he concede that the leak inquiry that may or may not be going on now in the Treasury should consider the leaks of Office for Budget Responsibility judgments, and that now is the time to put the OBR on a proper independent basis similar to that of the Office for National Statistics?”
“Nevertheless, in my experience announcements that look clever on Budget day often look less certain and more complex in the days that follow, and what often follows is that the economics behind the politics becomes much clearer. It seems valuable to recall the warning that Winston Churchill gave: “We shall not be judged by the criticisms of our opponents, but by the consequences of our actions.””
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), and I think that the whole House is glad that he had more than three minutes and 52 seconds in which to speak today, because that allowed us to hear for the first time about his days as a fruit and veg man in Covent Garden and the speed of his e-mail downloads in Daventry. I have to say that we did not hear much that was new from the Chancellor, who spent an hour telling us what we have been reading in the newspapers for the past week. It makes me think how times have changed since Hugh Dalton was required to resign in 1947 over the leak of a single duty rate change.”
“If we draw a comparison with the US or with Germany, we find that both countries have a more balanced approach to dealing with their deficit, both countries are growing more strongly than Britain and both countries now have economies that have regained the loss of productive capacity which everybody in the modern, developed world suffered during the global financial downturn of 2008.”
“Based on the economic projections we heard today, this country is still set for feeble growth in the coming year and the year after. It seems to me that a credible economic plan to deal with the deficit must be supported by a successful plan for jobs and growth alongside it. At present, the Chancellor is condemning Britain to being a one-legged man in a three-legged race. The International Monetary Fund has made a similar point, stating that “growth is necessary for fiscal credibility.” We have to look harder at what we earn as a country, not just what we spend. The UK’s GDP last year was still nearly 4% lower than it was before the global financial crisis hit in 2007-08. In other words, our economy was smaller and our national income was lower.”
“My hon. Friend is right. This might well become a Budget in which the closer people look, the less they like. That might apply to the granny tax, as he suggests, but it might also apply to the threshold for the 40p top rate of income tax, which many people might find themselves hit by over the next few years, rather than benefiting from the raised threshold for payment in the first place. The consequences of the Government’s actions at a national level are already becoming clear. The UK economy grew by 3% in the year before the Chancellor stood up and delivered his spending review in 2010. In the 12 months that followed it grew by just 0.5%. That is because he took the decision to cut too far, too fast and choked off growth.”
“It is not now, and never was, a question, as the Government claimed, of the richest bearing the biggest burden; this Budget proves that the richest are getting the biggest benefit.”
“You, Madam Deputy Speaker, will recognise in the proposal for a general anti-avoidance rule, which I welcome, the same approach that we took and you fought for, against Tory opposition, in respect of the disclosure rules in the Finance Act 2004. This Chancellor’s Budget was a rich man’s Budget. He chose to cut the top rate of tax and give a kick-back for the rich—and at a time when the deficit is getting bigger, not smaller, when the national minimum wage for young people has been frozen and when the working families tax credit and public services are being cut across the country. This is not a Budget for working people, and the Government are not working for working people.”
“It seems to me that the case is clear, and has been so since the global financial crash and the requirement for Government to step in and provide big public support to commercial banks, that now must be the time to set up a British investment bank—the sort of industrial investment bank that Germany, Singapore and India have, which can offer strong support to indigenous research and development, domestic manufacturing and regional economies. The Chancellor told us this afternoon that, taken together, the anti-avoidance measures in this year’s Finance Bill would increase tax revenue over the next five years by about £1 billion. It is interesting that table 2.1 in the Red Book indicates only about a quarter of that over the five years, and that is about half what we did in our first year in government.”
“Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), who chairs the Treasury Committee, that I hope that the Select Committees will make sure that those schemes do not fail as the other business support schemes have and that they provide more lending and lead to more economic activity and support for business in every region of the country. International experience and all the data underline the fact that, in the long run, high levels of business investment are at the heart of strong economic growth.”
“The margins to make lending more affordable may be modest, but the design and concept, at least, are innovative. Interestingly, the schemes signify that the Government recognise that they were wrong when first elected to say that there was no role for active government and that the private sector would pick up the slack if the public sector stepped back. The schemes are interesting because they help to reduce risk and cost by using the power of the Government to stand behind them rather than support being funded up front. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey), who chairs the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, and the hon.”
“Any performance report on the Government would be hard put to place the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills anywhere other than close to the bottom, and any judgment on policies would be hard put to say that business support policies have been anything other than close to failure. The Merlin project was supposed to lead to a 15% increase in lending this year; in fact there was a net reduction of £11 billion in net lending to small firms. There was a similar failure of the regional growth fund, of the business growth fund and of the national insurance holiday for small firms. I look in this Budget with a degree of welcome, however, to the new credit scheme for lending to small firms, and to the new managed funds for lending to mid-sized firms. Those may be small in scale, but they are a start.”
“The Chancellor this afternoon singled out for special treatment those earning more than £150,000 a year, cutting their 50p income tax rate and giving them a tax break that is worth more to those people than many in Rotherham or Barnsley can earn in a year. With more than 800 households and families in Barnsley and more than 1,000 families in Rotherham—working hard, working part-time—faced next month with the total loss of their working tax credit, which could amount to almost £4,000 a year or £70 a week, the Chancellor’s decision to cut the top rate of tax at this point will simply not be accepted or understood. Let me turn to several of the Budget measures.”
“In our area, more than 12 people are now competing for every single job that becomes vacant, and the number of young people without a job for more than six months has more than doubled in the past 12 months alone. At a time when courts, hospitals, councils, civil service, police and fire service are all cutting public service jobs, any difference that there may be in south Yorkshire between public sector and private sector pay rates is simply not the reason why growth is being held back; it is the loss of jobs, of pay and of support through working tax credits that is sapping demand and confidence.”
“Indeed, and that is one reason why Britain is so far off the economic pace, and why so much more must be done than has been so far to boost jobs and growth in this country. To use the household income analogy, well loved of the Tory party, I note that if a household looks to pay down its debts at the same time as reducing its earnings, the spending cuts that it must make to do the job have inevitably to be more savage and to last for longer in order to be successful. That is the position this country is in. If I look at the consequences of the Government’s action locally, I have to say that in south Yorkshire, our area, it is hurting but not working: flat growth, higher unemployment, higher bills, lower confidence.”
“This is part of the reason why the Government have lost the support of NHS staff and lost the confidence of NHS patients, and have now lost the trust of the British public.”
“It did not do so in 2008 when we were forced to release the risk register for the runway at Heathrow. Nor am I asking for the routine disclosure of risk registers. I am asking for the non-routine disclosure of this risk register because of the exceptional case and the balance of public interest that is in favour of disclosure and not in favour of withholding, just as the Information Commissioner and now the Information Tribunal—both of whom have had the benefit of having seen this risk register—have decided. We are at the very end of the eleventh hour of this Bill’s 14-month forced passage through this House. Beyond today, the Government must decide whether they will respect the law and release the risk register.”
“That is why I went to court this month to help to argue the case against the Government’s appeal. Good government demands that Ministers get the best and fullest policy advice from officials, and it requires some safe space in which to make major policy decisions, but I am not asking for the release of policy advice. Risk registers are management, not ministerial, documents. They do not contain policy advice or accounts of policy discussions. They derive from major policy decisions, and the White Paper of July 2010 set out the main policy decisions three and a half months before the first transition risk register was compiled. Nor am I asking for the release of information that will bring to a halt the Government system of risk management.”
“That is why it matters so much, and that is why people mind so much about the plans for the NHS. The NHS, as an institution, is exceptional, and the public interest in anything that puts it at risk is exceptional, too. The current reform plans are exceptional in their nature, scale, timing and speed, and concern about the risks to the NHS is exceptional. That was expressed by all NHS experts, professional groups and patients in the consultation on the White Paper, and it was expressed by the Health Committee in its reports in December 2010 and January 2011. Risk was, is and will continue to be at the heart of the concerns about the biggest ever internal NHS reorganisation. That is why I made my original FOI request for the transition risk register in November 2010. That is why I refused to accept the Department’s refusal to release it.”
“This is not about being in favour of or against the Health and Social Care Bill; it is about the public’s right to know the nature and scale of the risks that the Government are running with their NHS, and it is about their elected Parliament’s right to know about those risks when it is asked to legislate—as we are being asked to do—on their behalf. We are elected to the House to legislate by the people, for the people. Nothing is more precious to people than our NHS. We all need the NHS. We depend on it utterly when we are at our most vulnerable and fearful. The NHS in England employs more than 1.4 million people, treats 3 million patients each week and provides each of us, throughout our lives, with some of the best health care in the world, free at the point of need.”
“This Standing Order No. 24 debate is an important statement from Parliament to the Government. We expect better from the Executive, and the public demand better, as they have shown in e-mails, surveys and petitions. This afternoon, the House is being asked to agree to the longest ever NHS legislation and to back the biggest ever reorganisation of the NHS. We are being asked to accept that from Ministers who have lost twice in law and still keep secret the risks that they are running with our NHS. This is a legal and constitutional argument; it is not a political argument.”
“The right hon. Gentleman is making an argument for blanket secrecy. However, this is less about his view or even mine; rather, the point is that the Information Commissioner and the judge, along with his two wing members on the tribunal, all of whom have seen and studied the risk register, have determined that, in their legal judgment, the balance of interest lies in publishing and not withholding it. Those are the facts of this case.”
“Will my hon. Friend also confirm that, in that session on 23 November 2010, Sir David Nicholson stated that the scale of the proposed change was enormous, and that it was beyond anything that anyone in the public or private sector had witnessed? That is why the risks involved in the reorganisation are so great, as is the imperative for the House and the public to know about them.”
“The right hon. Gentleman argues that one of the principal reasons why the Government have not accepted the decision to disclose the risk register is that information about risks has been disclosed to the public already. The Information Commissioner considered that. Will the right hon. Gentleman recognise that, in his legal decision, the Information Commissioner said that he did not accept the argument that the Government advanced, and that he considers that “disclosure would go somewhat further in helping the public to better understand the risks associated with the modernisation of the NHS than any information that has previously been published”?”
“Before my hon. Friend moves on, will she pay tribute to our Labour colleagues in the Lords, who have worked across the House, but who, by dint of the way the House of Lords works, cannot always claim credit for the results they have achieved by working in that way?”
“Otherwise, this is legislation for a local lottery in patient representation and the strength of local patient voices.”
“On the fourth point, which is about resources, I may have missed something in today’s debate or in the debate at the other end of the building, but we still have not had clear answers to the following questions. I would be grateful if the Minister answered these questions when he deigns to return to the Chamber to respond to the debate, unless the Secretary of State will be doing that himself. First, will local healthwatch organisations be funded directly by the Department of Health? Secondly, if funding will go via local authorities, what will the mechanism be for that funding? Thirdly, will funding for local healthwatch organisations be consistent across local areas so that patients, wherever they live, can be confident that they have a strong local representative organisation working on their behalf?”