George Freeman
MP for Mid Norfolk · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I am calling in this speech for, first, real honesty of a 1979 scale about the extent of the emergency; secondly, bold devolution to the people, cities and mayors who know how to do it better—frankly, they could not do worse than Whitehall—thirdly, serious Whitehall reforms, so that we end the juvenile process of His Majesty’s Treasury pl…”
“The normal deficit is when a Government do not earn as much as they are spending; because the economy has taken a downturn, they borrow a bit to keep spending and then pay it back. The structural deficit is that bit of the deficit that goes up every year even when the economy is growing, and it is driven by four things.”
“Convenient though it may be for my party politically, the idea that the answer is a regicidal political infighting crisis and a leadership contest in office is for the birds. Take it from me: my party has tested that idea to destruction, and we have all paid the price. We do not need a Labour party beauty contest.”
“My right hon. Friend makes an important point. I will make a slightly different point, which is that there are huge opportunities for good growth in this country.”
“I was doing my work as the Minister for Life Sciences, for agritech and for Science and Technology following in the footsteps of Paul Drayson and David Sainsbury. In life science, fusion, AI and quantum, we have built an unbelievably competitive economy, but other countries are moving fast. Our competitors are more agile.”
“My right hon. Friend makes an important point. The King’s speech that my constituents loved was the King’s speech in Washington, in which he spoke for the very best of this country. My point is that it is in all our interests—I say this as a friend of mainstream politics and democracy—that we tackle this challenge more boldly.”
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“It is key that the remuneration is fair and internationally competitive. Let me break those two points down. As the hon. Gentleman said, the CMA published its final report on the market for music streaming last week. The report was launched after the DCMS Committee and the Government encouraged the CMA to look into this and other claims. We read the report carefully. As the hon. Gentleman said, it found no suggestion that publishing revenues were being deliberately suppressed by distorted or restricted competition. The report also set out the fact that the overall share of streaming revenues enjoyed by publishers and songwriters increased from 8% in 2008 to 15% in 2021. At the same time, the share enjoyed by the recorded music industry has remained steady.”
“Similarly, the IPO has established a working group to develop a code of practice on transparency. That code is also close to completion, and we will be seeking wider industry agreement on that early in the new year, too. I hope and believe that those actions on data and transparency will achieve their aim: real improvements in the fair remuneration of songwriters and composers, and songwriters enjoying more timely and accurate data payments as a result of the improvements in data. Those are key elements of the package. Let me turn to competition and the distribution of revenues. However good the data is, many feel—the hon. Gentleman made this point very well—that the share of streaming revenues that go to songwriters and publishers, particularly the smaller creatives at the lower end of the pecking order, as it were, is too low.”
“That is why, since the DCMS Committee’s inquiry last year, the IPO has established a working group on metadata, which we have tasked with developing industry-led improvements. These are complex issues and there is no silver bullet, as the hon. Gentleman knows, but the working group has made real progress on a good code of practice on metadata and a two-year roadmap for industry to deliver tangible improvements through education and technical solutions. That output is very close to completion. Since returning to office a month ago, I have asked to see it, so that I can ensure that it reflects the undertakings that I gave to the hon. Gentleman and the House. Officials in the Intellectual Property Office will share it with the music industry more widely very early in the new year to seek final agreement.”
“I will address the issues that the hon. Member has raised and give him the update that he asks for. On streaming, we kicked off a significant piece of work on data, which the Intellectual Property Office has completed. The data gives us a good grasp of what is going on, which is key to fair remuneration. Too often, information that identifies songwriters and composers, along with their works and owners, is incomplete, inaccurate or missing entirely, which means that creators often face delays in being paid, and some are not paid at all. That predominantly affects not rock stars and superstars but the smaller creators on modest incomes, who depend on that data for their livelihoods.”
“Member’s view that songwriters and composers should enjoy a fair share of the value. The challenge is to make sure we get a framework in the UK where that is true—it is a lived experience and reality—without unilaterally moving so hard or fast that we undermine the sector. We must try to establish best practice, which fits with the wider work I am doing on innovation and regulation. This country has an opportunity to set the global standards in many of these sectors, which could then, through our soft power, become international standards. That is how we see this. The principles of fairness and sustainability underpinned the inquiry by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee into music streaming, which kicked off so much of this. I want to reassure Members that those principles absolutely underpin the Government’s approach.”
“I therefore have some personal feel for the challenge, and I know how strongly the industry respects the commitment of the hon. Member for Cardiff West to try to get the balance right. The strengths of the UK music industry are a major part of our economy. It contributed £4 billion to our economy in 2021, and probably more this year. A key component of that is exports. British music brought £2.5 billion into the UK in 2021. It is also a major force for soft power. Next week I will be in Japan making a speech on global science soft power. I suspect the Japanese associate the UK with the Beatles, Ed Sheeran and the fabulous creative artists we saw celebrated in the Jubilee, as well as with our science. They go together as global projections of our values as a democracy and a creative powerhouse in the world. I absolutely share the hon.”
“I also co-chair the Office for AI with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. I am also here as a Member for Parliament and a citizen of this country who is very cognisant and aware, as the hon. Member for Cardiff West has highlighted, of the role of music in our society and our economy. I am the husband of a theatre director, Fiona Laird, who has composed her own music. I have watched her go through the motions as a creator and as a musical theatre director. She composed the music for her recent Royal Shakespeare Company production of “The Merry Wives of Windsor”. We have a friend, a digital entrepreneur in the music scene, who uses the global streaming revolution to get a foothold as a minor artist in this incredible global economy.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone—in the warmth of your chairmanship in this cool room this morning. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) on securing the debate and on his ongoing work in this field. I welcome the chance to update him on the progress that has been made and to re-emphasise the message that I gave at the Dispatch Box several months ago before the turmoil of the summer. I want to reiterate the commitment made by my officials, the Government and me to get the issue right and to strike the right balance and continue the pressure that I know he welcomes in trying to secure that. I am here as Minister for Science, Research and Innovation in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and as Minister with responsibility for the Intellectual Property Office.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting that on the record; I will put it on the record that we will include that in the roundtable discussion. I will pick up the detailed point that he made and write to him on it, because that is part of the mix. I hope that the House and the hon. Member for Cardiff West can see that we are making progress, and I look forward to working with him on this in the months ahead. Question put and agreed to .”
“Despite the Opposition’s constant attempts to talk down UK manufacturing, the truth is that we are ninth in the world and fourth in Europe, and that our advanced manufacturing sector contributes £205 billion gross value added to the UK economy. That is why we continue to support it in sectors such as aerospace, automotive and life sciences through £850 million to the high-value manufacturing catapult and nearly £200 million through our Made Smarter programme.”
“I thank my hon. Friend, the chair of the all-party group for the future of aviation, and I take this opportunity to invite the whole House to celebrate the world-first achieved by Rolls-Royce and easyJet: the first run of a green hydrogen-powered auto engine. I am happy to reconfirm our commitment to aerospace technology. That is why we have put £685 million into the Aerospace Technology Institute programme and £125 million through the industrial strategy challenge fund into the UK Research and Innovation future flight challenge. The UK is leading in clean energy for the aviation sector and jet zero.”
“The hon. Member is absolutely right that we are committed to growing that supply chain for the gigafactory revolution in the north-east, the midlands and all around the country. That is why we set out, in our critical minerals strategy, a coherent plan for making sure that the country has the whole supply chain, as well as those factories. I know that the Minister with responsibility for energy technology will be happy to talk to the hon. Member to make sure that the supply chain is working locally as well.”
“The hon. Member raises an important point. We are committed to using our Brexit freedoms both on procurement and regulation to support UK industries. I will raise that issue with the Minister for Industry and Investment Security, who sadly cannot be here this morning, and make sure that she picks that up with the hon. Member directly. However, the answer is that we are totally committed to the UK steel sector and to getting the balance right between ensuring that we have open procurement and that we use Government procurement muscle to back our industries. They are not easy decisions to make, but we are very sighted on them to try to get that balance right.”
“As my colleagues have already pointed out, the Government are supporting households and businesses during the winter through a series of measures including the energy price guarantee, which will save the average household £900 this winter, the £400 energy bill support scheme payment, and, for businesses, the energy bill relief scheme, which will provide a price reduction to ensure that all eligible businesses and other non-domestic customers are protected. That is in addition to the £2 billion that the energy-intensive industries have received since 2013.”
“In a word, yes. All of us in the Business Department are focused on the point that my hon. Friend raises—namely, the pressure on businesses from the energy price spike this winter. In the autumn statement the Chancellor announced the Treasury-led review of our energy bill relief scheme beyond March, and we are actively working as a Department to make sure that that review has all the necessary data and evidence from businesses. Our energy bill relief scheme supporting energy-intensive industries has put in £2 billion of relief since 2013, and our 2022 energy security strategy announced that the EII compensation scheme would be extended for a further three years. We are also looking at making similar changes to the related EII exemption scheme.”
“Even better than that, I can make sure that the energy Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), meets the hon. Gentleman. We are aware of this problem and we are actively working on it.”
“As the Department for science, research and innovation, with the historic uplift in public R&D announced in the comprehensive spending review 2021 and the autumn statement 2022, and the Department for net zero, BEIS secured the highest increase in capital budgets at the last spending review, growing at 8.3% per annum over the spending review period.”
“My hon. Friend has put his powerful point on record. I can assure him that the Department is actively working with the Treasury to make sure that those sorts of schemes are accelerated.”
“Unlike the Scottish nationalists, we are committed to the private-public partnership that drives investment in our nuclear industry, and Sizewell C is a major commitment. The Government are proud to be partnering with industry, and it is a shame that the Scottish nationalists are not similarly partnering with industry for the benefit of Scots voters and bill payers.”
“In a word, no. I will tell the hon. Lady exactly where the £484 million that we announced last Monday—I think the Opposition supported it—is coming from. It is coming from Her Majesty’s Treasury to support universities, researchers and companies in this country that have been affected by—and this is the second point—the European Union’s block on our negotiated membership of Horizon, Copernicus and Euratom. I was in Paris last week negotiating. We are still actively pushing to be in Horizon, Copernicus and Euratom, but we have made provision, and early in the new year Members will start to see that we will be rolling out additional support for fellowships, innovation and global partnerships. If UK scientists cannot play in the European cup, we will play in the world cup of science.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point: maths is one of the underpinning disciplines of all our science and technology leadership. That is why we have increased funding through UK Research and Innovation for core maths, and I am delighted to confirm that we are looking at various ways in which we might be able to turbocharge our international fellowships in maths as well.”
“We have identified eligible households based on two key criteria: those on means-tested benefits or tax credits below a specific income, and those who live in a home with a high energy cost threshold. We have used the age, size and type of property to estimate its relative heating costs. As a result of those reforms, most eligible households will not have to take any action to receive the rebate. They will receive a Government letter explaining the scheme and will have their accounts automatically credited by their energy supplier.”
“Those households are likely to spend more time inside their homes, require higher temperatures and be more vulnerable to cold. Furthermore, under reforms we have introduced in England and Wales to improve targeting, around 560,000 more households in fuel poverty will receive rebates and around 160,000 more households with a long-term illness or disability will benefit each winter. I can see the hon. Gentleman nodding—he knows we are trying to get the right money to the right people. Incidentally, the reforms in England and Wales have resulted from use of innovative data matching between the Government and the obligated energy suppliers—data matching enabled by powers in the Digital Economy Act 2017 to help people in fuel poverty. That is an example of good legislation working.”
“The Government’s energy price guarantee will save the typical British household around £900 this winter. Turning to the warm home discount, which the hon. Member for Stockton North particularly focused on, it has been in place since 2011 and has provided more than £3.3 billion of total assistance to low-income and vulnerable households across Great Britain. We have extended that scheme until 2026 and expanded the spending envelope from around £350 million to £523 million per year. That figure will rise with inflation and, as a result, an extra 800,000 low-income households will receive rebates of £150 off their energy bills. Indeed, households have already started receiving those rebates from their energy suppliers. As before, we will provide rebates to about 1 million households where someone is in receipt of pension credit guarantee.”
“The Government recognise that this is a hugely difficult time for people all across the country, particularly for energy customers facing hugely higher bills as a result of the shutdown and restart of the economy after the pandemic, as well as, particularly, the Ukraine war and the appalling invasion of Ukraine by Russia. That is why, even prior to the energy price guarantee, the Government announced £37 billion-worth of additional support last spring to help consumers with the impact of the unprecedented global gas price increase. Eight million of the most vulnerable households will see up to £1,200 of extra support in instalments across this autumn and winter, on top of the £400 energy support scheme that households are already benefiting from between October and March.”
“Let me be clear that everyone in the Government, and I think in the House, absolutely agrees that we all must fulfil our duties of care to the most vulnerable in our society. That is precisely what the Bill seeks to do. My duty as Minister is to ensure that the measures in it are implementable and to work with the hon. Member for Stockton North to get that right. He is very aware of that, having done this before with his excellent ban on smoking in cars with children. I will deal with the points on energy and then on employment.”
“The truth is that many excellent employers around the country do everything they possibly can, rightly, in the best spirit of best business, to employ well and be flexible and look after those who are suffering. However, there are also bad employers who do not fulfil their responsibilities properly, as we heard in the previous debate. The Government face the classic problem of how to identify good practice and clamp down on bad practice, and how to identify the difference. Interestingly, in preparing for this debate, when I asked for the data—I am Minister for research, so it will be no surprise that I was keen to see the data—I found that there is, as ever, a lack of hard data on how many people are suffering, where, when and where the real gaps and problems are.”
“It seeks to require utility companies to provide financial support to customers with a terminal illness and to make provision about the employment rights of people with a terminal illness and for various connected purposes. The Bill is heavily supported by the TUC’s Dying to Work campaign, which has helpfully highlighted a lot of these issues on behalf of members. It seeks to change the law to provide additional employment protection for terminally ill workers. Dying to Work was set up following, and inspired by, the terrible case of Jacci Woodcock, a sales manager from Derbyshire who was forced out of her job after being diagnosed with terminal breast cancer.”
“However, research by Marie Curie—it has done great work—clearly shows that people with terminal illness often face a loss of income and increased pressure on their finances, adding to serious anxiety for them and their loved ones. Nobody wants that and we must do everything we can to try to avoid it. One in four people each year who need palliative care miss out on their entitlements, because their needs are not properly recognised and they are not referred to the right services. To tackle that issue, the Marie Curie campaign calls for a change in the way those care services are provided. Colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care are very aware of that and are working on it, albeit along with the wider pressures on the health system, particularly this winter, post-pandemic. The Bill essentially seeks to do two things.”
“I watched this incredibly fit young man cut down in the prime of his life, and I saw through him many of the issues highlighted by this campaign. I join the hon. Member in paying tribute to Mark, Cheryl and the others. Their work is genuinely inspiring and humbling. I look forward to going through the Bill and seeing how best we can deal with the issues that the hon. Member raises. As the Minister responsible for research, I am in some sense standing in today for the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), who has responsibility for small business.”
“I put on record my apologies to the Wymondham Access Group, which I was supposed to be meeting in my constituency today. I am sure its members will understand that this issue goes to the heart of many of the challenges they face. The hon. Member’s Bill seeks to tackle some very important issues faced by those suffering from terminal illnesses, many of whom experience real difficulties and really want to have as fulfilling and purposeful lives in the workplace for as long as they possibly can. I join him in paying tribute to Jacci Woodcock, whose story and campaign has been so inspiring. To put on record my experience, my dear childhood friend, Charlie Williams, died of a brain tumour a few years ago.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to respond immediately to the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham). I congratulate him, and thank him for bringing this important issue to the House’s attention. He has a distinguished record of bringing private Members’ Bills before the House and getting them put on the statute book, albeit on the slow wheels of this place. I, like all colleagues present, feel very strongly that private Members’ Bills days are not just for fun and games; they are a chance for Members to bring issues before the House, and for Governments and Oppositions to listen and see whether we can achieve some progress together. It is very much in that spirit that I come to the Dispatch Box today.”
“I would happily undertake to request that Ministers in those two Departments and the Small Business Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) sit down to look in particular at how we can ensure that eligible people get what they are eligible for and how we can promote best practice and make sure that these people who have the tragedy of a terminal illness are able to fulfil their lives properly in the workplace.”
“Member for Stockton North that we convene a group of key Ministers in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the DWP and the DHSC, to look at the specific groups who are not able to receive their entitlements—that is the hon. Gentleman’s point: many people have entitlements but are not getting them—and to ensure that good employers who are trying to do the right thing can provide a mixture of private employer support and universal credit support. Everyone here today has heard the extensive support the Government are providing, but it is not just a question of announcing lots of pots of money. For the people who are living in this very difficult situation, we must ensure that we make it easy for them to apply for and secure that help.”
“There is a lot of guidance and support available to them, and the House has heard the considerable package of support the Government have put in place, including through the ACAS website, which I encourage anyone listening to or watching the debate to look at. We encourage all employers to make use of those resources and ensure that employees with terminal illnesses are given the help and support they need to stay in work if that is what they wish to do, which many do. Having gone through the Bill carefully with officials in the Department, we now need to go through it with officials in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Health and Social Care. While I am aware that the lead on this is the Small Business Minister, in my Department, I suggest to the hon.”
“If that Bill successfully gets through Parliament, it will update the existing right to request flexible working to encourage more effective dialogue between employers and employees, allow more statutory requests in a year and require that they are administered more speedily. The Government believe that that will benefit employees generally but also those who are working with a life-threatening condition. We look forward to working with the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) to take that Bill forward. The Government are absolutely committed to improving the lives of people with disabilities, terminal illnesses and related conditions. We believe it is imperative that all employers fulfil their obligations to their employees.”
“More generally, where an adjustment is not directly required because of a disability, for many people an additional bit of flexibility in the workplace is crucial to allowing them to deliver their job. Employees with 26 weeks’ service already benefit from the right to request flexible working, which allows them to ask for a change in their hours or location of work. Most employers rightly and honourably go further than their minimum statutory duties. It is the bad employers that we need to get on top of. I was pleased that the Government were able to support the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill, which deals with that issue, on Second Reading on 28 October.”
“The Equality Act goes further in relation to those whose illness renders them disabled: it places a clear statutory duty on employers to make reasonable adjustments for those with disabilities, quite rightly, so that they can access or remain in work. Reasonable adjustments can include making changes to the workplace, changing someone’s working arrangements, finding a different way to do something or providing reasonable equipment, services or support. Crucially, reasonable adjustments are specific to an individual employee, and making a reasonable adjustment is not a one-off requirement; it requires review, adaptation and ongoing support as people’s needs change and develop. Equally, it is not a limitless requirement; it has to be reasonable in all circumstances, taking a variety of factors into consideration.”
“Member for Stockton North asks me, as I suspect he will—I would be the first to accept that if one is in the late stages of a terminal disease, bringing a case to the employment tribunal is not for the faint-hearted. It is not, in many cases, a reasonable remedy, and given that, we need to think about how we can ensure that people are not being asked to rely on a remedy that, in practice, they will struggle to call on. Depending on the nature of the illness and its impact on them, they may also be able to bring a claim of disability discrimination under the Equality Act, but again, the same condition applies.”
“The Equality Act 2010 provides that workers who are disabled due to chronic diseases or conditions are fully protected from any discriminatory treatment by their employers. In the overwhelming majority of cases, someone with a terminal illness will meet the definition for being disabled under the Act. I say, “the overwhelming majority”, but one thing that we might want to look at offline, as it were, is trying to ensure that that is everybody. Any kind of cancer, for example, is automatically regarded as a disability. Under employment law, a qualifying employee who is unfairly dismissed or forced to resign from a job because of a terminal illness may bring a claim of unfair dismissal against their employer. However—before the hon.”
“Being a good employer and a good business means exactly that. People suffering from a terminal illness should not have to face any additional burdens as a result of their employment—not least fearing for their job—at a time when they are dealing with the very hardest illnesses and having to make plans for the end of their life. The Government fully support the objective of enabling employees with life-threatening conditions to continue working for as long as possible. One of the things that many people feel most strongly about on diagnosis is wanting to be able to carry on living their life for as long as they possibly can, and we owe it to them to make that possible. The hon. Member has been a great champion of that.”
“There are organisations helping low-income households who offer help under ECO Flex and warm home discount, and the Government recently announced a further expansion of that support with a supplementary ECO Plus scheme, which is worth a total of £1 billion from 2023 to March 2026 and will allow a broader set of households to benefit. We plan to publish a consultation on the detailed proposals later this month. I turn finally to employment rights, which is the final substantive clause of the Bill. Let me take the opportunity at the Dispatch Box, as a Minister in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to make it clear that the Government strongly expect and encourage all employers to treat people in such a situation with the care, sensitivity and compassion that we would all expect people we know to be treated with.”
“Households can benefit either through means-tested benefits or if they are social housing tenants or identified as low-income and vulnerable by the local authority or energy supplier. That last element is known as ECO Flex. Energy suppliers can meet up to half their overall obligation through ECO Flex, which is focused on private tenure housing. Under the current iteration, we have introduced a route intended specifically to help households experiencing severe health issues—both mental health and physical disability—including terminal illness-related disabilities. Households who receive energy-efficiency measures under ECO will typically save about £600 a year.”
“I turn to the energy company obligation, which is a specific part of the hon. Member’s Bill. ECO, as it is known, is a regulation on larger energy suppliers to deliver energy bill savings through the installation of energy efficiency measures. Since the scheme started in 2013, about 3.5 million energy efficiency measures have been installed in about 2.4 million homes across Great Britain. Therefore, just under 10% of British households have lower energy bills as a direct result of ECO. This year, the Government extended the scheme until March 2026 and increased the spending envelope from about £640 million to £1 billion a year. That is focused on low-income and vulnerable households living in the least energy-efficient homes.”
“To achieve that, a new energy efficiency taskforce will be charged with accelerating the delivery of energy efficiency across the economy, and new Government funding worth £6 billion will be made available from 2025 to 2028. That is in addition to the £6.6 billion committed to over this Parliament, of which just over half has already been allocated to significantly improve the least energy-efficient homes through our social housing decarbonation fund, the home upgrade grant and the local authority delivery scheme. I hope that he can see that we are trying again to focus that money on that most vulnerable cohort whom he has spoken for. Homes receiving energy efficiency measures under those schemes will benefit from average bill savings of between £300 and £700 a year based on an average energy bill of £2,500.”
“Indeed, under those industry initiatives energy suppliers have worked with charities, including Macmillan Cancer Support, to provide particular help to people diagnosed with cancer. On energy efficiency, which was the second point raised by the hon. Member for Stockton North, while the Government, Ofgem and energy suppliers offer direct help with energy bills, we know that the best long-term solution is to improve the efficiency of people’s homes. That is why yesterday the Government announced a major new commitment to drive improvements in energy efficiency to bring down bills for households, businesses and the public sector with a clear ambition to reduce the UK’s total energy consumption from buildings and industry by at least 15% by 2030 against 2021 levels.”
“That helpline opened on 14 November and has already started processing customers. The warm home discount provides further help beyond that £150 rebate. Under the industry initiatives element of the scheme, worth more than £40 million this year, several hundred thousand households receive help such as debt write-off, energy efficiency measures, financial assistance and benefit entitlement checks. All households helped under that element of the warm home discount also receive energy saving advice. Charities and businesses offering those services can provide genuinely life-changing packages, and we encourage everyone to pursue them. Low-income and vulnerable households, including those with a terminal illness, may be able to benefit under industry initiatives even if they are not eligible for the £150 rebate.”
“My hon. Friend makes an excellent point on behalf of the hospice sector, and Mountbatten hospice in particular. The hospice sector is key through its provision of not only care, but support to citizens at the most vulnerable time in their life. I join him in paying tribute to hospices, and I will come on to talk about some of the ways they contribute. Macmillan Cancer Care has done some interesting work on energy in particular. Customers on prepayment meters may receive a top-up voucher, and all payment types benefit as long as they have an account with a participating energy supplier. For eligible households where there is no data or we are unable to match, they receive a Government letter by mid-January, asking them to call a helpline and verify their eligibility. We are doing everything we can to try to reach out.”
“The real challenge is to make sure that the people on the frontline who are eligible and dealing with the very hardest situation in life can get the help they need. On the employment side of the hon. Gentleman’s Bill in particular, everyone can see that there is a problem when people do not have the most enlightened employers. Asking those people to take recourse through the courts when they are in the situation they are in is hard, and we need to sit down and see whether there is something we can do to ensure that happens less and less, and that people suffering from disabilities and terminal illnesses can live and work as they want, with dignity right through to the end of their working lives. I think all of us in the House would support that.”
“I am grateful, and in return I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this matter. I look forward to our being able to make some progress, whether or not in the form of this Bill. I think he understands that we need to try to focus on solving the problem, and he probably does not want to wait three years to get his Bill on to the statute book—he would rather get something done more quickly. In conclusion, I will sign off where I started, and pay tribute to the work of the Marie Curie team and all the hospices that Members have mentioned around the country, which do so much for this most vulnerable group. I hope that Members across the House can hear how seriously the Government take this matter. We are putting significant funding out there.”