09/01/2017 Monday in Parliament

Hello and welcome to Monday in Parliament.

The main news from Westminster.

Winter pressures in the NHS.

The Health Secretary calls for an honest discussion

about A and E departments.

We are going to protect our four hour standard.

We need to be clear it is a promise to sort out all urgent

health problems within four hours, not all health problems, however

minor.

Plans to stop domestic abusers from questioning

ex-partners in family courts.

As a result of the family court process this extremely

vulnerable woman needed weeks of medication and months

of counselling to recover.

She has now suffered this ordeal three times.

And peers rally to the defence of England's universities.

Universities have changed the world because of

what they are.

Because they are different and they are distinctive.

It was the first day back at Westminster for MPs

after the Christmas break.

They returned to news that the National Health Service

has not, however, had much of a break.

The Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the Commons that it had been

a tough Christmas and that, with cold weather on the way,

the winter pressures were likely to continue.

Jeremy Hunt also said it was time to rethink the NHS target that

all patients attending Accident and Emergency should be

seen within four hours.

Tuesday after Christmas was the busiest day

in the history of the NHS.

Some hospitals are reporting that A attendances are up to

30% higher compared to last year.

I therefore want to set out how we intend to protect the service

through an extremely challenging period and sustain it for the

future.

He said the NHS had made more extensive winter

preparations than ever before.

The result has been that this winter has already seen days

when A have treated a record number of people within four hours.

And there have been fewer serious incidents declared that many

expected.

As Chris Hopson, head of NHS Providers said, although there

have been problems at some Trusts, the system as a whole is doing

better than last year.

However there are a number of Trusts where the

situation has been extremely fragile.

All of last week's A diverts happened happened at 19

Trusts, of which four are in special measures.

It is clear we need to have an honest discussion with the

public about the purpose of A departments.

There is nowhere outside the UK that commits to all

patients that we will sort out any health need within four hours.

If we are going to protect our four hour standard we

need to be clear that it is a commitment to sort out

all urgent health problems

within four hours, but not all problems, however minor.

Labour said the NHS was in a worse state than the Health

Secretary had suggested.

15 hospitals ran out of beds in one day

in December.

Several hospitals have warned they can't offer

comprehensive care.

Elderly patients have been left languishing on

hospital trolleys in corridors sometimes for over 24 hours.

And he says care is only falling over in a

couple of places.

I know La La Land did well at the Golden Globes last

night but I didn't realise the Secretary

of State was living there.

Perhaps that is where he has been all weekend.

Can he now confirm that the NHS is facing a winter crisis

and the blame for this lies at the door of Number

Ten Downing Street?

With my background I know exactly what it is like when

A is swamped, when you do not have anywhere to put people.

I do not think that the staff across NHS in

England are afraid of us discussing this topic and weaponising it.

They are in tears.

They are exhausted.

They are demoralised.

They have never experienced a winter like

this.

Perhaps the Secretary of State could explain why his figures

suggest 19 diverts and only two Trusts in serious problems, whereas

what we are hearing, from the Nuffield Trust is 42 or 50

Trusts who are diverting, which is a third.

That means it is widespread.

The minister seems to blame the public for overcrowding

A departments when

he himself knows the reason the public go to A is because they

can't get to see their GP and social care is in crisis.

Will he confirm that he has just announced another

significant watering down of the four hour

A target following the

watering down by the Coalition in their first year in office in 2010?

And what is he personally doing to address the chronic long-term

underperformance of hospitals like that at Worcester where two people

died on trolleys, and Plymouth, one of the hospitals

that had to call in

the Red Cross over the Christmas period?

Let me just say to him I think probably because of the forum

that we are in now he is misinterpreting what I have said.

But it needs to be put right.

Far from watering down the target I

have today recommitted the Government to that four hour target,

in just the answer before he spoke.

Maybe he was not listening but I said this was one of the best things

about the NHS, that we have this four hour promise.

But the public will go to the place where it is easier to

get in front of a doctor quickly and if we don't

recognise that there is an

issue with the fact that a number of people

who don't need to go to A

are using those A, if we don't recognise that problem

and address it then we won't make A better for his

constituents and mine.

In her first speech of the year, the Prime Minister Theresa May chose

to focus on mental health services.

She said mental health had been dangerously disregarded

and announced plans to improve the capacity of schools to support

children with mental health issues.

Theresa May also said nearly ?70 million would be invested

in online services which enable people to carry

out symptom checks.

And there will be a review on how to support people with mental

illnesses in the workplace.

During the Health Secretary's statement on the NHS, MPs

had a chance to ask questions

about the announcements on mental health services.

We welcome measures to improve mental health

services in this country as

indeed we welcomed such announcements 12 months ago

when the then Prime Minister made similar promises.

But does the Secretary of State not agree that if this Prime Minister

wants to shine a light on mental health provision she should aim her

torch at the Government's record?

6,600 fewer nurses working in mental health.

A reduction in mental health beds.

400 fewer doctors working in mental health and perhaps most

disgracefully of all the raiding of children's local mental health

budgets in order to plug funding gaps in the wider NHS.

I welcome the statement and also the Prime Minister's focus in

the speech on mental health today.

She spoke of holding the NHS leadership to account for the extra

billion that we will be investing in mental health.

Will the Secretary of State set out in further detail how

CCGs will be held to account for ensuring

that that money gets to the

front line, so that we can deliver progress on parity of esteem?

Yes, I can absolutely do that.

And it is important because we have had a

patchy record in the NHS of making sure that money promised for mental

health reaches the front line.

The way that we intend to address this

is by independently compiling Ofsted style ratings for every CCG

in the country that actually highlights where mental health

provision is inadequate.

Jeremy Hunt.

Now, the Government has promised to change the law

so that the perpetrators of domestic abuse lose the right

to question former partners during proceedings in family courts.

The practice has been banned in the criminal courts.

A Labour MP Peter Kyle said allowing it to continue in family courts

was wreaking untold devastation.

I have spoken to numerous survivors of abuse whose accounts

of torment under cross-examination, often

by convicted rapists, in the

family court are devastating to hear, but impossible

for most of us to

even imagine.

I have spoken to a woman who was cross-examined by the

man who was in jail for numerous counts of rape and abuse that left

her unconscious and hospitalised.

As a result of the family court process

this extremely vulnerable woman needed weeks of medication and

months of counselling to recover.

She has now suffered this ordeal three times.

I have spoken to the sister of a woman who was abused so

greviously it resulted in her death.

The convicted murderer then sued for custody of their child from

prison where he was serving a life sentence for murder.

He directly cross-examined the sister of the

woman he murdered, even having the grotesque nerve to ask,

what makes you think you can be a parent to my

child?

Mr Speaker, abuse is being continued, perpetuated, right under

the noses of judges and police, the very institutions that should be

protecting the vulnerable with every

sinew of state power.

The Government agrees that the law needs to be changed.

I want to make family court process

safer for victims so they can advocate effectively for themselves

and for the safety of their children?

This cannot happen while a significant number of domestic abuse

victims face cross-examination by their abusers.

The Lord Chancellor has requested urgent advice on how to

put an end to this practice.

This sort of cross examination is illegal

in the criminal courts.

I am determined to see it banned in family courts too.

We are considering the most comprehensive

and efficient way of making that happen, that will help family courts

to concentrate on the key concerns

for the family and always put the children's interests first.

Some MPs said changes to legal aid meant that increasing numbers

of people were forced to represent themselves.

Members on both sides of the House have

constituents who have been left devastated by the experience.

That the Government is doing something to

now end this practice is

welcome.

But this is a clear admission that the legal aid cuts

have caused this situation.

Victims of domestic violence struggle to provide

evidence of their abuse because frequently they're not believed.

And in some cases medical evidence is

difficult to obtain.

And the experience is made worse still

because the abuser, also unable to get representation, is allowed to

question them.

Please look at rules in relation to legal

aid because there is certainly strong anecdotal evidence from

former colleagues of mine at the family bar and indeed

the judiciary that there is a direct consequence

and link between the rise in litigants in person

and the changes to

legal aid actually begun under the last Labour Government.

But it's this link between litigants in

person that is causing so many of this.

If he would at least look at it it may provide some of

the solutions.

As my honourable friend has rightly said this is a

long-standing issue but it's one which has become particularly

urgent, and where the cries for help from the judges and others have

become more urgent.

That's why the Government is tackling this issue.

As regards litigants in person it is necessary to find a way

of stopping them using proceedings to continue

the abuse, and that's what we are aiming to do.

The Commons also paid tribute to Jill Saward,

who died of a stroke last Thursday.

She became a campaigner on behalf of sexual assault victims

after being raped during a burglary at her father's vicarage

in West London in 1986.

Her local MP said she was instrumental in securing

a ban on defendants accused of rape from cross-examining

victims in criminal courts.

We were all shocked and saddened by the death of my

constituent Jill Saward who campaigned tirelessly on behalf of

victims of rape and sexual violence following her own

horrific personal ordeal.

The Minister called Jill Saward a wonderful person and said

he wanted the law to change in family courts.

You're watching Monday in Parliament with me, Kristiina Cooper.

The government has been defeated in the House of Lords over plans

to change the way England's universities are run, set out

in the Higher Education Bill.

Peers from different parties combined to vote in favour

of an opposition proposal for the bill to define the powers

and aims of universities.

The bill is designed to make it easier for new colleges to award

degrees and will introduce a regulator called

the Office for Students.

A succession of peers praised the achievements

of England's universities.

They are not one size fits all.

They are not beholden to the state.

They are not looking forward to launching

themselves on the FTSE 100.

They are, to use a phrase of Alan Bennett's, just keeping on,

keeping on, at a higher level in different but effective ways

with fertile variations with their primary purpose,

which is scholarship.

So we must, from the start, and throughout the consideration

of this bill, reassert and defend the prime values of our university

sector and resist the government's controlling plans to seek central

control via its own appointed, unhappily-named Office for Students.

Could it be, my lords, that our universities have

flourished and retained world rankings because they have

not been subjected to government interference?

Within education, schools and colleges have suffered

from changes imposed by different governments and by the churn

of ministers seeking to make their mark, regardless

of advice from professionals in the sector.

Universities, for some years, had been relatively free of such

assistance and they have flourished as a result.

But one peer thought teaching standards in some

universities was poor.

It is clear that in arts subjects, too often, large classes are taught

by Ph.Ds from overseas whose first language is not English and can't be

understood and that, in the arts, there is a lack of proper framework,

two or three essays per term for a student to prepare,

otherwise to be left to read around in the library.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said he had a quote.

Well, somebody who wrote to me, my lords, about this debate said,

"I am effectively paying ?9,000 per annum for the use

"of a good library."

I think there are major shortcomings in accountability

in our universities.

There is a climate of lassitude in many of our universities

on the path of academics in terms of their duties and obligations

to their institution and to their students,

and I think the government has quite correctly addressed

that as an issue in putting this legislation before us.

Universities have changed the world because of what they are,

because they are different and they are distinctive,

and that is why dictatorial governments take them over

and close them down.

It's why people care so much about how government deals

with them, and we should make it clear what we believe

a university is.

This is the first major bill on higher education for a generation.

It's going to have far-reaching consequences.

One of its aims, as we've heard, is to extend university

title considerably.

It's a matter of great concern to me that this piece of legislation has

so far made no attempt to define what a university is or its role

in society more widely and particularly what we expect

these new universities to do.

But a former minister thought defining a university wouldn't work.

My personal view is that the way in which we should be protecting

universities is by putting obligations on governments

and regulators to respect the autonomy of universities,

not trying to define universities and put obligations on them.

It is ordinary for institutions to compete, not to be the best

or to have the best offerings, but to make the greatest profit,

to do it in the most cheap, cheerful and economical way and,

as we move, as the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, said,

through a technological revolution, of which books will be a series

part, I think we need to think very hard about what is not a university.

And that, my lords, might be rather easier than defining

what is a university.

The government spokesman said there were dangers in setting out

a definition of a university that could be challenged in the courts.

If a disgruntled business partner or rival institution brings a legal

challenge and convinces a court that a university does not offer,

for example, an extensive range of high-quality academic subjects,

then is it no longer a university?

Surely not.

But that is what accepting this legislation, and we're not

aware of this in itself, that has led to particular

problems in the system.

At the end of the debate, peers voted narrowly in favour

of the proposal for the bill to contain a definition

of a university.

To the Communities Committee now, where Dame Louise Casey has said

immigrants have to make more effort to fit in.

The author of last month's Casey review on integration told MPs that

Britain needed to be less shy about telling immigrants

what was expected from them.

A Labour MP asked her how she defined integration.

Do you consider it to be a two-way process or do you feel that some

groups need to make more effort than others?

I didn't realise I was heading into these controversial

territories so early but, in terms of the two-way street, no,

I don't think it's a two-way street.

I think that's a sound bite that people like to say,

which is integration is a two-way street.

I would say, if we stick with the road analogy,

that I think integration is more like you've got a bloody big

motorway and you have a slip road of people coming

in from the outside, and what you need to do

is people in the middle, in the motorway, need to accommodate

and be gentle and kind to people coming in from the outside lane,

but we are all in the same direction and we are all heading

in the same direction.

I think it gets into this place where we have this idea that

it's a two-way street.

To some degree, it's a two-way street but,

to some degree, it is not.

There is more give on one side and more take on the other,

and I think that's where we have successively made a mistake,

which is we've not been honest about that.

And I think that's partly what I'm trying the terms of leadership,

which is I understand what people are saying when they say

integration's a two-way street, of course it is, but only

to some degree.

So the majority doesn't have to change?

The majority doesn't have to adjust very much?

What you'll note I said is that I think the people in the middle,

the people in the motorway, of course they have to adjust

a little bit, but the general thing moves in the same direction.

She was also asked about the so-called Trojan Horse scandal.

The allegation - that a group of extremist Muslims

was taking control of some schools in Birmingham.

I'm just wondering, in terms of the Trojan Horse scandal,

whether or not he think that's a tip of the iceberg

or a one-off?

In terms of...

We are very honest in their review about this, which is in terms

of some of the things that we are seeing during what's

called the Trojan Horse, we didn't have to find it very

difficult to find things like segregation of girls, some

of the sort of what I would describe as anti-equal opportunities

or antiliberal values.

I again think that, that there's too much...

Because there are court cases and various things going on,

I don't want to go into too much detail over the actual Trojan Horse.

But is it happening elsewhere?

But, yes, it's happening elsewhere.

One idea in the Casey review was for immigrants to swear

an integration oath.

Dame Louise said symbolic acts could have a powerful impact.

The rights and wrongs of immigration are for other people to judge

but what is clear is that we ought to be more on integration,

we should have been and we need to be and again, one

of those moments...

In fact, I hope the chairman won't mind, but we were jointly

in a meeting in your constituency were actually I felt,

in one of those meetings, we were kind of explaining the rules

of the game to some of the people that were at that meeting

from Eastern Europe, who had never really been engaged

with that way before.

It's the local MP, so they got a different...

They had me.

But I thought it was interesting that the said that nobody has

talked to them about...

They arrived, they didn't get jobs when they thought

they were getting jobs, they hadn't been treated that

well, as it happens, and on we go from there.

But also, nobody had talked to them about our way of life here,

about when to put rubbish out.

Let's take it as a real detail that would be a real issue

for a local authority.

You put rubbish out on the wrong day, it costs a lot of money.

So there are basics that we hadn't even run through.

Nobody had told them to queue, nobody had told them to be nice,

all those sorts of things.

We hadn't been on it and I think, as part of the package,

that would be no bad thing.

We had a sort of joke in the review that we thought it was quite British

to be too polite to tell people what we expected them to do

but to then get cross when they didn't do it!

Yeah, exactly.

Before we go, time to catch up with the latest news on Brexit.

In a TV interview on Sunday, the Prime Minister, Theresa May,

said the UK would not keep bits of membership.

Some Brexit watchers took that to mean that the UK would not try

and stay in the single market.

In the Lords, there were some suggestions on how to

approach the negotiations.

We all try to understand why the government wishes to keep

a close hand on its negotiating objectives with Europe.

We must remain very hush-hush about this in case Johnny Foreigner

understands what we are up to.

But would the noble Lord, the Minister, like to hazard a guess

on the negotiating objectives of the 27 countries,

the European Commission and the European Parliament?

Surely, that's not a matter on which we cannot comment.

It's very tempting, my lords!

Not on my first time back, I think.

All I would say, in seriousness, the noble Lord makes

a very good point.

And what I would say on reflection of his question,

which is a very fair one, is I would like to think

that our European partners would see that a smooth,

orderly and timely Brexit is as much in their interests as it is in ours.

Could the noble Lord, the Minister, clarify whether the government

actually thinks it's important that we are within the single

market, not just trading with the single market?

Could he also explained to us precisely by the well-being

of the country is being held hostage to squabbles within

the Conservative Party and Cabinet?

I totally dispute the second part of the noble Baroness'

question, I'm sorry to say!

I really can't agree with that at all.

And as regards the single market, my right honourable friend,

the Prime Minister, set out our thinking on this

yesterday and, as she said, what we are looking for here

is the best possible deal for trading with and operating

within the single European market, and we want that prosperity

for all businesses.

Thank you, my lords.

Since the EU does so much better out of our membership of the EU

than we do in pretty well every sphere of our national life,

trade and job security, mutual residence, agriculture,

fish, the single market and, not to mention, the ?10 billion

in cash we give them every year, why don't we just tell them

that we are taking back our law and our borders and that we will be

reasonably generous about the rest of it if they behave

themselves and agree?

My lords, wouldn't that be a nice clean Brexit and it needn't

take very long at all?

The noble Lord has a very unique way of putting things,

which I note but I don't necessarily think the government would adopt

quite that phraseology.

It is clear, the government has set out at numerous occasions over

the last few months, our intention to take

control over our borders, our money and our laws whilst

achieving the best possible access for businesses in the single market.

So I think that that is the position, my lords.

The first and rather light-hearted discussion about Brexit of 2017.

Well, that's it from Monday in Parliament.

Alicia McCarthy will be here for the rest of the week but,

from me, Kristiina Cooper, goodbye.