18/04/2016 Monday in Parliament

Hello and welcome to Monday in Parliament, our look

The Health Secretary says there'll be no ground given

The Government have a mandate from the electorate to introduce

a seven-day NHS, and there will be no retreat from reforms that save

There are no plans for Britain to send ground troops to Libya -

the Defence Secretary tells the Commons -

The Prime Minister and I have to take decisions about

the deployment of ships, planes and troops, and we do not

want, as the House will understand, to be artificially constrained

in action that would keep this country safe.

And MPs condemn cost-cutting measures from employers

as the National Living Wage hits pay packets.

Popular, thriving cafe businesses, such as EAT and Caffe Nero,

are cutting free staff lunches to claw back costs.

That will save them about ?3.60 per employee per day -

less than the cost of one of their toasted paninis.

The Health Secretary says there will be no retreat

There had been speculation of a softening of his position.

But Jeremy Hunt said that was "absolute nonsense"

and he was imposing the contract with the "greatest of regret"."

Labour called for him to get back to the negotiating table.

The Government have been concerned for some time about higher mortality

rates at weekends in our hospitals, which is one reason why we pledged

We have been discussing how to achieve that through contract

reform with the British Medical Association for more than three

In January, I asked Sir David Dalton, the highly

respected chief executive of Salford Royal, to lead

the negotiating team for the Government as a final

attempt to resolve outstanding issues.

He had some success, with agreement reached in 90% of areas.

However, despite having agreed in writing in November

to negotiate on Saturday pay, and despite many concessions

from the Government on this issue, the BMA went back on that agreement

to negotiate, leading Sir David to conclude

that there was no realistic prospect of a negotiated outcome.

NHS foundation trusts are technically able to determine

pay and conditions for the staff they employ, but the reality within

the NHS is that we have a strong tradition of collective bargaining,

so in practice trusts opt to use national contracts.

Health Education England has made it clear that a single national

approach is essential to safeguard the delivery of medical training

and that implementation of the national contract

will be a key criterion in deciding its financial

As the Secretary of State is entitled to do, I have approved

The Government have a mandate from the electorate to introduce

a seven-day NHS, and there will be no retreat from reforms that

Just when we thought this whole sorry saga could not get any worse,

it now appears that Government policy is in complete disarray.

Despite the Health Secretary giving us all the impression back

in February that he was going to railroad through a new contract,

it now appears that he is simply making a suggestion, or,

as his lawyers would say, approving the terms

Last night, the Health Secretary took to Twitter to claim that this

was not a change of approach, and we have heard the same again

today, so, on behalf of patients, I have to ask him:

We need a straightforward answer to a simple question:

Is the Health Secretary imposing a new contract - yes or no?

The Junior Doctors Committee took the unprecedented step

of escalating its industrial action on the back of his decision

How can he possibly justify a situation whereby his rhetoric,

underpinned by nothing but misplaced bravado and bullishness,

could lead to the first ever all-out strike of junior doctors

He must get back to the negotiating table, and quickly.

The BMA has always been a very militant trade union.

It has had bitter political battles with just about every Secretary

of State that the National Health Service has had since it started.

It has, however, never previously contemplated strike action,

withdrawing urgent services in pursuit of what is

I do not believe that before this year the Labour Party

would ever have supported the BMA if it had done so.

Does my Right Honourable friend agree that as the pressures

on the NHS are obviously mounting, with the ageing population

and the rising level of demand, it is urgent to move

Yet again, I must pull up the Secretary of State.

It is not a case of excess deaths at weekends; it is a case of people

admitted at weekends dying within 30 days.

He said the same thing again today, and it is being repeated

The Secretary of State has described, within the same pay

envelope, having more doctors at weekends,

not fewer during the week, and reducing a maximum

I do not see how the maths of that can possibly add up.

We are not managing to cover the rotas that we have.

We are eight days away from an unprecedented full

walkout of junior doctors, including the withdrawal

Our constituents want to know whether they will be

Will the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State

join me in calling on the BMA at least to exempt casualty

departments and maternity units from this walkout?

We know that, even with goodwill arrangements in place

to bring people back in when hospitals are overwhelmed,

I would say he tested do it takes. The problem of negotiations so far

is the Government failure to respond to the BMA and work with junior

doctors who do care about their patients and do want to provide a

good quality of care. I think that sums up the difference between the

two parties because it is true, Labour would take as long as it

takes negotiating these changes and that is why we ended up with some

very poor contracts in 1999, 2003 and 2004.

The Government has suffered three more defeats in the Lords

over its "pay-to-stay" plan for social housing

The Housing and Planning Bill proposes that subsidised

rents for households earning more than ?31,000,

or ?40,000 in London, will be scrapped in April 2017.

Council tenants will be asked to pay rent at or near market rates.

But peers backed raising the thresholds when the higher rents

would kick in, slow the rate at which they would rise and backed

a change making it voluntary for councils to adopt the new rules

- a move described by the Government as a "wrecking" amendment.

Labour accused ministers of a "smash and grab raid."

The largest number of people to be caught have incomes just

above the levels proposed by the Government and that this

is in fact a tax on council tenants on modest incomes.

I was going to suggest to the House that this is a stealth tax,

but there is nothing stealthy about it; it is just a good

Furthermore, it applies only to earned income, so it is a tax

My Amendment 72, which is supported by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake,

and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington

Mandeville, would replace "must" with "may", thereby giving local

authorities discretion about the levels of rent

they would want to charge tenants who found themselves in this

It has been increasingly clear that the "pay-to-stay" proposals

Application of the increased rents is mandatory regardless

Local authorities will collect the money, but the Chancellor

How else could you describe this other than as a

The argument that we are doing this because of higher-income tenants

subsidising those on lower income simply does not add up.

Local authorities know their communities, and their officers know

the circumstances of individual families and couples

It is far better for local authorities to make decisions that

affect the lives of those families than for a blanket diktat to come

It is also surely not logical for a local authority to be forced

to implement a high-rent policy if the cost of doing so exceeds

the additional income raised by the charging of the higher rent.

This is, I am afraid, an idea that probably looks good

in the confines of the Treasury or in the rarefied world of special

In the real world outside it does not look so good.

This policy is spiteful and unnecessary.

I do not see why council tenants, unlike us, are expected

to contribute to reducing the deficit in this way -

pushed behind, according to the impact analysis.

It is not too late to amend the Bill.

Should it be that the onus is on the tenant? The council would have lost

list restriction on them in being obliged to do it.

Either you make it compulsory with a "must" or you do not bother

to enforce it too hard at all but give a penalty if,

at later stages, you discover that people have not declared

They are wrecking amendments and there should be clear that they do

not accept that a proper local authorities. Local authorities can

if they want but a voluntary scheme in now but we are not the way of any

who have actually done so and so they must remain mandatory.

The policy is about fairness, and our view is that social housing

at lower rents should be provided to those households

Households that decide to remain in social housing but can pay more

At the same time, the Government are making home ownership more

accessible to tenants both of local authorities and of housing

associations through the right to buy and shared ownership.

But at the end of the debate peers rejected those arguments and voted

to stop the ending of subsidised rents for many households becoming

Companies which cut back on staff perks and overtime to offset

the new National Living Wage should be held to account,

a former Labour minister has told the Commons.

Joan Ryan spoke at the Backbench Business Debate in place

of her colleague and friend Siobhan McDonagh,

There have been reports of companies scrapping double-time

It all started a few months ago, when a friend of hers approached her

He said, "Siobhan, B has given me new terms and conditions,

"which it says I have to sign or I'll lose my job.

"It is cutting back my Sunday and Bank Holiday pay,

"as well as my summer and winter bonuses.

"I think I might have my pay reduced."

Indeed, my Honourable Friend was shocked when she calculated

that he would lose up to ?50 a week, or about ?2,600 a year.

The saddest thing was that this was happening after his basic

pay had been increased by the introduction

Only last week, we read reports of how popular,

thriving cafe businesses, such as EAT and Caffe Nero,

are cutting free staff lunches to claw back costs.

That will save them about ?3.60 per employee per day -

less than the cost of one of their toasted paninis.

According to media reports today, it looks like Waitrose will also be

scrapping Sunday and overtime rates for new workers.

The Right Honourable Member for Enfield North made the usual

mistake of thinking that every employer in the country is some rich

baron who lives in a huge mansion, drives around in a Bentley and has

Actually, the vast majority of businesses in this country

are small and medium-sized enterprises.

I advise her speak to a few shop owners down her local high street,

because she will actually find that many are struggling

Some care providers have altered their employment contracts

and conditions as a way of coping with those changes, meaning

that additional costs from the National Living Wage

are being paid for by careworkers themselves.

As we have heard, many careworkers are already underpaid.

The National Audit Office has reported that up to 22,000 home

care workers in England are illegally paid below

the National Minimum Wage, and I believe the actual

The National Living Wage is for the over-25s.

One MP said this should change - to protect those older than that.

I had a constituent in my surgery a few weeks ago who worked in a bar

One day, she received a phone call from her employer saying

that there was no need for her to come into work that

evening because her services were no longer required.

After getting over the shock of her sudden dismissal,

Citizens Advice and ACAS both said she had no rights

in her circumstances as a zero-hours worker.

She suspects but cannot prove that she was let go

because she was over 25 whereas her colleagues

You're watching Monday in Parliament.

Still to come - standing room only at the second debating

chamber Westminster Hall, as MPs debate an e-petition

There are no plans to send ground troops to Libya,

the Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has told the House of Commons.

But he went on to say a decision to do so in future might not need

He spoke as the Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond visited Libya to show

support for the country's new Government of national unity.

With the advent of a new unity Government in Libya,

does the Secretary of State believe they are preparing the ground

to request military assistance from the UK and does he think,

as part of that request, that they will acquire assistance

with air strikes against Daesh targets in Libya?

Well, I'm grateful to the honourable member.

The Foreign Secretary visited Tripoli this morning in support

of the new Government and I and the fellow

European Union Defence Ministers will be meeting in Luxembourg

tonight to hear directly from the Prime Minister Sarraj

as to how he thinks we can best help establish,

We do of course urgently need to engage with it,

not least to close down the very dangerous migration route

that is seeing so many lives lost in the Mediterranean and to help

that Government tackle the spread of along the coast.

Does he say that to stabilise Libya we need ground forces?

Does he accept that that may include British forces?

It is up to the new Government of national accord being established

in Libya with our support, led by Prime Minister Sarraj,

to make it clear what assistance he needs.

A number of countries, including ourselves,

have already indicated that we will be part of a Libyan

international assistance mission, but it is far too early to speculate

about what form that assistance might take,

whether it is training, advice from the Ministries,

Libya is increasingly becoming the focus of a campaign

by the international community to defeat Daesh.

Given that the UK's last intervention in Libya was by any

measure a catastrophic failure, what plans do the Government have

to ensure that we have clear, stated objectives, an exit strategy

and a coherent and transparent policy for rebuilding

Let me be clear that no decisions in respect of any involvement

We are waiting to hear from the new Government

of national accord what kind of assistance they need.

We have a very strong interest in helping them rapidly

stabilise the country, not least because of the spread

of Daesh along the coastline, which is a direct threat to western

How can't be that we read in the media that the Government is already

drawn up troops to fight and whether or not they'll be deployed, a source

said it wasn't clear yet. Surely it is important that, instead of

briefing the media, the secretary of state commits to coming to this

House and answering questions directly? I'm very concerned and a

written answer today, he says he reserved the right to take military

action without parliamentary approval. Does this mean we won't

have a proper debate on her deployment or will he come to this

House, have a proper debate and allow us to ask questions? Let me

caution the honourable Lady against believing everything she reads in

the Daily Mail. Secondly,... Secondly, let me make it very clear

that we are not currently running a deployment as reported in the

newspaper. Thirdly, let me make it clear that I'm always prepared to

answer questions in this House as I am indeed doing at this moment.

The Government's accepted it needs to do more to tackle brain tumours.

A debate was called in Westminster Hall after an e-petition signed

It was started by Maria Leicester, whose brother Stephen

The chair of the Petitions Committee, Helen Jones,

published a report in response to the petition, told the minister

to look at the individuals as well as the statistics.

I hope he will look at the personal stories

Let me just remind people of some of them.

Stephen Ralph, who's a sister started the

petition, and RAF offer apparently in excellent health, diagnosed at 19

And of course, many MPs had stories of their own constituents.

My constituent, Caroline Fosbury, a mother of

Ella, she lost her daughter at the age of ten.

She said it's a three-way cycle between support, awareness and

They have started an Ella's Fund to start research.

I think it's that sort of positive affect in terms of fundraising that

is so important and when I speak to my constituents who have lost

loved ones like this, that is often the way they can

Indeed, I think the honourable Lady makes a very good point.

In reply, the minister George Freeman announced a review

of the services offered, including the money

Can the interests of cyclists be properly combined

with those of car drivers, particularly in our

Not for the first time, the House of Lords heard

at Question Time from both supporters of cycling

and those less favourable towards those on two wheels.

A Conservative former Minister wanted to know the extent

to which road traffic laws were being enforced on cyclists.

I wonder if he will agree with me that, at the very least,

signs should be added for visitors who take bicycles in London

and elsewhere, warning them that it is illegal in Britain

nationally to cycle on pavements and that they will be fined?

The Santander cycle scheme in London is the responsibility of Transport

for London and its terms and conditions specify

that users must abide by the Highway Code.

More particularly, its website, under the section "Driving

and Cycling Safety" states in unequivocal terms -

Is the Minister aware of how many cyclists know the traffic laws

that they are supposed to be adhering to?

I know that my next question will split the House completely

according to whether one is an avid cyclist, but a cyclist came right

in front of me and hit my car, so what insurance would he have

On the matter of insurance, subject to cyclists having public

liability insurance, there would be no obligation

My Lords, I am sure the whole House will agree with my noble friend

Lady Wilcox about the need to enforce traffic laws

and the importance of cyclists and motorists obeying them.

Can my noble and learned friend tell the House how many prosecutions

there have been for motorists entering the advanced stop line

specifically put to one side for cyclists and for parking

I do not have the figures for motorists as regards that matter

in the context of prosecutions, but I would be content

to write to the noble Lord to give him the statistics

My Lords, I am sure the Minister is well aware

that the Transport Committee of the House of Commons said last

month that it was very concerned about the ever-increasing number

of pedal cyclist casualties, which has gone up by

A Labour peer raised the role of Police Community Support Officers.

Could the Minister confirm that PCSOs are able to fine cyclists

on the spot for going through stop lines but are unable to fine cars?

I do not believe it is unfair on cyclists.

One has to remember that in the case of the vehicle,

In the case of the cyclists there is no registration,

and therefore an on-the-spot fine is more appropriate.

My Lords, I must declare an interest because I cycle regularly in London.

The overriding obligation of cyclists in London

is to try to ride their bicycle so as to keep it from contact

with other vehicles and particularly from contact with pedestrians.

If a cyclist does that, the proposition that he should be

prosecuted for some breach of one of the many rules of the road seems

Still, if that overriding duty is observed, there should not be any

problems with cyclists, and the need to prosecute them

for minor infringements is clearly not present.

With regard to the question that has just been posed to the House,

I observe that prosecutions in respect of cycling offences

are limited to about 1,000 a year at present time.

Alicia McCarthy's here for the rest of the week but from me,