Danny Chambers MP: speeches

Speeches

• 12 Dec 2024 · Free Trade Deals: Farmers · Hansard source

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  I worked with farmers for many years as a veterinary surgeon, and now I meet them regularly as an MP, so I am aware that farmers in Hampshire and the rest of the country were hugely disappointed when the previous Conservative Government signed trade deals that undermined our high animal welfare standards. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that after future trade deals, British farmers will not have to compete with products produced to lower animal welfare standards—for example, battery hens, or products that involve the indiscriminate use of antibiotics, which is also a public health issue? It is not only vets and farmers who are proud of our high animal welfare standards, but the British public, so will the Minister confirm that he does not want to compromise on those standards?

• 12 Dec 2024 · Free Trade Deals: Farmers · Hansard source

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  6. What recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of free trade deals on farmers.

• 10 Dec 2024 · Support for Victims of Ecocide · Hansard source

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  6. What steps her Department is taking through the criminal justice system to help support victims of ecocide.

• 10 Dec 2024 · Support for Victims of Ecocide · Hansard source

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  England is home to 85% of the world’s chalk streams, which are very rare habitats. In Winchester we are lucky to have the Rivers Itchen and Meon running through the constituency. We know that they are struggling, with only 17% of chalk streams rated as having good ecological health. That is partly because of over-abstraction, partly because of pollution, and partly because of water companies dumping sewage in them. We know that that not only destroys biodiversity but makes people who swim in it sick. Will the Minister, in addition to coming down harder on water companies, commit to implementing a sewage victims compensation scheme for that particular problem?

• 5 Dec 2024 · Trade Barriers with the EU · Hansard source

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  We are very proud that UK agriculture has some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world. It is for this reason that the production of foie gras was banned in 2007, as it is considered to be too cruel. While we are desperate to reduce trade barriers with the EU, are there any steps to ban products like foie gras to ensure that all animal products sold in the UK are produced to at least the same animal welfare standards as those in the UK?

• 5 Dec 2024 · Trade Barriers with the EU · Hansard source

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  3. What steps his Department is taking to help reduce trade barriers with the EU.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  The Conservative Government brough the NHS to its knees. Theirs is a legacy of crumbling hospitals, of doctors and nurses working at burnout, and of patients being treated in corridors. The Liberal Democrats welcome the extra investment in the NHS and support the ambition to get waiting lists down, but the Government cannot fix the NHS without first fixing social care. At Winchester hospital—part of the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust—almost one in five beds are filled by someone who could be cared for through the social care package but is stuck in a hospital bed. That has the knock-on effect of increasing A&E and ambulance waiting times, and of elective surgeries being cancelled. Will the Government review the national insurance increase for social care providers and hospices, and will they commit to cross-party talks so that we can have a long-term plan to fix social care?

• 3 Dec 2024 · Family Farming in Devon · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I pay tribute to the right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and Tavistock (Sir Geoffrey Cox) for securing this important debate. I grew up on a family farm in Devon, very near where he lives, and as a vet I have attended and been on duty for many of the agricultural shows he mentioned. If he has not yet been to the Chagford sheep-shearing competition, I definitely recommend it, and I extend an invitation to him to the fantastic Alresford agricultural show near Winchester, which has been going on there for over 120 years. All of today’s speeches touch on the fact that farming is not merely a business; rather, the rural community is based on family farms. Those farms are not just farming and producing food; they also provide the governors for the local schools and do charity work. We need to keep family farms farming to ensure that the entire fabric of our rural communities survives and thrives into the next century. Farming is a tough life. It is one of those professions: farmers can work all hours, in all weathers, and then—due to reasons completely out of their control—realise that they are either going to make money or lose a huge amount of money. Losses can be due to weather conditions, such as droughts and floods; disease outbreaks, like foot and mouth, bluetongue or avian influenza; or political events, as other Members have touched on, including trade deals. Farmers can do everything right in one year but, because of reasons completely out of their control, realise that they will struggle to make a profit and could make a significant loss. The subject of mental health issues in rural communities has been well recognised, and was touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord). Farmers who are dealing with uncertainty do struggle, and there is a high suicide rate among them. We have to remember that farms are not just businesses, but individuals and families who are directly affected by decisions made in this House. The hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) touched on how beautiful the Devon countryside is. The Lake district, the Yorkshire dales, the shires in Devon, and the beautiful countryside in Hampshire around the Meon valley only look the way they do because they have been farmed for generations. Those are curated landscapes, created and cared for by generations of custodians. Although farmers might not make a direct profit from tourism, the only reason we have a booming tourism industry is because we have such landscapes. Their contribution should be recognised for the huge amount of GDP generated by foreign visitors coming to look at our green and pleasant land. Earlier today, I attended a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on food security, which included a discussion on illegal meat imports coming in through Dover. We heard about how the Dover Port Health Authority, Border Force and DEFRA struggle for resources. When they do spot checks on lorries bringing in products, they regularly pick up tonnes of illegally imported meat. That is a public health concern, because we do not know the origin of the meat or the standard it was produced to, and it is often not refrigerated. Many of the lorries come from eastern Europe, where there are notifiable diseases of livestock, such as foot and mouth and peste des petits ruminants, that we do not see in the UK. That is a huge risk to agricultural livestock production and farming in the UK. I ask the Minister: how can we better resource our border and biosecurity? I am fully aware that that would cost a huge amount in money and resources, but it is much more cost-effective to prevent foot and mouth or similar diseases than to deal with an outbreak. That is a hugely concerning situation to be in. Farmers and vets are hugely proud that we have the highest animal welfare and environmental standards in farming in the world. They were hugely disappointed when the previous Government—

• 29 Nov 2024 · Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill · Hansard source

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  indicated dissent.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. As we know, tens of thousands of puppies are illegally smuggled into the UK every year; it is a huge animal welfare problem. This Bill will help to close the issue of having mutilations in dogs. As a veterinary surgeon, I see many dogs with cropped ears and docked tails—acts that are illegal to perform in the UK. People are performing those acts in the UK then claiming that the puppies have been brought in from abroad. If we ban puppies coming in from abroad with those mutilations, it will be of huge benefit to animal welfare. The Bill will also protect public health, because we know that the tens of thousands of dogs being brought in are not being tested for diseases such as rabies, which can affect people. This is also about serious organised crime: preventing tens of thousands of puppies being brought into the UK will help us to tackle the criminal gangs doing those acts. In the interests of time, I will finish by saying that I am pleased to have cross-party support on this issue as well as the support of the entire veterinary profession. I thank the Dogs Trust, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the British Veterinary Association for all the work they did to help to make this happen.

• 26 Nov 2024 · Online Safety: Children and Young People · Hansard source

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  I want to talk about the scale of the problem that the hon. Lady touches on. The Children’s Commissioner for England reveals that 79% of children under 18 have encountered violent pornography before the age of 18, with the average age of first exposure being 13. Everything the hon. Lady is saying is very important, but this is not a niche problem; it is something that parents in Winchester have spoken to me about repeatedly in the four months since I was elected.

• 26 Nov 2024 · Tobacco and Vapes Bill · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we have an NHS and a Government who are expected to provide and pay for treatment when people are ill, so there is a duty and an onus on the Government to try to keep people healthy, and to provide information about well-known dangers to people’s health? This is not about having a nanny state, but about nudging people to make the right choices, because it costs money to treat people, and we want to save money as well.

• 21 Nov 2024 · International Men’s Day · Hansard source

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  I, too, pay tribute to Lord Prescott. I remember reading a newspaper article a few years ago in which he opened up about his struggle with bulimia, and how he used to eat through an entire restaurant menu, or drink condensed milk, and then go home and vomit. It must have taken a huge amount of courage, especially 15 years ago, for a former merchant seaman and boxer to talk about his struggle with an eating disorder, from which we know men also suffer. This is a good day to acknowledge the impact that his being so open must have had on the many men who have an eating disorder.

• 21 Nov 2024 · International Men’s Day · Hansard source

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  Just to clarify, I am a vet, not a human doctor.

• 21 Nov 2024 · International Men’s Day · Hansard source

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  I do not want to be giving medical advice.

• 21 Nov 2024 · International Men’s Day · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) was extremely eloquent, especially at the beginning of his speech when he described the work that he had done in other countries and in the UK to address inequality, acknowledged the gender pay gap and the violence perpetrated against women and girls by men, and explained how that did not undermine the need to discuss male-specific issues on International Men’s Day. There are a great many issues that we could touch on and a number of them have been touched on by various Members, but, as the Liberal Democrat mental health spokesperson, I will focus primarily on that subject. Men are three times more likely than women to die by suicide. Since 1981, the suicide rate among women has approximately halved, but it has fallen by only 9% among men. A related fact is that at any given time, 12.5% of men have a mental health disorder. Men are twice as likely to die of alcohol-specific causes and about twice as likely to have substance abuse problems, they are less likely to have equal access to children, and 82% of rough sleepers are men—partly owing to mental as well as physical health issues. I want to pay tribute to some amazing charities in Winchester. Emmaus Hampshire, the Winchester Beacon and Trinity Winchester are homelessness charities that work hard to ensure that homeless people have a safe place and support, can get back on their feet rather than being stuck out on the street, and can engage with social services. The staff, volunteers and other supporters—including the council—do an incredible job. Tomorrow I will be visiting Trinity Winchester with another charity called StreetVet, whose vets treat the dogs belonging to homeless people. This is not primarily an animal welfare issue. Homeless people with dogs are much less likely to take part in risk-taking behaviour, much more likely to engage with social services, and much more likely to get off the streets more quickly. These are multifactorial and complex issues, which almost always include a mental health factor, but there are many different ways in which we can come together to address them. One thing that has struck me is the fact that we are all much closer to becoming homeless than we are to becoming millionaires, regardless of our status in life. Another organisation that I want to talk about is the Farming Community Network. I grew up on a small family farm in a rural area, and I now work as a vet with rural communities. We know that farmers have a very high suicide rate. Although an increasing number of women are becoming involved in farming, which is a very good thing, it is still very male-dominated. The mental health of farmers has been of specific concern for a long time. About five years ago, I went to a Farming Community Network meeting and met a farmer from Australia who had had a mental health breakdown. He gave a talk about his journey, his mental health breakdown, how he got help and how he got through it. What really surprised me was that several hundred other farmers had turned up to hear the talk, and they all discussed mental health afterwards. A huge majority of the farmers were middle-aged or older, and I remember thinking that this showed how much progress we have made on men discussing mental health. I do not think that my father, who died a few years ago at the age of 83, would have ever discussed mental health. He certainly would not have talked to his friends about mental health issues or any struggles that he had. Farming is an industry where people have to be problem solvers, and they work in difficult conditions. It shapes people to be unwilling to show what they see as signs of weakness, but we know that those working in isolation and in tough situations need to rely on each other for help. The hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) spoke about the 12,000 men who die each year from prostate cancer. We know that mental health and prostate cancer are the two biggest issues that get discussed when we think about men and men’s health. There are so many other issues as well, but those two are at the very top. I thank all the women who support men with health issues and mental health issues, because we know that women often ask men to go and get checked out when they have a health issue, and that women urge their partners or sons to go and get counselling. We know that men—I include myself—are really bad at proactively seeking help, and the nudges and support that we get from women must save so many lives. We have talked a lot about the fact that, compared with women, men and boys currently underperform throughout their educational careers. We have also discussed the huge issues that we have with increasing radicalisation and misogyny, especially online. We have touched on people such as Andrew Tate and the effect that they have on impressionable young men who sometimes feel that they do not have the opportunities that they think they deserve. We know that throughout history, men have had more power, more access to finances and more influence than women. On International Men’s Day, and as a man who is privileged enough to be in this Chamber, I want to take this opportunity to call for more research into endometriosis. It is an underdiagnosed disease of women, and there is often a delayed diagnosis. There has not been a huge amount of research into it, and many women struggle with endometriosis in the same way that men struggle with mental health issues. As the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland pointed out, men’s health issues affect women and women’s affect men. We should not separate them; we should work together and make sure that we support each other, because that is what we have to do going forward. Finally, I wish to echo other Members’ comments. As someone who was a trustee of a mental health charity for seven years, I know that it is so important to talk to each other if we are struggling. I was really pleased when one of my constituents, Chris North, came up to me in the pub to say hello. He is a trustee of a charity called LooseHeadz, and he came to visit me in Parliament last week with the two founders, Dave and Rob. The charity is primarily based in rugby clubs, and its aim is to have a mental health lead in every single club. A little like farming, rugby is traditionally a fairly alpha male environment, although that is changing. The charity is aware that, if it gets into communities, teams and clubhouses—places where men go anyway—it can encourage them to open up and talk through peer-to-peer support. That is where it can make a huge difference. Last week I met Sam Burge, a farmer from Winchester who is the local volunteer for the Farming Community Network. He talked about the importance of peer-to-peer support, and a breakdown of the calls to the Farming Community Network reveals a variety of issues, but mental health support and mental wellbeing are at the top of the list. It is encouraging to see that initiatives such as LooseHeadz and the Farming Community Network are encouraging men to reach out for help with their mental health.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Healthcare: Hampshire · Hansard source

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  I agree with the hon. Gentleman; when there is a lack of communication with residents, decision makers and any other interested stakeholders, that is when there are difficulties, such as rumours and unnecessary anxiety. Improved communication, whether in healthcare or in any Government Department, solves a huge number of problems. On the point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about accessing healthcare when people live in rural areas, I have a story about Margaret, who lives just south of Winchester and who wrote to me saying that she had been given an appointment at Basingstoke for a particular type of X-ray. Her journey to Basingstoke hospital took well over an hour and involved multiple buses and a train, plus considerable walking time. Margaret has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and gets exhausted walking long distances, and she cannot easily afford a taxi all the way from Basingstoke back to Winchester. She asked me whether people without cars were to become second-class citizens and be denied access to decent healthcare options. We have to look at individuals’ situations, and that can include needing really good public transport. The more community care we have in people’s towns and villages, the quicker they can get there from their homes. The other side of emergency care and A&E departments is social care. We have said many times that we cannot fix the NHS without fixing social care. We know that in the Hampshire hospitals NHS foundation trust, there are between 160 and 200 people at any given point who are well enough to be discharged and more appropriately cared for in the community with social care packages, but who are currently stuck in a hospital bed and cannot be discharged. That means that patients cannot be moved out of A&E and people cannot be removed from ambulances as quickly as they could be, which means that ambulance waiting times are longer. When I spoke to the CEO of Winchester hospital, he said that the single biggest help they could get from Government would be another 160 social care packages. Although people ask where the money will come from, we know it is more expensive to keep someone in a hospital bed than to give them a social care package. We have winter pressures coming up—indeed, winter has already started—and the CEO has told me on more than one occasion that, to help with those winter pressures, more social care packages would probably be the single biggest intervention that would make a huge difference. Local authorities struggle to afford social care packages and the NHS trusts have to fund some of those packages out of their NHS budget, which is primarily meant for treating people in hospital. One of the biggest concerns raised by Winchester residents is the potential removal of consultant-led maternity services at Winchester hospital. That means that if a woman were to haemorrhage or require an emergency C-section during labour, she would need to be transferred. To put that into perspective, in April 2024, 22.7% of births were performed via emergency C-section at Winchester hospital. It is clear that surgical interventions are not an unusual eventuality, but something that will affect more than one in five mothers. An emergency transfer in such a situation would inevitably put the lives of some women and babies at serious risk and, tragically, some could be lost. A constituent wrote to me about her daughter, who had recently haemorrhaged badly after giving birth to a baby who was in a breech position. The blood transfusion and lifesaving surgery to remove her placenta needed to happen within minutes, and it is unthinkable what would have happened had there been no consultants on hand. As someone who has performed many emergency caesareans—on animals rather than on humans—I know that time is of the essence, and anything that delays surgical intervention can make a huge difference, not just to whether the person and the baby survive but to whether the baby has potential brain damage and other life-changing complications. As the Liberal Democrat mental health spokesperson, I see this debate as a chance to highlight how desperately we need more resources put into mental health, alongside a more holistic approach to treatment. When speaking to residents in Winchester, one of the most common concerns is the difficulty in accessing mental healthcare, and that is especially true for parents who are struggling to access mental healthcare for their children. I spoke to a constituent near Swanmore who was struggling to access the mental healthcare and support they needed for their child who was anorexic and had an eating disorder. They had been informed that their child had to reach a lower BMI to qualify for the threshold to get treatment, because resources are so stretched. That would not be considered even remotely acceptable for any other disease. A person with cancer would never be told that they needed to reach stage 4 before they qualified for treatment. We know that outcomes with delayed treatment for mental and physical health disorders, of which eating disorders are a combination of both, will be much less successful and much less cost-effective, requiring longer and less successful treatment the longer that the condition is left. I urge the Minister to look with particular concern at the mental health of young people and children. Delays in mental health treatment for anyone can be catastrophic, but a three-year delay for someone who is only 13, 14, or 15 is a huge chunk of their life. As part of that, we urgently need to invest in primary care. Failing to address this will only place greater pressure on our already overstretched hospitals. I have spoken to people who have spent extended amounts of time in hospital beds, because they cannot get the mental healthcare that they need. Similarly, the lack of NHS dentists often forces patients to turn up to hospital, sometimes needing a general anaesthetic, to sort out tooth root abscesses, which costs more than providing NHS dental care. It seems as though all the dentists I speak to say that their current contract for performing NHS care is not fit for purpose. I urge the Minister to look at this as an urgent priority, because so many people are not receiving the dental care that they need. It seems as though this whole issue will not be resolved until the NHS contract is looked at. The other issue that affects people getting healthcare in their communities, especially around Hampshire, Winchester and the Meon Valley, relates to struggling pharmacies. The situation for pharmacies seems to be very similar to that of the dentists in that their arrangement with the Government for providing prescription services does not seem to be fit for purpose. It seems to be costing pharmacies money to provide prescription drugs, and they are telling me that their businesses are no longer viable. The more pharmacies that we lose, the further people will have to travel to not only collect drugs, but get medical advice and vaccines. In conclusion, I wish to pay tribute to NHS staff. I imagine that they dread the winter coming up. Every year, it is a stress for them. Every year, they are overworked. And every year, we know that both clinical and non-clinical staff will work longer hours than they are contracted to do. I know that they will be bracing themselves right now. They will be busier, and they will be putting themselves at risk from getting things such as flu, covid and the other respiratory diseases that we see in the winter. One thing that we can all do, both as the public and the Government, is to encourage everyone to get vaccinated ahead of these winter pressures. Anything we can do to prevent a trip to hospital will make their job easier and make it less likely that they will get sick.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Healthcare: Hampshire · Hansard source

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  I apologise for intervening again so soon. One of my main concerns about the public consultation is that the NHS had assessed sites in Winchester as suitable, but they were not then included in the consultation. The people of Winchester want to know why those suitable sites were not included in the consultation. Can the Minister assure me that that will be addressed by the ICB, and anyone else publishing the consultation?

• 20 Nov 2024 · Healthcare: Hampshire · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member makes a good point about hospices in particular. Only about a third of hospice funding is provided by the Government. It is a hugely emotive subject, which affects not only the people in the hospice but the whole family, who are trying to care for a loved one who often has only weeks or months left to go. We have two hospices in Winchester, one of which is a children’s hospice, Naomi House. Some of the most moving visits I have ever done have been to hospices, where the staff and patients are incredibly brave. We have a debate coming up on assisted dying. We will really have to look at palliative and hospice care and how it is funded, and how we make it sustainable and fit for purpose. I thank him for that important intervention. Many constituents write to tell me about the excellent care that they receive in hospitals, and how much they appreciate the hard work of NHS staff. A Winchester resident called Owen wrote to tell me that he honestly does not believe that he would be alive today were it not for Winchester hospital. Owen sadly suffers from a brain tumour in the pituitary gland, and has needed many emergency treatments. Owen lives five minutes from the hospital and has managed to have lifesaving treatment there on multiple occasions. We need to avoid the trap of cutting short-term costs, such as by not investing in social care, which has ended up costing the state so much more money in the long run. We need a comprehensive plan to give people adequate local healthcare throughout their lives, and escape the endless cycle of crisis after crisis. We know that winter is coming this year, and coming next year. What are we doing to ensure that we will not have an NHS crisis in Hampshire next winter as well?

• 20 Nov 2024 · Healthcare: Hampshire · Hansard source

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  I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. As a vet who has worked in public health programmes around the world, I know that it has been proven time and again that it is always more cost effective to treat people in their communities and keep them healthy, than to treat them in hospital when they get sick. We need to focus on that. I know the Government have said that they want to move treatment from hospitals into the community.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Healthcare: Hampshire · Hansard source

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  We never opposed a new hospital—that was something the Conservatives were saying about us. We support a new hospital, we want a new hospital, and we want modern healthcare services in Hampshire. However, we were very concerned that the proposed location of the new hospital is not suitable when we look at how healthcare is delivered throughout Hampshire. Sites just north of Winchester were identified as suitable; when we look at a map of Hampshire, it is clear that those proposed locations would be much more suitable for people throughout Hampshire, including those in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, to reach emergency services. Our current A&E department, like other A&E departments, is hugely busy, especially as we head into winter. We know that many people attend A&E because they cannot get the primary care they need. Up to 20% of people who turn up at A&E are there because they cannot get a doctor’s appointment. People who are in a mental health crisis—many are often already on a waiting list—are going to A&E. They take up a huge amount of time and staff resources, often needing 15 to 18 hours of constant monitoring before they can be taken to a place of safety. We also have people turning up with dental issues because they cannot access an NHS dentist.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Healthcare: Hampshire · Hansard source

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  Whether I am door-knocking at the general election or reading my inbox, the NHS and healthcare services are, by a long way, the single biggest worry that people talk about. After 14 years of Conservative mismanagement of both the economy and the NHS, I have heard from many people about how they are struggling to access NHS services not only for themselves but for their children, which causes huge stress for the family and friends of those involved. In 2019, Boris Johnson announced that Hampshire would have one of 40 new hospitals. In 2024 the sitting Conservative MP I stood against repeated once again that there would be a new hospital in Hampshire. It was frustrating, although possibly not surprising, to find out after the general election that not only had there never been any money assigned to the new hospital in Hampshire but that there is a £22 billion deficit that we had not previously known about. Hospital managers, along with the chief executives of hospital trusts and integrated care boards, are trying to plan the future of healthcare in Hampshire, which becomes difficult when the goalposts keep moving and when they do not know whether there will be a new hospital. It is also causing huge stress for the residents around Winchester, especially those south of Winchester, who have been told that they might lose their accident and emergency department and their consultant-led maternity services as part of the new hospital plan. I have heard from thousands of people, including up to 30,000 who signed a petition, about the importance of keeping our A&E and consultant-led maternity services in and around Winchester. I have heard from many people whose lives were saved at Winchester and who are worried that they might have to travel further. There has been a public consultation on the location of a new hospital, and it is currently being reviewed. Winchester residents are very concerned that none of the suitable potential sites in Winchester was included as an option. People had to choose between north or south of Basingstoke. This is not only a concern for people in Winchester, who will have to travel further for emergency healthcare; it is also a concern for the management of Southampton hospital, who are concerned that the further north a new hospital is built, the more that people will go to Southampton because it is closer. At the moment, Southampton hospital is operating at capacity and would need significant new resources if the hospital were built too far north. When we look at the future of healthcare in Hampshire, we should seriously consider why we would build a new hospital so close to Frimley Park, which is going to be rebuilt because it has reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete and is only 20 minutes away along the A3. Why would we have two new hospitals so close to each other? I would appreciate having a meeting with Minister to discuss the potential location of any new hospital, so that we can ensure everyone in Winchester can access healthcare in an appropriate place. The location of any new hospital is key to the future of healthcare in Hampshire because it will provide healthcare for decades to come. However, we are aware that the proposed new hospital may not be included in the new hospital programme after the review, so we need to focus on our current hospital. The NHS staff at that hospital are fantastic, but we need to look at how we can support it now and in the decades to come.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Healthcare: Hampshire · Hansard source

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  any potential new hospital is decades away, while the hospital we have needs to be maintained and improved. The quickest way forward is to provide 160 new social care packages for Winchester hospital. Will the Minister meet me and the chief executive officer of Winchester hospital to work out how we can deliver those packages as quickly as possible, and provide good A&E, hospital and social care services for everyone in and around Winchester?

• 14 Nov 2024 · Respiratory Health · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for all his work on the APPG for respiratory health. As has been said, it is a hugely important issue, given the sheer number of people affected and killed every year and the huge amount of resources taken from the NHS. It was good to hear everyone talk about a holistic approach, because this issue is not purely about NHS services. Most people have discussed the importance of air quality and pollution, and the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) acknowledged that people living in poverty are more likely to suffer. I think they are five times more likely to die from COPD and about three times more likely to die from asthma. There are a whole variety of reasons for that, one being air pollution. In the village of Twyford near Winchester, one of our fantastic Lib Dem councillors has been campaigning for years to improve air quality and reduce pollution due to traffic. She is a former doctor, and one of her main motivations is to try to improve outcomes for asthma and children’s respiratory health. The Minister and I were in this Chamber about a week ago to discuss housing. It was acknowledged that the UK has the oldest housing stock in Europe, with a lot of it have been built before world war two. Again, the link between people living in poverty and living in substandard housing is very strong. I am probably not the only Member who receives correspondence from individuals in private housing association accommodation who struggle to get a response from organisations when they encounter problems such as mould. Living in substandard housing is bad not only for physical health, but for the environment and carbon dioxide emissions. Last week, we discussed a huge programme to try to improve the housing of people living in poverty, because it is good for the environment and for people’s health. We should remember that the NHS spends about £1.5 billion a year dealing directly with issues, such as damp and cold, that have arisen from people living in poor and substandard housing, so the comorbidities are huge. I am mindful talking about the clinical treatment of respiratory diseases when the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), is actually a doctor and I am a rudimentary veterinary surgeon, but respiratory disease is a common disease that we treat in horses. By improving the surroundings they are in—by getting rid of dust and improving ventilation—we can get the huge majority of them off medication entirely. It is the same with groups of cattle, which are housed over the winter. Respiratory diseases have a huge impact on farmers’ productivity, but through a combination of improving accommodation, improving ventilation and vaccination, we can get fewer illnesses and better productivity. That would be more cost-effective for the farmer and we would use fewer antibiotics. It is exactly the same with public health. Treating people who have got sick because they live in substandard conditions is an endless task, but getting to the root cause of the problem will have huge knock-on effects throughout society. Vaccines in human and veterinary medicine are always the most cost-effective health intervention. They are better for patients and the taxpayer and, importantly, they help us to avoid using antibiotics unnecessarily. The World Health Organisation has noted that antimicrobial resistance is one of the biggest health challenges facing the world right now. Interestingly, vaccine hesitancy is another, so we should monitor levels of vaccination uptake, because the tripledemic, as people call it, of flu, covid and respiratory syncytial virus affects people all year round, but especially in the winter. Slightly concerningly, it seems that 280,000 fewer NHS staff have been vaccinated this year compared with 2019, even though there are now slightly more frontline staff. Will the Minister explore why that is the case? Is it due to concerns about the vaccination or a lack of access to it? For example, I want to get vaccinated, but I just have not had the time yet this year, and that could be the problem for many people. Vaccinating pregnant women against RSV is a hugely important intervention that helps to prevent babies under six months old from getting really sick. Most people just get a cold from RSV, but tens of thousands of babies every year are admitted to hospital with it, and it can be hugely damaging in the long run. I have touched on holistic approaches to respiratory disease, but it is worth looking at other health conditions. The hon. Member for Strangford mentioned the work on smoking cessation, which is hugely important, but it is also worth noting the work on obesity. If a person is obese, any underlying respiratory issues are much more difficult to manage and treat, and the symptoms can often be exacerbated. We need to focus on public health interventions such as improving the quality of our food, including free school meals. I hope that, given the financial constraints the NHS is currently working under, we do not view public health as a cost to be cut, because in the long run we desperately need to invest in it to stop people getting sick and ending up in hospital. We will not prevent every disease, no matter how hard we try. People will still get sick for a whole variety of reasons, including with COPD, asthma and lung cancer, and they will need long-term management. In our manifesto, we called for people with long-term conditions to be able to see a named GP so that they get continuity of care from someone who is very familiar with their case. Seeing someone different every time causes patients a lot of stress and sometimes results in miscommunication. We discussed air pollution earlier. During the general election, we called for a new clean air Act, based on World Health Organisation recommendations and ideally enforced by a clean air agency. Will the Minister look seriously at that proposal, and consider other suggestions about working hard on local pollution levels, working to improve vaccination rates and housing standards, and working to ensure that anyone diagnosed with any type of cancer, but particularly lung cancer, sees a consultant within 62 days of being referred?

• 14 Nov 2024 · Respiratory Health · Hansard source

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  Yes, I will. I live off tea—it is the only way I get through the day—and I have a particular interest in air quality, so it could be a really enjoyable meeting. As this debate is not going on for as long as the hon. Member for Strangford would like, he could come and speak with us as well. As I was saying, a clean air Act and a named doctor are among our proposals. We are heading into winter, which NHS staff must dread: it is always busier than other periods, and a whole load of respiratory issues add to the winter pressures on the NHS. I thank and pay tribute to all the NHS workers who are heading into this very difficult time. We must do whatever we can to support them, whether that is helping them to get their vaccinations or helping them in any other way.