John Glen MP: speeches

Speeches

• 27 Mar 2025 · Hughes Report: First Anniversary · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to be called to speak in the debate, Ms Furniss. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson) for the work she has done on this matter to date and for her powerful advocacy this afternoon. I am drawn to this issue as a result of my recent experience as a Minister in the last Government, where I was responsible for bringing forward the infected blood compensation scheme and passing the legislation to set up the authority that would pay out compensation. I do not presume to be an expert on the sodium valproate and pelvic mesh issue, and nor do I seek to draw direct parallels, but I thought it would be helpful to make some observations about what I experienced in Whitehall when trying to come to terms with the infected blood compensation, and to offer some perspectives on how we might move forward. It has been my privilege to meet Janet Williams and Emma Murphy, two victims of sodium valproate, who have briefed me on their long campaign going back many years. They have seven children between them, with disabilities consequential of valproate. It seems to me that we have already gone down a familiar path, with the Cumberlege review and then Henrietta Hughes’s work last year. As the Patient Safety Commissioner, she suggested a way forward, with a two-stage redress scheme and some clear next steps setting out what must happen, what should happen and what the Government need to do. We look forward to hearing a response from the Minister in a short while. However, there are three things I have taken from my experience. Constant delay will increase the cost and build up ill will. Lessons need to be learned, and they cannot be platitudes that are recurrently uttered in a well-meaning way by various Ministers who do not get to the heart of the matter. I say that with the greatest respect, but we must move on these things. We must also not underestimate the complexity of delivery. A vast amount of work has been done on trying to understand the population involved, the range of suffering and the medical conditions consequential of valproate. It is important to recognise that there are ways of putting in compensation schemes very simply and clearly and in short order. That is what happened last year with infected blood, and it can happen in this case. It is also important to improve communications with stakeholders, so that they are taken on a journey to where this will head to. There will be vast institutional blockers in Whitehall to stop this moving swiftly to a point of resolution. That will primarily be from the Treasury, and there will be sensible conventions on processes that will delay progress—unless the Minister can grip this and recognise it as a top priority. Lots of things go wrong in medicine—we all understand that—but when things go wrong that could have been avoided, the state must step up, come to terms with it and clearly state the way forward. I urge the Minister to use the power of her office, for however long she has it—I hope she has it for a long time so that she can deliver, because it is very satisfying to be able to do—to address this matter urgently.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Hughes Report: First Anniversary · Hansard source

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  I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. I was not trying to suggest earlier that her tenure in office would be short-lived; I wish her every success in her endeavours. I think the spirit of today has been about cross-party consensus, not seeking to make political points about this matter, but what I will say to the Minister is that she can go back to her officials and say that there are two very recent precedents for interim payments, under the infected blood compensation scheme, of quite significant numbers. They were maximised, so that there would be no loss to the public purse—that is to say, they were entitlements that everyone would have been able to receive. That mechanism is there, so this can happen sooner. I recognise what the Minister is saying and I wish her well in her endeavours, but she should be able to do something with that information.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Hughes Report: First Anniversary · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I hope the Chancellor, next Wednesday in front of the Treasury Committee, will reiterate her commitment not to come back with more tax increases. On page five of the OBR report, paragraph 1.2 states: “While the Government’s planning reforms deliver a modest boost to the level of potential output of 0.2 per cent in 2029, its cumulative growth between 2023 and 2029 is still ½ a percentage point lower than we projected in October, and the level of productivity is over 1 per cent lower.” I would like to know what the Chancellor thinks about that, and can she confirm that the Employment Rights Bill has not been evaluated by the OBR?

• 24 Mar 2025 · Draft Infected Blood Compensation Scheme Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I want to make a few points and to provide some context around how we got to this point, and also to ask the Paymaster General a few questions about the regulations. As far as I can see, the regulations are identical to what I would have done had I continued in the role of Paymaster General and taken them forward. Notwithstanding the careful and forensic observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire, which I am sure the Minister will wish to respond to, it is important to put on the record that the regulations were not just cooked up by myself or the Minister, with officials, without regard to the report and expectations of Sir Robert Francis. Indeed, I commissioned an independent expert—and they were an independent expert—using the best advice available, and the regulations were designed to capture all the difficult trade-offs in calibrating a scheme with five heads of loss and for a large number of conditions, while seeking, at every opportunity, to make good on the expectations of those who have suffered so much. For clarity, I would like the Minister to acknowledge that that work was not just left and then translated into the regulations. There was a careful period of reflection with representatives of many of the infected and affected communities last summer before the Minister accepted the vast majority of the recommendations from that consultation. Will he therefore confirm that he stands by the outcome of that consultation? I visited IBCA in Newcastle, and I recognise the ongoing concern around the speed of delivery—the Minister will no doubt feel exactly the same as Opposition Members do. Will he say a little about how he will ensure that the activation of the affected route and the supplementary route by these regulations will not impede but accelerate the expectations around securing payments? A number of points were made in the “Infected Blood Compensation—Getting it Right” document and in the documents from the Haemophilia Society and the Hepatitis C Trust about the calibrations, and my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire mentioned them in his questions. It would be helpful if the Minister could answer those concerns, because I echo them and they need to be dealt with. Will the Minister also put on record that the myths out there about a large number of officials from the Cabinet Office or the Treasury—God forbid—being sent up to Newcastle to deliver this scheme in a constrained way are absolutely false? Will he acknowledge that it is the will of both sides of the House to deliver it as quickly as possible within the agreed framework, at arm’s length from Ministers and officials from whichever Department? Indeed, he is now in the invidious position of setting out the regulations for an arm’s length body to deliver something that he is not running day to day. He therefore has my enormous sympathies, and I hope we will have the integrity to continue this cross-party process, because it is important that IBCA, under David Foley’s experienced and able leadership, accelerates the delivery of these payments to the affected community and makes the supplementary route clear as quickly as possible. I will finish by saying that 40 payments and £44 million do not sound like large numbers, and we do need to see that hockey stick. I am not dismissive of the concerns around speed of delivery, but the recommendation was that this would go to an arm’s length body, and it is fair for us all to acknowledge that the Minister cannot be held responsible for operational matters. However, he can be responsible for the regulations that he has set out so well this afternoon.

• 24 Mar 2025 · Draft Infected Blood Compensation Scheme Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  I can say this now: it is quite frustrating when, as a Minister, you are given those dates and you know that the significant likelihood and probability is that it will be faster than that, but you are not permitted to say so, because you cannot give false hope. I know the Paymaster General is seeking to move those to the left at every opportunity, but his wonderful officials will be constraining him and giving him some concerns around doing so.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  On 20 November 2023, when I was the Paymaster General, I made some comments about the winter fuel payment. The right hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), who is now Chief Secretary to the Treasury, wrote to the Chancellor at the time and asked whether we could confirm that we would not be removing the winter fuel payment, because pensioners would be deeply concerned. My view, having had that put on a list of options when I was Chief Secretary, was that there was no way it would be right to do so. I knew, for example, that 71% of pensioners with a disability would lose that valued and completely necessary extra funding—there was not a rationing mechanism that was efficient for the poorest pensioners. I expected to be held to account, which was why I did not do it. I was therefore somewhat surprised when, 25 days into a Labour Government, they reversed the policy that they had challenged me about several months before.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is very generous in giving way. I have listened carefully to the speeches this afternoon with respect to our tenure in office and regrets that we will have time to reflect on. I accept that. However, having been a Minister and a Parliamentary Private Secretary for 12 years, I want to tell the hon. Gentleman that though making the decision to remove the winter fuel payment for that population may be desirable— I acknowledge and have said that it may be desirable for people in the higher levels—it needs to have a mechanism or a proxy to verify what would be fair and which vulnerable people would be affected. I put it to him that if somebody only has an income of £13,500, they are in a state of vulnerability that means that no Government should take that away. The choice we made was based on the options available. If there had been an easier way of doing that at a higher level, I would have been sympathetic to that. Those are the real choices that one actually has to face in government.

• 17 Mar 2025 · Jobcentres: Impact on Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  A few weeks ago, I visited Salisbury jobcentre and I met Kirstie Reakes and George Thornley, who are helping me organise a jobs fair on Thursday 8 May. They could not have been more helpful. Their encyclopaedic knowledge of the local jobs market and businesses was impressive. Will the Minister congratulate them and thank them for the help they are giving me with the jobs fair in Salisbury Guildhall on 8 May? Will he also reflect on what incentives jobcentres could have to reach out to businesses and deepen their knowledge of local labour markets?

• 13 Mar 2025 · Farming · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing this afternoon’s debate. I want to make three points. Salisbury, my rural constituency, has farming at its heart. The universal feedback that we have had from farmers is that since this Government have come in they have been very, very disappointed. The changes to the APR and BPR have catastrophic implications for succession planning, and despite making really sensible suggestions the NFU has been completely rebuffed. Farmers are in absolute despair. That came before we had all the changes to national insurance and to the national living wage. The overall context for operating small businesses, which is what farms are, has been transformed. The level of exposure that farmers feel to these combined pressures is enormous. Then yesterday we had the announcement of the suspension of the SFI—a key part of the environmental land management scheme. A number of farmers rang me up yesterday and said, “This is the end. What are we going to do?” One farmer I spoke to yesterday afternoon, who operates 27 farms, works with an agent to prepare documents to apply for grants, but those had not quite gone in, so he now faces grave uncertainty—a real black hole. This needs to be addressed urgently. The combined effect of the changes in the Budget and last night’s announcement has had a massive impact on the industry across the United Kingdom. I want to use my remaining time to focus on where we need to go now. This is a debate about the future of farming, after all. I recognise that, post Brexit, we need serious thinking and leadership about reconciling food production incentives, environmental management and getting in place the right arrangements for trade. Transitioning from where we were before 2016 is not straightforward. But I urge the Minister to put some defined objectives into the public domain and make his officials accountable for delivering on them. That would help the Government to set a clear road map going forward and help famers know what food security really means from his perspective.

• 13 Mar 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Many valued public servants work at Porton Down in my constituency. It was home to the Health Protection Agency when I first became an MP, then to Public Health England and then the UK Health Security Agency. In 2015, the decision was made to establish a new facility in Essex. I have been applying and will continue to apply for an Adjournment debate, but we could really do with a statement from a Health Minister on the future of the UK Health Security Agency, which is a vital facility for this country. My constituents need to know what is happening with it.

• 13 Mar 2025 · NHS England Update · Hansard source

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  I welcome the ambition of the Secretary of State. One area that I ask him to focus on is the future of the UK Health Security Agency. Over the last 15 years, it has evolved from the Health Protection Agency to Public Health England and now to the UKHSA. I found it impossible, both as a Treasury Minister and as a constituency MP, to penetrate the decision-making process around resource allocation, which I now believe is duplicative, as a move to a new site in Essex is being contemplated. That is an area where the Secretary of State can demonstrate to my constituents in Salisbury and at Porton Down that he means business and can resolve the future of UKHSA once and for all.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Infected Blood Compensation Scheme · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Minister’s progress in this area. I visited IBCA on 30 January and was impressed by the professionalism of the team. Since then the Minister has made himself accessible so that I can give him feedback. One issue that has come up is the need for recipients of payments to sign non-disclosure agreements or terms. I am anxious that misunderstandings do not arise as a consequence of that. Can the Minister use his good offices to implore IBCA to explain why that happens? If IBCA cannot do that, perhaps he can explain to the House why such agreements might be necessary.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Seven years ago this week, on the orders of Putin in the Kremlin, my constituents faced the Novichok incident, which had an enormous impact on their lives for several months. In the end, Dawn Sturgess died. Please may we have a debate on the position of Russia in the world at a time of changing geopolitics? It is absolutely clear to the people of Salisbury, as it is to the people of this country, that an enduring peace can be achieved only if we resist appeasement and ensure that we have a secure arrangement with Europe, and with the US hopefully engaged. We need to discuss that urgently, along with the role of Russia in the world.

• 6 Mar 2025 · English Football: Financial Sustainability and Governance · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is making a passionate speech and has done a great job of bringing us all to this Chamber. I lived through Reading’s trials through my stepson who is a season ticket holder— obviously, my first love is for the Whites in Salisbury. Does she not recognise the fundamental challenges of disturbing a market that contains one of our greatest national assets, which is the premier league? I feel quite torn and anxious about the scope creep of any regulatory intervention, although I accept that the core of what she says has a lot of merit.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  During their eight months in government, what assessment have the ministerial team made of the productivity of the civil service? What measures are they putting in place to improve it, and will the Minister report back to the House?

• 5 Mar 2025 · Department of Health and Social Care · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege to make a contribution in this important seasonal debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) for bringing the debate to the House and commend him on his work chairing the Public Accounts Committee. As he set out, the NHS faces a number of enduring challenges: productivity, the integration of different systems, the challenge of public health, and the enduring issue of social care and how local authorities can provide the space for the NHS to deliver some of the outcomes we all aspire to. I spent some of my time prior to the election in the Treasury. At every fiscal event that I was part of, whether as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chancellor, Economic Secretary or Chief Secretary, more money was given to the NHS. An attempt was made before every fiscal event to ensure that all the relevant stakeholders made the right positive statements about the new commitments, yet six or 12 months later there would be another pressing financial challenge. I say that because it is frustrating—we all come to this place to try to find enduring solutions to problems that are complicated. I therefore want to make some observations about the challenges of multiple systems operating effectively in allocating resources. I meet GPs in my constituency regularly, as I am sure we all do. One such person is Dan Henderson, who is a partner at Salisbury medical practice. Alongside Anna Morton, who is a practice manager, he explained to me the complicated dynamics with our ICB over how to ensure that the right allocations are made for the inputs that they are organising at GP practices. It is mindboggling how difficult that process of securing the right allocations is and the lack of ability to plan effective systems over one, two or three years and beyond because the budget cycle is so overwhelmed with managing the health system. If we are to tackle the productivity challenge, we have to come to terms with those connection points between ICBs, GPs and local authorities and with how we can embed behavioural shifts that lift productivity. The second area I want to touch on, despite the record £200 billion of funding going into the NHS, is the problem of public health and coming to terms with how we consume health services as a country. Where something is free at the point of need, we can become very inefficient in the way we draw down that provision. I really think we have to work on pathways for informing and helping our constituents access health systems effectively. We have seen an explosion of mental health challenges in recent years and the NHS has done a fantastic job of trying to deal with that. However, we should not tolerate the variable performance of the NHS across different trusts and across the country. One way in which we can raise productivity is by exposing those variances in performance so that those who are leading the NHS can be accountable for them. Those systems will be different for many reasons, with different demographic pressures and different challenges due to their capital estate. We must get those issues out in the open rather than always thinking that just ploughing more money into our NHS system is the way forward. I welcome the greater investment, once again, in the NHS, but I recognise that we will need radical solutions if we are to change the productivity story. As a House, we need to unite in finding the right fixes and looking at the best ways of bringing them to fruition across our country.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Saving · Hansard source

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  I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to extend the help to save scheme, which has been running for seven years. Martin Lewis describes it as “a very clever scheme and one that will work for many people.” May I urge the Minister to look at what needs to be done to raise awareness of it, because the actual uptake is very low, given that the Government have been giving £1,200 over four years? It is critical that the right investment in promoting it happens, because it is such a brilliant scheme.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  On 4 February, I met Janet Williams and Emma Murphy from the national valproate campaign, In-FACT, the Independent Fetal Anti-convulsant Trust. Later that week, the hon. Members for Rushcliffe (James Naish), and for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) raised these matters at business questions. It is a year since the publication of the patient safety commissioner’s Hughes report, which highlighted the devastating impact of valproate and pelvic mesh on thousands of women and children. Given my experience of the infected blood compensation scheme, and what I learned from the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson) when she was in opposition, please can we have some time to discuss the matter? Further delays would cause not only enormous additional anxiety, but expense to the taxpayer. We must move on this matter.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Cathedrals: Local Economic Contribution · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for her reply. I want to make her aware of a cross-party group that has been set up in Parliament, supported by the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), the hon. Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), and others who represent cathedral cities. We want to help the Second Church Estates Commissioner by providing greater evidence of the economic contribution of cathedrals. The first world war centenary cathedral repairs fund helped many cathedrals, including Salisbury. I hope that she will consider making representations for the creation of something similar to support our cathedrals in future.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Cathedrals: Local Economic Contribution · Hansard source

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  4. What recent estimate the Church has made of the contribution of its cathedrals to local economies.

• 27 Feb 2025 · Small Theatres and Performing Arts Venues · Hansard source

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  On Monday, I met the director of Salisbury playhouse. She warmly welcomed the £85 million creative foundations fund, which she thought would be highly applicable to Salisbury playhouse, one of the few producing theatres in the south-west. She also told me about the 5,600 local children who were given subsidised tickets up to Christmas, and about her commitment to go out and raise funds from local investors in the arts. Will the Minister ensure that the value of the £85 million is maximised by combining it with visionary leaders like Rosa Corbishley at Salisbury playhouse, who will go out and get more money for the arts in our community?

• 25 Feb 2025 · Defence and Security · Hansard source

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  It is without doubt that enduring peace is achieved only if we have enduring security arrangements, so I warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement on defence expenditure and the commitment to it. However, I reiterate my observation, and the observation of others, on the way that that money is spent. For a generation, we have been complacent. There is significant dysfunctionality in the way that industry works with Government on the procurement and delivery of defence capabilities in this country. I urge him to keep his Defence Secretary in place for the duration of this Parliament, so that we can find some common purpose, across this House, and deliver enduring reforms that stand the test of time. Treasury after Treasury has found it impossible to get to grips with defence expenditure—we must achieve that in this Parliament.

• 25 Feb 2025 · Warm Home Discount · Hansard source

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  Families and businesses obviously operate in an environment with lots of different costs. When they see increases in their tax bills, the burdens of potential new regulation and additional energy costs, they are bound to challenge themselves on what they can afford to invest. The Minister is clear on the Government’s strategic direction, but does she not accept that in the short and medium term the burdens during the journey to change are enormous for business and will have a massive effect on the level of investment in this country? Does that not concern her?

• 29 Jan 2025 · Growing the UK Economy · Hansard source

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  Among the fundamental enablers of growth in the economy are financial services and opening up markets to invest. I think there was consensus across this House in the last Parliament on the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, which provided the framework to do that. What concrete proposals have come forward from the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority consideration of changing some of the restrictions that stop the right levels of investment? This week, the Government enabled about £100 billion of surplus funds from defined-benefit pension schemes to be made available. What proportion of that money will be invested and in what timeframe? The concern around these announcements is the delay to tangible, calculable economic impact.