Simon Opher MP: speeches

Speeches

• 20 Jan 2025 · Family Visas: Income Requirement · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady say whether the policy of punitively attacking families was successful in reducing migration? Will she also say what effect immigration has on GDP?

• 20 Jan 2025 · Obesity: Food and Diet · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree with that. We must treat people in a fair and compassionate way. We must point that out to them, as medical professionals, and help them to get better. I agree with the hon. Lady about stigma. On obesity strategies, since 1990, we have had 700 separate policies to tackle obesity, yet it has doubled. Clearly, we are doing something wrong. Having looked at the evidence, it is clear that voluntary targets do not work. Voluntary targets for the food industry and relying on individual agency—giving us choice in what we eat—cannot reduce obesity. The food industry, of course, has a vested interest in making money. While education and exercise are really good, there is not much evidence to suggest that they reduce obesity. It is all about food. There has been a lot of research. Nesta, the Obesity Health Alliance and the House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee have done multiple reports on obesity, and it is clear that we can halve it. All we need to do is reduce everyone’s calorie intake by 200 calories a day. That is the difference between McDonald’s large fries and standard fries—other fries are available—so it is not a massive thing, but we all have to do it. As always with public health, small drops in what we take can have a massive effect on the population.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Obesity: Food and Diet · Hansard source

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  Yes, I could not agree more. As I said in the debate on education, we should be careful about the food industry sponsoring school breakfasts. As I pointed out, there is no such thing as a free breakfast. Companies often make unhealthy and addictive food and get young people addicted to it, so we must be cautious. I wanted a recipe to solve this crisis and what I am suggesting comes from evidence from Nesta and the House of Lords Select Committee. It should be mandatory that all stores report on the food healthiness of their sales. We need a fully independent Food Standards Agency. We should have a ban on advertising junk food, as has already been proposed, and there should be a watershed for children—that is incredibly important. As is planned in Scotland and Wales, there should be a ban on price promotions, particularly for unhealthy foods, ultra-processed foods and takeaways. We also need to put a lot more resource into breastfeeding and diet in pregnancies—remember the carrots—and we must regulate formula feeds. One measure, which has worked with the drinks industry in reducing sugar, is a reformulation tax on foods that are high in sugar and salt. Supermarkets and food companies would reformulate their foods to avoid the tax, thereby making them healthier. My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) mentioned breakfast clubs. There is a lot of evidence that free school meals and breakfast clubs reduce obesity. Where free school meals have been introduced in London, childhood obesity has been reduced by 11%. That is because the food is healthy and a healthy hot meal is really important, rather than high-calorie snacks, which are what a lot of packed lunches consist of. If we cannot have free school meals, because of financial problems, we should have auto-enrolment so that children who should be on free school meals actually get enrolled. That would benefit schools, too. We must have mandatory front-of-packet labelling. I have never met a parent who does not want to buy healthy food for their children. The trouble is that they pick up a packet of cereal and it says, “High in iron and filled with vitamins,” and think it must be healthy. Nothing could be further from the truth, so we must have accurate labelling. Healthy school foods should be sourced locally. In Stroud, I have been working closely with local primary schools to encourage them to eat fresh, locally grown, highly nutritious food. I think the Government’s target is to procure at least 50% of food in schools from local sources. Then there is the famous hospital food. I was recently in hospital with a relative, and I can tell the House that hospital food is not healthy. We had white-bread sandwiches and some crisps—that was our healthy snack. We must introduce healthy foods in hospitals. Takeaways are another big barrier to healthy eating—there was a massive explosion in their use during the covid pandemic—and we need to include them in any regulation. As I have said, in Scotland and Wales a ban on takeaway price promotions has been proposed. On average, those in deprived areas order more takeaways than those in non-deprived areas. We certainly must not let takeaway outlets open near schools—that is a planning must. I would also caution against the treatment of the obesity crisis with injections of drugs such as Ozempic, which could well turn out to be dangerous.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Obesity: Food and Diet · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of food and diet on obesity. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating parliamentary time to this crucial issue. We were actually going to have this debate before Christmas, but we decided that before Christmas was not a good time to discuss obesity; we were then going to have it last week, but it was postponed. I am really grateful to colleagues across the House for supporting the debate. Our country has an obesity crisis that is threatening the health and wellbeing of the whole nation. It is a cross-party issue: since 1990, rates of obesity have doubled. Two thirds of all adults in the UK are carrying excess weight, and a quarter of adults are classified as obese. The figures are even more worrying in children: 10% of children aged four, when they enter school, are obese; that figure rises to 22%—nearly one in four—in year 6. One problem with obesity is that, as many of us know, once someone becomes overweight, it is difficult to shift. That is why the most important age group to concentrate on is young people. Obesity is now the single most important modifiable risk factor for the prevention of disease, and I will briefly go through its effects—as a doctor, I cannot resist. Around 4 million people in this country have type 2 diabetes, which is five times more likely in obesity. Type 2 diabetes almost doubles a person’s mortality rate, with 22,000 people with diabetes dying early every year. Ischaemic heart disease, the leading cause of death in the UK, is much more common in obesity, as is hypertension and osteoarthritis, which causes joint pain and reduced mobility. Something that a lot of people do not know is that 13 cancers are directly attributable to obesity—it is actually also the second commonest cause of cancer. As a GP, there are other things I see quite regularly, such as reflux, varicose veins, infertility and even thrombosis, all of which diminish quality of life. The commonest cause of liver disease is now obesity. I will not go into the cost too much but, as we can imagine, obesity costs the country an absolute fortune: on average, four extra sick days a year; and, taking into account the cost to the NHS and so on, an estimated £98 billion a year, or 4% of GDP. The cost to the NHS is £19 billion a year. What is the cause of obesity? From the evidence, it is clear that the main cause of obesity is diet—it is what we eat. The food system in this country is fundamentally broken. I welcomed the statement from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed) about sustainable food production: nutritious foods grown while restoring nature, and farms with good food production at its core, rewarded properly. There is a complicated relationship in food production, whereby farms mostly exist on Government subsidy with very small profit margins and then the supermarkets make profits out of what they sell. We need to look into that complicated relationship. One problem is that unhealthy and ultra-processed foods—UPFs—that are high in fats, salt and sugar are often the easiest, cheapest and most convenient. Crucially, they make the most profit for the food industry. The other problem with these types of food is that they are addictive—salty, fatty foods are addictive. Another problem, revealed by the Food Foundation, is that healthy foods, calorie for calorie, are twice as expensive as less healthy foods. So there are a lot of issues there to unpick. Inequalities and deprivation are very, very strong causes of obesity, with less well-off people being twice as likely to be overweight. Therefore, one strategy has to be to increase the living wage, reduce child poverty, improve health and social services, and invest in education —all of which the Government are doing. On pregnancy, obesity actually begins in the womb—it does not even begin when we are born. In one fascinating experiment, one group of pregnant women were fed a lot of carrots and another group did not have any carrots. The children of the women who ate carrots loved carrots, so a memory is made in utero. It is therefore really important that pregnant women have a very healthy diet, as this is a risk factor for obesity in young people. Another is formula feed. Breastfeeding protects against obesity, but formula feeds do not. Follow-on feeds, hungry baby feeds, are just normal milk packed full of calories, so they tend to increase obesity. That is perhaps something we need to discuss, too.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Obesity: Food and Diet · Hansard source

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  I entirely agree. I think that this Parliament could do to obesity what the Government who were in power between 1997 and 2010 did to smoking: we could drastically reduce it. For the sake of our children and our older adults, I urge everyone to accept that we need to act now, and we need to act radically.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Obesity: Food and Diet · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. One of the main pitfalls we must avoid is that there is no point in making cheap food more expensive. That will make people poorer. We need to be much more creative than that.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Obesity: Food and Diet · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister and all who have spoken because this has been a genuinely interesting debate about an essential topic. I would just like to say in summary that the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth) needs to go into the supermarket when she is really busy and pick up a tasty healthy snack. If the Government can get people doing that, it will be fantastic. I say to the Minister that the House is behind him being radical; it is not the time for non-intervention. I thank all who have contributed. I missed supper and am starving, so I am going to go and have a healthy snack.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Obesity: Food and Diet · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman’s intervention reminds me of the GP I took over from—an old chap; very wise—who said, “Always be a few years out of date, Simon, because we never know what these new drugs are going to cause.” I think that is good advice—not that I am suggesting that doctors are out of date, of course. Are we proposing the creation of a nanny state? That is the great fear of many people when they are confronted by controls of this kind, but let us look at what happened with the ban on smoking inside pubs. People—particularly in Ireland, but also in England—were saying, “This is crazy; it is never going to work”, but it worked fantastically well. We need to be aware of the vested interests of food companies, and we need to take radical steps.

• 17 Jan 2025 · New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill · Hansard source

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  I too am interested in solar panels being mandated on public buildings. In my area, Rednock school has had solar panels retrofitted. Solar panels in educational facilities have two effects: they not only save money for the school, but teach young people about the issue. Also in my area, the NHS is looking to put solar panels on all south-facing roofs of hospitals. I wonder if we could extend the Bill to public buildings in general.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  May I pick up some comments that were made a little earlier? Many of my constituents have written to me expressing their concerns about campaign finance laws following media reports that a certain foreign billionaire will be providing very large donations. Will the Government introduce legislation to cap individual donations, close existing loopholes and enhance the powers of the Electoral Commission?

• 16 Jan 2025 · Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have quite a lot to say here, but I shall squeeze it into four minutes. First of all, having a regulator funded by a drug company is genuinely a case of marking one’s own homework, and we need to change that straightaway. I think we need a reform there. From clinical experience, I would also say that the yellow card system does work, but that we never get any feedback from it. That is one of the problems. The other problem is that clinically one is often not sure whether or not something is an adverse effect. We need a very easy system that can just be fired off. The right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) mentioned low white blood cells, for example, and whether that was a reaction. Then, when a number of different doctors get it, we can accumulate that information. If I may, I want to say a few things about vaccinations. Vaccinations save far, far more lives than they cause damage. Every medicine that has ever been invented has side effects and I do not deny vaccine side effects. However, the vaccine saved hundreds of thousands of lives. I ran the covid vaccination service in our area in Dursley. At the height of the pandemic, if we injected 180 people over 80, we saved a life—that is incredible. Compared to that, the side effect rate was incredibly small. It does exist and we need to look at it, but let us not get on the backs of vaccines. Vaccines have saved more lives than anything else. I really want to talk about antidepressants, on which the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) has already said a few words. We have a problem with over-prescribing in this country. Some 8.7 million people are on antidepressants. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) spoke about Paroxetine causing increased risks of suicide. We need to wean ourselves off medications. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines say that for mild to moderate depression we should not start tablets, yet they are started. That is because people have become a bit over-medicalised, we have 10-minute appointments and no psychological therapies. We must also make use of social prescriptions, available to the NHS, where we can prescribe to patients something that is not medical. We need to de-medicalise what is going on. That can include lots of different things, such as exercise and being very creative. In fact, yesterday I went with the Lord Mayor of Westminster and Lu Jackson to St John’s Wood library for a Comedy-on-Prescription event. Making people laugh can avoid the need for medication. We need to look at those things much more seriously and get people off tablets. The right hon. Member for Tatton said that one of her constituents took their own life when they were trying to get off antidepressant medication. The MHRA needs to put warnings on the packet, but it has failed to do so. We also need a support mechanism for people coming off tablets. Of the 8 million people on antidepressants, about 2 million are trying to get off them, so it is a major problem. GPs, actually, are not that well informed about this. There are some very strong Maudsley guidelines based around micro-tapering, so that people can come off slowly and safely. Some kind of support service might have helped her constituent and stopped them taking their own life. In conclusion, we have a pandemic of over-prescription and we need to start looking at that. As chair of the beyond pills all-party parliamentary group, with the hon. Member for East Wiltshire we are trying to reduce prescriptions and make it safe for people to come off antidepressants.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Member for giving way. Could I make an appeal to all of us? I do not think that either side of this debate has covered itself in glory. I agree that this is a very dangerous precedent about the ombudsman, but let us not make this party political, please. Let us make this about the WASPI women. Is there not a way, at least, of compensating the very worst off among the WASPI women? I would appeal for that.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  Actually, the Bill will ensure that every child growing up in this country will have the best possible start in life, and will break down the barriers to opportunity. Like the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson), I went to a comprehensive, and I believe that comprehensive, state-run education should be excellent—that is why I support the Bill. Every teacher I spoke to before the election was cheesed off with what was happening in education. They were so depressed about what they were doing—that is one of the reasons I got involved in this. Every teacher I have spoken to who has read the Bill supports it. Surely we should be listening to them. Colleagues have mentioned mental health. The Government will bring a mental health worker into every school. That is not in this Bill, because it is a matter for the Department of Health and Social Care, but it will transform that area.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  That is our manifesto commitment. One reason I am here is that, under the last Tory Government, a child in my constituency had to wait six months for treatment following a suicide attempt at school, and that is simply not acceptable. On the review of the curriculum, every teacher I have spoken to has said that we need to improve the arts and music, which would in itself improve wellbeing. Rather less controversially, I will concentrate on clause 22 and the provision of free breakfast clubs. I have been a GP for the past 30 years, and I understand that health and education are inextricably linked—we cannot learn when we are hungry. Free breakfast clubs will ensure that every child, irrespective of their background, has the foundation they need to start the day. There is strong evidence that obesity is a massive problem harming the wellbeing of our children. Some 10% of children entering reception are obese, and in year 6, 22% are obese. Free breakfast clubs will reduce those numbers. In Stroud, we have been working really closely with local primary schools to get nutritious local food into the school diet, not relying on national companies to do so. We have a commitment to try to procure 50% of that food from the local agricultural community; I am very proud of that, and keen to encourage it. Another point about breakfast clubs is that it is really important that children eat together—that is what we used to do at our primary school. It fosters a feeling of wellbeing, and the Long Table in Stroud is an organisation that encourages that. We need to be careful of the food industry lobby, which is incredibly powerful and has been providing free food for breakfast clubs. All I would say is that there is no such thing as a free breakfast. Companies are trying to promote their own products, and we must be very wary of them. There is quite a lot of evidence that free school meals reduce obesity, and I would support their universal roll-out, not just in Wales and London. In London, there has been a reduction in obesity levels as well as improvements in learning, so let us work towards that when conditions allow. In the interim, we should go for auto-enrolment for free school meals, which would improve funding for schools and enable about 400,000 children to receive those meals. I conclude by commending the Government for committing to ensure that every child has the opportunity to thrive. The Bill is a bold step towards addressing inequalities and improving the lives of the next generation. By introducing free breakfast clubs, this Government are not only tackling hunger but investing in health and education. As such, I urge my hon. Friends not to get waylaid by the political things that are going on around this Bill. It is an excellent Bill, and we need to support it.

• 18 Dec 2024 · Creative Arts Education · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) for bringing forward this essential debate. I am a GP in Stroud and I have been championing arts in healthcare for over 30 years because creativity makes you better, and there is now a lot of evidence that that is the case. The Gloucestershire integrated care board—the health authority—under Ellen Rule, is investing £600,000 in creative and social prescriptions, which is incredibly exciting. I am helping to run a campaign to try to make music instrument tuition available in every primary school in the country. I co-chair the APPG for opera, which shares that aim, and the APPG for creative health. I also learned the flute at school. Recently I was asked to join the Stroud Red Band, which was one of the most fun things I did as part of my campaign to become an MP, so I thank those involved. There are serious problems. As we have heard, there are a lot of issues due to the 30% fall in uptake of music GCSE at school. Playing music has a massive impact on children’s mental health. If we are trying to prevent mental health problems, teaching children music is one of the most effective things we can do, and it can also be used to treat mental health difficulties. Our Tory friends might be interested to know that it actually helps with academic maths as well, which is really important. As many hon. Members have said, there are massive inequalities in provision. The Government are now putting £79 million into music hubs and spending £5.8 million through the music opportunity pilot for people with special educational needs. I shall finish by showcasing a number of local organisations. Strike a Light, which brings drama and music to young people, is really inspirational. The Music Works in Gloucester is also truly inspirational, particularly for children from deprived backgrounds. We have the Prema arts centre in my village of Uley. Gordon Scott, the director, has been teaching the piano to countless children over the past 20 to 30 years. Let us campaign to get music teaching in every primary school.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend celebrate the work of Standing Together, which is a group of Israelis and Palestinian people working side by side for peace? Would he support it in its call for the suspension of arms transfers to Israel and for the immediate recognition of the state of Palestine?

• 10 Dec 2024 · Rural Cycling Infrastructure · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I thank you for your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I am from Stroud and for the past six years, even before I became a politician, I have been trying to get a greenway established in the village of Dursley that would run for about six miles to the train station. I found that there was not even funding for a feasibility study, so at the moment, we cannot get it off the ground. So I want to ask the Minister whether there will be a fund to make feasibility studies of new routes.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Creative Education: Schools · Hansard source

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  9. What steps she is taking to support creative education in schools.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Creative Education: Schools · Hansard source

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  Over the past 14 years, the amount of creative education, particularly at primary level, has been reducing and reducing, so I welcome what the Minister said. There is evidence that doing creative things and learning creative subjects improves our wellbeing, mental health and academic learning. Would the Minister support my campaign to bring musical instrument teaching to every primary school in the country, not just the more well-off ones?

• 5 Dec 2024 · Improving Public Transport · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) for initiating the debate, and I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) for her excellent maiden speech. Public transport, including buses, is a bit of a passion of mine. I am from Stroud, and there are many small villages in my constituency—including Dursley and Wotton-under-Edge, to name just two—so I know that public transport is about more than infrastructure. It represents a range of opportunities. It is about equality and community, and that is particularly true of rural areas, because it tends to run as a lifeline for many local residents. Under successive Conservative Governments rural bus services have been run down, and it is interesting today to observe the attention being paid to the subject of public transport on the Opposition Benches. There has been a staggering 27% reduction in bus services since 2011, and in rural areas there is a £420 million shortfall. However—to answer the hon. Lady’s question—I am encouraged by the fact that we are investing £1 billion in improving bus services, including £8 million designated for Gloucestershire. As a little aside, may I mention Stroudwater station, which was closed in the 1960s? I agree with the hon. Lady about small railway stations of that kind. They cost a great deal to develop, but when money allows and when we have got ourselves out of our current financial hole, it will be fantastic if we can invest in small stations. The impact of nearly four decades of deregulation on our public transport system has left many communities stripped of any public transport or at the very least, of any accessibility or affordable bus services. I am therefore delighted that this Government plan to restore power to local communities, enabling local leaders to set fares, determine routes and establish timetables, taking control away from unaccountable private operators. However, I urge the Minister to confirm that rural areas without an elected mayor will have equal opportunities to benefit from the shift towards community-controlled bus services. Wotton-under-Edge had a lifeline of a bus service, the 84/85 going south to Bristol. The problem was that it crossed a boundary line between a combined authority area and Gloucestershire. Its cancellation has caused havoc for schoolchildren, as well as those who cannot get to work, cannot get to doctors’ surgeries and cannot get to hospitals. People have written to me saying they have had to turn down job offers. That is how important rural bus services are. A key issue in this instance was the lack of co-ordination between local authorities. It seems petty, but this is a major problem. The funding for that cross-border bus service was lost because local leaders failed to reach an agreement. That is an example of the extent to which fragmentation can affect rural public transport. Let me end by describing one of the pleasures of my week. I leave this place, take the train to Stroud and then get on to my favourite bus, the 65. I sit on the top, and I ride over Selsley common to my home. It is an utter joy, and a joy that is shared by my two-year-old granddaughter, who absolutely loves buses. So let us develop rural public transport, and take it back to what it was in the past.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I do think it is right for this Bill to require two doctors and a judiciary review, because this is new legislation and we must be sure that it is safe. These safeguards are incredibly important. I will finish simply by saying that having been a doctor all my life, I have tried to empower patients to make their own decisions over their healthcare, and this is a great opportunity to do that. I had one patient who had a terminal diagnosis and hanged himself. The family were devastated. It was a horrible way to die. I felt that we had failed as a medical profession. Let us not fail as a Government, a judiciary and the Houses of Parliament. Please support the Bill.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am one of those medical practitioners, sometimes known as a doctor. I have been a GP for 30 years, and every year I look after four or five cases related to palliative and terminal care, so I have a lot of experience in this area. I would like to make some quick observations. First, a lot of patients who are dying of cancer ask whether we can curtail their life and finish it a bit early. That is a very common thing that they ask. I have had two patients go to Dignitas on their own, without family members, because the family members were fearful that they would be arrested on their return. We have been discussing giving a double dose of morphine. I think that almost all doctors in terminal care have probably done this—doubled the dose of morphine knowing that it might curtail the patient’s life. That is a big fudge. It puts me in a very vulnerable position. We need to resolve that. I think we are getting a bit confused between palliative care and assisted dying. A lot of people who receive excellent palliative care still request assisted dying. They are not mutually exclusive. I totally support what everyone is saying about developing palliative care, because that is really important, but that should not go instead of assisted dying. The things go together. Assisted dying is one of our tools in palliative care, as I see it going into the future. I have a couple of points about coercion, which people like me need to assess. If someone says that they feel like a burden, that is immediately not a good reason to approve assisted dying. Doctors are trained in assessing capacity, as has been said, but we are also trained in trying to find out the reasons someone wants to end their life. I think it is judging doctors harshly to say that they will not spot coercion. Interestingly, the only change in Australia was that they found that the judiciary review did not add much to the process. Otherwise, there does not seem to be a slippery slope, as long as the legislation is carefully done.

• 28 Nov 2024 · No. 84/85 bus service in South Gloucestershire · Hansard source

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  This cross-boundary service enabled people in Wotton-under-Edge who do not have a vehicle to travel south to Yate and on to Bristol. The service also allowed people in south Gloucestershire to attend their doctors and schools, so it is really missed. I commend the efforts of Barbara Lawrence, a local resident of Wotton-under-Edge, who has been instrumental in trying to secure the return of this bus service. Following is the full text of the petition: [The petition of residents of Gloucestershire, Declares that the No. 84 and 85 Yate & Wotton-under-Edge Circular bus service should be re-instated. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to consider the needs of rural areas when allocating funding for bus services, and to take steps to encourage the re-instatement of the No. 84 and 85 Yate & Wotton-under-Edge Circular bus service in South Gloucestershire. And the petitioners remain, etc.] [P003022]

• 20 Nov 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q11. The previous Government failed countless women through chronic underfunding of maternity services. At Stroud maternity hospital, post-natal beds have remained closed for more than two years. Local, midwife-led units, such as Stroud, deliver fantastic quality of care for women, while having low intervention rates during birth. Can the Deputy Prime Minister outline what steps this Government will take to improve maternity services?