Conservative and Unionist Party: a sourced timeline of public activity, with filters by source type and a sidebar of tracked totals

Conservative and Unionist Party

Showing every spoken contribution, including 5,779 under 12 words. Hide short remarks

  1. ParliamentAndrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    I am enormously glad, and we should be balanced, that we have found something that goes the other way. I am not sure if one can subsist entirely on a seed potato—it may have been tried historically, and not with enormous success—but I congratulate the hon. Member on the success of his seed potato industry. To be charitable, we have found a rare example of the Government actually having the back of a business and supporting it, but would it not be wonderful if they could extend that to much larger sectors of the economy, such as financial and professional services, retail and hospitality industries and even our manufacturing industries, as they wrestle under the cosh of uncompetitive energy costs, so that a business in Birmingham, west midlands, will face an industrial energy cost four times higher than that of a competitor in Birmingham, Alabama?

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  2. ParliamentAndrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    My hon. Friend has made so many good points that I will of course give way again.

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  3. ParliamentAndrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    Most of us would put higher energy costs into the liability rather than the asset column of our economy. We are debating business, unemployment and the economy, and I hope the Minister will devote an ample proportion of his response to the measures this Government will take to remove the yoke of uncompetitively high energy costs, which is simply crushing so many British manufacturing businesses.

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  4. ParliamentAndrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    The hon. Member is exactly right. When I describe my constituency as “South Downs”, people occasionally assume that it is in Northern Ireland, but all of our young people deserve the best opportunities. We know that the best outcomes for young people are when they can enter the workforce, and that if, when they graduate from school, college or an apprenticeship, those young people cannot immediately find productive work, the scarring impact of that can run through the entirety of their adult life and they never catch up with their peers’ earnings. That is why it is so important that we have a healthy labour market, and a healthy labour market relies on the ability of employers to feel that they can take a chance, give people opportunities and benefit from that. I want to make some progress, which I suspect may be popular. There are many Members on the Opposition side; sadly, there are disappointingly few on the Government side. Given the paucity of business experience on that side, it is probably appropriate for there to be more listening than talking on the Government Benches. Let us imagine—and, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will know this from your wonderful constituency—that despite all the headwinds this Government have imposed on business, an entrepreneur does well, grows their business into a successful operation and wants to hand it down to the next generation after they are gone. Those people, who have taken risks to create something good for society, are now at a competitive disadvantage as a result of the family business death tax. They will be forced to carve up, slice up, or close up shop forever to meet the demands for business property relief and inheritance tax. Analysis from CBI Economics for Family Business UK estimates that this measure alone will result in 208,000 job losses and a £2 billion net loss to the Treasury. Again, I hope the Minister will address that directly when he responds. Family Business UK’s chief executive, Neil Davy, says that “far from stimulating economic growth” this policy “will achieve exactly the opposite.” He is right. To illustrate just how ridiculously flawed this policy is, it applies to families here in the United Kingdom, but it does not apply to overseas businesses that operate here, or to those owned by private equity or foreign corporate owners. Labour has stolen any incentive for success from a generation of home-grown entrepreneurs. We really cannot go on like this. The gulf between those who create wealth and those who govern us has never been larger. Only one Cabinet Minister, the Secretary of State for Scotland, has any real experience of running a business. Trying to find business experience among those on the Labour Benches is like trying to find a tax the Deputy Prime Minister does not think needs to be raised. It is no surprise that, according to the Institute of Directors, over two thirds of businesses are now pessimistic about the future of the economy.

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  5. ParliamentAndrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    Our business community is ravaged; my hon. Friend is exactly right. We are plummeting to depths last reached only when the entire global economy was shut down due to an unknown pathogenic virus. If that is the bar the Government set themselves, I urge them to have a little bit more ambition and confidence in their ability to grow our economy. No nation can spend its way to growth, or tax its way to success. I fear that we are about to see a case study showing exactly that this does not work. It has been tried before, and it did not work then. We cannot afford the ignorant short-sightedness of this Government. To achieve growth, we need a country in which everybody’s spark of ambition can find ignition. Not everyone needs to run a business, but for those who do, we want a country that values, cherishes and honours its wealth creators; where transforming a side hustle into a main hustle is straightforward; and where His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is transformed from a predator to a partner, and the tax system goes out of its way to reflect the risk of investing, and of running a business. We want our regulators to think carefully before they intervene, and not to pounce on every perceived failure as another reason to try to eliminate risk.

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  6. ParliamentAndrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    So many businesses feel like that, even when HMRC is doing its legitimate job of trying to balance the books and raise money for the public purse. That is because of how it goes about that job, its one-sided nature, and the uncertainty that it inflicts on small businesses, whose biggest asset is their time, and whose greatest opportunity cost is the need to comply with myriad regulations and taxes. We want a Government with a philosophy of trust in business, and a Government who celebrate personal responsibility and clear the path for innovation. That requires the courage to champion risk-takers and elevate enterprise above sectional interests. As right hon. and hon. Members have said, it is sad that investors and employers clearly do not have faith in this Government to deliver the contract between the state and those who seek to run a business. Instead of this Government opening up investment for wonderful British businesses around the world, top investors are fleeing the country and taking their wealth, creativity and entrepreneurship elsewhere. What could be sadder?

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  7. ParliamentAndrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    One is tempted to say that we should try to remove this wretched Government as quickly as possible. That, of course, is part of the answer. We need a Government who listen to the points my hon. Friend makes so eloquently on behalf of her constituents and the industry; a Government who understand the reality of the energy situation and the high cost of energy for business, rather than pursuing a failed dogma and ideology that is not being pursued by the rest of the world; and a Government who listen to enterprise and businesses, many of which I have met. We could take that approach from a perspective of trying to grow the economy, in order to reduce energy costs to a competitive level, or because one believes in the climate transition but understands that special skills in dealing with the harsh offshore environment need to be nurtured, rather than squandered in a way that results in people with those skills fleeing elsewhere.

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  8. ParliamentAndrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    I thank my right hon. Friend and predecessor in the role of City Minister. This is an important point: where we can, we will support the Government in continuing the work, which he and I started, of trying improve the investment outcomes for our economy. We want to increase equity investment to mobilise pension funds and, most importantly, deliver good returns for our investors: the constituents who send us here, and who want the best possible outcome for their pension. It is really important that the Treasury leans into that, and that we have abundant capital markets that are well regulated but not over-regulated. We must create the right culture when it comes to the advice guidance boundary, our tolerance of risk, and our financial literacy and education in our schools. That is a really big point. I hope we continue to work collaboratively and supportively with the Government, along with the excellent Select Committee of which my right hon. Friend is a Member. None of that helps if wealth creators and global investors have left these shores due to vindictive measures that simply will not raise anything like the money needed. It is perfectly okay to admit when one makes a mistake, and in this case Treasury Ministers have made a mistake. The amount raised will be nothing like the amount expected. The Centre for Economics and Business Research has done important research on that, and found that the cost will be significant. Far from raising money for the Treasury, the country will, I am afraid, lose money. It is a truism—one that we Conservative Members have to continually teach Labour Members, I regret to say—that we do not make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. Like all socialists, Labour Members are attracted to superficial measures that will ultimately make all of us poorer. Those of us who are left behind will have to pay more, or endure less well-funded public services, as a result of this Government shepherding the golden geese into a pen and then exiling them. The Deputy Prime Minister was right in her memo, which we saw today: this Government are indeed coming for your job, your business, your pension and your savings. It is all very clear in black and white. Whether Members are Team Rayner or Team Reeves, when it comes to decisions on the economy, it is all bad for business. When the Minister responds, perhaps he will share with us whether he believes that the tax measures advocated by the Deputy Prime Minister, which will have a chilling effect on business, are the right way to proceed. Whether they are stabbed by employment red tape or shot by higher taxes, the outcome for businesses is the same. The Government duck the difficult questions while the Chancellor fiddles the fiscal rules, making it up as she goes along. Families know that the cost of living is getting higher under Labour. [Interruption.] The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury is so animated that I feel I should keep going, rather than disappoint him. He should listen, rather than chunter. The Conservative party has a clear vision. It understands business from first principles—[Interruption.] Conservative Members could usefully listen and learn. This could be an exercise in understanding what a proper strategy that is on the side of business looks like. We back the millions of entrepreneurs and businesses who create wealth and jobs across this country. We are unafraid to talk about the need for business, and celebrate private capital, international investors and risk taking. It was the Conservatives who delivered the single biggest tax cut for business in modern history through the move to full expensing, and the Conservatives who slashed business rates when we introduced retail, hospitality and leisure relief, and during that terrible covid pandemic, it was the Conservatives who provided billions in finance to keep business and the economy going. That is what leadership looks like. That is what a party that is truly on the side of business looks like. I urge Government Members to do a little less talking and a little more listening. They should think of every business owner and employee whom they told, during the election campaign, that the Government would have their back, and ask themselves whether their actions, rather than their words, have proved that to be anything like the case. With employment falling, wealth creators leaving this country at a rate never before seen, businesses closing, investment crashing and inflation rising today, the Conservatives certainly do not believe so. I commend this motion to the House.

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  9. ParliamentAndrew Griffith

  10. ParliamentAlison Griffiths

    Business and the Economy

    You have talked about the risk of seasonal jobs being lost as a consequence of the Employment Rights Bill. In my constituency it is a serious risk, as a number of businesses have told me. Would you say that the Minister should withdraw the Bill, or, at the very least, conduct a proper assessment of its impact?

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  11. ParliamentAlison Griffiths

    Business and the Economy

    I hear what the Minister says about job security, but if businesses will not be providing jobs because of day one rights, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) has so eloquently laid out, there will not be more people in work—[Interruption.] As my hon. Friend says, that is what the figures already show.

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  12. ParliamentAlison Griffiths

    Business and the Economy

    Will my right hon. Friend give way?

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  13. ParliamentAlison Griffiths

  14. ParliamentAlison Griffiths

  15. ParliamentAlison Griffiths

  16. ParliamentAlex Burghart

    Interim Custody Orders: Compensation

    In his opening remarks, the Secretary of State left out one crucial detail: the truth is that the last Government did legislate with cross-party support to prevent people like Gerry Adams from receiving taxpayer-funded compensation. The High Court in Northern Ireland ruled that that was incompatible with the European convention on human rights, and the Conservative Government then appealed that judgment. When the Labour party came to power last summer, it dropped that appeal. Will the Secretary of State please set out why the Government decided to drop that appeal?

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  17. ParliamentAlex Burghart

    Interim Custody Orders: Compensation

    The whole House will have heard the Secretary of State not give a reason why the Government did not continue the appeal. Government lawyers told the last Government that there were grounds for appeal. Policy Exchange, in a report in January written by Professor Richard Ekins and Sir Stephen Laws, said that the High Court had almost certainly been “mistaken” in its judgment and that there were strong grounds for an appeal. Why did the Government drop it, and why have the Government not yet brought forward their own legislation to clear this mess up once and for all?

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  18. ParliamentSir Roger Gale

    Pensions: Expatriates

    I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) on raising an issue that, quite simply, is a matter of national shame. I had the privilege of chairing the all-party parliamentary group on frozen British pensions for more years than I care to remember, and in that task I had the staunch support of Sir Peter Bottomley, Lord German and many others. We all regarded this as a non-partisan issue. It was quite simply a cross-party matter that had to be resolved. In spite of the effort that we put into it over many years, successive Governments of all political persuasions have sheltered behind the myth that we uprate pensions only in countries with which we have a reciprocal arrangement. Historically, we have had a reciprocal arrangement with the United States but not with Canada. On one side of the Niagara Falls, people get their pension uprated; a couple of hundred yards across the river, people do not. That is arrant nonsense, and it is unjust for all the reasons we have heard this morning. These are British citizens who paid their dues over their whole working lives before emigrating. They are as entitled to the full state pension as any other British citizen. John Markham, of blessed memory, led the campaign in Canada for many years. The irony is that, every time he came back for two weeks to make the case to whoever was in power, he would claim his two weeks’ uprated pension, because the moment he set foot on British soil, he was allowed to have it. Where is the sense in that? The point has been made that pensioners in the majority of Commonwealth countries do not receive uprated pensions, but pensioners in the European Union do, because we reached a reciprocal arrangement when we left the European Union. I am delighted that expat UK citizens living throughout the European Union are getting their pension uprated. That is absolutely right—they have paid their way—but I fail to see why people living in what we proudly used to call the British Commonwealth do not get their money. What about those living in Australia? What about people like Norma Maloney in South Africa or the greatly revered Anne Puckridge, who I have been privileged to meet on many occasions, in Canada? Why do they not get their money? The answer is quite simple: it comes down to the Treasury solicitors, who have historically been absolutely terrified that, if we give an inch, somebody will try to bring a class action to get a backdated pension, and of course those sums would be astronomical. When Sir Oliver Letwin was in the Cabinet Office, he made the eminently workable proposal that we should uprate whatever pension the recipient was getting at the time of the uprating. Anne Puckridge would get the triple-locked increase on her fairly pitiful pension, not on anything retrospective. That is not what the expats ought to be receiving or what they are entitled to, morally, but it would work, because over time—by attrition, as people fall off the perch—we would reach the parity we ought to have today. I was as critical of the previous Government as I am of the current one. They are sheltering behind a Treasury lawyers’ position that is wholly untenable and, I believe, patently dishonest. These elderly people—and I speak as an elderly person—have paid their way. They are entitled to their money. They should have it, and the Government must do something about it now.

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  19. ParliamentSir Roger Gale

    Pensions: Expatriates

    It saddens me enormously that the hon. Lady is trying to make a partisan case, simply because—as I recall, and I think I do recall correctly—a member of her party was the Pensions Minister in the coalition, and one of many pensions Ministers who stood by the present policy of refusing to allow these pensions to be paid. The blame lies across the board, not with any one political party.

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  20. ParliamentSir Roger Gale

    Pensions: Expatriates

    Does the Minister consider that it is morally acceptable for Canada to uprate the pensions of its citizens in this country and to also bear the cost of this country not uprating its pensions for UK expats in Canada when Canada has formally offered to enter into a reciprocal arrangement? Why is that offer not being accepted?

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  21. ParliamentSir Roger Gale

    Spending Review: Cross-departmental Planning

    While discussing the spending review, will the Treasury get the Agriculture Secretary and the Energy Secretary together in the same room, and make sure that agriculture receives the funding it needs and that energy is not allowed to charge agriculture, effectively, for its loss of income? In other words, will the Chancellor ensure we are not robbing Peter to pay Paul?

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  22. ParliamentSir Roger Gale

    UK-EU Summit

    I do not want to be a dog in the manger, but the Prime Minister’s statement appears to be very strong on self-congratulation and very short on detail. I know he does not like answering detailed questions, but the response he gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) was quite simply unacceptable. When will this deal be signed off in a form that this House will be able to debate properly and vote on?

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  23. ParliamentSir Roger Gale

  24. ParliamentSir Roger Gale

    Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

    I doubt whether there is a single Member of this House who does not wish to see the 58 remaining hostages returned to their families, whether dead or alive. I think that the Foreign Secretary was right to say that genocide and war crimes—my words, not his—are not the way to get the hostages released. There are parents and grandparents in this House who will stand up for children anywhere in the world—I am prepared to nail my colours to that mast. We have to take action; we cannot stand by and do nothing. A number of Privy Counsellors—all of us, I think—wrote to the Prime Minister relatively recently, calling for the two-state solution to be imposed immediately. Sadly, that private letter did not receive a response, which is why it was published. Foreign Secretary, please take that message back to the Prime Minister and act.

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  25. ParliamentSir Mel Stride

    Business Costs: Impact of Autumn Budget

    Only last week the right hon. Lady was trumpeting that the economy had turned a corner, but, as she has just said, it is barely a month since her disastrous jobs tax started to bite. May I ask her precisely which business confidence survey—just one—she can point to which supports her assertion that everything is coming up roses?

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  26. ParliamentSir Mel Stride

    Topical Questions

    Will the Chancellor explain what the Economic Secretary to the Treasury meant last week when she said that there will be no tax rises on individuals at the autumn Budget? Will the Chancellor similarly confirm that there will be no tax increases on businesses?

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  27. ParliamentSir Mel Stride

    Topical Questions

    What many up and down the country are asking is why that manifesto pledge not to impose taxes on working people was broken. Last week the Pensions Minister confirmed to the House that the Government would never interfere with the fiduciary duty of pension trustees to get the best return for their members, but when the Chancellor was questioned on that topic by Bloomberg the very same day, she said: “I am never going to say never”. This is chaos. The Government cannot even speak with one voice. It is clear that the right hon. Lady and the Pensions Minister cannot both be right, so will she now put the record straight?

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  28. ParliamentSir Julian Lewis

    UK-EU Summit

    If the Prime Minister is right that our food standards are already in alignment with those of the EU, why could we not have negotiated the deal on the basis of mutual recognition of those standards, as other countries have done, rather than open ourselves up to having to alter our standards in line with whatever the EU may decide to change in the future?

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  29. ParliamentSir John Hayes

    Victims and Courts Bill

    Is not the answer, in part at least, a national statutory inquiry into what occurred, not least because we do not actually know whether it is still going on? That inquiry would expose so much, which would allow all those right-thinking people to take the action necessary and protect so many of the people who might be at risk from further horrors.

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  30. ParliamentSir John Hayes

    Victims and Courts Bill

    There is a third trauma when a sentence that emanates from the court is unduly lenient. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Attorney General has the power to review unduly lenient sentences, but only within 28 days of the date of a sentence. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in calling for the length of time to be extended, in the name of victims?

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  31. ParliamentSir John Hayes

    Victims and Courts Bill

    At the risk of being repetitive, will the hon. Gentleman press, as I have done—I think the hon. Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) agreed with me—for lenient sentences to be dealt with more severely? That is, the Attorney General should have extra time to review those sentences. There is nothing worse for a victim than seeing the perpetrator of the crime given an unduly lenient sentence.

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  32. ParliamentSir John Hayes

    Victims and Courts Bill

    To be clear, the current situation allows victims 28 days for a referral, and the Bill extends the period for consideration to 14 days. What we want is for victims to have longer, and it seems absolutely right that that should happen. It would be a perfectly reasonable amendment for the Government to table in order to back victims. Is that really too much to ask?

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  33. ParliamentSir John Hayes

    Victims and Courts Bill

    I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way—by the way, I have always liked her. I take at face value what she has said. Will that Law Commission review be in time to amend the Bill? That is key. If it will not be on time, how can we handle that?

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  34. ParliamentSir Desmond Swayne

    Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

    The House wants to know, and Israel needs to know, exactly what the Foreign Secretary means by “further action”.

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  35. ParliamentSir Christopher Chope

    GP Services: Christchurch

    I beg to move, That this House has considered access to GP services in Christchurch. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. This short debate was triggered by the perverse decision, announced last week, of the Dorset integrated care board to refuse permission for Burton surgery to reopen. The surgery is a premises in Burton village in Christchurch constituency, which has had a GP surgery for more than 30 years. The surgery was converted from a guest house. It has good car parking nearby and a pharmacy adjoining it, and is a well-loved community facility. In 2007, the GP practice in Burton was amalgamated with Christchurch medical practice and became a branch of that practice. Then, in December 2023, patients were told that the Burton premises would be closed and all patients transferred to Christchurch medical practice in Purewell. I wrote to the integrated care board to express my concern at the impact that would have on the people of Burton. Although the ICB said that it was powerless to intervene because the surgery was only a branch, local residents were confident that another GP practice would acquire the premises and continue to provide GP services, because the building is in really good order: it has 11 consulting rooms and is a very attractive proposition for another GP practice. It was expected that it would be put on the open market for sale. Much to everybody’s frustration, that did not happen. The owners of the practice decided instead to do a closed deal with a veterinary hospital based in Christchurch, which agreed to acquire the site, thereby excluding the possibility of another GP practice taking it over. However, one thing they had not thought about was that they needed to get planning permission for a change of use. The planning application was strongly opposed by local residents, backed by me, and it became a major issue in the general election campaign. Eventually, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council refused the application on a series of grounds, the principal one being that “insufficient evidence has been submitted to demonstrate that the loss of a community facility at this site would not result in a substantial decline in the range and quality of facilities and services available for local people.” In essence, the local planners said that it was necessary to keep the surgery in Burton because removing it would take away an important community facility. If nobody else was willing to open such a community facility, I would not have been able to put forward this argument, but another practice has now purchased the premises and is willing and ready to open a branch in them. However, in order so to do, it had to apply to the integrated care board for permission. It did just that last November. Extraordinarily, it took months before a decision was reached—so long that I raised the issue in an oral question. The Secretary of State himself took it on board and, as a result, the ICB was pushed into having to make a decision on 23 April. As I understand it, the decision was made on 23 April, but was not communicated until some time afterwards. In the meantime, and in anticipation that the application to reopen the branch was essentially a formality, South Coast Medical completed the purchase of the building and started the refurbishment. The plan was that it would reopen this summer. The ICB’s decision to refuse permission for the branch surgery to reopen is, in my view and that of my constituents and local residents, beyond belief. I appeal to the Minister to intervene on behalf of the 4,500 patients whom the ICB accepts would choose to re-register at Burton were the surgery to reopen. Ironically, it is said that the cost of re-registering those 4,500 patients would be a significant burden on the health service. That is because people who are in their first year with a GP are thought to be more burdensome, so the GP gets paid a slightly larger amount for each of them. To describe the exercise of patient choice in that way—as a burden on the NHS—seems to me to be pretty wide of the mark. After I heard the outcome of the application, I tabled a series of questions, one of which sought to establish how many people have been transferring from one practice to another in Christchurch each year, because I wanted to get a feel for that. The answer, from the Minister for Care, stated that the information is not available. Some of the arguments made in favour of not allowing the surgery to be reopened, in answer to another of my questions, were based on the number of appointments already taking place in Christchurch. That prompted me to table a named day question on that subject. At about 9.30 am this morning I received a holding response, saying that the information relating to the number of appointments at surgeries in Christchurch over the past couple of years is not available, yet the ICB says that it used that very information to help it reach its conclusion. I hope the Minister will explain why the ICB, which I think is basically the custodian of all this information, so far has not decided to share that information with Ministers. Either it has the information or it has not been wholly open in suggesting that the information helped in its decision.

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  36. ParliamentSir Christopher Chope

    GP Services: Christchurch

    I will not just at the moment, but I may do later. This whole issue is a test case for the credibility of the new Labour Government’s promises about increasing access to GP services. In August 2024, after the general election, no one in government or in the NHS, including Dorset ICB, was suggesting that a GP surgery in Burton was not needed. Now that a serious plan to reopen the surgery is in place, without any capital cost to the NHS because South Coast Medical has acquired the premises using its own resources and does not need a grant, it is surely perverse that the ICB is arguing that such a branch surgery can no longer be afforded and that reopening it would adversely affect the financial viability of other practices in Christchurch. I tabled questions on that issue as well. There is no evidence that other practices in Christchurch would be adversely affected, and I challenge the Minister to share with me, the House and my constituents the evidence that has been used to reach this decision. Will she also explain what can be done to appeal against the decision? It has been handed down by an unelected and unaccountable quango, or arm’s length body, which, among other things, has said to me in a letter that there have been no complaints about the quality of service being provided by the other main practice in Christchurch, which was operating the Burton branch and chose to give it up. However, there have been many complaints; I have fistful of them here, some of which I may refer to. Either the ICB does not open its post, or it is closing its eyes and ears to representations about issues relating to the availability of doctors, the importance of patient choice and the inconvenience of having to travel so far in a community that is not well served by public transport and where taxis are very expensive. If somebody is dissatisfied with the quality of service being provided by their general practitioner, they may wish to exercise their choice, and it is good to have some healthy competition, but all that seems to be being squeezed out by the integrated care board. I will quote from a letter from Helen Yonwin, who writes: “Since the surgery closed last year in Burton and patients were transferred elsewhere, trying to get an appointment has been a nightmare. They seem to be unable to cope with the extra patients. The telephones are not always answered and it can take over 30 minutes to eventually get a response, only to discover that you are number 20-something in the queue. After a long wait to be told there are no available appointments, so ring again the next day, there are still no appointments, ‘But you can receive a telephone consultation from a GP’—but the next available slot is in four weeks’ time.” That is not improving access to GP services, which is what the Government pledged. It is a levelling down and reduction in service. I hope the Minister will say that it is intolerable and unacceptable, and that for it to be condoned, if not supported, by the ICB is appalling.

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  37. ParliamentSir Christopher Chope

    GP Services: Christchurch

    I will just finish quoting from this letter: “If you are lucky enough to get an appointment, the next problem is getting there. Many people don’t drive or have a car, public transport is not easy for those with mobility issues, and taxis are expensive. If you do drive, another problem arises because parking is very limited.” It continues: “I cannot understand how it was stated that no complaints have been made. I and many others, in emails sent to the ICB, mentioned several issues, but I doubt any were noted.” That is a letter from one constituent; there are lots of others. A new housing development has been approved in the locality of Burton; with some 700 new houses, there will inevitably be increased demand for GP services. Indeed, the developer, or the owner of the land, has already approached a surgery to see whether it would open a branch on the new estate. That will not be necessary if the branch to which I have referred is reopened. I will quote from another letter. I will not give the person’s name because it refers to their condition, but she has multiple sclerosis. She says: “It’s so hard for me to get to the Purewell surgery even if you can get an appointment…I fell nearly two years ago, and I still haven’t had a proper appointment to see a doctor to see what’s causing my pain.” She says that she wants to have a choice. Another person wrote: “I previously lived in Stour surgery’s catchment”—that is another surgery within the Christchurch constituency—“and they were amazing. I couldn’t fault them one bit. I then moved to Burton and was forced into this alternative provision.” She says that it is a nightmare to get hold of and that we should have a right to choose who we want as our GP. She also says, “Every time I’ve had an appointment, it’s been running 30 to 45 minutes late.” Reopening the local branch surgery would resolve those problems. I hope that I have given a flavour of the strength of local feeling on this fraught issue. Somebody else wrote to me that not everybody wishes to complain publicly about the lack of service available from providers in the Christchurch medical practice, because they are worried about the consequences for them. I think that such concerns are irrational, but they are understandable.

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  38. ParliamentSir Christopher Chope

    GP Services: Christchurch

    The hon. Gentleman mentions the issue of finances. I tabled a written question about how much the health service has been spending on general practice in the Christchurch constituency. Again, rather surprisingly, the information is available only for the year ending 2023, so we do not have any information for 2023–24. Although I would not expect the figures for 2024–25 to be available, I certainly would have expected the total costs for 2023–24 to be available by now. The answer says that in 2022–23, some £17.5 million was spent on providing GP services in Christchurch. The idea that the cost of transferring patients from one practice to another should be a decisive factor against the reopening of a branch seems extraordinary. It makes a nonsense of the argument that we must rein in our expenditure. While we are talking about the ICB’s expenditure, for the last several years I have been complaining that, at any given time in Dorset, under the ICB’s supervision, there are some 250 patients in Dorset hospitals who have no need to “reside”, as it is called. In other words, those people are in hospital but do not need to be there. Every day, that is 250 patients at a cost of between £500 and £1,000 each. The same body is presiding over that scandal. It said last year that it was going to halve the number, but it has failed to do so—indeed, the number is just the same as a year ago. Instead of taking it out on the people of Christchurch and saying, “You can’t have access to a reopened branch surgery,” it should be looking at its own poor performance. As I have said to the Minister informally, the idea that Dorset ICB will somehow be amalgamated with other ICBs—creating even more bureaucracy, and making it even more remote from the people—is, again, farcical. My final point—I want to give the Minister time to respond—is that, in answer to a written question, the Minister for Care said that as a result of what has happened in the last year, the number of patients in Highcliffe has increased by about 150. In Christchurch medical practice, the total number of patients has actually fallen; in the Stour surgery, it has increased; and in the Grove, it is about the same. To suggest, on those figures, that the financial viability of other practices in Christchurch will be threatened if this branch surgery is reopened seems to be without any justification. I hope that the Minister will be able to give a positive response, although I note that the Minister for Care is not responding to the debate.

    Hansard source

  39. ParliamentSir Christopher Chope

    GP Services: Christchurch

    I will not, because I want to ensure that the Minister has time to respond to those points.

    Hansard source

  40. ParliamentSir Christopher Chope

    GP Services: Christchurch

    The ICB is not elected or accountable. We have an elected and accountable council—BCP council—which decided that the surgery in Burton, a community facility that had been there for more than 30 years, should remain and that permission should not be granted to change its use, because of its value as a community asset. Why should the ICB be able to second-guess the elected representatives of the community? Is that not intolerable?

    Hansard source