Rob Marris MP

3rd July 2008

As part of Labour’s mission to build a more prosperous and fairer country, in the 60th anniversary year of the NHS, the government has published plans to widen access and increase choice in Primary Care (i.e. basically, the non-hospital part of the NHS). Over 90% of all contacts with the National Health Service take place outside hospital, with family doctors, community nurses, pharmacists, and a range of other health professionals. 

The plans underline the central role primary and community care services play in keeping people healthy, preventing illness, and promoting healthy life styles; as well as tackling variations in health and well-being.

Launching the Primary & Community Care plan, Labour’s Health Services Minister Ben Bradshaw MP said:

“Our NHS primary and community care services are highly valued by patients and the public – for the personal continuity of care they provide and for their strong ties with local communities. As the NHS turns 60 this year, we need to build on these strengths and to raise our ambitions looking to the future.
“People tell us that they want to be more involved in decisions about their health care and that primary and community care should be more individual, convenient and joined up. Change will only come from listening more closely to what patients tell us, responding to that and giving them more choice and say over their healthcare.  
“Our vision for primary care will protect the highly popular and effective system of registering with a local GP, but give family doctors a stronger role in working with other clinicians, Local Authorities, and other organisations, to provide the right services, in the right place, and at the right time, to meet individual needs.
“All of this will only happen by unlocking the talents and professionalism of NHS staff working in primary care, giving them greater freedoms to provide the services their patients want and more control over how they do it, whilst equipping them with the necessary skills.”

The plans signal a much stronger focus on extending patient choice in Primary Care. Everyone should be able to choose a GP, and there should be a greater range of comparative information, the ability to register online, and a greater range of options for consulting with their GP (e.g. by telephone or e-mail). 

The services provided by family doctors and other primary and community clinicians must be shaped by, and around, individuals; and respond to their needs. Patients and the public should have a strong voice in saying how they want services to improve. They should always feel that the system is connected and working for them. They should have access to a growing range of health services in a GP surgery, and in other community settings, and in their own homes. They should have more choice, including the ability to choose both their GP practice, and how they manage their care.

Primary and community care services will play a strong role in increasing fairness and equality of opportunity – both for communities where socio-economic factors are linked to reduced life expectancy and higher levels of illness, and for groups such as people with learning disabilities who find it more difficult to access the right services and who have poorer health outcomes.

The government aims to help people have access to a wider and more joined-up range of services in their local communities, including diagnostic services, specialist clinics for conditions such as diabetes and asthma, community pharmacies offering treatment for minor ailments, and community physiotherapy clinics. 

Labour is increasing access to Primary Care (by opening new practices and GP-led health centres, and extending opening hours); by contrast the Conservatives would cut access. They would scrap the agreement with GPs to provide extended opening at evenings and weekends, and they oppose Labour’s plans for 152 new GP-led health centres across the country (including in Wolverhampton), open 8 am to 8 pm, seven days a week.  The Conservative Party leader Mr. David Cameron MP even wrote in The Times that “Google can tell us more about our illness than our doctors.” (The Times, 3 July 2008) So much for supporting GPs.

3rd July 2008

During this time of slow-down and uncertainty brought about through the credit crunch, the government has recently announced new measures to address the impact of such matters on the housing market, and to maintain the delivery of new affordable housing. The measures are very welcome and are the first part of a wider package of government action, to increase confidence, and to help ensure stability and fairness in the housing market at this difficult time.

The government will continue to look at further options to help first time buyers and families who aspire to home ownership, and to support the minority of borrowers who may be facing difficulties at the moment. (more…)

3rd July 2008

Research commissioned by the OFT in 2004 showed that problems with estate agents are experienced by 21% of sellers, and by 23% of buyers. So the government is introducing extra protection for people buying and selling their home:
1. by 1 October 2008, all residential estate agents will have to belong to a redress scheme which covers complaints from buyers and sellers of residential property.
2. from October 2008, the Office of Fair Trading will have greater powers to ban rogue estate agents from the market.
3. the investigatory powers of enforcement officers will be increased in October 2008.

Estate agents in England and Wales who market properties with Home Information Packs (“HIPs”) are already required to belong to an approved redress scheme which covers complaints about estate agents in relation to HIPs.

Responsibility for approving one or more redress schemes lies with the Office of Fair Trading. On 19 June 2008, the OFT approved an application from the Ombudsman for Estate Agents to run a redress scheme. The OFT is currently considering two other applications. Details of these applications are available on the OFT web-site.

The new rules on redress schemes apply to all UK estate agents, and to all complaints about the buying and selling of residential property. It fulfils a long-standing government commitment to give all sellers and buyers (including prospective sellers and buyers) of residential property access to independent redress.

In the first instance, there will be a penalty charge of £1,000 for estate agents who do not comply with the requirement to join a redress scheme. The penalty charge is in addition to the ultimate sanction for non-membership: a prohibition order banning an estate agent from carrying out estate agency work.

1st July 2008

The government recently announced that, in the coming year, it intends to legislate to help Credit Unions to grow, and to continue their work on bringing financial inclusion to the poorest in society.

Due to the tough situation in the international economy, now more than ever we must make it easier for people to access the affordable credit in their local area which is offered by Credit Unions, rather than having to turn to more expensive schemes or, at the extreme end, illegal loan sharks.

Credit Unions, because of their unique, localised structure, often provide finance to those who cannot find it elsewhere, in hard to reach communities or to those with a poor credit history or at risk from unethical loans, such as loan sharks.

There are around 530 Credit Unions in the UK, with over 500,000 members – including me. I first joined a Credit Union over 30 years ago. For several years now, I have been a member of West Side Savers Credit Union (01902 620 555), based at the United Reform Church on Lea Road in Pennfields. It’s very near where I live, so it’s my “local”.

Change is needed to update many laws governing Credit Unions, to bring them up to date and in line with other financial sectors. After listening to the Credit Union and mutual sector, the government has decided to introduce legislation to help the sector grow even stronger, and to increase financial inclusion.

During the current world financial credit problems Labour is helping to expand Credit Unions to promote financial inclusion to those who would find it difficult to borrow from major lenders, to try to ensure they are not pushed into borrowing for unregulated sources.

The Conservative have no specific policy on Credit Unions, and failed when in government to help them grow. The previous legislation dates to 1979. Despite 18 years in office, and 2 deep and painful recessions, the Conservatives did little to support Credit Unions, thereby pushing more people into unsafe or unlicensed borrowing.

Credit Unions do a huge amount of good across the country. Because they work for their members, and not for shareholders, Credit Unions can create a sense of trust and loyalty which companies can’t. In turn, this means that they can reach people and communities that no-one else would.

That gives them a particularly important role to play in tackling financial exclusion: being shut out of the financial system creates extra costs, often for the very people who can least afford them; and it stops people from participating fully in our economy, and in our society.

If people can’t get affordable credit, they can also be driven to use more expensive options, like doorstep lenders; or even risk intimidation and violence from illegal loan sharks. All too often, this leads to a spiral of debt.

The government has promised £135 million for initiatives to promote financial inclusion, including:

• £38 million to increase consumer access to affordable credit through credit unions and other third sector lenders;
• £76 million to fund free face-to-face money advice to financially excluded people;
• £12 million to fund dedicated staff to work to promote financial inclusion locally, with a focus on increasing the availability and awareness of home contents insurance for low-income people, in particular in areas affected by the recent flood events.

A high proportion of these services will be given by mutual and co-operative financial services.

Create a level playing field for Credit Union sector, for example by:

• Allowing them greater borrowing powers
• Greater membership flexibility
• Ability to offer cash ISAs and Child Trust Funds
• Set higher interest rate ceilings
• Liberalise and update the legislative framework by which Credit Unions operate which has been restrictive in the past by for example;
• Radically changing the ‘common bond’ so Credit unions can provide their services to a wider range of people.
• Liberalising membership criteria so that Credit Unions can accept group as well as individuals as members,
• Allow credit unions to pay interest on members’ deposits (in certain circumstances)
• Cut red tape and outdated legislation by, for example;
• Allowing Credit Unions to exchange electronic information more effectively
• Allowing Credit unions to publish un-audited interim accounts.

1st July 2008
Lord Darzi’s review of the NHS, “High Quality Care For All”

As part of Labour’s mission to build a fairer UK, in the 60th anniversary year of the National Health Service, the government is reforming further the NHS, to try to make it a more personal health service, fitted to the needs of individual patients, and focused on preventing ill-health as well as on curing it. The goal is an NHS which gives patients more rights and control over their healthcare, and empowers staff, to ensure the highest quality of care for all.

To ensure fair access to the most clinically- and cost-effective drugs and treatments, all patients will have the right to NICE-approved drugs and treatments where their clinician recommends them, ending the so-called “postcode lottery”.

Gordon Brown said:

“Lord Darzi’s report is a tremendous opportunity to build an NHS which provides truly world-class services for all. It requires government to be serious about reform, committed to trusting front-line staff, and ready to invest in new services and new ways of delivering services.”

The NHS is Labour’s greatest achievement. We created it, we saved it, and we will always support it. The NHS exemplifies Labour’s commitment to fairness for all.

The Darzi Review has been a clinically-led local process. Proposals for service changes are being developed and agreed locally, based on the clinical evidence and on the needs and preferences of each local community. The Review recommends that government:

• makes healthcare more personal by ensuring that everyone with a long-term condition has their own personalised care plan, and pilots personal health budgets;
• creates an NHS which helps people to stay healthy by setting up a new national programme of vascular risk assessment for people aged 40 to 74;
• rewards family doctors for focusing on prevention and early intervention;
• raises the quality of the NHS, by systematically measuring and publishing information about the quality of care from the frontline up;
• fosters a pioneering NHS, by introducing new rewards for innovation, and developing new best practice tariffs targeted on areas for improvement;
• empowers frontline staff by enabling them to lead and manage their organisations and improving the quality of NHS education and training.

30th June 2008

Why are oil prices rising?
Internationally, there is more demand for oil, but supply has not been able to expand fast enough to meet it. For example, there has been rising demand from rapidly developing countries like China and India, whose economies have been growing at around 10% in recent years.

What has happened to Fuel Duty levels under this government?
Fuel Duty rates have fallen since 1999 in real terms.
Had we continued the Tories’ policy of the fuel duty escalator, petrol would be 34p higher at the pump today.
The government has only increased duty rates three times since 2000. We’ve either cut or frozen fuel duty 11 times since 1999. The April 2008 rise was deferred, in recognition of the pressure people were under.


Isn’t the government getting big increases in tax revenues from high oil prices?
When oil prices go up, the government doesn’t necessarily get any extra revenue. Higher fuel prices mean some revenues go up, but also mean that other tax revenues go down. The effect on the overall government finance is more complex than suggested by looking at just one tax alone. You have to look at the whole tax picture.
• Fuel Duty: as fuel prices rise, the government does not receive any additional revenues from fuel duty because it is a flat rate (i.e. a fixed amount per litre regardless of total petrol/diesel prices). In fact, as higher prices lead to lower demand, the government is likely to get less revenue.
• VAT: claims about VAT windfalls from high fuel prices are greatly exaggerated, because consumers have broadly fixed spending power. So, when someone spends more on petrol, they tend to spend less on other things. Thus, whilst VAT receipts from petrol are going up, VAT from other things is falling.
Moreover, businesses (including road hauliers, but they seldom mention this) can reclaim VAT on fuel.
• Oil prices and government spending: high oil prices may mean additional tax from oil companies (e.g. Petroleum Revenue Tax, and North Sea Corporation Tax), but this will also depend on how much more firms invest in response to higher prices. High oil prices also tend to mean less tax from other companies, because high energy costs means lower profits, and therefore less Corporation Tax to government.
In addition, an increase in inflation resulting from higher energy costs means that government spending increases as well. This is because many Income Tax/National Insurance allowances and social security Benefits are index-linked to inflation. When they go up, less money is available for other government spending plans.

So what would be the effect of introducing a fuel duty regulator, to cut fuel taxes when oil prices rise?
Because of the complex effects on revenues from higher oil prices, far from being fiscally neutral as some claim, this would result in losses to the public finances. It would also create uncertainty about the overall level of revenue available to meet government spending plans.

What about tax levels on the UK oil industry?
North Sea fiscal regime is designed to ensure the UK receives a fair return from the extraction of its national resources, while encouraging the new investment needed. Following this series of oil price rises beginning in 2004, the government doubled the Supplementary Tax on UK oil and gas production.
The majority of oil companies now pays 50% tax on their North Sea profits, and some of the most profitable fields pay 75% – compared with Corporation Tax of 28% for other large companies.

What about a windfall tax on oil companies?
This is definitely worth looking at.
The price of a barrel of oil does not drop out of the sky – as the big oil producers would have us believe, when they wring their hands and talk glibly about “the world price of oil”. Instead, the price of a barrel of oil is set by the companies who produce it.

For example, BP could sell oil at, say, $70 a barrel, not at the $140 they choose to. They’re profiteering.

What about other countries and fuel taxes?
Comparisons are often made with other European Union countries, claiming that they have lower fuel duty levels than the UK, but this doesn’t show the whole picture. Most put higher rates of VAT on fuel than we do. Almost all have significantly higher taxes on the wider economy; e.g. much higher Income Taxes.
UK petrol prices are now lower than those in France and Germany.
(UK diesel prices are higher because, with more and more diesel cars on UK roads, there is not enough oil refinery capacity to produce enough diesel. Sounds like price gouging again…)
Despite reaching record highs, UK petrol prices (including tax and duty), have increased at a slower rate than many other EU countries.
For hauliers, the fuel tax differential is in many cases offset by lower labour taxes and other employer costs in the UK. For example, overall operating costs are similar to those in Italy, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

What can we do about energy prices?
In the short-term: not a lot.
The government has tried to alleviate growing energy prices to some extent by national measures such as the further increases in Winter Fuel Allowance this year, and the freezing of fuel duty (as was done in the Budget).

However, in the end energy prices are a global problem, requiring global solutions. The UK government is urgently seeking international co-operation for a new global approach to oil and energy policy, which encourage an increased supply of oil and gas, and strengthen measures to reduce demand.
Greater energy efficiency will reduce energy prices by reducing demand. The UK is also pressing for tougher EU-wide fuel efficiency target for cars and exploring the scope to accelerate the introduction of electric vehicles.
A diversity of energy supply – renewables and nuclear – will reduce our dependence on oil. The government is trying to increase renewables tenfold by 2020, and is encouraging the building of new nuclear power stations.

Those who have served in UK armed forces, and those who continue to do so, should have our deep respect and gratitude. So this Labour government established Veterans Day in the national calendar – the day on which we can unite to celebrate and say “thank you” to our 5 million veterans.

Since 2004, the government has issued nearly 600,000 Armed Forces Veterans Badges, and intends to issue the badge to all Service Veterans. In 2007, a Veterans Badge was introduced for Bevin Boys. Over 4,000 have already been issued. (more…)

26th June 2008

5 July 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the NHS. The NHS is perhaps the Labour Party’s greatest achievement. We created it, we saved it, we value it, and we will always support it. (more…)

26th June 2008

By 1997, 18 years of Tory government had brought the NHS nearly to its knees, despite the efforts of the underpaid staff. Labour has turned the NHS around, by spending the money it needs, employing more doctors and nurses, and paying them fairly, cutting waiting lists, and building new facilities.

National Health Comparisons

The Tories claim they will scrap all NHS “targets”

As we have made clear, we are moving away from centrally set targets, now that the NHS is delivering the fastest ever access to care and the lowest ever waiting lists. Soon, for example, we will reach the historic achievement of 18 weeks maximum wait from diagnosis to treatment for elective care with average waits much less. Our target of a maximum four-hour wait in A&E has been extremely beneficial to patients also.

The Tories want to face both ways on this issue: they claim to aspire to a world class NHS with no targets which, they say, can save 100,000 lives – yet at the same time they oppose many of the changes to the NHS which are designed to improve services and save lives.

You cannot deliver a world-class health service by devolving power from the centre, and then telling the NHS locally they can never change any services. In every region of the country, the Tories are opposing plans developed by local clinicians to improve services and save more lives. For example, they say that they want local decision-making, but then – almost in the same breath – they say there should be a centrally-dictated moratorium on all plans to close hospitals.

To say that targets have not worked is wrong. The UK is reducing cardiac mortality more quickly than any country in Europe. An estimated 178,000 lives have been saved from cardiovascular disease since 1996, and the mortality rate has fallen 40% between 2004/06 over the 1995/97 baseline. Death rates from cancer in the under 75s fell by over 17% between 1996 and 2005, saving an estimated 60,000 lives.

That is why the independent think-tank the King’s Fund has criticised these Tory plans, saying: “they (targets) have been a big factor in driving down unacceptable waiting lists. Before we drop central targets altogether we must be sure that there are appropriate safeguards to ensure standards and aspirations are in place”.
(Kings Fund Press Release 24 June 2008)

Targets v Outcomes

The Tories say they will concentrate on health outcomes. They claim that this can save 100,000 lives, saying “... but what this Green Paper sets out is – by making our health outcomes among the best in Europe…we could save over 100,000 lives a year.” (Mr. David Cameron’s speech to Royal College of General Practitioners 24 June 2008). A radical change in local NHS services would be necessary to achieve this, yet the Tories have ruled out changes to the NHS – even if that is what is wanted locally.

If it were possible to save an extra 100,000 lives without increased investment and organisational upheaval, how would the Tories measure success? Would they demand the NHS achieve this total? If so, it would be a “target”. If they did not measure improvement, and did not set an expectation, then the promise of lives saved is an empty one.

27 June 2008

Over the past week, Haryna Gill from Shrewsbury High School has been completing a week of intensive work experience at the office of Wolverhampton South West MP Rob Marris. He is, by reputation, very diligent, holds accuracy with great importance and certainly does not abstain from voicing his opinion on particular matters which he is passionate about, therefore it was a great opportunity for Haryna to experience a work placement challenge, almost certainly different from the norm.

She started on Monday 23rd June and by the end of the week she had completed a range of different tasks. Haryna said: “It has been a challenging, varied and hugely interesting week here”. She continued, “I came here for a week’s worth of work experience hoping to gain some insight and experience in a working world. I have gained that, and more. I feel that I have learnt to adapt quickly to the wide range of tasks that I have been set; also I think that in the past week my organisational skills have definitely improved. My week has been managed by Rob’s Office Manager, Bill Smith O’Gorman, he along with the rest of the team at the constituency office made me very welcome and far from setting me mundane tasks gave me very interesting work to do. All in all I found it a very fulfilling experience.”

Haryna is one of a number of students who have recently decided upon doing some work experience at the constituency office. Is it the water? Or perhaps it is the recognition of how great an opportunity of doing some work experience here could potentially be, and the skills that could be gained from it. Haryna agrees, “Before the week had even begun, I believed that it would be of immense benefit as well as interest. My prediction was right; it was an experience of some significance and will be of particular assistance to me in my future, when I enter the world of work, I also found it very enjoyable.”