- IFS: Conservative party broken promises and neglect of NHS “unforgivable”
- Parliament backs Lib Dem amendment to exclude MPs arrested for serious offences
- Scot Lib Dems call for parliament to scrutinise government handling of baby deaths
IFS: Conservative party broken promises and neglect of NHS “unforgivable”
Responding to the IFS report showing that NHS spending will rise less quickly than the Conservative party planned in their 2019 General Election manifesto, Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said:
The Conservative party has left patients and staff to bear the brunt of rising demand, endless waiting lists, and deadly A&E delays.
Their neglect of our NHS is unforgivable. Instead of getting patients the care that they deserve and that Conservative MPs promised the public, yet again they have failed to live up to their word.
This Conservative government have proven themselves completely unfit to run our NHS. They are out of touch, out of ideas, and deserve to be kicked out of office.
Parliament backs Lib Dem amendment to exclude MPs arrested for serious offences
MPs have voted by 170 votes to 169 to back an amendment tabled by Liberal Democrat MP Wendy Chamberlain that ensures MPs accused of serious offences are excluded from the Parliamentary estate at the point of arrest, rather than only when charged.
Commenting, Liberal Democrat MP Wendy Chamberlain said:
This is an important step towards making Parliament a safe and modern place to work.
It is not about the guilt or innocence of any individual MP, but about safeguarding.
It’s really important that Parliament is just as safe as any other workplace and that everyone is held to account by similar rules.
Scot Lib Dems call for parliament to scrutinise government handling of baby deaths
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has today expressed frustration at the Scottish Government’s refusal to call for parliamentary time to be set aside to consider a report into a spike in the number of deaths of children within the first 28 days of life.
Following two spikes in the neonatal mortality rate in Scotland in September 2021 and March 2022, Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) appointed retired consultant neonatologist Dr Helen Mactier to chair an expert group investigating the possible causes behind the two unexplained spikes. Sarah Stock, a professor in maternal and foetal health at Edinburgh University, told the Herald that it was “entirely plausible” that short-staffing and pandemic pressures had played a part in the spike in deaths.
The Scottish Government indicated that this report would be published by the end of 2023. However once it became apparent that this deadline would be missed, Mr Cole-Hamilton wrote to the Scottish Government to ask for parliamentary scrutiny of this process.
In response, minister for public health and women’s health, Jenni Minto said:
At this stage we do not plan to make a statement to Parliament on the delay. However, I would be happy to consider a debate once the reports are published. I believe it would be more productive for Parliament to debate the contents of the reports themselves.
Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s report on neonatal mortality was eventually published on 27th February 2024 and indicated that a more comprehensive reviews of neonatal deaths was needed.
However in response to a second letter from Mr Cole-Hamilton asking when this debate would take place, Jenni Minto said:
I have no plans to call a debate at this time.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader and health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said:
There can be few more pressing priorities for a government than uncovering why the death rate among new-born babies has spiked. That’s why I wrote to the Public Health Minister to press for these reports to be published after they were delayed last year.
Alongside taking forward the recommendations from the Healthcare Improvement Scotland report, I would urge the Scottish Government to schedule time for parliament to discuss this report.
If there is time for parliament to hold a series of debates on the Scottish Government’s ridiculous independence papers, there is time for proper scrutiny of important public health matters like this.
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16 Comments
I am concerned by the idea of MPs being barred from parliament when they have not be charged with any offence. This is a much higher standard than exists in any other workplace where an arrest, in of itself, would not be enough to trump a presumption of innocence. If the police do not have enough evidence to charge, that must give the benefit of the doubt to someone who has been accused. What next – will we end up barring MPs from parliament on the basis that someone makes an allegation? This is a dangerous road we are travelling down…
Regarding exclusion of MPs from the Commons, what happened to the principle that you are innocent until proven guilty?
Might our party connect the incidents of the current government’s so harmful, reality blind, cruel and inefficient ideologically blind actions/deliberate lack of actions which have caused more than the grim list below and make it assertively obvious that they are the result of the policy of Austerity, aka. Neoliberalism?
1) maintained harmful birth contexts and systems
2) appalling, counterproductive prison conditions
3) underfunding of essential infrastructures such as local government, the Inland Revenue and the N H S
4) the under feeding/starving of at least 25% of our children
5) etc.
6) etc.
Might this be especially relevant as the Labour/LINO party seems to have the much the same socio-economic policies?
Might this duopoly agreement on counterproductive policies give our party a golden opportunity to be and do something so much better?
P. S. LINO ~ Labour In Name Only
,
@Tristan Ward
Should I take it that you are not concerned about the issue of people who work in Parliament being harrassed in their workplace? Are such people not entitled to a safe place in which to work?
I agree with Tristan Ward and Mary Fulton. An arrest would seem to be a judgement call by the police – why should an innocent MP (and their constituents) be treated in this way?
Can you not see how this could be used to undermine MPs? Who is to say that an “arrest” would not be made for ulterior motives? Can we trust the police to the extent that we allow them to ‘take out’ our elected representatives without even charging them with an offence?
@ Steve Trevethan
“the policy of Austerity”
It’s worth remembering that the actual spending of the Coalition was more than the Conservative’s pre-2010 target and actually ended up being roughly the same as Labour’s spending plans for the same period.
Of course you can argue about whether the targets of that spending was sensible or not but for once Liberal Democrats were actually in power, getting things done.
And yes you can argue about whether the price was too great, but
1 Labour were not viable coalition partners at the time, both because the numbers didn’t add up and – we are told – a programme for government could not be agreed.; and
2 the country needed a stable government – there was financial crisis going on.
@ Nonconformistradical
Of course one worries about harrassment, but you are assuming the person arrested is guilty b merely because an accusation has been made. Ask the Guildford Four (I am showing my age here) about whether judges and jury should assume the police get things right.
One would think that anyone arrested on charges of harassment or similar would be extremely careful about their conduct after such arrest; and I also think that the fact of the arrest – once known- might bring other accusers forward on a kind of “me too” principle. There may be another, better, way of dealing with this undoubted issue.
And as Graham Jeffs says, constituents need representation; and one should also be wary of abuse of the banning system by an MP’s pollical enemies to keep an MP from speaking and voting in Parliament.
@Mary Fulton – that’s not correct on two counts. One, as pointed out during the debate by Stella Creasy, is that following the Wayne Couzens case Police Officers themselves can be barred from the Parliamentary Estate if accused of a serious crime (not even arrested, never mind charged or convicted).
Secondly, arrest does not trigger an automatic exclusion – it triggers a risk-assessment that might lead to exclusion, so each case will be considered on its merits.
I think this is right on balance, given the well publicised issues of bullying and harassment on the parliamentary estate, coupled with the fact that it is an unconventional workplace without some of the checks and balances that are usually found elsewhere.
This is also about denying a platform ie. The ability to (mis)use the floor of Parliament …
Interestingly, the question arises as what exactly is a serious offence. If this rule applied when Partygate was in full swing…
For some of us, the basic questions are not whether the Coalition government spent more than the subsequent Conservative government9s) but whether enough is being pent on vital infrastructures and whether it is well spent.
Comparison assessment/measurement [normative referencing] only measures against the performance of others who may or may not be performing well enough.
Perhaps we might be better using normative referencing, which assesses performance against the matter in hand [actual performance] and ipsative referencing/assessing against previous performances [getting better, worse, the same] ?
Might the fundamental problem with the Coalition have been part of imposing Austerity, aka. Neo-liberalism, which is a policy to make the very wealthy even more wealthy to the cost of the not wealthy and to reduce government so that it is influenced/controlled by the very wealthy.
Might a clever, citizen-caring “not- conventionally stable” government have been more democratic and better than the disaster government[s] we enabled?
Might austerity always harm an economy because it harms the multiplier effect?
“A flaw in austerity is that its “success” is measured by dodgy mathematics using dodgy data rather than the actual benefits to the lives of all citizens and their children.” [From Steven Weber]
Absolutely correct Mary….An allegation can be made which leads to an arrest – which later is found to be false . You can rely on the likes of Stella Creasy to jump on any bandwagon that’s passing..Who will be those latter day Matthew Hopkins assessing which ‘allegation’ is deemed to be unacceptable in thier eyes .
People may want to consider the radical John Wilkes who has banned from Parliament despite the wishes of his electorate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlesex_election_affair
@Tristan Ward
“Of course one worries about harrassment, but you are assuming the person arrested is guilty merely because an accusation has been made. ”
The person who complained is as entitled to be believed as is the person they accuse. We are talking about MPs who have been arrested for serious offences.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63874606
“We spoke to a former Parliamentary staff member who complained about an MP’s behaviour through Parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS), on condition of anonymity.
They said it was “very concerning and damaging to see somebody who you have complained about walking around the estate especially if there is a sexual misconduct element to it”.
The MP they complained about was later found by an independent panel to have sexually harassed the staff member.
When asked if the proposed ban should go further than MPs charged by police, they said those accused through the complaints scheme “are still very much a threat to the safeguarding of staff”.
“So it does show a disregard towards our safety and staff welfare not to exclude someone who has been accused of sexual misconduct [through the ICGS] from the estate,” they added.
“I know for a fact both me and quite a lot of other people would have felt a lot more comfortable if the person I complained about wasn’t on the estate.”
Parliament’s priority “should be the safety and welfare of staff, not the protection of the reputation of an MP”, they said.
@Tristan Ward
There appears to be a really serious problem of sexual harrassment on the Parliamentary estate – if there wasn’t then legislation wouldn’t be considered.
Just saying you’re worried about it isn’t good enough. It shouldn’t be happening at all – in Parliament or any other workplace. Employees are entitled to be treated with courtesy and respect.
@Nonconformist Radical
“The person who complained is as entitled to be believed as is the person they accuse”
I don’t think you really mean this. When one person says “you did this to me”, and the other says “I did not” it is simply not possible to believe both of them – unless you are the Red Queen.
@Tristan Ward
No it isn’t possible to believe both parties.
But that doesn’t mean the complainant shouldn’t be taken seriously – and they should not be put in the invidious position of having to work for/in the same area/department as they person they accuse.