Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, can the Minister assure the House that the new building programme will eliminate or reduce the problem of churning, which causes such distress to prisoners' families?
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Astor of Hever for initiating this debate. I am particularly grateful for his reminder that this debate is wide-ranging, because what I am about to say is not in the mainstream of what has been discussed-so far, certainly. I am a member of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Three weeks ago, we undertook a fact-finding visit to...
Viscount Bridgeman: I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Tyler for that intervention. I should also mention that a large number of Irishmen, particularly from the south-east seaboard counties of what is now the Republic, would have served in the Royal Navy. It is against the background of all this that I should say that there was no conscription in any part of the island in either of the two world...
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, for securing this debate and take this opportunity of thanking her for her leadership of the now sadly defunct sub-committee G. I also pay tribute to Michael Torrance and Alastair Dillon for all the support they gave to us on the committee and, in particular, for the drafting of the report we are now debating. It is a particular...
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, for initiating this debate and I congratulate her on the excellence of the report. I am in a position to say that as I only joined the committee after it had been published. The noble Baroness has set out the timetable for the various consultation papers which have appeared, possibly inconveniently, at the same time as the report....
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, it is a pleasure to have my noble friend Lord Selsdon back on these Benches after his very brief sojourn on the Benches opposite. He is to be congratulated on bringing forward this small but significant Bill, and I hope I am not anticipating things when I say that we are very pleased that the Minister will be giving it her support. As my noble friend has pointed out, the Bill aims...
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the Lord, Lord Kakkar, on his masterly overview of the subject. In the short time available, I have to record cautiously encouraging news. Your Lordships will recall a debate on 8 September in which attention was drawn to the problems with language testing of health professionals from the EEA. My noble friend Lord Howe gave an encouraging...
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, for her expert and sensitive treatment of this subject. I am afraid what follows now will be a slightly inadequate summary of what she began by saying and reverted to later in her speech-that is, the fundamental challenge to the training of nurses in the United Kingdom. As she reminded us, the trend over the past 10 years towards the...
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I declare an interest as a former chairman of the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, in St John's Wood. That hospital is unusual in that it is an independent hospital that has within its charity, and on the same premises, St John's Hospice which is wholly National Health Service, contracted to seven primary care trusts north of the Thames. Anyone who works in that environment has...
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I am most grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I am slightly disappointed by the Minister. I understand that he is hamstrung by the requirements for the language testing. However, I draw the attention of your Lordships to the Green Paper where a number of quite constructive options are set out. I hope that, with tremendous support, the Government will pursue...
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I am very grateful for the opportunity to initiate this debate and particularly grateful to those noble Lords who will speak, as notice only came last Thursday because of the Recess. I call attention to the disparity of treatment of health professionals trained within the EEA and outside it. It is particularly marked in the case of nurses, but applies to a greater or lesser degree...
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I regret that yesterday I was unable to be present for a number of contributions from your Lordships. Therefore, I ask for the indulgence of the House if I repeat points already made by noble Lords yesterday and today. I wish to focus my contributions on one very simple and, to my mind, fundamental issue: that neither House is perfect and that any fundamental review of the...
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I shall be very brief. Perhaps I may respectfully say that the protocol has been given a very bad press by both the noble Lord, Lord Blair, who is not in his place at the moment, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester. I draw your Lordships' attention to what I think is one nugget in the protocol. It says that the police and crime panel has: "The power to ask HMIC...
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, on his timely and most important contribution. We have benefited from his immense and distinguished experience. The Health and Social Care Bill represents a once in a lifetime opportunity. However, we must not forget that it is built on, and expands in much greater depth, the fundholder initiatives that existed in the National Health...
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, like other speakers, I am most grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for initiating this timely debate and for his masterly overview of the subject. I wish briefly to speak about the problems faced by nurses, particularly from Australia, New Zealand and Canada when applying to work in the United Kingdom. I would mention that the disparity in requirements between healthcare...
Viscount Bridgeman: To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for the future of hospices and palliative care services.
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I hope that we shall have an hour of singing from the same hymn sheet. I am very grateful for the opportunity to introduce this debate on this most important of subjects. It comes at an important time for the hospice movement in the United Kingdom, for the interim report of the independent funding review has just been released. On 11 November, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of...
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I start with an apology to Sir Hugh Orde, whom the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, has reminded me is the president, not the chairman, of ACPO. When I saw the list of speakers I was rather alarmed by the small number, but the shortage of numbers has been well outweighed by the quality of the expertise and experience that has been brought to the debate. I am most grateful to noble Lords...
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, it is a privilege to introduce this debate at this crucial time, ahead of the police Bill. The subject of the debate is widely drawn and I could not hope to do it justice in the 12 minutes available to me. I will concentrate, therefore, on more specific and, in my view, topical matters. A matter currently of considerable topicality is that of elected police commissioners. This has...
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, the whole House will be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, for securing this important debate. In her speech she once again reminded us of the leadership that she continues to give in this field, which is of continuing urgency. I declare an interest as a former chairman of St John's Hospice in St John's Wood, central London. I will speak briefly on care at home...
