Andy Burnham: ...the Officers”—the police officers— “taking the statements knew what we were trying to prove.” I put it to the House that that document, which has not been made public before, is the smoking gun in the Shrewsbury case. It is clear that the police felt it incumbent on them to investigate propelled by a prosecutorial narrative, rather than by an even-handed investigation of events....
Andy Burnham: ...Government and, sadly, the same is true on public health. The Government should have used this moment to regain the initiative and publish regulations on standardised packaging for tobacco and smoking in cars. Ministers announced on 3 April that they would publish the draft regulations on standardised packaging later that month—that was what the Minister responsible for public health,...
Andy Burnham: But regulations are needed. If the Minister does not know that—[Interruption.] It was the Opposition who brought forward the vote on smoking in cars and she committed to introduce regulations to implement it. She cannot duck the question. When will she do that? If she does not realise that she is going to introduce regulations, she needs to go back and do a bit more homework. It is not hard...
Andy Burnham: ...’s Speech. There is no answer to the collapse of social care, and no answer to the understaffing of hospitals or the growing chaos in A and E. On the preventable deaths and health harm caused by smoking and alcohol, there is silence. This Queen’s Speech is the product of a dysfunctional Government who have lost any ability they once had to face up to the big challenges the country...
Andy Burnham: ...have had no answers on the NHS. Let me finally turn to public health. There was not much on which I agreed with the last Health Secretary, but he had my strong support when he spoke about tackling smoking. He said that he wanted tobacco companies to have “no business” in this country, and that introducing standardised packaging was an essential next step to ensure that young smokers...
Andy Burnham: ...to setting a minimum legal requirement for the number of defibrillators in public places. The time has come for that to be required by law. Hon. Members have referred to fire extinguishers and smoke alarms. There comes a point when technology allows something to be made much more widely available in public places and buildings, and I believe that we have reached that point with defibrillators.
Andy Burnham: ...mentions the Act, and I seem to remember that she called the Bill a hand grenade thrown into the health service. She seems to have changed her tune since then. We made huge progress on tackling smoking and improving the public health of this country, progress of which we are very proud. We can always say that we could have done more, but I remember putting through measures on smoking...
Andy Burnham: I am afraid that I cannot read all the intricate smoke signals of a Lib Dem conference, but to my simple mind, removing permission from the motion for peers to endorse the Bill is a pretty clear signal that that permission has been withheld. Before I deal with the amendment that the hon. Member for St Ives has tabled, I want to tackle directly the charge of scaremongering that has been...
Andy Burnham: ...from patients. More worryingly, we have seen the emergence of a new trend: trusts are restricting access to treatment and surgery based on body mass index levels or lifestyle factors such as smoking. Those have been dressed up as initiatives to improve public health, but many people see them as crude attempts to save money. It seems to me that that is a straightforward breach of the NHS...
Andy Burnham: ...needs to make the transition from statutory function to freestanding enterprise.” It could not be clearer, which is why members of the British Medical Association council called the document a “smoking gun”, confirming their fears of a stealth privatisation. The document confirmed that the Government envisaged large-scale privatisation of services to support commissioning—jobs that...
Andy Burnham: ...equivalent —a children’s centre without any children in it. That could be the Secretary of State’s legacy. I do not know about hubs and spokes, but there are certainly plenty of mirrors and smoke when it comes to presenting the facts about Sure Start.
Andy Burnham: ...his side of the Dispatch Box, the hon. Gentleman has accused us of spending too much money in constituencies such as mine. The reason why my area can spend more on cancer is that, historically, smoking has been higher in the constituency. It was the hon. Gentleman's manifesto of last week that said that the Conservatives would weight public health funding so that more went to deprived...
Andy Burnham: My hon. Friend is right. We need to give the resources to areas such as hers so that they can spend them on smoking cessation programmes and improving access to primary care. Research has shown that communities of that kind benefit greatly from improved primary care, and also that national targets have played an important role in improving health outcomes in the most deprived communities. I...
Andy Burnham: ...story straight now. He needs to say here-at that Dispatch Box-the same thing as his candidates say throughout the country. I am afraid that he has been found out today, and he was very helpfully smoked out by the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb).
Andy Burnham: ...generations are less likely to suffer from tobacco-related disease. For many hon. Members, the central issue in the Bill has been deciding how best to protect our children from the dangers of smoking. We heard today passionate contributions, most recently from the Chair of the Select Committee on Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), and from my right...
Andy Burnham: ...never be my intention to make it harder for small retailers to survive; I do not think anybody would want that. Nevertheless, we have to act to counter the fact that many young people still take up smoking, and if we in this House can take measures to reduce that, we have a responsibility to consider them. It is my judgment that this can be done without causing the effect on small...
Andy Burnham: .... I stand to be corrected, but what I read of the evidence over the weekend suggests to me that in both Iceland and Canada measures to restrict point of sale materials did have an effect on smoking prevalence among young people. In Iceland, the fall in smoking prevalence among 15 to 16-year-olds between 1999 and 2007 was most rapid in the period immediately following the display ban...
Andy Burnham: ...Committee and find that proof exists for certain action, the House does not then find other excuses not to take such action. Like me, I do not think that he is comfortable about the prevalence of smoking among young people in our constituencies. I think that there is more we can do to cut the number of young people smoking, and if that can be done, the effects on their standard of health...
Andy Burnham: ...Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) said—for us to examine the evidence and put aside some of the vested interests. I will argue strongly that if we can take steps to reduce the level of smoking among young people, we should always do so. Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death in this country. Although the number of people who smoke in England is at an all-time low,...
Andy Burnham: ...and control exposure to it. At every point in that journey, the voices from the Opposition Benches have cried, "Nanny state!" Almost every time that a sensible measure has been proposed to tackle smoking, especially under-age smoking, we have heard those voices. If we had listened to them, we would not have reduced the proportion of people who smoke from 28 per cent. in 1997 to 21 per...