Andy McDonald: If ever there was a time to be candid with this House, it is now. I am asking the Paymaster General a question, not anybody else. He did not answer my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), so I will give him another go. Has the Paymaster General been told whether the Prime Minister attended the Downing Street party on 20 May or not? If so, what was the answer?
Andy McDonald: You have a duty to this House.
Andy McDonald: The Minister for Corporate Responsibility has spoken about the Horizon Post Office scandal and the need to compensate victims properly. He will agree that the object of the exercise is to put those victims in the position that they would have been in had the insult not occurred in the first place. Will he ensure that any such scheme adopts the common law principles of compensating for pain,...
Andy McDonald: Statutory sick pay is worth £3 a week less in real terms compared with the start of the pandemic, and millions of workers are being forced to choose between isolating and putting food on their table. In Germany, 100% of workers’ salaries is covered by sick pay, whereas in the UK, the figure is a pitiful 19%. If the Prime Minister thought earning £250,000 from his second job was “chicken...
Andy McDonald: Does my hon. Friend agree that if these measures will come into force at the beginning of April and the parties concerned are to participate in a framework agreement for their roll-out, there is an ideal opportunity for those parties to work through how they may be implemented? By rushing the measures today, we are being robbed of that opportunity, despite the noises from the British Medical...
Andy McDonald: My hon. Friend is setting out his response to these proposals with great care. On the vexed issue of mandatory vaccinations, does he acknowledge that 97% of those in my trust have been properly vaccinated and that a significant proportion of the remaining 3% are new starters making their journey towards proper vaccination? It is therefore not that clear. We have heard the responses from the...
Andy McDonald: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Andy McDonald: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. If he is going to consider those matters will he also consider the following issue? The virus spreads if people are not able to isolate, so will he think about addressing the issue of statutory sick pay, and in particular spreading the scope of SSP and raising it to a proper rate so that people can isolate and therefore not spread the...
Andy McDonald: The hon. Gentleman is failing to grasp that we have done it. The change has been made. What I am hearing time and again from Government Members is them rewinding and revisiting the process. The medications we are talking about are authorised and have been prescribed. We do not need to go through this exercise again—we have done that, and we want to move on.
Andy McDonald: The hon. Member is eloquent, but he is making a case for the commission. As the explanatory note says, the commission would be “required to consider the role of evidence other than from conventional controlled trials, including from observational studies and other countries in which cannabis-based medicines are more widely available.” So the net is wide. We are not pre-determining the...
Andy McDonald: There is nothing in this Bill that will substitute our view and our professional assessment for that home medical practitioner. I want to congratulate the Members on the Conservative Benches: the clock is running down to 2.30 and they have successfully talked out this Bill. May I just ask anybody on those Benches to volunteer some explanation that I can take back to my constituents who wanted...
Andy McDonald: That is not this—
Andy McDonald: On cost-efficiency, does the hon. Member not agree that, considering the cost of emergency admissions to hospital and the use of intensive care and expensive medicines that do not work as effectively, this system would be a much better use of national health resources and would actually be a financial economic benefit to our nation, not a detriment?
Andy McDonald: My hon. Friend is making a wonderful summary and presentation. Is she as frustrated as I am by some of the contributions that have been made today, which seem to suggest that we need to start again when having this debate? We have been through this process. The law has been changed to allow the prescription of these products, yet all we have are three. Is it not really frightening that we...
Andy McDonald: I confess to having been depressed many a time in this Chamber, but after that last contribution I cannot remember feeling as low as I do at this moment. [Interruption.] I ask Members please to take this Bill seriously. It is not in any way about telling medical practitioners what to do. I ask them please to read the Bill. The proposition opposite the argument around placebos that we would...
Andy McDonald: My hon. Friend is making a fabulous speech and I am sure people will study it after the event. He mentioned Mike Barnes. Does he agree with me and Mike Barnes that the children who are outside the syndromes he is so expertly describing have nothing to lose by trying to see if cannabis-based products work for them? Is it not a grave injustice that those children are denied that opportunity?
Andy McDonald: From Collette in Middlesbrough: “During lockdown, my 74-year-old mam was really lonely and depressed, but obeyed all the rules, as we all did. She sadly passed away in January 2021 alone in her flat. We were only allowed 30 people at the funeral so lots of mam’s friends and family were unable to attend. Nor were we able to have a wake to celebrate her life afterwards and comfort us. The...
Andy McDonald: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). Much has been said about the disintegrated rail plan, the watering down of the northern powerhouse and the scrapping of the eastern leg of HS2, and all that criticism is well founded. The bottom line is that this Government have broken their promises. I see the northern rail network as a beating...
Andy McDonald: My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The entire purpose of HS2, which was supported by successive Governments—the Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and supported it himself—was to release capacity on our conventional rail line. If we really want to make that advance, take vehicles off our roads and get people off aviation and into rail, HS2 is the way to deliver it. Give us the...
Andy McDonald: Will the Secretary of State give way?