Speeches by George.

“No, that is fine. I have two other quick questions. The first is about your communications with health professionals, the Royal College of Midwives, NICE and others. This information has been presented to them. What reaction do you get from them? They must be alarmed to think this is going on.”

“To what extent can you pan this across to other health conditions? In other words, do you see the same disaggregation and difference in terms of both outcome and treatment in other health conditions? I am sorry; being pregnant is not a health condition. I do not want to get myself in hot water. Do you know what I mean?…”

“To take a heartless devil’s advocate position—do not misinterpret what I am asking—to what extent is that statistic explained by other factors? Ethnic group A might happen to be more deprived and have different health comorbidities, et cetera, compared to ethnic group B. If you go across the whole population and you pu…”

“Yes, exactly.”

“My first question is on the stats, so it is probably to you, Marian, if that is okay. We have looked at the stats. We have heard that the statistics indicate that black women are five times more likely to suffer maternal death than other groups. As a brief opening remark in less than a minute, what are the highlights? …”

“From your experience of talking to the profession, to what extent is it a factor of benign ignorance or malignant discrimination?”

“I do not mean only maternal mortality, but, for want of a better expression, unsatisfactory outcomes from the birth process.”

“This may be an evaluation that is beyond your analysis of statistics, but, if white women were experiencing these outcomes as opposed to black women, do you think there would be a different sense of urgency and action taken within the system to address the issue?”

“I have recently returned from a visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territories with the hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam). We were expecting an appalling situation, but it was far, far worse. Israeli Ministers are gleefully calling for the bombing of food warehouses because they believe it will help bring v…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) not only on securing the debate, but on the very erudite manner in which he took us through the issues and correctly analysed the weaknesses of the system. It is also a pleasure to follow m…”

“I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and sorry I missed the first minute of his speech. I warmly congratulate him on the point that he is making. I agree that what he describing is a false premise, in the same way that the targets themselves are based on a delusion. The delusion is that private developer…”

“I congratulate the hon. Member both on securing this debate and on the manner in which he is approaching it. He is absolutely right that we should not stray into the areas that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) are getting involved…”

“Of course not.”

“Sorry, Mr Vickers.”

“I welcome the Minister’s opening remarks, particularly about Lord Byron, who, of course, was opposed to Lord Elgin’s actions regarding the removal of the Parthenon sculptures. Clearly, the specific point for today is whether it is possible, under the 1963 Act, for the British Museum to arrange a loan, and whether the M…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way?”

“It is also a health scandal. What water companies are doing by allowing sewage to seep into our coastal waters and rivers means that many people who enjoy that environment for swimming and so on fall ill, and many of them lose days at work. As well as covering the cost to the taxpayer of cleaning up the environment, th…”

“You do not think that this reorganisation will distract you from the progress made so far. Do you not think that is the key thing?”

“What lessons have been learned from previous reorganisations? I was around on the Government benches—opposing all the way through to the bitter end, I have to say—at the time of the Lansley reforms, which David Nicholson said could be seen from outer space, as we all will remember. If you were looking at those reforms …”