Speeches by Robertson.

“I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this important debate. The hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) refers to rolling the technologies out at scale. The only eligible English project that has the marine lease, environmental licence and network connectio…”

“On the problems with implementing new technology, at the beginning you made that assertion yourself, Ian Dilks, and acknowledged that there had been difficulties implementing new technology. I think you suggested later that you could give an example. I invite you to give an example of the difficulties faced and of the …”

“Sorry, but when you say stuck, do you mean the reports are somewhere in the system but people cannot find them?”

“Q11. My constituents on the Isle of Wight are entirely reliant on foreign-owned, debt-laden, unregulated ferry companies for essential travel, but public transport in the United Kingdom, such as buses trains and Scottish ferries, is regulated and subsidised. Does the Prime Minister agree that the Isle of Wight anomaly …”

“The Secretary of State referred to social care in his update on winter pressures, and he is of course right that social care has an important role to play in taking pressure off hospitals. However, surely he can understand the frustration that the sector and those in receipt of social care feel about his pushing the is…”

“I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Residents of the Isle of Wight are expecting full elections this May. The no-overall-control unitary authority has asked the Government to be part of a priority devolution deal with Hampshire, but not local authority reorganisation, which is …”

“The reviews have found a fundamental problem with both CQC staff and service providers being able to understand what good care looks like. How do we deal with that? Do we have a problem? I suggest that this might exist in throughout the regulatory world in this country: “good” becomes a very technical thing, disconnect…”

“I would suggest that a well-intentioned measurement system assessment framework with scoring, no matter how well intentioned, runs the risk of becoming detached from what people think of and feel is good when they receive care. That is going to be a challenge.”

“Isn’t the point that the maximum human life has not increased? People have always been able to live to 90 or 100; it is just that a few hundred years ago so few people did. Provided we can get people there healthy, or healthier, they tend to die quicker, which is obviously better than taking a long time to die when you…”

“Now looking beyond the funding issue, have you, Kathryn, or anyone else seen innovations in social care across the country that, if the funding was in place, would scale and roll out very well to a more systemwide approach across the whole of the country?”

“Coming back to the idea that perhaps the public do not rank social care as being as important as other issues, might the problem be that they do not necessarily characterise their concerns as relating to social care? It is a label problem. They are worried about whether they will be able to pass on money to their child…”

“I was going to ask a question about how we evidence that spending money on social care leads to at least some savings in the NHS. But Sir Andrew, you made a comment earlier that perhaps runs against what I thought was a settled consensus here, so I might invite you to clarify this idea that more investment in social ca…”

“I agree: of course it is ludicrous. This is charitable money—most of it is charitable donations—that is given to charities to provide valuable work, and the Treasury is taking it and putting it into the Government’s coffers. Some of these charities, such as those in my right hon. Friend’s constituency, are small charit…”

“I agree. Ultimately, the Government should exempt all charities from national insurance contribution rises. Another possibility, which would be much less beneficial, would be to target the exemption at health and social care provider charities, without which the NHS could not function, but I ask the Minister to expand …”

“I agree. Putting pressure on other health providers and social care providers inevitably leads to pressure on the NHS. My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head in her comments and I thank her for them. For Carers Trust the cost of this rise is £3 million—that is not its tax bill; that is just the bill from this rise in…”

“I agree, and would like to share the hon. Member’s optimism that the Government do intend to make improvements in this area. This debate is a second chance for them to go away, then come back and provide relief to all charities, but particularly those that are operating in what might be called emergency services, becau…”

“I agree, although I am perhaps a little more optimistic than the hon. Member. The Government might not make the promise today, but they have an opportunity to go away and provide financial relief to all charities, even if they might not want to admit that in black and white. I congratulate the hon. Member on her Bill. …”

“I agree, and the hon. Member perfectly illustrates the point that the Government’s stated aims are not backed up by their tax decisions. If the Government want better palliative care—I hope that they do—they should not be taking money away from hospices, or from charities, such as Marie Curie, that operate end-of-life …”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of changes to employers’ National Insurance contributions on the charity sector. The background to this debate is the October Budget presented by the Government, and in particular the rise in national insurance contributions for employers. The rate was raised to …”

“I of course agree with the hon. Member that the Government must rethink the changes. I will go on to use examples from my own constituency, and I thank her for doing so with hers.”