Bob Russell

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what national decision-making process is in operation for the appraisal of orphan and ultra-orphan medicines; and whether commissioning arrangements for these medicines require ministerial approval.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health

(1) whether he plans to consult on the arrangements for specialised commissioning within the NHS Commissioning Board;

(2) what role he expects the Advisory Group for National Specialised Services to have in the NHS Commissioning Board;

(3) when he expects the Advisory Group for National Specialised Services to accept new applications for national commissioning.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the effect of the implementation of the provisions of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 on specialist cystic fibrosis services.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he plans to respond to the consultation on the UK plan for rare diseases.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what arrangements he has made for the appraisal of ivacaftor for the treatment of cystic fibrosis; and if he will make a statement.

In a written parliamentary answer dated 8 March, I was told by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority:

"Under our publication scheme, we proactively publish the minutes of meetings of IPSA's Board."-[Official Report, 8 March 2012; Vol. 541, c. 839W.]

Thirty minutes ago, under the heading "Transparency-Minutes of board meetings", the IPSA website revealed that the last recorded publicly accessible minutes were for its meeting on 30 January. Knowing how keen IPSA is on every i being dotted and every t being crossed, either it has not met for three months or it is not honouring what it should. Bearing in mind that a public consultation is going on as to what the public feel is the role of an MP, should we, as MPs, not have a debate on this?

We're all on your side.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the EU not to renew Israel's special trading status in view of its continued occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in contravention of UN Resolutions; and if he will make a statement.

I appreciate that intervention, because my point was that the problem was not necessarily the content but the presentation, and the perception of millions of people out there that the Government were interested only in the rich. I endorse the hon. Gentleman's point and hope that he will endorse my observation.

Increasing the personal allowance to £9,205 takes us within touching distance of the Liberal Democrats' No. 1 manifesto pledge to ensure that no one pays any tax on the first £10,000 of earnings. I hope that that figure will be reached or, better still, raised even further in the next Budget. That would be good for the cost of living of those with limited financial means.

For most people, the most significant cost is that of housing, whether it be a mortgage or rent. One does not have to be an economic wizard to know that the more of the family budget is spent on housing, the less will be available to be spent on all other aspects of the cost of living. If the rent or mortgage goes up there is less money to be spent, and that has an impact on the economy, particularly the local economy.

I will concentrate my remarks on rent, because the subject of social housing-that is the current terminology, although I prefer the concept of democratically accountable council housing, given that successive post-war Labour and Conservative Governments strove to outdo each other in the building of hundreds of thousands of homes-has interested me throughout my political life, the 42nd consecutive year of which, in my home town, began this week.

As a nation, we need to follow the excellent record of successive Labour and Conservative Governments in the 35 years or so that followed the second world war, and to put right the damage inflicted by successive Conservative and Labour Governments from around 1983 onwards. I look to the coalition Government to follow the lead of the Governments of Attlee and Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Wilson and Heath, Callaghan, and Thatcher in her first Parliament. It is a startling fact that the Thatcher Government built more council houses for families than new Labour managed to build in 13 years.

We need to build council houses today, on publicly available land. That would help to boost the economy, create jobs and provide decent homes for the hundreds of thousands of families living in accommodation that is not suitable for their needs. I am grateful to the National Housing Federation, whose East of England bulletin states:

"155,900 households are on social housing waiting lists in the East of England, one in 16 of all households in the region, and a 59% increase since 2000."

Let me issue one caveat. We must not, in the process, sacrifice the special greenfield sites that provide a positive contribution to the quality of people's lives.

I merely ask that the coalition seek to follow the post-war consensus of politicians from all parties: people who had grown up in the terrible times of the 1920s and 1930s and who, in post-war Britain, knew that providing decent family homes would transform lives. Incidentally, I have no objection to the right to buy provided that each house sold is replaced by a new house, and I understand that that is the policy of the coalition. I invite Ministers to read the report of the housing debate that I led in Westminster Hall on 11 June 2003. Sadly, new Labour failed to take action, and I urge the coalition Government to do so.

I also invite Ministers to look at the Education Act 1944. On studying it, I realised that it was about more than just teaching, and that it adopted an holistic approach to the upbringing of children. It dealt with education, of course, but also with such matters as school health, dental checks and school meals. The architects of that Act recognised the importance of bringing everything together. If we are to succeed with a jigsaw, we need to fit the pieces for the corners and edges first, and the same applies to the jigsaw of life. If a decent home is provided for a family, the other pieces of the jigsaw of life are more likely to fall into place.

All this has a bearing on the cost of living, because if people have a decent home at an affordable rent, they will have money to spend in local shops and on local services. It is not a cap on housing benefit but a cap on rents that we need. While building council houses is the mid to long-term solution, a cap on rents is the immediate requirement.

The private sector and housing associations-the latter being dependent on public money-have not been able to fill the gap caused by the near-collapse of council house building under successive Governments over the past 30 years. Private landlords have made a killing and tenants have been given a worse deal at a much higher cost, much of it coming from the public purse. Public money is far better invested in public housing than lining the pockets of those who have become property millionaires courtesy of the publicly funded housing benefit regime. If a family's housing benefit is cut, they have less money to spend on food, clothing, energy bills, local services and so on. The landlord still gets an inflated rent-or the family is forced to move. I call the latter economic cleansing. The local economy also has less money circulating because tenants spend more on rent and less on local purchases.

At the weekend, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and England footballer Steven Gerrard called for better knowledge of food nutrition to be made part of the national curriculum. However, before getting carried away with this good idea, I have concerns that the school meal service is not what it used to be, and I fear that Government policies are not helping the needs of many children. I urge Ministers not to damage the school meal service even more.

I return to the good idea from Messrs Oliver and Gerrard. What would be even better is if first aid training also became part of the national curriculum, as I called for in a ten-minute rule Bill that I put to the House on 19 November 2003. Both ideas should be incorporated. The case I made nine years ago is arguably even stronger today. By the way, earlier this month the all-party parliamentary group on first aid was formed, and I have the honour of being its first chairman.

If every child in this country knew first aid and, over time, took this knowledge into adult life, the national health service would make huge savings. As I said when I introduced my Bill, it would

"save many hundreds of lives every year, produce annual savings to the national health service of hundreds of millions of pounds and result in a better quality of life for all age groups throughout the land."-[Official Report, 19 November 2003; Vol. 413, c. 808.]

It would lead to savings in people's spending, because they would be more knowledgeable about what constitutes a healthy lifestyle. Today, an increasing number of children suffer from obesity, but I fear the prospect of a return to many children being under-nourished, because they are becoming the innocent victims of rises in the cost of living. Our Government must not allow this to happen.

I shall support the coalition Government in the Lobby this evening and tomorrow, but I urge Ministers to look at what was achieved on the housing front by Governments between 1945 and the early 1980s, and seek to emulate them.

If the hon. Gentleman checked the record, he would see that I voted against the VAT increase.

The headlines were all about the cut to the 50p top tax rate for those earning more than £150,000 a year. There are very few people in my constituency who get paid upwards of £3,000 a week. Thus, all the good things done to help those on low incomes-whether they be families or old-age pensioners-have been lost in the minds of many people because of the cut in the 50p tax rate.

Before the Opposition get excited, I must point out that, for all but the final few weeks of the last Government-and let us not forget how Labour left the country in a financial mess-the top rate of tax under new Labour was 40p for high earners, and that for almost 13 years. Our 45p rate is higher than the 40p rate levied by new Labour.

Let me remind the House of what I said on 11 May last year at Prime Minister's Questions:

"The Labour Government took Britain to the brink of bankruptcy. The gap between rich and poor widened, and nearly 4 million children were left living below the poverty line. Last month, the coalition Government cut income tax, liberally helping millions of people, but I have to ask the Prime Minister this: if we are all in this together, what is he going to do about the obscenity of 1,000 multi-millionaires boosting their personal wealth by 18% in the past year?"

Responding, the Prime Minister said:

"One of the things we absolutely will do-and we have put in the money to make sure it happens-is crack down on the tax evasion that takes place so widely in our country. The Treasury has put money into that campaign to make sure it happens. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point."

Well, I normally do. He continued:

"Because of our coalition Government, we have lifted 1 million people out of income tax and, at the same time over the past year, we see exports up, private sector jobs up, the economy growing and borrowing down-all radically different from what would have happened if we had listened to the recipe from the Labour Party."-[Official Report, 11 May 2011; Vol. 527, c. 1158-9.]

In concluding today's debate, will the Minister give us a progress report on what the Prime Minister said a year ago? Perhaps what is needed on both Front Benches are people with experience of the university of life, and the school of hard knocks.

The title of today's Queen's Speech debate is "Cost of Living", yet at 10 o'clock this morning, only 10 Members had put their names down to speak, and the Whips were rushing around trying to get more people from all parts of the House to participate. That suggests to me, despite the Opposition amendment, that the serious financial situation facing millions of low-income and disadvantaged people is considered to be a lower priority than the subjects debated on other days when so many MPs wanted to speak that there had to be a time limit of as little as six minutes for each speaker.

The Chancellor's decision to cut the top rate of income tax from 50p to 45p was a political error on a big scale, for it gave the impression that this Government are one who favour the rich at the expense of the poor. The notion that "we are all in it together" lacked credibility because of the Cabinet's decision on that. It is the way the Chancellor tells them that is the problem. Regrettably, his announcement on the reduction from the 50p top rate completely overshadowed the good

news that 20 million people would have lower taxes. In the context of the cost of living, that is wonderful news. The last Budget resulted in a tax cut of a further £220 on top of the £550 income tax cut already achieved since Labour lost the 2010 general election. That has to be good news, too, in the context of the cost of living. In my Colchester constituency, nearly 5,000 low-income people will, thanks to the coalition, be lifted out of paying any income tax. That is the second-highest number in any local authority area in Essex.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the measured approach he is taking from the Dispatch Box. Further to the previous question, does he agree that requiring the major energy suppliers to notify customers of the lowest tariff every year will help many of the people in fuel poverty with their cost of living?

Britain's national and international defence interests are not best served by having a smaller Army, a smaller Navy and a smaller Air Force. We are now told that the budget is in balance, so, looking to the home front, can the upgrade and modernisation of the family accommodation be brought forward?

To ask the Secretary of State for Education what recent discussions he has had with Ministers in the Department of Health on reductions in funding for speech therapy for children; and if he will make a statement.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will introduce a ban on all those holding an Israeli passport who live in the Occupied West Bank entering the UK; and if she will discuss with her counterparts in each EU member state introducing such a ban.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent reports he has received on the Israeli navy boarding ships in international waters.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports he has received on the boarding in international waters by members of the Israeli armed forces of the ships Beethoven and Victoria in April 2012; and if he will make a statement.

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make representations to the Government of Belgium to enable owners of UK leisure craft to use port facilities without fear of prosecution when the vessels are powered by red diesel purchased in the UK in accordance with UK tax regulations; and if he will make a statement.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department

(1) what level of competence in first aid forms part of the training of those joining the police;

(2) what requirement there is for police officers at all levels to have a recognised competence in first aid; and if she will make a statement.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make it a requirement that custody officers at police stations are given training in identifying (a) acquired brain injuries, (b) autism and (c) strokes in people arrested in the belief they are under the influence of drink or drugs; and if she will make a statement.