As Parliament breaks up for Easter Recess I thought you might like to know what your elected representative has been up to!
Inheritance Tax
I am calling for a national debate on inheritance tax. I receive a lot of letters about the unfairness of this tax which always hits at an emotional and difficult time. In our part of the world, more and more people are being caught in the trap.
This tax has nothing to do with the super-rich, its ordinary hard-working people who are affected. It is only right that people who have worked hard all their lives want to be able to leave something to their children.
I called for a Parliamentary debate in ‘Business Questions’ with Leader of the House, Jack Straw. This is where MPs can ask the Government to allocate time to debate particular issues. Unfortunately, he said no, but I still have other options such as bidding for an ‘Adjournment Debate’ – technically a debate to adjourn the House at the end of the day, but the Government is obliged to send the Minister responsible to reply.
Health Select Committee
As a member of the Commons Health Select Committee, I have been taking an interest in our recent investigation into NHS Deficits.
The Select Committee reported our findings to the House on 12th March. We in Hertfordshire have been particularly badly hit and the hospitals in Hemel and St Albans are both threatened. This is an outrageous situation when you consider the amount of money being poured into the NHS.
I told the House – what is common knowledge locally – and that is that a mere extra £100 per head would make all the difference and wipe away the West Herts Hospitals NHS Trust deficits. In Dacorum we receive an average of about £970 per head from the NHS, in the prime minister’s constituency of Sedgefield they get about £1,210 and the Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt’s Leicester constituency even more.
The problem rests with the unfairness of the formula used to distribute funds within the NHS. It is too heavily weighted towards ‘deprivation’. Now, clearly areas with high deprivation need more funds but ‘social deprivation’ is not the only health-related factor. Age, for example, is another. In Hemel we have a high elderly population as a result of so many young people coming to the town after the war.
Clearly much of the work of an A&E; department is not related to any of these factors. An accident is an accident and for the most part not dependent on your general state of health, wealth or age.
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