Speeches by Coleman.

“Local authorities are responsible for social care and they are responsible for public health. Public health is absolutely essential to one of the three Government pillars of prevention. How are public health directors being involved as a body in the development of the new system? How are social care directors being inv…”

“We have eight health and wellbeing boards in NHS North West London ICB because there are eight councils in the ICB. I imagine it is the same for people across the country. One of the challenges that I and other colleagues of mine who sat on these bodies found—this is before being elected—was that the NHS did not seem t…”

“To clarify, the statement in the 10-year plan was at best unclear and at worst wrong. You intend to keep council leaders or cabinet members, if the leaders choose the cabinet member to go, in place on the ICBs for the foreseeable future. Is that correct?”

“You might say that, but reading the 10-year plan, as I did, I thought, “These people do not understand how local authorities work”. It is a ridiculous comment to say you are going to have mayors when you only have 10 massive regional mayors in the country. You have 12 mayors of local authorities and the rest are all le…”

“I am not quite clear what you mean by “mayor”. You have very few—about a dozen—local authorities who have mayors. The rest of the 152 are led by leaders. Are you talking about the Mayor of London being on 42 ICBs? It is 42 at the moment; they are merging, so it might be fewer. Are you suggesting that would be it and no…”

“I can just build on that. I want to ask one question—I will come back to my other questions later—on this whole question of mayors. The 10-year plan foresees mayors being the only local authority representation on the ICB boards. Is that right?”

“It is a big issue. In my part of the world, we had to fight to get the right people on our ICB. In the end, we had three on the NHS North West London ICB. Having local authority representation on ICBs is not a small thing. According to the 10-year plan, you might be planning to get rid of it at the stroke of a pen. In …”

“Yes, absolutely. If you have four ICBs that have come together, you are potentially getting 30 councils involved. Surely the councils should have some say in how they wish to be represented on those ICBs. It should not be a top-down NHS solution. They should be engaged in that conversation.”

“I welcome the Minister to his position. I hope that he is enjoying the debate. I understand why the Government are proposing to extend the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain. I think we all recognise that the immigration numbers are high. This is a complex challenge, not least, let us remember, because of…”

“It will come as no surprise to anybody who has ever dealt with any member of the Reform political party for more than five minutes that double standards are involved. We only have to read what its leader says from one week to the next to realise that its association and commitment to maintaining a close relationship wi…”

“If Members of Parliament stand up and make representations to the Government as this roll-out of the guidelines takes place, do you consider that they ought to say whether or not they have had meetings with and taken information from public affairs—”

“Finally, the industry, as you say, has been co-operative, but the history of the food production industry is not one of co-operation; it is one of only doing things when they are forced to do things, or being frightened that legislation is coming in. I do not know if you are aware, but I have been told by friends that …”

“Would you be able to write back to the Committee on that? That would be great.”

“Thank you very much for coming today, Minister. I would like to ask about the Government’s plans to protect babies from much of the dangerous baby food out there at the moment. It is quite clear that too much of the baby food in our shops is over-sweetened, over-salted, innutritious, unnecessary mush that is actually c…”

“I gather that, in the Government paper, it says that the metrics for assessing progress are being considered. What is the timeframe for developing those metrics? Are we expecting them to be delivered in three months or four months, or will it take longer?”

“So we will have no assurance that they are actually doing anything until 18 months from now—or after 18 months, because it is after February 2027 that the report will be published.”

“If we as a Committee asked for a report in six months on whether you were satisfied that producers were starting to get their act together to implement the guidelines, would you be able to provide us with that?”

“I agree, but on reasonable timescales, you have given the 18-month timescale. I am not challenging that. Some people might, but I am not. But I have worked in business. When you ask somebody to deliver a project within a timeframe—you may give them six months or a year—you regularly check in with them to see how it is …”

“Brilliant. But isn’t the thing about progress that it is not just a fixed point in time, and that you can assess progress towards things? We do not have to wait 18 months to see whether any progress is being made; the industry can inform you, on an ongoing basis, of the changes they are making. Shouldn’t we be assessin…”

“I take from that that it may be the case that, if they are not doing what is needed, and we require legislation to force them to do what is needed, babies are unlikely to get the protection they need from baby food until after the next election.”