Speeches by Beales.

“The strategy from NHS England was launched in January 2024—well over a year ago. I understand from your comments that we are still at the expressions-of-interest stage for demonstrator sites. Presumably the test-and-learn phase will be at least 12 months if not longer—”

“Alison, in your response to Andrew’s question you touched upon vaccination. I want to ask specifically about the role of health visitors in vaccination and immunisation. NHS England has launched a number of demonstrator sites and made commitments to increasing vaccinations, and increasing vaccinations as part of health…”

“Until the demonstrator sites. My question was, do you have a rough timeline for when a national programme will be rolled out?”

“Is there any evidence of what the most impactful prioritisation is, or is it that just doing anything is good?”

“My challenges are: are those interventions time-limited to the 1,001 critical days period, or is this about delivering an economy that delivers a living wage, or a housing system that delivers good-quality and low-cost housing? Will interventions focused on the critical 1,001 critical days period deliver those?”

“My question might be better after Josh’s question.”

“It was worth the wait, because I got called handsome by Josh, which is the nicest thing he has ever said to me. Dame Andrea, you mentioned the Uxbridge family hub, which, as you say, is a great facility in many ways. One of the challenges that many people have reported to me is that when family hubs emerged, it seems t…”

“I do not want to become too parochial, but when you see all the youth centres and many of the libraries closed down in a place, and one hub in the town hall, that does not seem to me like a more community-based model of support. I agree with the principle of integration, but those spokes do not always seem to be there …”

“I am getting the sense of perhaps “no”. To be devil’s advocate, in your view would the best 10-year health plan be nothing related directly to health care but simply—”

“You would lean quite heavily on the six domains, the role of destitution and inequalities in driving these outcomes from an early age. In terms of the 1,001 critical days agenda, we have talked a lot about family hubs and other early years interventions. Would your theory and evidence suggest that the best thing to do …”

“One of the challenges of Government and the nature of politics is distributing finite resources, making those trade-offs and balanced decisions. I suppose any strategy that will do that will ultimately strategise on where to focus investment. If you had to write the strategy and finance it, regarding 1,001 critical day…”

“Thank you for your contribution so far. We are awaiting the 10-year plan for health to be announced very soon. In that context, where do you think the 1,001 critical days agenda sits? Specifically, we are envisaging that these three shifts will feature quite heavily in the plan: from sickness to prevention, from hospit…”

“I appreciate that the issues are complex. A lot of your domains sit in the context of the broader family that a child is born to and brought up in. Do you think that the 1,001 critical days agenda has too much focus on the child to the detriment of the familial context? A lot of your domains—the poverty, the unemployme…”

“I thank the Minister for his condolences and for his strong condemnation of this horrific terror attack. In recent days, I have been contacted by hundreds of families in my constituency who have been horrified by these events. It is clear that the awful terror attack in Kashmir has sent shockwaves through the British I…”

“I am glad that we are taking the time today to discuss the immensely important issue of the state of our NHS hospitals. Nowhere is it more obvious that our NHS has been broken over the past 14 years than in our crumbling NHS estate. Our NHS has been starved of capital funding, and the backlog maintenance bill now stand…”

“We need to think not just about buildings, but about digital infrastructure and investment in a whole range of capital investment needs for the NHS for it to be a modern, fit-for-purpose service. It sounds like the measures the hon. Gentleman suggests are sensible. There is a strong desire in the emerging 10-year plan …”

“Presumably, on that basis, we will not see any new bodies established nationally. You said there is a desire to reduce them, so, on that basis, we will not see any new national bodies created?”

“There has been discussion of a national care service, there is—”

“In your own comments, you talked of the importance of having one HQ for health. Could you not argue that having one HQ for Health and Social Care locally and nationally is an important step forward in reducing overlap and regulation? Is this Bill an opportunity to do that?”

“That is clear, thank you. In terms of the functions that are currently performed by NHS England that could be transferred to the Department, in your earlier answer you talked about these enablers of the whole system that are crucial at a national level, I inferred from that: procurement, data and AI, digital infrastruc…”