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Christmas Adjournment

I must say to the hon. Gentleman that, at the time, I was one of the people who were extremely sceptical about how Westminster Hall would function and whether it would be of value. I do believe, however, that he was right and I was wrong. It has been a valuable debating Chamber. It perhaps does not have quite the clout of a debate with a vote in the House, but we would not want to see votes down in Westminster Hall. However, I agree with him. I am not saying that I am opposed to all change or that I am not a moderniser. Some areas of modernisation are good. Equally, however, I would always apply the test of whether they take powers away from Back Benchers and give them to the Executive. Whether we are Government Members or not, we are here to challenge and scrutinise the Executive and to get answers for our constituents. I think that litmus test needs to be applied. I want to mention something that I raised in an earlier debate. Sometimes, in the House, Members repeatedly make certain points to the Government, but when the relevant policies are put into practice it becomes clear that they have not taken account of the concerns espoused by Members. That is of concern to me. We hear a lot about invitations to stakeholders and Government consultations that never come anywhere near the House when the Government are implementing policies and legislation, particularly in relation to secondary legislation and guidance. I want to flag up another matter. Over the past couple of years, we have had legislation on disabled people who stop work or lose their jobs because of their disabilities and who then get into the cycle of going back to work. That critical area of returning to work worries me. I have asked the Jobcentre Plus in my constituency for a meeting with the people who assess whether somebody is ready to return to work. I am not necessarily talking about people who have been out of work for many years—the long-term unemployed—because there are different schemes for them. I am more concerned about people who have been out of work because of a serious illness—in particular, cancer—perhaps involving a lot of treatment and surgery, and who, as a result, are quite weak. I am also concerned about people with obvious disabilities. I have found the recent experiences of some of those people to be quite brutal and cruel—I would use that word—as I have explained to the House before. I saw a lady who had had a lot of chemotherapy and radiography following a double mastectomy. This was her test: she went into the room and they asked her to raise her arms above her head. She could, so they said, "Right, back to work!" Her doctor said that she needed to go back part time and to do it gradually, but they dismissed that. That is why I asked for the meeting. I have sat through many debates in the House on the need to get people back into work and on what happens when people return to work having been ill. During such debates, hon. Members on both sides of the House have told Ministers that we need to ensure that the assessors have the knowledge, expertise and medical background required to carry out proper assessments, and to ensure that they do not ride roughshod over hospital consultants and general practitioners who clearly know the patient much better than they do. It is not that those people are workshy or shirking; rather, they have had legitimate reasons not to be in work. I intend to follow that point up, but I am concerned that although I have heard it mentioned many times by colleagues across the House, for some reason what should have happened in practice has not happened. It would not be Christmas or the holiday season if I did not invite colleagues from all parts of the House to come and visit the glorious county of Devon during this three-week recess. They will be made very welcome in Devon. We have the most wonderful entertainment—I can almost hear the log fires crunching away in the background—and lovely food and drink from our wonderful farms. Hon. Members would be made very welcome, and they do not need to rely on British Airways to get to Devon from wherever they live in the country, because we have an excellent airline based in my constituency at Exeter airport called Flybe. It flies from all parts of the country into Exeter. We also have an airport in Plymouth. So I say this to hon. Members: do please come, you will be made very welcome. I have mentioned BA, so let me conclude with this. My telephone has a ringtone that I know is incredibly irritating to colleagues and which has become known as the BA tune—it is actually "The Flower Duet" from Lakmé. As it is Christmas, I have brought in my phone, in case you felt that you wanted me to hold it up and share the tune with the House, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am at your disposal, although I can see that you are probably not going to let me do that.