The final report of the Furness Poverty Commission - 'Shining a Light on Hidden Deprivation in Furness' was today launched at Barrow town hall to an invited audience of 100 representatives from schools, churches, public bodies and other agencies.

The commission was established by John Woodcock last December, tasked with investigating the extent of both urban and rural poverty in Furness, and identifying practical, deliverable objectives to tackle it. The commission has taken evidence from many Furness residents, forty schools and large numbers of other stakeholders.

Speaking at the launch, John Woodcock described the findings of the commission - of real, grinding poverty across Furness - as 'a call to arms'. The full report and recommendations can be accessed here.

JOHN has asked parliament to debate the findings of the Furness Poverty Commission – a body he set up in December to investigate deprivation in the local community.

Tomorrow (Friday) the commission will present its report at Barrow town hall to an invited audience of 100 representatives from schools, churches, public bodies and other agencies.

John said: "Tomorrow, the Furness Poverty Commission will produce its report into the hidden levels of deprivation in my constituency.

"I am sure that the whole House will share my gratitude to the commissioners for their work and my shock at the grinding hardship that they have catalogued.

"Does the Leader of the House agree that we should find time to debate the important recommendations of this report and those of other local poverty commissions set up by concerned Members and citizens up and down the country?"

Leader of the House the Rt Hon Andrew Lansley responded: "I have not had an opportunity to read the report, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the Government are keen to assist people.

“We were discussing job creation a moment ago. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the best route out of poverty is finding work, and we need to enable people to do that.”

Barrow and Furness MP John Woodcock spoke in the Commons debate on the Queen's Speech, using the opportunity to raise local concerns over the future of health services in Furness and the scale of cuts being imposed on the Morecambe Bay NHS Trust. John used the experience of local people in Furness to argue for an increased say for communities in how decisions on NHS resources are made, and a move away from a 'clinician-knows-best' approach. He told the commons that there is a firm belief in Barrow, as elsewhere, that "local provision – accessible to them and visiting loved ones – is a basic part of a quality service, not something to be dismissed as an unnecessary luxury."

John Woodcock also used the speech to welcome the decision to introduce a bill on mesothelioma compensation in the Queen's Speech.

The text of the speech is below:

Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker.

I want to start on a note of consensus in strongly welcoming the inclusion of a bill on mesothelioma compensation in the gracious speech. This dreadful disease, caused by exposure to asbestos. It is a timebomb that once detonated often goes on to kill within months.

With its shipbuilding heritage, Barrow and Furness has more individuals suffering from mesothelioma than any other constituency in England.

We owe a duty of care to all those who are suffering. They made an honest living and what is happening to them is not right.

We should applaud all those who have pushed for this further progress, including the honourable member for Chatham and Aylesford.

If the details of the new bill match the early promise, and we must scrutinise that, then the pledge to  provide compensation for sufferers whose former employer cannot be traced will build fittingly on the work by my predecessor in this place, the now Lord Hutton who expanded and speeded up compensation.

But Mr Speaker, while many will welcome this aspect of the gracious speech, many more will see the thin programme as a missed opportunity to address the increasing alarm over the government’s poor stewardship of the National Health Service.

Now, it would be too optimistic to hope that ministers have had an early change of heart on the costly and ill-conceived reforms they have just bulldozed through parliament.

But in addition to the lamentable absence of cigarette plain packaging legislation, they could have brought forward measures that sought to bridge the yawning gap between their rhetoric of listening to local people, and the reality that is seeing the clear wishes of residents ignored up and down the country.

In Barrow and Furness, we hope that health professionals in charge of the review of health provision across Morecambe bay will heed the passion and powerful arguments from local people over oncology, maternity and accident and emergency provision. While residents understand that it can make sense to travel to get the best that 21^st century healthcare can offer, like so many across the country

-      they love their local hospital,

-      they think it should have its fair share of the very best,

-      and they think local provision – accessible to them and visiting loved ones – is a basic part of a quality service, not something to be dismissed as an unnecessary luxury.

I do have some hope that the new management team at Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust will listen to local concerns. And an early test of that will be the publication of revised plans for Furness General’s oncology unit this month.

But we see what is happening in other areas where the government’s local engagement test is proving to mean little more than

-      holding a meeting,

-      nodding understandingly when local residents speak,

-      then ignoring everything they say and downgrading services anyway.

And when they see the scale of the upheaval and cuts to frontline nursing staff involved in reducing the budgets of Morecambe bay hospitals by £25 million within two years, my constituents are, understandably, very wary of trusting government promises that no efficiency saving will be allowed to affect the quality of care to patients.

As an aside to consideration of matters pertaining directly to the gracious speech, Mr Speaker, I hope the minister in his response will tell me whether the government will heed calls, including from the trust itself, for a rethink on the speed and scale of the cuts it is imposing on Morecambe bay hospitals.

And on the legislative programme itself, will the government not now take heed of the dismay felt about recent NHS re-organisations and take measures to strengthen the power of local opinion in determining the future of our hospitals?

We live in a time of strained resources – everyone accepts that. But faith in the future of the NHS may continue to be eroded until we learn genuinely to trust local communities.

When we come to look back at the history of the NHS over the current decade, I think we will see this as the time when we were bound overly tightly to the idea that the clinician always knows best. We will come to see the government’s blind faith in the clinical stamp for taking services away as an early twenty-first century equivalent of the ‘Whitehall knows best’ mentality that gripped reforming governments after the second world war.

Just like the ‘Whitehall knows best’ ethos of the 1940s and 1950s, the clinician knows best mantra has the best of intentions but is insufficiently open and responsive to challenge from the individuals who rely on the services that are being shaped by those at the centre.

Instead of ignoring them, we need a system that responds when local people turn around and say: “We have listened to what you think is best, but we pay for this service through our taxes and we want things to be different.”

Let me be clear, it is essential that health professionals make their case when decisions are made. Their expertise is immense and people should not deviate from their plans lightly. But it is by no means certain that any one group, even one bursting with medical experience, will always call it right first time: their views must be subject to real scrutiny.

And often the clinical push for concentrating specialisms on a single site, takes less account of local geography, travelling times and community links to health facilities than is demanded by local people who ultimately pay the clinicians’ wages.

This is not an argument for sentimentality in NHS resource decisions, and it is obvious that the views of local people will sometimes be irreconcilably different across a particular area.

Yet it is important if, for example, Barrow families who may have very little disposable income, suddenly face a hundred mile round trip to visit a relative because a unit at Furness General has moved to Lancaster.

There are many other communities across England fighting for their local health services. Some of these are threatened because of the cuts being imposed now, but others are at risk as a result of this clinically-led decision making model that fails to consider adequately the views of local communities.

That is why I am disappointed that there was no move towards genuine local decision-making outlined in the gracious speech.

It is time, if I may, for a People’s NHS bill to end this toothless sham that too often passes for local consultation at present. When local people say no, the default should be that they have exercised a veto which should be heeded.

Yes, it would be a step change for our National Health Service to move from a model that may have helped deliver improvements in health outcomes of which the country should be very proud, but has done so at the cost of alienating many local areas who understood the trade-offs but fervently desired to keep services close to them.

Whatever happens, surely the current tension between national planning and local unrest is unsustainable in the long term.

In opposition, the party opposite told the public they understood that and pledged to end local hospital service closures. But of course their promises turned out to be a cheap election con trick.

Instead, ministers have forced through an expensive, chaotic and divisive health reform package that has pushed decision making in the NHS still further from the people it serves.

We need a change of direction. Local communities pay for the health services they receive; they deserve to be treated with greater respect.

DISCREPANCIES remain between statements previously made by Cumbria police and crime commissioner Richard Rhodes and his response to a series of questions put to him by the Cumbria Police and Crime Panel over his use of a chauffeur-driven car, John has said.

The questions were posed in an open letter to Mr Rhodes after it emerged that he spent £700 on two journeys.

Last month two people were arrested on suspicion of misconduct in a public office and another on suspicion of perverting the course of justice over leaks to the media.

John commented: “While I am pleased that the commissioner has now provided greater detail over his involvement in this matter, the Police and Crime Panel is right to point out that there remain discrepancies between Mr Rhodes’ statements at the time and what he is now saying.

“The commissioner needs to take very seriously the Panel’s call for greater transparency and clarity at all times.

“This unhappy affair has also raised the issue of whether whistleblowers who seek to protect public money are adequately protected by law, and this is a matter I intend to pursue.”