Christmas Adjournment

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is an expert in this area, for that intervention. I am talking about children with moderate learning difficulties, who are not exported outside the county. They are certainly not exported from Castle Point, where there is a wonderful MLD school called Cedar Hall. Its referrals have been cut in the past two years to a very small proportion, compared with two years ago. That has happened not because there are fewer SEN children, but because of the policy of Essex county council. A campaign on this issue received national publicity, and the Prime Minister addressed it in the run-up to the last election—as did Maria Hutchins, one of my campaigning constituents—as my hon. Friend will doubtless recall. My third point regarding special children is that we must get more speech and language professionals into work. The problem here is the Government, not the county. The current shortfall of professionals is intolerable. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow), in his inimitable style, treated Westminster Hall to a speech on this issue on 28 November. He said:"““At present, some 7,000 therapists are on the books. It is estimated that there is a shortfall of 2,283, which…will be met only by 2013.””—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 28 November 2006; Vol. 453, c. 4WH.]" The House will see that allowing a whole cohort of children to be betrayed in that way for the next five years or so is intolerable. So homelessness and special needs children are my main concerns as I canter towards Christmas, but I wish to make a couple of additional points. I need an answer on an important matter concerning the importation of liquefied natural gas—LNG—on to Canvey island. I have asked Ministers previously, but I have not had a straight answer yet. I ask the Minister on the Treasury Bench to urge the appropriate Minister in the Department of Trade and Industry to acknowledge that there is no Government safe siting policy for top tier LNG COMAH—control of major accident hazard—sites. Such a policy would specify details such as acceptable distances from residential homes and schools and in the absence of such a policy I cannot see how an inspector could possibly allow an appeal for such a site. If there is a safe siting policy, may I have sight of it so that I can test the policy against the dangers that my constituents would face from that unacceptable proposal? I do not think that there is a policy, and that is a problem for the Government. A key factor is that the island has no reasonable or sustainable means of access in an emergency, be it an LNG escape or another flood. So I make my now traditional cry from the heart for another separate access to the island, which should probably be from the Northwick road area. I congratulate Councillor Rodney Bass, the cabinet member at county hall, on his consistent support for our third road. In a debate on 25 July I spoke about the rationing implicit in the NHS caused by decisions of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, and the postcode rationing of treatments even when they have been approved by that body. Since then, the finances of the NHS have been shown to be in difficulties, with cutbacks, closures and redundancies that bring shame upon those of us who believe that the NHS is the jewel of the welfare state and something that we as a nation should cherish. I readily accept that additional money from our extra taxes has been put into the NHS by the Government, but we still need—indeed, we have a duty—to question why the outcomes are not proportionally much better. The Royal College of Physicians consensus statement on hepatitis C in 2004 stated:"““What is certain is that, if we do not invest now, we will not be able to afford the consequences of failing to tackle this epidemic””." As I pointed out in July, cost-effective treatments are available, which are recommended by NICE, so why have we identified only 23 per cent. of the carriers of that disease while Australia, for instance, has identified more than 80 per cent.? Then there is coronary heart disease. The British Heart Foundation statistics database calculates that the overall cost of CHD to the UK economy is £7.9 billion a year. So much of that human tragedy and cost burden is preventable. Cholesterol is a factor in about half of all CHD fatalities, more than any other risk factor. Cholesterol levels can be controlled and reduced, particularly for high risk patients by lifestyle and cost-effective treatment in primary care. But 79 per cent. of the NHS health care costs for CHD fall to in-patient costs and only 3 per cent. to the primary care sector. That proves the old proverb about a stitch in time saving nine. While I am on the subject of the NHS, I ask whatever happened to simple common sense and decency. A little girl ended up with no limbs and a wonderful and caring community clubbed together to help her to rebuild her life—two of the people who helped to raise the funds are coming for dinner with me at the House of Commons tomorrow night. Yet we see utterly stupid and uncivilised policies that damage that little girl. Let me quote from an e-mail from my constituent Tony Simmons this week. He states that"““a lot of people raised a lot of money in this borough for””—" that little girl—"““to get her on her feet. I see in the news today that she has been turned down for NHS physio because her limbs were not supplied by the NHS. Who are these toadies who make judgements like that, she is a child for gods sake. If you get a chance, put your oar in, stir up a bit of muddy water.””" My oar is well and truly in, and paddling furiously. May I wish that little girl, her family, homeless people and all at the Palace of Westminster a joyous Christmas and a healthy and peaceful new year.