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  • Gavin Newlands – 2020 Speech on Online Harms

    Gavin Newlands – 2020 Speech on Online Harms

    The speech made by Gavin Newlands, the SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, in the House of Commons on 19 November 2020.

    We have had another excellent, if curtailed, debate today. I thank the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) and the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for securing it and the Backbench Business Committee for facilitating it. I do not have time to discuss and praise the various speeches that we have had, but I particularly praise the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam, who opened the debate. I thought his speech was fantastic and immensely powerful; nobody could ignore what he said. Take note, Minister: if an SNP Member and a Tory Member can agree so wholeheartedly, actions surely must follow.

    We spend more and more of our time online, whether we are interacting with others or are passive consumers of content—the growth of Netflix is testament to the latter. As we spend more time online, the harms that were historically the preserve of the physical world are shifting to the online world. We have seen the growth in online financial scams and their increasing sophistication.

    I have a number of constituents, as I am sure do other hon. Members, who have been scammed out of tens of thousands of pounds and lost everything, in part because the scammers were able to manipulate Google keywords advertising to drive traffic to their site and begin the scamming process. The pandemic and lockdown have seen an increase in those scams, as the perpetrators know people are spending more time online than normal.

    Since the start of the pandemic, the level of disinformation around vaccination and healthcare has grown exponentially. Anti-vaxxers have already targeted the newly developed vaccines that we all hope will get us out of this situation. Such disinformation campaigns have always been dangerous, particularly for young people who are usually the main recipients of vaccines, but now present an even bigger danger to public health.

    These lies—that is what they are—are propagated via the platforms of social media companies, which should have a responsibility to tackle such anti-science, anti-reason and anti-fact campaigns quickly and directly. It is not good enough for Mark Zuckerberg and the like to parrot free speech as if it were a “get out of jail free” card. Free speech comes with responsibilities; it does not give people the right to place others at risk of illness and death.

    Just as children were most at risk from the anti-vaxxers until the pandemic hit, it is children who are most at risk from online harassment and abuse, in particular young women and girls. A recent report by Plan International on girls’ rights in the digital world makes extremely depressing reading. More than a fifth of girls have received abuse on a photo or status they have posted, and nearly a quarter have felt harassed by someone contacting them regularly on social media. The net result of the abuse, harassment and pressure is that nearly half of all girls are afraid to give their opinions on social media, for fear of the response, and 13% have stopped going on social media completely to avoid negative responses. Less than a week before the international day for the elimination of violence against women and girls, those figures are shocking.

    A toxic environment is stopping women and girls participating in the online world on the same basis as boys and men. It feeds into a dangerous and violent misogyny that is on the rise on social media, again largely unchecked by the big tech companies until it becomes a big PR issue. It is no surprise that so many executive positions in those companies are occupied by men and so few by women.

    For most households, online communication is now a fundamental part of daily life, whether it is streaming content or keeping in touch with family and friends on social media, but too often the regulation of online activities that cause harm seems to be stuck in the last century, when the internet was something we read about in newspapers or heard about on one of our four TV channels. The world has moved on dramatically in the past two decades, but the legislative framework has not. It is especially important that the victims of online harms, whether it be abuse, harassment or financial scams, feel able to report their experiences to the police or other relevant authorities. If big tech will not act, it falls to the Government to protect our citizens.

    I understand that the pressures on the Government at the moment are absolutely huge, but so are the risks for individuals and for society the longer these harms are allowed to proliferate. I urge the Government to heed the contributions of Members right across the House and bring forward concrete plans to introduce the Bill as soon as possible.

  • Gavin Newlands – 2020 Speech on Dismissal and Re-employment of Employees

    Gavin Newlands – 2020 Speech on Dismissal and Re-employment of Employees

    The speech made by Gavin Newlands, the SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, in the House of Commons on 4 November 2020.

    I beg to move,

    That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit employers dismissing employees and subsequently re-employing them for the purpose of diminishing the terms and conditions of employment; and for connected purposes.

    Since I introduced the Employment (Dismissal and Re-employment) Bill in its first incarnation in June, I have been taken aback by the level of support for the measure. The messages I have received from people across the country asking how they can help and support the progress of my Bill have been touching and gratifying. I thank the great many colleagues from all parts of the House who have been supportive since the outset. That is perhaps evidenced by the fact that every political party that has elected Members in this place is represented in the list of sponsors of the Bill. I should add that without the help of Public Bill Office staff, I would have no Bill to speak to today, and I offer them my thanks for their help with getting it this far.

    Tens of thousands of workers have been forced to the edge of a cliff by employers who have suddenly discovered the value of ignoring loyalty. Some 30,000 British Airways employees were told to suck up huge wage cuts and slashed conditions or join the dole queue. For some, this meant a cut in take-home pay of 60%-plus. They were told that they were the lucky ones. More than 10,000 of their colleagues have joined that queue.

    Like many of my colleagues on the Transport Committee, I have received hundreds of emails from BA employees who have been subjected to such tactics. Those emails tell individual stories of fear, worry, anxiety, disappointment, anger and resignation, but they also paint a picture of a corporation intent on badness from the start. Workers who had decades of service with BA received emails just before midnight advising them to sign on the dotted line or face the sack. Employees who had recently returned from leave for ill health were told that their annual leave would be slashed, or they would face the sack. People were told that their wages would be slashed and they had no option but to accept, or face the sack. This is not how a modern, civilised country manages its labour market. These are the tactics and behaviour of characters from a Dickens novel, and the behaviour of these companies is like yet another remnant of the 19th century.

    No one argues that the economic crisis that the world faces means that businesses do not have tough decisions to make; of course they do. The impact of covid-19 on commerce and industry will not disappear as soon as we have tackled the virus and normality begins to return. The after-effects will be long-lasting and damaging, but that does not give employers the right to behave like absentee lairds, returning to their assets only to inflict yet more damage on people they appear to hold in contempt.

    We should expect—and, given their various answers and statements on the matter, the Government fervently hoped—that these companies might self-police their ​behaviour. Most other employers are able to treat their staff fairly, with decency and respect, but it is clear that we cannot rely on rogue bosses to show that same decency and fairness voluntarily. That is where the state, this Parliament and the UK Government must step in to guarantee fairness for every worker in the UK, as Governments around Europe have done in the past.

    It is one of the sad ironies of the British Airways situation that in the other two countries where its parent company, International Airlines Group, operates—Ireland and Spain—fire and rehire tactics are banned. IAG could not tell its Aer Lingus subsidiary to copy and paste from the playbook of Willie Walsh and Alex Cruz, because the Irish Dáil took a decision to extend protections to workers in Ireland. Ireland’s economy is better placed, better structured and better regulated than that of the UK. It is time for the UK Government to learn lessons from our nearest neighbour and follow its lead.

    The Government can, in the words of the Prime Minister himself, put their “arms around” millions of workers across these isles with one very simple action: put aside Government time for my Bill. Get it into Committee, where we can debate how best to offer workers more protection from rogue bosses, and encourage those who are yet to be convinced to back this measure. My Bill would simply amend the Employment Rights Act 1996 and equip workers with the tools to protect their living standards virtually overnight. It would put our labour market on a level playing field with those of our European friends and allies, and, crucially, it would put our workers on a level playing field with workers in the rest of Europe. It would put our businesses on notice that the Victorian era is fit for the history books, not a guide to human resources.

    As I said to the Minister when we met to discuss the merits and content of my Bill, I am not precious about it being my Bill—this Bill—that makes the changes required. If the UK Government and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy come up with their own plan that achieves the same ends, I will wholeheartedly welcome it. I know that hon. Members on this side of the House would do the same, and that a great many of the Minister’s concerned colleagues, who have spoken to him about the issue, would also appreciate action.

    Workers do not care whose name is on the Bill. They care that their interests are being protected and that their jobs are not being used as pawns in a war in which the only winners are the likes of Willie Walsh and well-upholstered shareholders. The Minister said that although he and the Government could not support the Bill at this time, he remained open to looking at the issue and further protections. I hope to continue the dialogue.

    My Bill would make a simple amendment to the Employment Rights Act 1996 to add the re-employment of a worker on less favourable terms and conditions to the definition of unfair dismissal. That would allow employees to use the existing employment tribunal system to enforce their rights if required, and would mean that employers could no longer act with impunity. Amending the Act in that way would allow employees targeted for fire and rehire to take cases against unscrupulous employers and, where appropriate, secure reinstatement and compensation. In short, the Bill creates no extra bureaucracy, no extra administration and no extra ​complexity, but creates a necessary protection for workers that employers will be forced to respect or face judicial proceedings.

    I am grateful for the opportunity to lay out the case for action in that area. I look forward to the Labour Party re-tabling an Opposition day motion on it to allow us to have a real discussion and debate on the finer points. I also look forward to one or two Conservative Members potentially attempting to justify the actions of rogue employers such as Willie Walsh and Alex Cruz. Their actions were and are utterly shameful and immoral and should be illegal. After wrecking thousands of lives, they have both skipped off into the sunset. Mr Walsh took an £800,000 bonus pay-off having thrown more than 10,000 loyal staff on the dole in the middle of the biggest economic crisis since the war and effectively rehired 30,000 more on reduced terms and conditions.

    BA would say that fire and rehire has been taken off the table. Indeed, the outgoing chief exec told the Transport Committee a few weeks ago that that was the case, but there are two problems with that. First, a lot of the damage to thousands of lives has already been done. BA threatened the workforce with taking an effective pay-cut of 40%, 50% or 60% or taking redundancy, then followed through with the process of accepting voluntary requests, selecting who was successful in getting their old but less well-paid jobs back and making thousands more compulsorily redundant. Only then did it take fire and rehire off the table. That is callous and fools absolutely no one.

    Secondly, it seems that employees under the BA/IAG umbrella still face being fired and rehired at the turn of the year. When Alex Cruz confirmed to the Committee that it had been taken off the table, he was being at best disingenuous and at worst misleading. I should say that there is a new management team in place at BA. I wish them well in fixing the mess and trying to repair the broken relationship with the workforce. They need a lot of luck.

    It is not just British Airways. We said that its practice would be swiftly followed by others if the Government refused to follow the Prime Minister’s warm words with action, and so it has proven. Fellow blue-chip company, Centrica British Gas, has made the same fire and rehire threats to more than 20,000 of its employees, although it has not served notice on anyone at this point. Ground handler Menzies Aviation has also followed a similar path, despite assuring me personally that it would absolutely not be taking that approach. Many other companies across the UK, including Heathrow, have followed in British Airways’ dark and ever-growing shadow.

    Trade unions across the board, including Unite, GMB, Unison and Prospect; thousands of betrayed BA and Centrica workers; thousands more who feel that they ​will be next; and crucially, I believe, a natural majority in this House are all demanding action from the Government. They should act sooner rather than later, back our constituents and give them the support and protection they deserve, not just in the short term during the pandemic and its economic impact, but in the long term as we collectively build the economic recovery that we all need and hope for. But that recovery will be a hollow one if the Government leave workers in the same position they were in previously, at the mercy of corporations that treat the lack of regulation over their actions as a green light to mistreat and bully their employees.

    We must act to give workers security and dignity at work and my Bill would go some way—only some way, but an important way—to providing that security and dignity. I ask the Government and Government Members to go that way too and get behind my Bill.

  • Gavin Newlands – 2018 Speech on Insurance and Genetic Conditions

    Below is the text of the speech made by Gavin Newlands, the SNP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, in the House of Commons on 8 January 2018.

    May I wish you a happy new year, Mr Speaker? I hope you had a restful festive period. I know that, like me, you will have spent the time wondering why Paisley did not win the city of culture in 2021, and why Coventry still has not won it. I am grateful that you are in the Chair this evening.

    I am delighted finally to fulfil a promise that I made to John Eden, the chief executive of the Scottish Huntington’s Association, to bring to the Floor of the House a debate on the difficulties that both individuals currently suffering from genetic conditions and those with a high likelihood of developing such a condition in the future have in securing insurance. Those with complex neurological conditions, such as Huntington’s in particular, have real trouble in trying to access affordable and fair insurance that allows them to secure a range of services that the rest of us, quite frankly, take for granted.

    From the outset, I readily admit that this is not an easy issue: there is no easy fix. It is not a black-and-white issue, but the barriers facing those affected remain deeply unfair. In highlighting this problem, I intend to look at some of the problems that exist with genetic testing, as well as at how many insurance companies are able to bypass the voluntary concordat and moratorium on genetics and insurance by demanding that any applicant provides their full family history before they decide whether to insure someone.

    This issue was brought to my attention by the Scottish Huntington’s Association, which is based in my constituency. The SHA is the only charity in Scotland that is exclusively dedicated to supporting families affected by Huntington’s disease. As well as providing a range of specialist support services for those who suffer from this condition, including a world-leading team of specialist youth advisers and a financial wellbeing service, the SHA campaigns to help improve the life chances of those who suffer from this complex neurological condition.

    Across the UK, Huntington’s affects between five to 10 people per 100,000, but Scotland has one of the highest rates of prevalence, with about 20 in every 100,000 in Scotland having HD, and 5% to 10% of cases develop before the age of 20. Huntington’s is one of life’s most devastating illnesses. People with it can suffer from repetitive involuntary movements resulting in mobility, balance and co-ordination problems, as well as difficulties with speech and swallowing. Huntington’s can also develop a type of early-onset dementia that affects an individual’s ability to process information, make decisions, solve problems, plan and organise. Those affected by HD can also experience a decline in their mental health and may eventually lose the ability to walk, talk, eat, drink, make decisions or care for themselves, requiring support for most or all of their activities on a 24-hour basis.

    Despite the challenges that those with Huntington’s have to live through each and every day, they still need to live their lives, and that requires access to insurance. That particular issue is not new to this House, as it has been debated and discussed in the past, although it has ​not been raised as often as it should have been. The use of genetic testing in insurance can be traced back to debates held in this House in 2000. Unfortunately, as I will discuss later, it appears that not enough has been done by the UK Government or the insurance bodies to help rectify the matter properly.

    Individuals need to secure insurance on many different aspects of their lives. We need insurance to be able to drive a car. Most of us will require home insurance if we want to secure a mortgage, and families who want to go on holiday will need to secure travel insurance before setting off. Many of us will take out life insurance to protect us and our family and cover any tragic or unplanned event.

    Securing insurance is the responsible thing to do, but many individuals and families are prevented from doing so, as they are either unfairly refused outright or priced out of the market. Trying to find the right insurance is never fun, but it has never been easier. With the advent of comparison websites, five minutes is all it takes for most of us to access the most suitable and cheapest insurance. However, there are thousands of people out there who dread the thought of even trying to access insurance, because for them it is not the simple and straightforward task that it is for most of us. It is an extremely time-consuming experience, often fruitless and always very expensive.

    A survey completed late last year by Genetic Alliance UK found that 65% of respondents had problems accessing insurance. I am certain that that figure would have been higher had the survey asked questions only of Huntington’s sufferers.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I asked him for permission to intervene. I am a member of the Northern Ireland Rare Disease Partnership, an organisation that focuses on many rare diseases including Huntington’s. As the number of those with rare diseases and genetic conditions continues to increase and insurance cover becomes a greater problem for a greater number of people, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is time for the Government to review the insurance situation and ensure that the problem he has outlined, which I know about in my constituency, is addressed urgently?

    Gavin Newlands

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I wholeheartedly agree with him. I will come on to discuss the particular review relating to Huntington’s, but I totally agree with him.

    The reasons cited by survey respondents for not being able to access insurance included affordability, lack of understanding of the condition and the length of time the process takes to complete. Insurance policies by their very nature are designed to assess the level of risk before they choose to insure someone. We all know and accept that. If someone has previously crashed their car or had a bad credit rating, the chances are that they will either be denied insurance or face paying higher premiums for accessing insurance. It has always been thus. However, we should not equate having a bad credit rating to having a certain health condition, but that is exactly what is happening at the moment. Individuals with certain health conditions are experiencing great challenges to be able to access affordable insurance.​
    Genetic testing will be one of the ways in which insurance companies try to determine whether someone is destined to develop Huntington’s.

    Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)

    Does my hon. Friend feel that we will require legislation? Here, people with Huntington’s chorea are picked out because of a family history, but as we move into the era of genomics, if we allow insurance companies to force Huntington’s people to take genetics tests, we could all be forced to take genomic tests to see our risk of heart attack, cancer and so on. We need to deal with this now.

    Gavin Newlands

    I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. This is only the tip of the iceberg. We will have to come back to the issue under discussion and address the much wider issue in years to come.

    Insurance companies believe that information derived from genetic testing is of relevance to assessing risks, and they argue that it provides

    “a reliable indication of increased susceptibility to medical conditions which require expensive care.”

    However, individuals who face the brunt of these tests and are either denied insurance or face ridiculously high premiums believe that they are being discriminated against.

    An individual with a positive predictive genetic test for Huntington’s will find it extremely difficult to receive insurance, and I have received numerous emails from people throughout the UK sharing their experience of trying to secure insurance. Indeed, one contributor to the Huntington’s Disease Association Facebook page stated that they had tested negative but were still quoted over the odds because they had been tested.

    Those obstacles also affect the family members of those with Huntington’s. Another sad aspect of the disease is that it is hereditary, so it impacts on entire families over generations. People with HD often have children before developing symptoms of the disease. If someone carries the defective HD gene, each child they have has a 50% chance of having Huntington’s.

    An individual with a diagnosis of Huntington’s is not ordinarily able to obtain life, critical illness or income protection insurance, so families are unable to protect themselves from the future financial impact of this horrible disease. Not being able to access insurance compounds the huge negative economic impact of the disease. Those with HD almost always have to give up their employment, as do many of their family members, who have to act as carers for their loved ones. They also incur greater expenses arising from the health condition and many have to live on benefits—something that is proving impossible due to Tory austerity. If people are lucky enough to find insurance, they are very unlikely to be able to afford it, given the impact I have just described.

    One of the emails I spoke of earlier came from a family who have struggled to access basic holiday insurance. The Kitching family have two young children, one of whom has a rare genetic condition. Before their son was born, the family had no problem acquiring insurance and were able to cherry-pick the insurer they used. These days, it is a very different story. Last summer, they had to navigate numerous hurdles and obstacles, including spending nearly eight hours on the phone, to finally secure a basic travel insurance policy. Despite their best efforts, the Kitchings’ insurance bill increased by 900%, ​which is surely beyond what any of us would deem acceptable. Unsurprisingly, for a number of reasons, the Kitchings did not have a wide selection of providers to choose from. Not only were they met with a brick wall and a refusal to even discuss the possibility of insuring them, but they found that many companies lacked the necessary basic knowledge to assess the risks posed by certain health conditions.

    Those were the obstacles the Kitchings had to navigate to go on a simple family holiday to France. I am sure that hon. Members can only begin to imagine what that family and the many others like them would have to go through if they wanted to acquire life insurance.

    The experience of the Kitchings is not unique. According to Genetic Alliance UK, a national charity working to improve the lives of patients and families affected by all types of genetic conditions, 59% of people who responded to its 2017 survey said that they decided to change or cancel their holiday plans altogether because they would not be able to access basic holiday insurance. The Kitchings believe that the current system lacks any transparency and that greater clarity is required for them and families like them. They want the system to be much more closely regulated to ensure that individuals and families are not discriminated against by insurance companies because they lack the necessary medical knowledge to understand genetic conditions such as Huntington’s.

    Insurance companies recognise to some degree that individuals and families experience financial distress when trying to access the correct level of insurance. The UK Government and the Association of British Insurers therefore believe that the relationship between medical data and insurance underwriting should be proportionate and based on sound evidence. However, their definition of proportionate is, to say the least, at odds with what the families affected would consider to be fair and affordable.

    There are several reasons why many individuals are reluctant to take a genetic test, such as the financial black hole that can be caused by restricted access to affordable insurance or not wanting to live their lives under the cloud of diagnosis. According to Genetic Alliance UK, less than one in five people at risk of Huntington’s disease choose to have the predictive genetic test. To try to combat that, the concordat with insurance companies who are members of the ABI states that insurers will not seek the results of genetic testing for insurance with a value less than £500,000. In practice, that would mean that individuals and families had a far greater chance of accessing affordable insurance to go on holiday, buy a car or purchase a house.

    In reality, the moratorium provides little protection people for people with Huntington’s or similar neurological conditions because instead of the insurance companies mandating that someone complete a genetic test, they will get around it by demanding that any individual hoping to secure insurance provides other forms of information, including a full family history. As I mentioned, each child of a Huntington’s disease sufferer has a 50% chance of inheriting the condition. Therefore, the information that is gathered by bypassing the genetic testing can lead to an individual’s access to affordable insurance being restricted. As such, the current moratorium does not provide enough protection for individuals and makes securing insurance a near-impossible task to accomplish.​

    The SHA believes that the business model that many insurance companies use to calculate risk is limited and does not collect all the genetic information available to calculate more precisely an individual’s health conditions. In other words, if we must use genetics, let us use them properly. This point is reinforced by an email that I received from Trish Dainton, whose husband sadly passed away from Huntington’s. She highlighted the unfairness of a system that can increase an individual’s premiums to ridiculously high levels on the assumption that they might have the HD gene but might not start developing the symptoms for 40-plus years.

    It is no surprise, then, that so many people are avoiding being tested for HD, given that it could force them to pay a lifetime of sky-high insurance premiums. In addition, according to the 2017 survey by Genetic Alliance UK, 50% of respondents have avoided applying for insurance altogether, stating that concerns over premiums would prohibit them from accessing insurance. It should concern us all—certainly the Government—that too many people do not feel they can access any form of insurance. After hearing the stories from those who have lived with Huntington’s disease and how it affects their everyday lives, I think that it is clear that the insurance companies and the Government have to do a lot more to understand conditions such as HD.

    In preparing for tonight’s debate, I have been sent numerous emails from individuals affected who say that most people do not truly understand the disease. The insurance companies state that the development of genomics is crucial to helping to guide the industry, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), but the system should be guided by medical knowledge and not by what a pre-programmed computer screen tells the operator to do.

    As I have said, it has never been easier for most of us to quickly secure the insurance we need, and the insurance free market caters for the vast majority. For those with HD, however, shopping around means not a 30-second comparison website search but hours and hours of phone calls and being asked probing questions by someone who does not actually understand the condition. The Genetic Alliance UK report confirmed that the length of the process is one of the common complaints made by people and that there is a real desire for more action to be taken to reduce the time it takes to try and acquire insurance. That seems to be one way the insurance companies, whether at the Government’s behest or voluntarily, could work with stakeholders to design a process that prevents them from having to repeat the same information over and again.

    If we do not develop a system that better understands neurological conditions, we risk creating a genetic underclass of people excluded from accessing affordable insurance due to misleading and inaccurate information gathered by insurance companies. The UK Government have a key role in changing this system to help make life that bit easier for those who have HD. The insurance companies self-regulate who they will and will not provide coverage to. That is not fair, and it is not good enough.

    The current arrangements for insuring people who have or might have HD have not been reviewed since 2012, despite the fact that they should have been reviewed in 2014 and again in 2016. Indeed, the UK is out of step ​internationally in the way it treats those with genetic conditions. In 2000, the UK became the first nation to approve the commercial use of gene technology to allow insurers to refuse insurance cover or to push up premiums for those born with genes that could lead to fatal conditions later in life. Furthermore, unlike many other developed countries, such as Canada, the USA, Sweden, Luxembourg, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands, the UK does not have specific legislation that prevents genetic discrimination. Let us be clear: despite the fact that equalities legislation supposedly provides this protection, those affected believe that they are being discriminated against by the insurance companies.

    The Government have a duty to respond to the thousands of people across the UK who have been waiting for action to be taken against the insurance companies. There is plenty that can be done on this issue, but I would start with the HD insurance review that is now nearly four years overdue. The Government could get tougher on the insurance companies, offer to help with a Government-backed insurance scheme for those with Huntington’s or put a realistic cap on premiums. I am not asking the Minister to commit to any specific actions this evening beyond urging him to confirm a new review and requesting a meeting with me, the Scottish Huntington’s Association and others so that he can hear at first hand of the very real and systemic problems.

    In conclusion, I cannot—I am sure that none of us can—begin to understand how tough life is for those suffering from Huntington’s and the huge impact it has on the families caring for them. These families are not asking to change the world; all they want is to be able to access affordable insurance to allow them to go on holiday, buy a house, purchase that new car and protect them from the worst of the financial impact resulting from the condition. In short, they want to live their lives as best they can. We, as a society, should be doing all that we can to make life easier for those with genetic conditions, not putting further barriers in their way. I hope that the Minister can join me, and thousands of families up and down the country, in helping to create a fairer, more accessible and more affordable system for the individuals and their families who are currently in this invidious position.