Letter from Parliament - Jim Dobbin MP

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Jim Dobbin MP

I received a letter on 3 June from the GMB Trade Union informing me that I had 4 care homes in the constituency owned by Southern Cross Healthcare, the largest care home provider in the UK.

Heywood Court, Green Lane Heywood, Halton Care, Clarke’s Brow Middleton, Langfield, Wood St Middleton and Middleton Hall, Grimshaw Lane are the 4 homes.

In March this year I had signed an early Day motion registering concerns that the company Southern Cross was facing financial problems and requesting the Government to intervene and transfer their management to local authority control. That of course would require additional government funding. Southern Cross owns 750 care homes with 31,000 residents and employing over 40,000 staff.

Southern Cross was sold by private equity firm Blackstone for £640 million. This company walked away and left the care homes on the verge of bankruptcy.

The elderly who need care are now seen as a profit making concern. Other care home companies are also in financial trouble. The Government must provide resources to protect elderly people in care. This is a good example and an early warning as to what would be likely to happen if private firms are allowed to run an NHS hospital. The sick would then be under threat from their profit making equity companies. Heaven forbid.

Of course this kind of deal is being encouraged by the coalition’s public sector cuts policy. Right wing led IMF unsurprisingly has rubber stamped Osborne’s austerity Budget measures against the opinion of all expert and credible economists. We will see soon who has got it right. I know who my money is on.

As a member of the Council of Europe Environment and Agricultural committee, I attended a conference on the importance of water to the people of the world. 3 billion people across the world have no access to drinking water. This is one of the major challenges of this new century. Access to water must be recognised as a fundamental human right. It is essential to all life on earth and should be shared by all humanity. Water is used to provide energy. Water is overexploited as deforestation, intensive farming and rapid urbanisation is leading to water shortages by polluting rivers and ground water. If this is not tackled urgently on a global basis then areas of conflict could be the result. The meeting was a preparatory meeting for a global conference in Marseilles in 2012.

On 30 May I took part in an eight and a half mile walk for a pro-life charity along the banks of the River Ribble near Clitheroe. The weather was fine and I enjoyed it but did feel a bit stiff afterwards.

I attended a meeting in the House of Commons on Human Trafficking and ended up chairing it. It was very worrying to listen to tales of the abuse that takes place especially against women and children, all in the cause of profit and greed. Human trafficking is rife in this country organised by gangs from across the world. This has to be one of the tragedies of our time. When caught, those involved should be jailed for a very long time.