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My week in Westminster

Posted by Kate Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston, at 09:06, Fri 7 September 2012:

The first week back in parliament after the summer has been pretty busy. I've been in the chamber asking questions about immigration, post offices, apprenticeships, more affordable housing for Trafford, and funding for schools.

I also spoke in a debate about new regulations the government wants to introduce on age discrimination. Labour passed the equality act in 2010 with cross-party agreement. That outlawed age discrimination, but it was agreed at the time that certain exemptions to the ban would be allowed where age was a relevant factor in a business's decision on whether to offer a product or service.

The usual examples of where there are problems are for example when an older person can't get travel insurance, or a younger person is charged exorbitant rates for motor insurance. Of course, there are reasons why the risk associated with the age of these customers might be relevant. But I'm disappointed that the government has listened too much to the financial services industry, and agreed to exemptions that seem to go beyond what is necessary.

How can it be right, for example, that an older person can't get a credit card or bank account because a bank decides - without any evidence - that older customers can't understand the product? Yet that would probably be permitted under these new regulations.

AgeUK and Which both point to numerous examples of younger and older people being unable to find the financial products they need. So I pressed the minister hard to keep the impact of these new rules under close review.

I was also able this week to secure a short debate on the rising incidence of rickets. I guess most of us thought this disease belonged firmly to the past, but it's been on the increase over the past couple of decades. The reasons are quite complex, but the answers aren't: maximising intake of vitamin D is key.

Government guidelines say that vitamin D supplements should be taken by at-risk groups, including young children and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. But research by the NHS in Stockport showed that too often, mums weren't getting the information that they should. The minister mostly seemed to agree with me that more action was needed to raise awareness and increase the uptake of vitamin D supplements. Now I'm working with local GPs, paediatricians and other health professionals to keep up the pressure on government.

Unfortunately, the minister who dealt with the debate, and understood the concerns, was reshuffled 24 hours later by David Cameron. I'll be following up with the new minister, but I'm really concerned to find that we now have Jeremy Hunt in charge at the Department of Health. This is the man who apparently wanted to get the celebration of the NHS removed from the Olympics opening ceremony. And who would like to replace our universal, free, NHS with American-style health insurance.

This is deeply worrying, especially given the scale of the health changes being proposed for Trafford. Settling for the status quo isn't good enough for my constituents; I want more investment in the health services we need. But there are far too many unanswered questions - where are the guarantees about investment in the ambulance service, we desperately need a modern healthcare centre in Old Trafford, where's the investment in public transport so that people in Partington can travel to hospital for outpatient treatment or to visit relatives, what guarantees are we getting about the future of hospital services at Trafford General?

Public satisfaction with the NHS was at a record high when Labour left office in 2010. Now public satisfaction is falling at record speed. It's the same old story: you can't trust the Tories with our NHS.