Rob Bailey sits down with Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP Gordon Henderson, with questions on GP shortages, Oasis Academy and the MP's decision to stand down.
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00:03 Welcome to this Kent Politics Show special.
00:21 In these programs, we speak to some
00:23 of the most influential politicians in Kent.
00:25 And joining me tonight is the MP for Sittingbourne
00:28 and Sheppey, Gordon Henderson.
00:30 Welcome.
00:31 Good evening.
00:31 An MP since 2010, of course.
00:33 And I suppose the weather's providing us
00:36 with a bit of a metaphor.
00:37 We're just at twilight as evening's drawing in here.
00:39 Twilight of your time in Parliament as well.
00:41 It is twilight, yeah.
00:43 But there's another year to go.
00:45 You know what they say, a week's a long time in politics.
00:48 If that's the case, can you imagine
00:50 how long a year's going to be?
00:52 And there are some very big issues facing Swale.
00:55 And I wonder whether we could start
00:56 by talking a little bit about the issue of GPs on the island
01:00 and in Sittingbourne.
01:01 Swale Council has written to the Health Minister
01:05 saying that they need urgent help to recruit more GPs.
01:07 It has one of the lowest ratios of GPs
01:09 per patient in the country.
01:11 I think in some areas, it's 2,000 patients to every GP.
01:15 I mean, I have raised this issue in Parliament
01:17 on a number of occasions.
01:18 And it's not just in Swale.
01:21 Kent as a whole, particularly East Kent,
01:23 has a problem with it.
01:26 The Integrated Care Board is actually
01:28 doing a lot to actually recruit, is giving incentives to GPs
01:34 to come to our area.
01:35 So it's doing its bit.
01:37 What people often don't understand or don't realise
01:40 is it takes 10 years to train a GP.
01:44 Because one of the problems we face with GPs
01:46 is that they do their training in a training
01:49 hospital in London.
01:50 It's then difficult to encourage them to move outside London.
01:54 Since working in London, they get thousands of pounds more
01:58 a year from London waiting allowance.
02:01 And that's one of the problems we face in Kent generally,
02:04 not just with GPs, but with all other professionals.
02:07 The way that medicine works these days,
02:10 you don't actually need to see a GP.
02:12 In my GP surgery, for instance, I hadn't actually
02:15 seen my GP for some time.
02:17 I've had one or two health issues,
02:18 but I haven't seen my GP.
02:20 What happens is I ring the surgery,
02:23 and they say, we'll get the doctor to ring you.
02:25 He rings me.
02:25 We have a chat.
02:27 And if he's got to see me, he says, right, come in
02:29 and see me.
02:30 Or he says, you're OK, I'll do a prescription, blah, blah,
02:33 blah.
02:34 That's what we should be doing.
02:35 We've got to change the way we operate.
02:37 There's a kind of best case scenario thing there,
02:38 isn't there?
02:39 And for a lot of people, for a lot of the kind of appointments
02:41 we have, that kind of system works.
02:43 But there is always that risk if you don't have access to GPs,
02:46 that a diagnosis for something like breast cancer
02:49 or things like that, they're going to get missed,
02:51 aren't they, in those kind of cases?
02:52 I agree.
02:53 There are occasions when you have to see the GP.
02:57 But there's no reason why you should
02:59 have to go and see a GP to find out that you
03:02 need to go to the hospital.
03:04 We are improving.
03:05 GPs is a problem, but it is not critical.
03:13 As you've already mentioned, it's not just GPs.
03:15 There are all kinds of key worker positions
03:18 where recruitment is a real challenge at the moment.
03:20 And one of those areas is in education.
03:22 So you've been very involved in really
03:25 kind of sorting out quite a major problem
03:27 with the schools on the island there.
03:28 And you're both run by the same trust,
03:31 and that's going to change now.
03:33 What's the latest on how quickly we're
03:35 going to see a change in that, in the Oasis Academy?
03:38 Well, you said schools.
03:40 We've only got one school, and that's the problem.
03:43 The biggest problem with my constituency,
03:45 I have 60% of my constituencies is in Sittingbourne.
03:51 And in Sittingbourne, I have a boys' grammar school,
03:54 a girls' grammar school, and three good high schools.
03:59 On the Isle of Sheppey, which is 40% of my constituency,
04:02 I have one secretary school.
04:04 One school, one trust, spread across two sites,
04:08 two miles apart.
04:10 So you're bussing children backwards and forwards,
04:12 bussing teachers backwards and forwards.
04:14 And I said when it was proposed back in 2008, 2009,
04:19 before I was an MP, you've got to have a radical change.
04:22 We need at least two schools on Sheppey competing
04:25 against each other, offering choice to parents on Sheppey.
04:29 And we are going to get that now.
04:31 And I'm absolutely delighted.
04:33 Back in June, the Oasis Academy, as it still is at the moment,
04:38 but as it soon won't be, but that school
04:40 had 50 teacher vacancies.
04:42 It was the highest number of teacher vacancies
04:44 of any school in Kent.
04:45 It was actually accounted for one in three
04:47 of all of the teacher vacancies in Kent and Medway.
04:50 Have those been addressed now?
04:52 That you'd have to ask them.
04:53 I'm not aware.
04:54 They have had huge problems.
04:57 I think it will be addressed as and when the Lee Academy take
05:01 over, because my understanding is
05:03 that the Lee Academy have their own teacher training centre
05:07 and actually train up their own teachers.
05:09 And it's not the fault of Oasis, by the way.
05:13 The secondary education on Sheppey
05:15 has been abysmal since 1973, '74.
05:19 So this is 50 years that this has been
05:22 a problem on the Isle of Sheppey.
05:24 I mean, it's interesting to see all these things pulled
05:26 together.
05:26 So I mean, Sheppey, as you say, your constituency
05:29 has one of the worst GP ratios.
05:31 We've said about that already.
05:33 It has a school where there were, until very recently,
05:35 possibly even now, an extraordinary number
05:38 of teacher vacancies.
05:39 And on the prison, three prisons on the island,
05:43 an extraordinary level of vacancies of prison officers.
05:47 It seems like it's quite a fundamental issue
05:49 with key workers just not being willing to work on the island
05:52 or not being lured across.
05:53 Do you think that the Conservative government
05:55 bears some responsibility for--
05:56 No, I don't.
05:57 No, I don't think this is a political thing at all.
05:59 I think this problem's been around for years.
06:02 This problem would be there whatever parties in government.
06:06 I don't think you can blame it on the government at all.
06:09 I think fundamentally--
06:10 Who would you blame?
06:11 Well, I think it's the system.
06:13 It's the system.
06:16 And I'll go back to what I said earlier.
06:18 And it's not just my area.
06:19 It is Kent and areas in Kent generally.
06:22 And it is the fact that professionals
06:24 can earn more working in London.
06:26 And that does have a knock-on effect.
06:28 Now, if-- and there is a solution to the problem.
06:31 But successive governments have shied away from that.
06:34 And that is to extend the London waiting allowance outside
06:38 of Kent into--
06:40 outside of London into counties like Kent, Surrey, Sussex,
06:45 on a graduated scale.
06:47 That would actually solve the problem.
06:49 You've mentioned earlier on when we were talking about schools
06:51 that it can be a 45-minute journey for some pupils going
06:54 not that great a distance.
06:56 Roads have been a bit of an issue, haven't they?
06:58 And transport around your constituency
07:00 has been a particular issue over the last year or so.
07:03 Even if the roads were perfect, it would still
07:06 take that time to get pupils.
07:08 Because by its very nature, you're
07:11 going to find that the buses going off
07:13 will be picking up students from different pickup points.
07:17 The A249 is put down-- being put down
07:19 to one lane, which means that we've got traffic queues
07:23 from Cowesley Corner on Sheppey all the way through
07:26 to beyond Grove First roundabout on the A249, which in turn
07:31 is causing congestion and gridlock on the roads on Sheppey.
07:34 Because Sheppey is such that if you
07:40 have a problem on one road, immediately that
07:42 has a knock-on effect on all the other roads.
07:44 Another of the big issues that you've been dealing with
07:47 and you've spoken about in Parliament several times
07:49 is the problem of erosion.
07:50 There was a report not long ago saying
07:53 that by the end of this century, 90 homes
07:55 could be at risk of subsidence.
07:57 And you've been quite concerned, haven't you,
07:59 at the fact that there's not action being
08:01 taken to stop the erosion?
08:02 You're right.
08:03 Erosion is a problem.
08:04 It has been a problem for centuries,
08:06 and it will continue to be a problem for centuries.
08:09 I did have one of my local farmers come to me and say--
08:13 put in a planning application to actually bring in spoil
08:17 from some of the major national infrastructure works that's
08:22 taking place, whether it's Crossrail or HS2--
08:25 The ones that are still allowed to take place.
08:27 --the ones that are still taking place, yes.
08:29 And to bring them in in barge and bolster up the cliffs,
08:33 make a country park there.
08:34 So it was a win-win situation.
08:36 And it wouldn't have cost the taxpayer a penny.
08:40 Natural England put in an objection to the plan,
08:44 and so it was abandoned.
08:46 And Natural England have made it clear to me
08:49 that they will oppose any proposal to stop
08:53 the erosion of the cliffs.
08:54 And that is a big problem.
08:55 They do it because that stretch of the North Sheppey Coast
09:00 is a site of special scientific interest, a SSSI.
09:04 And it's not the land that is SSSI.
09:07 It's the act of erosion of the cliffs.
09:10 And I have tried to get the government to rescind that,
09:13 repeal that SSSI, and they haven't and won't,
09:17 for environmental reasons.
09:20 And until they do, sadly, there's
09:22 nothing that can be done to stop the erosion of the cliffs,
09:27 and therefore the loss of some or more properties.
09:29 And you're passing the torch on.
09:30 We know now that the conservative candidate
09:33 for your constituency would be Aisha Cuthbert.
09:36 Interesting candidate.
09:37 She serves in Bromley at the moment,
09:39 a former synchronised swimmer.
09:40 She does.
09:41 She is moving to Sydenham, though,
09:44 so she's going to be moving down fairly soon.
09:47 The one thing I'm delighted about--
09:49 I didn't have any part in the selection process.
09:52 Let me get that very clear.
09:53 But what I did want my association to do
09:57 was to select somebody who was going
10:00 to carry on in the same mode as me, which has always
10:05 been to put my community first, setting aside
10:08 the politics of it.
10:09 As you said earlier, you had a very convincing win in 2019
10:13 when the Conservative Party delivered a very strong election
10:17 result.
10:18 But we've seen very big majorities fading away
10:21 in by-elections over the course of the last few months.
10:24 Do you think that your successor is
10:26 going to be fighting in much more of a marginal seat
10:29 than you have?
10:30 No.
10:35 I think it will be a tight fight.
10:36 It always will be.
10:37 It always has been.
10:38 I've never been complacent about it.
10:40 And in Sydenham or Sheppey, we've
10:42 only had either Labour or Conservative
10:45 members of Parliament.
10:48 You're right.
10:48 It will be difficult, and I'm not complacent about that.
10:52 Do you see yourself as part of that trend of Conservative MPs
10:55 possibly leaving the sinking ship ahead of a general election?
10:58 I don't see it as a sinking ship.
10:59 I think you're going to be surprised at the result
11:01 of the next general election.
11:02 I'm not suggesting that we're going to have overall control,
11:05 but I don't think it's going to be as bad as people are.
11:08 That's not why I'm leaving.
11:10 Let me be honest why I'm leaving.
11:12 Next year, I will have been working full time
11:16 since I left school at 16 for 60 years, 60 years full-time work.
11:21 And I just think that at 76, it's time for me to say,
11:25 I've got to spend a bit--
11:27 politicians always say that.
11:28 I want to spend time with my family.
11:30 But it's true on my account.
11:33 There's a reason why they become cliches, isn't there?
11:35 It is, yes, absolutely.
11:36 Gordon Henderson, thank you so much for joining us.
11:39 My pleasure.
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