Government Policy on Health

Debate between Baroness Merron and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)]

My Lords, to set out some key points in respect of the right honourable Alan Milburn, he has no formal role in the department. Therefore, the conflicts of interest the noble Lord referred to do not even arise. The main thing I would like to set out is that it is very important to make a distinction between the areas of business and meetings in the department about generating ideas and policy discussion—it is those in which Mr Milburn has been involved, at the request of the Secretary of State—and the very different meetings about taking government decisions. If I might summarise it for your Lordships’ House: Ministers decide, advisers advise.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I declare a certain puzzlement at this Question. I recall, when the Conservatives were in office, reading regularly on the front page of the Times that donors had been talking to the Prime Minister or various Cabinet Ministers about government policy and expressing strong views on which direction they should take in various areas. As an academic, I am also well aware of the extent to which expertise comes into government through informal channels.

On one now famous occasion, which was not reported at the time, a number of experts on the Soviet Union whom I knew well were invited by Margaret Thatcher to an informal seminar in No. 10 to advise on whether the Foreign Office or Margaret Thatcher’s advisers were correct in their attitude to the Soviet Union. A number of the academics suggested that the Third Secretary of the Communist Party, then a man called Gorbachev, was a good person to get to know. Mrs Thatcher took their advice rather than that of her advisers and it had a remarkably positive impact on British foreign policy. Do the Government accept that all informal contact with outside experts is desirable and that it is a good thing, where possible, that it should be reported?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

It is right that people from outside government come into departments to lend their expertise and share their views and that Ministers make decisions without those people involved. That was the line I was trying to draw. The Secretary of State for Health is very fortunate to be able to turn to every living former Labour Health Secretary, from the right honourable Alan Milburn through to my noble friend Lord Reid, Andy Burnham and many others, because all of them have offered to roll their sleeves up and assist us. Perhaps I could remind your Lordships’ House that, between them, they delivered the shortest waiting times and highest patient satisfaction in the history of the National Health Service. I hope that we will be able to do justice to their experience.