Health and Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Thornton and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Thursday 3rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am implacably opposed to privatisation of the NHS—not for ideological reasons, although the Green Party is strongly opposed as well. I think it is inefficient. Privatisation has not worked. It has failed to deliver on promises to increase quality, decrease cost and help patients. Rather than save money through reduced bureaucracy, the main cost savings of privatisation seem to be in cutting the terms and conditions—chiefly the pay and pensions—of staff. If private companies can compete for public services, let them compete on a level playing field, rather than simply capturing staff and paying them less.

I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, explained his Amendment 98 because I had understood it completely the other way around—that he was protecting private services. I was going to have a word with him afterwards about it, but there is now no need.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, just said, most people in Britain do not want a privatised NHS. They want a public service because that is what will give them the best results.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, this group contains a number of helpful amendments. I welcome the amendments that the Government have tabled in response to the many and varied discussions we have had. I am grateful for this positive and constructive approach, which proposes transparency at the heart of procurement.

We have discussed with the Government at some length why the NHS has to have its own bespoke procurement regime, which the Bill paves the way for. We have seen two consultation documents about the scope, scale and nature of this bespoke regime. Although they seem quite sensible, we have been assured that the Government feel that the regulations will be based on a sound foundation.

The noble Lord, Lord Warner, is quite right about patients not knowing their right to choose. It is a hole in the provision. The right to choose is very important. People absolutely do not know that they have it.

While not being explicit, the new providers’ selection regime will actually get us to where Labour tried to get in 2010 with the NHS as the preferred provider, at least as far as the many complex and expensive services provided by NHS trusts, FTs and other core patient-facing services are concerned. Therefore, the principle is fine. The problem is that it does not extend across everything that the NHS procures, and that is partly the nub of what my noble friend said in his amendments, which I will return to in a moment.

Our view is that in any circumstances where competitive procurement is to be used, the national rules apply, so why does the NHS need a bespoke system for all non-clinical stuff? We have never actually had an answer to that, except that the NHS comes up with wider regulations, and we feel that that it is a waste of time and effort. However, we have had ample assurances from the Government that the NHS bespoke regime will be properly documented and all the rules set out, with some route to enforcement and challenge. We are assured that there will be no award of contract without applying the process that is set out—no back doors and no flexibility when contracting with private companies. With those assurances in mind and the knowledge that campaigners and trade unions will be vigilant and might even stump up for judicial review, and because of the ICB amendments agreed earlier in the week, we will get more or less what we wanted and we will not try to remove Clause 70 from the Bill.

I turn to the remarks of my noble friend Lord Hendy, who has our sympathy and approval. Had we been discussing this at a different time of day, we may have sought to support some of his amendments, and certainly the spirit of them. He has posed a legitimate question to the Minister: why do the Government not insist on good employment of staff as a criterion for their procurement regime?

We on this side of the House remain opposed to the outsourcing of NHS-funded services such as cleaning, catering and many others because we can see that it has led to staff being transferred into the private sector, corners being cut and standards dropping. It has been a symptom of chronic underfunding and it is a terrible long-term strategy. It has of course been completely counterproductive because it has sometimes meant that our hospitals have not necessarily been cleaned, serviced or looked after as we might have wished them to be. We have tried at various stages to introduce safeguards and to outlaw altogether the NHS’s tax-dodging habit of setting up SubCos, but those are probably matters for another day.

I would say to my noble friend that I am not sure that changing the procurement regime is the best way forward for this issue, although he has our support in the politics and context in which he introduced his amendments.