Health and Care Bill

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Rosena Allin-Khan

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

The Opposition congratulate the Lords on their hard work on the Bill, which is much improved from when it left the Commons. We support the Lords amendments, which are sensible and proportionate and will go some way to tackling health inequalities that are still sadly far too prevalent.

Over the past two years, we have seen the very best of our NHS. Publicly owned and free at the point of use, it is the best of us and has protected our families for generations; I hope it will continue to do so for many years to come. Unfortunately, the Government are set on a power grab, and refuse to act to tackle workforce shortages and ever-growing waiting lists. Waiting times for cancer care are now the longest on record, patients with serious mental illnesses are being sent hundreds of miles away for treatment, and one in four mental health beds have been cut since 2010. We deserve better. Our NHS deserves better.

We can all agree that the amendments in this group are wide-ranging, so I will be covering a range of subjects. A number of amendments in the group speak to women’s health. We have seen time and again that the Government are dismissive of women’s health and have ignored the needs of half the population. In its original form, the Bill was far too scant on tackling health inequalities; it is only because of colleagues in the other place and Labour votes that we are making ground on tackling them at all.

Along with the rest of our health team, I am proud to support the continued provision of telemedical abortion services in England. Maintaining the existing provision of at-home early medical abortion following a telephone or video consultation with a clinician is crucial for women’s healthcare. Not only did that preserve access to a vital service during the pandemic; it enabled thousands of women to gain access to urgently needed care more quickly, more safely and more effectively. Women’s healthcare must reflect the needs of those whom it serves. Scrapping telemedical abortion services would drastically reduce access to that vital service, and would simply serve to increase the number of later-term abortions. Everyone should have access to safe and timely healthcare. I say to Ministers: please do not ignore clinical best practice and the expert opinions of organisations and royal colleges.

We welcome provisions to ban hymenoplasty, and the power to create a licensing regime for non-surgical cosmetic procedures. Those too were a result of Labour votes, because the original Bill did not even mention them. Ministers must stop treating women as an afterthought in healthcare provision. However, we are glad to see that the Government have accepted the Lords amendment to remove coroners’ access to material held by the Health Service Safety Investigations Body.

On the NHS frontlines, I see at first hand the pressure placed on staff. Staff must feel protected, and must be encouraged to come forward. It is crucial for the Bill to promote a learning culture, so that any investigation can establish what training and procedures need to change in order to prevent any future mistakes. Only by enshrining that culture can we ensure that staff will feel comfortable about coming forward.

We welcome Baroness Hollins’s amendment to introduce mandatory training on learning disabilities and autism for all regulated health and care staff, and we are pleased to see that the Government support it. Everyone deserves access to safe, informed, individual care, and hopefully the amendment will go some way towards reducing health inequalities that are faced all too regularly by people with learning disabilities and autism.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I agree with much of what my hon. Friend is saying. For instance, I too believe that it is a woman’s right to choose. One of the features of a physical consultation was that it gave the woman an opportunity to do so in a free environment. Does my hon. Friend share the concern that I know exists among many of our constituents that if the consultation is done by telephone, it is possible that a woman who is being coerced will not be understood to be being coerced by the consultant who is dealing with her? It is important that, in preserving the right to choose for the woman, we do not allow a situation in which that woman could be coerced, by a coercive partner, into making a choice that is not her own.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. There are widely held variations in views across the House, but I stand by the principle that everyone should have access to safe and timely healthcare, and that scrapping telemedical abortion services would drastically reduce access to a service that is incredibly important for women, and, as I have said, would simply increase the number of later-term abortions, which can have physical and mental impacts on the mother herself.

As for Lords amendments 85 to 88, it is disappointing to see the Government going against their own ambitions and targets. The consultation referred to in Lords amendment 83 would be on a statutory “polluter pays” scheme to make tobacco manufacturers fund measures to reduce smoking prevalence and improve public health. Smoking is responsible for half the difference in life expectancy between the richest and the poorest in society. Will the Minister please explain why we are still waiting to see the Government’s tobacco control plan, which we were promised by the end of 2021? The Government need to stop kicking public health matters into the long grass. They say that they recognise the stark health inequalities associated with tobacco use, but delays will do nothing to level the playing field and eradicate health disparities.

Ministers need to make sure they listen to the Lords, whose amendments go a long way towards eradicating the vast health inequalities that exist across society today. Rather than wasting time trying to overturn the changes, Ministers should now focus relentlessly on bringing waiting times down.