EU Funding (Rotherham and Barnsley)
Debate between John Healey and John Bercow
John Healey
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think that the Minister was suggesting that I had misled the House, when in fact what I had told him was that the patterns of actual spend in the European regional development fund funding for the final years of this current programme are broadly similar right across the range and have not sharply dropped as the original plan envisaged.
Mr Speaker
I was listening and I thought the Minister was saying that he did not want the House to be misled. I am sure that he would not accuse any Member of misleading the House, because he would be in breach of our procedures if he did. The Minister was not suggesting that, was he?
Public Service Pensions Bill
Debate between John Healey and John Bercow(11 years, 11 months ago)
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John Healey
My hon. Friend is making an important argument in response to the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). It is not just that the Bill includes certain things that advantage employers; the measures are principally to the advantage of the Treasury, which is given the whip hand and ultimate say over schemes that should be run by their members and managers accountable to them.
My hon. Friend quoted the Economic Secretary in Committee. When the Minister rises to his feet, is it not important that he explain the discrepancy between what he said in Committee and what the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said to this House in December last year? He said:
“Because we have agreed to establish new schemes on a career average basis, I can tell the House that we have agreed to retain the fair deal provision and extend access for transferring staff.”—[Official Report, 20 December 2011; Vol. 537, c. 1203.]
There is a big difference between those two statements and the Economic Secretary needs to explain himself on that point.
Mr Speaker
Order. Before the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) replies, let me say that although I have indulged the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) on this occasion I hope he will not repeat such a long intervention. I do not want him to induce the hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) into following bad habits. That would be a very undesirable state of affairs.
Points of Order
Debate between John Healey and John Bercow
Mr Speaker
Well, he is certainly a modest fellow, although not with much to be modest about. We will not discuss that any further, but what I would say is that disputes about the impact of the Government’s most recent offer on pension levels are an appropriate matter for debate, and arguments over calculations and hypothetical examples are not tantamount to any deliberate misleading of the House. The hon. Gentleman is an experienced—not an old—hand who has put his concerns forcefully on the record.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Have you received an approach from the Health Secretary to say that he may have misled the House yesterday in Health questions when answering a question from me about the risk register for his NHS reorganisation? He told the House:
“I have been very clear and published all…risk information relating to the modernisation of the NHS”.—[Official Report, 22 November 2011; Vol. 536, c. 149.]
He has made the same argument to the Information Commissioner who, in a legal decision, said that
“he does not accept the argument and considers that disclosure would go somewhat further in helping the public to better understand the risks associated with the modernisation of the NHS than any information that has previously been published.”
Will you advise the House, Mr Speaker, on how we can correct the record and get to the truth about the risks that the Government’s policies on NHS reorganisation pose to our NHS?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order, but there is not much that I can offer by way of encouragement or comfort. He is an experienced Member of Parliament, and he has put his interpretation of those matters on the record. I said a moment ago that the contents of answers are a matter for Ministers, but answers to parliamentary questions are not themselves covered by the statutory provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. If he thinks either that the Minister has erred or that I have erred in my exegesis of his point of order—or, indeed, both—no doubt he will return to these matters and will require no encouragement from me to do so.
Points of Order
Debate between John Healey and John Bercow(13 years, 2 months ago)
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John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last week, this House was asked to debate, amend and agree the Health and Social Care Bill. We were asked to scrutinise that legislation with no updated information on the costs and consequences of the biggest reorganisation in NHS history, because the Government had promised a new impact assessment but had not published it before the debate. It was then smuggled out with no press statement the very next day and it shows that savings are planned at £2 billion less, it shows that the new economic regulator, Monitor, is set to have 600 staff at an average cost of £84,000 each and, most importantly to this House, on page three it shows that the Minister signed it off on 1 September, a full five days before the debate in this House. It is a disgrace that these facts were kept hidden from the House and the public before such a critical and controversial debate. In the light of page 447 of “Erskine May”, can you advise this House whether the Government have followed the proper parliamentary procedure and of what steps can be taken to stop such abuse in the future?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his point of order. He has made his point and it will have been heard by those on the Treasury Bench. Although the release of such information is a matter for the Government rather than for the Chair, I can tell him and the House that I do attach importance to the timely provision of information to the House, which is both courteous to Members and helpful in their deliberations. It is fortunate for the right hon. Gentleman and the House that at the time of his raising his point of order—this may not be a coincidence—the Leader of the House was sitting on the Treasury Bench. The Leader of the House is as courteous a man as is to be found on either side of the Chamber; he attaches importance to these matters and though he may not wish to respond to the point of order now, I can assure the House that he will have heard it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Healey and John Bercow(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
The right hon. Gentleman asked about performance last year. I told him what the financial performance was. Let me also make it clear that, for example, for hospital in-patients, referral to treatment waiting time has gone down from 8.4 weeks in May 2010 to 7.9 weeks in the latest figures in March, and for out-patients the figure has gone down from 4.3 weeks in May 2010 to 3.7 weeks in the latest figures, so waiting times have improved. We have established the cancer drugs fund, with more than 2,500 patients benefiting from that. We have published and driven down the number of breaches of the single sex accommodation rules: a 77% reduction in those breaches, which Labour never achieved. In the last year we have reduced the number of MRSA infections in hospitals by 22% and C. difficile infections by 15%. I applaud the NHS—
Mr Speaker
Order. I think we have got the thrust of it and are most grateful.
John Healey
The Secretary of State mentioned a lot of things, but I notice that he did not mention the Prime Minister’s five new guarantees. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State shakes his head as if they do not matter, but perhaps he was not consulted on them. People have seen the Prime Minister make and then break promises on the NHS before, but this time he is breaking his pledges as he is making them. The King’s Fund says that waiting times are going up and the Nuffield Trust says that health funding is being cut in real terms. Privatisation, the break-up of integrated care and the removal of national standards at the heart of the health service are exactly what his health Bill is designed to do. Is that not why MORI shows public concern about the NHS rising rapidly and why people are right to conclude that they cannot trust the Tories on the NHS?
Future of the NHS
Debate between John Healey and John Bercow(13 years, 6 months ago)
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John Healey
When the hon. Gentleman reads his next edition of Pulse, he will see my correction of that report, and note that the first five paragraphs were all reported and contained no quotes from me. He ought to know that after a survey by the British Medical Association found that more than half of doctors believed that they would spend less time with their patients as a result of these changes, the chairman of the BMA council, Dr Hamish Meldrum, said:
“This survey shows that the government can no longer claim widespread support among doctors as justification for these flawed policies.”
It is not the five clauses that set up the GP consortia that cause the most concern. It is the 85 clauses that set up the NHS as a full-scale market, and it is part 3 of the Bill, which opens up all areas of the NHS to private health companies; removes requirements for proper openness, scrutiny and accountability to the public and to Parliament; allows NHS hospitals to go bust and face a commercial insolvency scheme; places the judgment of the new competition regulator—just like those for gas and electricity—at the heart of decisions about the future of the NHS; and, for the first time, makes the NHS subject to the full force of UK and European competition law. That means that, in the long term, we will see clinical planning in the NHS being replaced by market competition, service integration being replaced by corporate cherry-picking, public accountability being replaced by commercial confidentiality and the public ethos at the very heart of our NHS being replaced by the profit motive.
I agree with the Deputy Prime Minister that no Bill is better than a bad one, but I say to him that this is a bad Bill. That is why we have opposed it from the outset, and that is why we say that it must be shelved in its current form and that radical changes must be made. For us, for the NHS and for NHS patients, this is the test of the Prime Minister’s promise to protect the NHS. I commend the motion to the House. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary should be setting a good example to others. I call the Secretary of State for Health.
Points of Order
Debate between John Healey and John Bercow
Mr Speaker
I fully understand the strength of feeling of the right hon. Gentleman, and I know that the House will respect the sincerity and experience with which he registered his concerns. I hope that he, as an experienced parliamentarian, will readily understand that I cannot join the argument. However, he has put his point forcefully on the record in the presence of Ministers. In particular, it has been heard with courtesy by the Deputy Leader of the House. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to pursue the matter in other ways, he can. I have not as yet had any indication that a Minister wishes to make a statement on the subject.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This afternoon in Health questions, the Health Secretary told the House that waiting times were stable in the NHS. In fact, for the first time in three years more than one in 10 in-patients are waiting more than 18 weeks for their hospital treatment; the proportion of people waiting more than four hours for emergency treatment is the highest for six years; and the number of people waiting for diagnostic tests for more than six weeks has doubled. Those are the Government’s figures, confirmed recently by the independent King’s Fund. Can the House, through you, Mr Speaker, ensure that the Health Secretary sets the record straight and, in future, gives a full and accurate account of the changes in waiting times that we have seen over the past year?
Mr Speaker
What I would say to the right hon. Gentleman is as follows. First, Ministers are responsible for the content, including the accuracy, of the answers that they give and the statements that they make to the House. Secondly, I hope he will understand when I say that I cannot get involved in the question of the quality of an answer. Thirdly, I think it would be well beyond the limited powers and capacities of the Chair to join an almost theological debate about what constitutes stability, in respect of either the health service or any other feature of our national life. However, the shadow Health Secretary has put his point on the record.
Point of Order
Debate between John Healey and John Bercow
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Earlier this afternoon in Health questions, the Secretary of State either misled the House or made a serious mistake—I prefer to believe that it was the latter—when he told the House that I was wrong to say that the Government are breaking their promises on NHS funding. He said that even if the switch in extra funding to social care is excluded, the NHS budget will nevertheless increase in real terms over the next four years. However, the Nuffield Trust and the House of Commons Library both confirm that the budget will be cut. Can the House, through you, Mr Speaker, ensure that the Secretary of State corrects his statement this afternoon, at the earliest opportunity?
Mr Speaker
The short answer to the right hon. Gentleman is, no, not in the immediate term, because I sensed from what he said—and I listened very carefully—that that is a matter of political debate, and there will be argument about who is right or which facts trump others. I therefore cannot offer him the early prospect, or indeed any certain prospect, of a statement.
The right hon. Gentleman and I came into the House together in 1997, so I know him relatively well—he is a very experienced and wily campaigner. He has just put his own verdict on the Government’s position very forcefully on the record in prime time, and I have a feeling that he will share that verdict with others.
Mr Speaker
Order. There is no further point of order to be made. The right hon. Gentleman has done very well out of me. He should be grateful and exultant. He should be saying thank you to me rather than looking for a second go.
If there are no further points of order, we will deal with the ten-minute rule motion, for which the Member concerned has been patiently waiting.
Point of Order
Debate between John Healey and John Bercow
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I draw your attention to today’s edition of The Daily Telegraph? It announces a planning policy change on so-called garden grabbing. May I ask you to investigate the circumstances of this case, which appear to be of selective leaking and spin, and will you report to the House your views on that and your views in general on announcements being made to journalists before they are made to Members of the House?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I hope he will not be shocked, and the House will not be horrified, to learn that I have not yet read The Daily Telegraph today. However, I am mindful of the fact that there has been a written ministerial statement on the subject by the Government, so I do not think it would be correct or accurate to characterise the situation as one in which the House has not been informed of Government policy. I am happy to look at the piece in question. I will reflect on it. If I have anything further to add that the House needs to hear, the House will hear it, but otherwise I am inclined to leave the matter there.