Brexit: Health and Welfare

Debate between Lord Dykes and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Thursday 29th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the speeches so far in this debate, which has been serious and solemn but also moving. I am very grateful, like others who have expressed their gratitude, to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for launching this important debate.

If I may say so, without sounding in any way unctuous or sentimental, I was struck by the fact that not only are there eight noble Baronesses speaking in this debate but, just behind the Clerks’ table, we have three of the experts in this House on the National Health Service, because of both their own personal experiences and their deep knowledge of all the subjects that come within the NHS ambit. I was very moved by the description from the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, of her earlier years and how she coped with them. Those things will register, too, because the NHS is a most precious institution in this country, which the Government tamper with or undermine at their peril. People would not forget it if they did it any damage in the future.

Having said that, I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, a colleague for many years, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, for being among the three mere males in this debate. It is an interesting reflection that women really know far more about the National Health Service than men do. That is a silly comment on my part, and I apologise for the tweets and comments that I may get on the internet from male practitioners in the NHS, saying “That’s not fair”. However, there is some connection there with the knowledge women have, given that so many women work at all levels of employment, including as technicians or the so-called unskilled. But as someone said earlier in the debate, those workers are very skilled in their work even if they are cleaners, because cleaning medical premises is a skilled job. The majority of all those people tend, I believe, to be women, including those who come from overseas.

The National Health Service is a precious institution. I was going to say that everybody in the debate is anti-Brexit except the Minister, who has to pretend to be in favour of Brexit because that is his portfolio task. I thank him for being here.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord O'Shaughnessy) (Con)]

It is worse than that; I am in favour of it.

[Lord Dykes]

The Minister has confirmed that he is in favour of Brexit. It is nice to have the odd view given in a debate where everybody else is in favour of staying in the European Union, but I thank him for his personal efforts in this field as a Minister. I attended the meeting he held at the beginning of this week on the new death certification procedures that are coming in. We were grateful, since he is very busy. He is highly regarded in this House for the detailed and caring answers he gives to many complicated NHS questions. In that spirit, I hope that he will forgive my frivolity in referring to his official duties. We will see what happens in the future with those.

It is important for us to reflect on what is at stake here, with the damage done by this foolish decision to proceed with Brexit. There are still Ministers who are in denial psychologically about the damage already done to this country. The economy is already in the beginnings of what might even be a slight recession because of the decisions made by enterprises of one kind or another, mainly putting a halt to their long-term investment plans or transferring overseas.

I share the contempt enunciated by previous speakers—including the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, herself—for the infamous red bus used in the pro-Brexit campaign, with Boris Johnson triumphant and chortling at the untruths written on its side; we now know that to be so. As a keen European as well as a patriotic Britisher, I am glad to say that there is now a different red bus travelling around this country with a different slogan for Europe. It is getting a tremendous reception everywhere it goes and has been a great success so far.

The NHS does millions of transactions every week. Most of them are carried out very well despite the pressures on employment, the reduction in the number of staff and so on and the huge pressure that NHS staff, doctors and specialists are experiencing because of the Government’s austerity cuts. There are millions of successful transactions every week. They are not noticed by the right-wing papers in this country, which pounce on the slightest unfortunate incident. Incidents are bound to happen, given the many different transactions that take place in our wonderful NHS. It is probably the best in the world, although there are many other good examples in smaller countries and in Scandinavia. In this country we are lumbered with six extreme right-wing newspapers—whose overseas owners do not pay UK personal taxes—with repetitive and boring editorials urging us all to be very patriotic. They always pounce, whenever they can, if something goes wrong in the health service. It is quite right for the press to follow up legitimately, but not when saying that there is something wrong with the National Health Service is propagandistic; millions of satisfied patients and customers—if I can use that word—know what it is like.

My personal experience has been twofold. I have had to go to A&E at St Thomas’ several times and I have used the European health insurance card, which other speakers in this debate have mentioned. The way St Thomas’ A&E is organised is utterly brilliant—it is fantastic. I have been there late at night when it is under huge pressure, and I pay tribute to it. There are numerous other examples of A&Es that are under very severe pressure nowadays that manage to cope. The European health insurance card is precious to so many British people and has reciprocal effects for those coming here and using our facilities. The idea that it would be in any way dented at the margin because of this foolish Brexit plan would be intolerable for many members of the public.

I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for missing the last two minutes of her speech because I had to take an urgent phone call. I shared the pleasure of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, at the fact that she has medical connections and connections with Hamburg. She is a great European spokesman and I thank her for what she did in the European Parliament. I know she has always been interested in the health service and therefore believes that these things matter.

Are we not lucky in this House to have the excellent Library briefing service? The document on health and welfare in the UK is outstanding, and I shall refer briefly to two items in it. I could mention its author but perhaps I should not in this parliamentary forum, because she is an official of the House; however, I thank her for the quality of the report. In the third paragraph on page four there is a reference to the December 2017 agreement that the Government reached with the EU negotiators:

“that EU citizens living in the UK before the UK withdrawal date of 29 March 2019 would have the right to remain and to apply for settled status after a period of five years. In a subsequent document, the Government proposed that EU citizens who arrived in the UK after the withdrawal date … but before the end of the subsequent transition or implementation phase should be allowed to enter the UK on the same terms as before the withdrawal date”.

I hope that will not change and that the Minister can confirm that that is the position, to reassure the many people who have been so worried about it that they have already left this country, having given good service and paid taxes as NHS workers, or in the care services in general.

Page six of the Library Note refers to the total budget. There is always the canard, the misleading reference to one of the richest countries in the EU, like Germany, France and now Italy, I believe, paying more into the EU budget—which is a very virtuous budget because it has no deficit and its receipts equal its payments—because it is wealthier than new countries coming in that need money to go to them. We now see, therefore, that an enormous amount of that money has to be deployed in the future in the health service in this country. The Government need to reassure us on this; I hope they will also have second thoughts and stop this nightmare happening at all.