NHS Workforce Expansion

Debate between Tim Farron and Wes Streeting

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. Unless the NHS has the staff it needs, patients will not get the timely care they deserve. It really is as simple as that. We have a plan; the Government do not, and they are very welcome to take ours.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The shadow Secretary of State is making a very good speech. On the issue of cancer, around half of cancer patients need radiotherapy, but barely a quarter get it. One reason is that the workforce in radiotherapy is small— 6,400 people. At the moment, the number of posts vacant in radiotherapy centres is 30% higher than the number of new graduates leaving college and coming into the professions that make up that workforce. We also found in the Radiotherapy UK survey that 80% of the workforce in radiotherapy centres reported that either they or a colleague had considered leaving. Does he think that the cancer workforce is essential to a cancer plan that will actually save lives?

[Wes Streeting]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I have been following his work and that of the all-party parliamentary group on radiotherapy in this area, because he raises issues that ought to be taken very seriously. I was very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) for coming to meet me about these challenges in particular. Of course, this has to be at the heart of a serious plan to improve cancer outcomes.

There is no doubt but that Labour’s workforce plan—supported by the NHS, supported by the professions, supported by so many members of the public—would make a difference. In fact, our inboxes have been filling with people welcoming the plan. It was a particular surprise to me to see one piece of fan mail that said:

“Despite my obvious political allegiances it would be remiss of me not mention the fact that Labour has pledged to double the number of medical school places and recruit additional health visitors and district nurses.”

It goes on to say that it

“is something I very much hope the government also adopts on the basis that smart governments always nick the best ideas of their opponents.”

Well, what luck that this particular fan of Labour’s policy joined the Government just two weeks after he sent the email. It is, of course, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who I must say I thought was an excellent Chair of the Health Committee. It is almost as if he had learned from all his mistakes when he was the Secretary of State for Health.

This is Lent, a period for atonement and a time for forgiveness, so I make this pledge today: if the Chancellor realises the errors of his ways and comes to this House to double the number of medical school places in the Budget and adopt Labour’s NHS expansion to deliver the biggest expansion of the NHS workforce in history, I will cheer him on from the Opposition Front Bench during the Budget. I will cheer him on—

NHS: Long-term Strategy

Debate between Tim Farron and Wes Streeting

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I cannot believe that the Member for Dover and Deal seems to be standing up and telling her constituents that when it comes to the NHS they have never had it so good. I know she is desperate and scraping the barrel because Prime Minister after Prime Minister have broken their promises on immigration and the Prime Minister is not dealing with small boat crossings, but I am afraid that pretending the NHS is working will not save her at the next general election.

To govern is to choose and the last Labour Government showed that investment plus reform equals better standards for patients. You do not need to do A-level maths to get to that equation. The right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) asked his Health Secretary:

“What is our long-term plan? We cannot leave the Labour party to have a long-term plan while we do not. How are we going to reform this centrally controlled construct?...What is the Secretary of State’s plan?”—[Official Report, 9 January 2023; Vol. 725, c. 297.]

What indeed is the Secretary of State’s plan? He has been in power for 13 years. His Government have presided over this record and still, after 13 years, they have no plan. Conservative Members asked what my plan was and I outlined it: a fully costed, fully funded plan to deliver the biggest expansion of NHS staffing—[Interruption.] They are saying, “Where is it?” I will repeat it for them again: double the number of medical school places; 10,000 more nursing and midwifery clinical training places; 5,000 more health visitors; and doubling the number of district nurses qualifying, paid for by abolishing non-dom tax status, because we believe that people who make Britain their home should pay their taxes here, too.

I understand that, in their partisan fury, because they cannot bear the fact that Labour has a plan and they do not, Conservative Members cannot swallow humble pie enough to take our plan and run with it. If they do not believe me, they should at least believe their own Chancellor, because this is what he said about Labour’s plan:

“I very much hope the government adopts this on the basis that smart governments always nick the best ideas of their opponents.”

If we were in any doubt already, this is not a smart Government and it will take a Labour Government to deliver Labour’s plan. That is why we end up with these sticking plasters, as we saw on Monday, to deal with this crisis.

Why did the Government choose to leave 230,000 patients languishing on NHS waiting lists when the spare capacity was there for them to be treated in the private sector? We know what our priority is: get patients treated as quickly as possible, pull every lever available to make it happen and make sure that patients do not have to pay a penny. The Government could act on doctors’ pensions to stop doctors retiring early for no reason other than that there is a financial disincentive to stay, but they still have not done it. They could bring strikes to an end by negotiating with the unions instead of threatening to sack the staff, but they still have not done it.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I want to give the hon. Member an idea to nick. He mentioned earlier the chronic situation with cancer waiting times, with 40%-plus of people diagnosed with cancer waiting two months to be seen. I wonder if he is aware of the work of the all-party parliamentary group on radiotherapy; I chair the group and his hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), is a vice-chair. Fifty per cent. of people with cancer need radiotherapy. We spend 5% of the cancer budget on it. The average across developed nations is about 9%. Will he agree to give a bit of time to come to the group’s inquiry on 18 January? In looking at Labour’s plan, will he consider how we can fund radiotherapy, so we can treat people and do not have so many avoidable deaths?

[Wes Streeting]

Unlike the Government, we are happy to look at good ideas wherever they come from. I do not know whether I can make 18 January, but I am certainly happy to meet the hon. Gentleman so that we can ensure that Labour’s plan tackles the appalling waits that we are seeing for cancer treatment.

The Economy

Debate between Tim Farron and Wes Streeting

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It was a joy to read in one newspaper this morning that the theme of the Chancellor’s statement today would be jobs, jobs, jobs, which had a pretty familiar ring to it, as did the reports that the Prime Minister wants to bring about a green industrial revolution. In fact, I half expected the Chancellor to open his speech this afternoon by promising an economic policy for the many, not the few. These are truly extraordinary times, but in the end, history will not measure the Chancellor’s success in newspaper headlines or column inches. It will be measured by the unemployment figures. It will be measured by the strength of the recovery, and it will be measured by whether he is able to build back better, build back greener and build a brighter future for every part of our country after a decade of failed economic policies.

Just as these are extraordinary times, this is no ordinary recession. The shutdown of our economy—essential to saving lives—has delivered the biggest contraction of economic activity in living memory, with a record fall in GDP measuring three times that which occurred during the financial crisis. Every community has been affected. Between March and May, an additional 1.6 million people claimed unemployment-related benefits, bringing the total to just under 3 million. We have seen the largest quarterly fall in vacancies since records began in 1971, and 22% of businesses reported turnover down by more than 50%. While the impact has been felt across our country, we know that it has not been felt evenly. Some in our services sector have been hit particularly hard, with the latest Office for National Statistics figures showing a fall in output in accommodation and food of 92%, compared with 20% in professional services.

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good series of points. He is right to say that there is an inequality in the support. The Chancellor has failed today to provide support for the hundreds of thousands of newly set up small businesses, self-employed people and directors of small limited companies who are still excluded from support. Is not today the day that the Chancellor should be supporting those people and helping them to keep going, ready to meet the recovery?

[Wes Streeting]

I strongly agree, and it will not surprise the hon. Gentleman that I will come on to make exactly that point.

For some people in secure jobs and on decent pay, the lockdown restrictions have been an opportunity to clear the credit card or build up savings, but for so many others—particularly the young and the low-paid—the labour market shock has been severe, and so has the impact on their pockets. Behind every one of these statistics are people—families and communities who have played their part in getting our country through this crisis, keeping our supermarkets stocked and essential services running; caring for us when we need it, from the brilliant staff who work in our NHS to the dedicated, often disgracefully low-paid and, this week, it seems, maligned staff who work in our care homes; and, with some notable high-profile exceptions, doing everything that was asked of them, staying home to save lives, looking out for their neighbours and volunteering in their communities. It is a truly national response, and it is not over yet. Coronavirus is the biggest crisis of most of our lifetimes. A resurgence of the virus remains the biggest threat to lives and livelihoods at the present time. And the health of our economy cannot be separated from the health of our country. That is why the Government’s failure to put in place an effective track and trace system is so concerning. The Chancellor did not mention it this afternoon, but he knows as well as we do that, without it, the risk to public health and to our economy are that much greater.