Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wes Streeting and Luke Evans

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I can reassure health and care providers that we will be setting out allocations long before April next year. I recognise that people need to plan ahead of the new financial year. When deciding allocations, we take into account the range of pressures on different parts of the system. People have heard what I have said already about the need to shift out of hospital into primary and community services. The shadow Minister talks about choices; Conservative Members seem to welcome the £26 billion investment, but oppose the means of raising it. I am afraid they cannot do both. If they support the investment, they need to support the way in which we raise the money; if they do not support the way in which we raise the money, they need to spell out how they would raise it or be honest about the fact that if they were still in government, they would continue to preside over a mismanaged decline.

[Dr Evans]

One GP described the situation as “Schrödinger’s primary care”: GPs are seen as private contractors, so not exempt from the NI increases, but they are exempt from the small business relief because they are deemed to be “public”. Did the Department of Health team knowingly go along with the Treasury team’s plan to tax primary care without mitigation, leading to cuts? Or did it not understand or spot the complexity of what is going on, so mitigations have to be put in place now? Which is it?

[Wes Streeting]

I was terribly impolite; I should have welcomed the shadow Minister to his place in response to his first question.

Conservative Members seem to welcome the £26 billion investment and are happy to tell us how it should be spent, but they oppose the means of raising it. They cannot do all those things. They need to be honest with the country: either they support the investment in the NHS or they say they would cut it. Which is it?

Income Tax (Charge)

Debate between Wes Streeting and Luke Evans

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

That is a commitment that we have made and a commitment that we will keep. I am happy to ensure that the hon. Member can meet the relevant Minister and project team as we get under way on delivering that project.

I did actually go back to check the pledges made by the Conservative party in its 2024 manifesto just to see how extensive the work of fiction was, only to find that the manifesto page on its website now reads “page not found”. The truth is, had the Conservatives won the election, it would have been deleted just as quickly.

That was not all I was told when I became Secretary of State in July. Despite 18 months of strikes in the NHS, there was no funding put aside to end the junior doctors’ dispute. What is more, the previous Health Secretary had not met the resident doctors since March—the Conservatives had given up even attempting to end the strikes. People should remember that this winter. For all the challenges that the NHS will face, this will be the first winter in three years when NHS staff will be on the frontline, not the picket line. That is the difference that a Labour Budget makes.

I was told that GPs would be qualifying this year with no jobs to go into. The Government found the funding and we are hiring an extra 1,000 GPs this year. That is the difference that a Labour Budget makes.

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

On the Budget, GPs, hospices and care homes have been found to be either exempt or not exempt from the national insurance contributions. Will he clarify whether hospices, care homes and primary care are exempt or not? That really matters to their costs.

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful for that intervention for two reasons. First, it gives me an opportunity to say to GPs, hospices and other parts of the health and care system that will be affected by employers’ national insurance contribution changes that I am well aware of the pressures, we have not made allocations for the year ahead, and I will take those representations seriously.

Secondly, it gives me a chance to ask the hon. Member and the Opposition: do they support the investment or not? Are they choosing to invest in the NHS or not? They are now confronted with the hard reality of opposition. Just as when we were in opposition we had to set out how much every single one of our policies would cost and how those would be funded, they have to do that now. If they oppose the investment, they have to tell us where they would make the cuts in the NHS. If they oppose the investment, they have to tell us where they would make the cuts in school budgets. Those are the choices that we have made, and we stand by those choices. The Opposition will have to set out their choices, too.

I was told that because the Conservatives had run up huge deficits in NHS finances, I would not be able to deliver the 40,000 extra appointments a week that we had promised. In fact, I was told that we would have to cut 20,000 appointments a week instead. The Chancellor and I were not prepared to see waiting lists rise further. She put the funding in, and an extra 40,000 patients will be treated by the NHS each week. That is the difference that a Labour Budget makes.