Finance Bill

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Michael Connarty

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty]

I hear my right hon. Friend say that 40 million people in the United States of America exist without adequate health care insurance or provision. A friend of mine tried to set up a dental care service in New England based on Medicare, and found that the money was not available. Many people in New England are denied any form of dental care when they end up in private nursing homes in their old age. Something is seriously wrong with that. I commend President Obama’s attempts to at least moderate that.

Let me return to the debate. People should not be deluded into thinking that the proposal will encourage more resources into the health service. It will encourage more companies to demand the services of the limited number of available surgeons to carry out operations for their private patients, instead of allowing the surgeons to do the job they should be doing. I would commend a scheme of private health care payments that provided the NHS with new equipment, doctors and other staff on top of those already trained in this country to work in the NHS.

Those who say that this proposal could do that should look at what happened with a hospital built for the private sector on the west coast of Scotland. The idea was to build a huge hospital with private money and to have people come from around the world to use it, but eventually it had to be sold to the Scottish Government when Jack McConnell was First Minister. We bought the hospital at a knock-down price because, in reality, the private sector could not generate new and fresh talent and equipment. That is not going to happen. It will just suck out resources needed by my constituents, who believe that the NHS should be paid for through taxes.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is not about restricting choice, but about prioritising finite resources and ensuring that any available money goes into front-line NHS services, rather than into a tax giveaway to a small number of people who are already accessing private health care?

[Michael Connarty]

I could not have put it better myself—I commend my hon. Friend for helping me with his analysis.

The Labour Government were right to encourage people to provide resources that the NHS could access using taxpayers’ money where it would be more efficient. That was an excellent scheme that enabled people in my constituency to go to hospitals where beds were available over Christmas for operations that were not being done and could not be fitted into the schedules of hospitals that were short of resources. That was a good initiative, but this proposal is not; it is the opposite. It would be a damaging initiative if it encouraged people to take out private health insurance and so divert resources from the NHS, where they are needed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Connarty]

In the contributions that I have heard via the live feed and in the Chamber, sadly there seem to have been moral overtones that echo speeches in a Victorian Parliament. If moral judgments are behind those arguments and people think that they this is a moral vote, I am quite sad about that. It might be a political strategy, however. Many political strategies were put forward by the Conservative leadership at the election, but hopefully they will not be reflected in the legislation put though this House. I hope that the contribution from the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) is more reflective of the coalition, which means that the Government will not do what the new clause proposes.

It is very important that people listening to this debate realise what the proposals are. After the advances that this country has made, in the recognition of civil partnerships, for example, this proposal is about spouses and spouses alone, not civil partners. It is attacking the progress that has been made, which is now being copied across Europe. It does not relate to people of the same gender in firm and committed relationships, which shows that it is not a forward movement at all. It is an attempt to throw out and make a moral judgment on the things that have been done by the joint agreement of this House to advance society’s value of firm and committed partnerships. That is what is important.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Michael Connarty]

Not yet.

It is not just a matter of putting a marriage partnership or a firm partnership ahead of any other. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) spoke strongly and has worked hard on single parenthood, but I happen to believe, in most cases but not all, that a partnership provides a much stronger place for children to grow up in than that provided by any single person—male or female—who has to go it alone. Therefore, our society has a lot of value when we can encourage partnerships.

We still have the oddest situation in Europe—and among many other countries outside Europe—because we do not recognise de facto partnerships. De facto partnerships are not civil marriages but agreements by people without either a civil or Church marriage to remain in a relationship and to commit to themselves and to any offspring.

My son lives in Australia, and he shared a de facto partnership for a number of years, recognising that if he or his partner had died their pension would have transferred to the other. In this country I have friends who, like me and my spouse, have been together for 41 years. They have had to get married because they might be coming to the end of their lives—not for a long time, I hope—and their pensions would have died with them.

That was a moral judgment which the previous Labour Government made, and it was shameful, because we should have had civil partnerships for all who wished to have them, and we should have recognised de facto partnerships as much as same-gender partnerships. That is how we should have looked at things, but we should not give cash incentives, as the new clause seeks. Indeed, that was the contradiction in the contribution from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), because he said that he was not about incentivising partnerships through finances and then spoke on behalf of the new clause—which would incentivise partnerships.

[Michael Connarty]

I have a call from my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) first.

That is what is wrong with the new clause. It is about spouses, it is backward looking and moralistic and it will not help children at all. It is sad that one in five marriages breaks down and that civil partnerships break down, so we must encourage people through the way we finance them and help them to keep their relationships together, because finances as much as personal fall-outs break down relationships.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I agree wholeheartedly that families come in different shapes and sizes, and we need to respect and reflect that in public policy. Is not that why the previous Labour Government were absolutely right to target limited resources on tackling child poverty, irrespective of the child’s family background?

[Michael Connarty]

My hon. Friend has made that point before, and he puts it better than I could.

My mother, who now has sadly passed away, was soured by the Labour Government very early on when we took away the additional money for single parents. From then on, every time I went to her house on a Sunday, she would start by saying, “Welcome,” and then she would say, “You and your Tony Blair,” and for the rest of my visit berate me for what we had not got right. She was a great touchstone, however, because she saw that the defence of children and the future of children were important, not the rest.

The new clause is a backwards step, but I am hopeful that the Minister will not support it and that such legislation will never get through. It states that only marriage—not any other relationship—is good enough or as good as we would wish.