Health and Social Care

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am afraid that this is exactly the sort of distortion and scaremongering that got the right hon. Gentleman nowhere in the election campaign. He knows perfectly well that the 2012 Act does nothing different from what the EU procurement rules required under the primary care trusts when he was Health Secretary. Yes, I do believe that there is a role for the independent sector in the NHS, but I think the decision whether things should be done by the traditional NHS or the independent sector should be decided locally by GPs doing the right thing for their patients. That is the difference between us.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The Secretary of State is spot on with regard to the use of language. In the last Parliament the Health Select Committee saw an attempt to paint a picture of privatisation as equalling the provision of private health care. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that under the previous Government private sector activity in foundation trusts fell and the rate of privatisation was slower than in the preceding five years—something that the Committee noted in a report that was blocked by Labour members of the Committee?

[Mr Hunt]

Yes, I will. The figures that my hon. Friend cites are right. I will tell him something else. Half a million fewer people took out private health insurance in the previous Parliament because the quality of care that they could get on the NHS was rising. The Government are committed to the NHS. If the right hon. Member for Leigh does not want to believe what I am saying about privatisation, perhaps he will believe the respected think-tank the King’s Fund, which is clear that his claims of mass privatisation were and are exaggerated.