Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Burnham Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing that out. It is crucial that we slim down the bureaucracy and management of the NHS so that we can make savings, so that they can go where they should—to provide more care for patients in the NHS.

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

Last week in the emergency debate, the Secretary of State said:

“Risk registers…are not a prediction of the future. They set out a worst-case scenario”.—[Official Report, 20 March 2012; Vol. 542, c. 676.]

I now have an early version of the risk register that civil servants gave him in September 2010. Risk No. 7 of his reorganisation was that “Financial control is lost.” That was red rated and, according to the document, likely to happen with major consequences. Is it not clear that last week the Secretary of State gave an inaccurate description of the risk registers he saw, and should he not now come to the Dispatch Box to correct the record?

[Mr Burns]

May I reassure you, Mr Speaker, if not so much the right hon. Gentleman, that my right hon. Friend did not mislead anyone? The answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question is the same as he and his predecessors pursued under the last Labour Government—and was pursued under the Thatcher and Major Governments—which is that Ministers do not comment on leaked documents.

[Andy Burnham]

The rest of the world is, and we would be interested to hear the Government’s views on it. Here we have it in full colour. It is not the worst-case scenario, as the Secretary of State claimed, but 43 very real and predictable risks, 21 of which are red rated and 14 likely to happen with major consequences. They include:

“Emergencies…less well managed…more failures…GP consortia go bust or have to cut services…performance dips and key staff lost”.

Is it not now clear for all to see that the Secretary of State and his Ministers have knowingly taken major risks with the national health service, ignored warnings from civil servants and kept those risks secret from Parliament in order to get their unnecessary Bill through?

[Mr Burns]

I am not quite sure which word in my last answer the right hon. Gentleman did not understand, so I will repeat it. Like previous Governments, we do not comment on leaked documents. Instead of coming to the Dispatch Box and talking down the fantastic work that nurses and doctors do day in and day out, why does he not read the quarter, the latest copy of which is full of facts about how the NHS is improving its performance and delivering better quality care for patients throughout England?