Immigration Bill

Debate between Andy Burnham and Steve Baker

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I was surprised. A fact-check was issued on that very point, and it is quite clear that the central estimates in the paper by UCL’s Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration suggests that European immigrants have made a net contribution of around £20 billion, and immigrants outside Europe make a small net contribution of around £5 billion—[Interruption.] The Home Secretary seems to dispute this, but she got into trouble last week because she did not have balance in her speech. If she is not careful she is going to develop a reputation for lacking balance on this issue.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Will the shadow Home Secretary give way?

[Andy Burnham]

No, I am going to make some progress.

The other measure that we support in the Bill is the requirement for all front-line public service staff to speak fluent English, which of course is a sensible proposal. However, I believe that, in legislating on these matters, we all have a responsibility to bear in mind at all times that this is the most difficult and sensitive of policy areas. Unlike other issues that we debate in this House, this one has the potential to cause real harm and strife in our communities.

We will support the Government when they get the balance right, but I want to be clear about what we will not do. We will not support legislation that is introduced in haste or that is not backed up by clear evidence. That is the problem with the Bill. Parts of it appear to have been drafted on the same beer mat and in the same pub as the Home Secretary’s speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester. It is legislation driven by a desire to be seen to be doing something and to get headlines.

Care Bill [Lords]

Debate between Andy Burnham and Steve Baker

Tuesday 11th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andy Burnham]

I will make some progress but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman before the end of my speech.

Let me set out more of the background, because the Minister raised it a moment ago. In 2009 I took proposals through the House to create a process that could be used in extremis to deal with a trust that had got into serious financial problems. That was a financial and administrative vehicle, not a vehicle for widespread service change across the health economy. That is why the High Court was quite correct in upholding Parliament’s original intention when it accepted the case of the people of Lewisham against the Secretary of State, and threw out his plan to downgrade a much-loved and successful hospital. At that point, common decency would have suggested that the right response to the reverse in court would have been to listen to the court and bow down gracefully. Instead, it appears for all the world as if in a fit of pique, the Secretary of State is changing the law to get his way because he can. Imagine the outcry if someone caught breaking the law could simply come along and change it to their satisfaction. We would not accept that for burglars, and we should not accept it for politicians.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

I will come on to that point, but the CQC had existing powers on care failure, and powers to move more quickly than clause 119 provides for. Adequate powers were in place to deal with the point the hon. Gentleman has just made.

In truth, it is arrogance in the extreme for the Government to be coming along today—and worse, it seriously risks damaging public trust in how change in the NHS is made. That will be the real loss if the clause is accepted. It threatens to destroy any public faith in a sense of fair process governing these crucial decisions, and any prospect of cross-party consensus on a way to make changes to hospital services.

Making changes to those services is about the most difficult decision that politicians have to make, but the fact is that hospitals need to change if we are to make services safer and respond to the pressures of an ageing society. We did not shy away from that in government, and we do not say something different now. However, there is a right way and a wrong way of going about such things.

The Government’s answer—to use a brutal administration process to take decisions above the heads of local people—is a spectacularly wrong response to a very real problem, and precisely because those decisions arouse such strong emotions, we must find better ways of involving people, not shutting them out. If people suspect a stitch-up, and see solutions imposed from on high, they will understandably fight back hard. Does the spectacle of tens of thousands of people marching in Stafford or on the streets of Lewisham not give Ministers pause for thought that this new approach might seriously set back the goal of better public engagement in the NHS?

[Steve Baker]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

I will give way one final time, but I hope the hon. Gentleman will take on board the point that public engagement is essential if we are to have trust in the NHS.

[Steve Baker]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and I have listened extremely carefully to what he has said. Wycombe lost its A and E under his Government. Does he seriously suggest that that change was not imposed on the people of Wycombe, or that they were listened to, engaged and approved of the change?

[Andy Burnham]

I am saying to the hon. Gentleman that the previous Government had a process at the end of which was an independent panel—the Independent Reconfiguration Panel—to take a decision on whether a proposal was right or wrong in the interests of patient safety, which was the driving principle. I will defend the changes we made to improve services. I have given him the example of stroke services in London. The Opposition are not against making change in the NHS, but we are emphatically in favour of local people in areas such as his having the ability to have their say in the process. Clause 119 seeks to drop solutions on local people from on high.

Our policy was set out in the Carruthers review, commissioned by Patricia Hewitt in 2006, which concludes:

“Reasons for change should be built on a clear evidence base of clinical and patient benefits.”

That principle guided the Darzi review towards the end of the previous Government, which put quality centre stage. The Darzi review influenced the plans for stroke services in London and others, and the difficult changes we planned to make in south-east London before the last election. A detailed consultation, “A Picture of Health”, had brought together a case for change to how services were delivered across the area. It was given formal approval before the election, but was subject to the Government’s moratorium after it.

In the space of a few years, Ministers have gone from campaigning outside hospitals to save services to campaigning for extra powers to close them down without debate. That will leave the NHS more top-down than ever before, with the patient and public voice utterly marginalised.