Queen’s Speech

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to those of others to the two maiden speakers today and to the retiring right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth, not only on his speech but on his contribution to the House.

At the beginning of this debate, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, paid tribute to the NHS, and I do, too—but I wish to challenge the assertion that the Government protect the NHS. In fact, without the public either knowing or consenting, they are putting it at immediate risk. How? They have allowed, indeed encouraged, the takeover by the American health insurance company Centene, through its subsidiary Operose, of 69 NHS surgeries, and the further invitation into healthcare provision around the country. The proposed health Bill, with its plans for integrated care, will facilitate this further, raising the prospect of American profit-making interests shaping the future of the NHS. This will involve the prospect of hospital closures if they are not profitable, fewer referrals of sick patients to specialists and, most particularly, the major risk of the selling of our NHS personal data for profit around the world. Will the Government pledge to protect our personal health data from American commercial exploitation?

We all know that the NHS is one of the most popular, cost-effective and efficient public health services. It is a national treasure, admired around the world. Operose is a loss-making subsidiary of Centene. It pays no UK tax and its declared policy to its shareholders is

“to exit contracts that have not historically fulfilled profitability targets.”

Centene is a giant of American health insurance—the 42nd company in the US listings—and it is currently being sued by the state of Ohio for fraudulently overcharging. It stands in vivid contrast to our NHS, a vast and effective public health service, serving all our citizens equally, offering the best in medical treatment and consistently free at the point of delivery. We treasure it. We want any reforms to retain its true and precious identity. Now, without due parliamentary scrutiny, American company Centene is a growing player in the NHS integrated care system. In January this year, Samantha Jones, its former chief executive, became special adviser on health integration to Boris Johnson.

Those in favour of Brexit talked often about taking back control. I am urging us to take back control of our NHS in its entirety. The health Bill coming before us consolidates the market paradigm developed during the pandemic, when contracts worth £10.5 billion were awarded without competition. In normal times, tendering is the check against corruption and cronyism within a market model. The outsourcing of a track and trace policy was the weakest of the Government’s pandemic initiatives. Will the Government pledge to retain tendering within NHS provision?

This Session of Parliament offers us the chance to scrutinise and debate major changes in the NHS. We must examine the Bill with particular care, making sure that America’s medical insurance provision, a system that tried to derail Obamacare, does not deprive our country of its major post-war achievement—the creation and maintaining of the NHS.