NHS Risk Register
Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Alan Johnson(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
The last time we saw the Government circling the wagons like this, it was in defence of the poll tax. Those present at the time will remember the fanaticism of the Conservative Back Benchers supporting a policy that was ultimately doomed. It is impossible not to feel sorry for the Secretary of State for Health. Nobody has ever coveted the position of Health Secretary for so long and then failed in it so quickly. The publication of the transition risk register will, I am sure, make his position even more untenable, but I doubt whether it will change anybody’s mind about this Bill.
For Government Members, I am afraid that the die is cast. They have a millstone around their neck called the Health and Social Care Bill, and they have to decide whether to carry on with the millstone or to take the difficult decision of unburdening themselves of it. As my former right hon. Friend, Alan Milburn, said in possibly the best description of this Bill, it is
“a patchwork quilt of complexity, compromise and confusion”.
Conservative Members will, I am sure, have deep concerns about how this issue has been handled. Some of them might agree with the Tory matinee idol, Daniel Hannan, who said that the NHS was a 60-year mistake, but I doubt whether that is the view of the majority of them. Indeed, I think they would have signed up to the principles set out in the coalition agreement. There is not much wrong with those principles, including that of no further top-down reorganisations. Now, however, they are forced by the political incompetence of their Secretary of State to turn this argument into a touchstone issue—if someone is in favour of the Bill, they are in favour of reform in the NHS; if someone is against the Bill, they are against reform of the NHS. Nothing could be further from the truth. [Interruption.] I see the nodding dogs on the Parliamentary Private Secretary Bench agreeing with that proposition.
I do not oppose this Bill because it aids reform. I do not oppose it because it will make no difference. I oppose it because it will hamper the reforms that the NHS badly needs at this stage of its development, and I suspect that the risk register will reinforce that belief.
Charlie Elphicke
On 31 July 2008 and on 17 September 2008, the right hon. Gentleman decided not to release risk registers or risk assessments. Why was he right then and the Secretary of State wrong now?
Alan Johnson
I see that the Whips’ brief dragged up something I did in a previous life. [Interruption.] The risk register is, with respect, a second-order issue. I cannot understand why the Health Secretary does not publish it. He is in enough trouble already, and the Government are in enough trouble already without adding an issue of transparency that simply makes the situation worse.
Border Checks Summer 2011
Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Alan Johnson(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Alan Johnson
Government Members are in happy ignorance of the fact that all this built up over many years under successive Conservative Home Secretaries, and it was the Labour Government who got on top of the issue in the end.
Loans to Ireland Bill
Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Alan Johnson(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Charlie Elphicke
Surely, the right hon. Gentleman’s point highlights the lack of wisdom in signing us up to the stabilisation mechanism on 9 May.
Alan Johnson
This may be news to the hon. Gentleman, but his party is in government now. As I said, my party ensured that we contributed nothing—not a penny, not a euro, not a drachma—to the Greek bailout. The Chancellor is coming before this House with a £6.6 billion contribution to Ireland, which we support, but the various aspects of the mechanism need to be explained and understood.
Alan Johnson
I do agree that part of it should be bilateral, for all the reasons that I have mentioned. As various members have commented, however, we need to understand why the formulation has been made—because it could be setting precedents; because there is a larger pot of money out of which a lesser sum of money is being brought; and because the Chancellor can come back to this House, by virtue of a statutory instrument and seek further money for Ireland. We need to be clear what we are letting ourselves in for.
Alan Johnson
No, I will not give way—perhaps later.
I am also curious about the following piece of distorted logic. In the Treasury Committee, the Chancellor said that it was okay to set austerity aside in order to make a loan to Ireland because of the promise of repayment. He said that this loan “adds to our debt” but
“We’re getting back a very important asset which is a commitment from the Irish government to pay us back with interest.”
What puzzles me is which part of that definition of a sensible loan did not apply to Sheffield Forgemasters. [Hon. Members: “Oh.”] I am sorry that Government. Members groan about British manufacturing industry. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) raised this issue during the Chancellor’s statement on 22 November. Why does the Chancellor agree a huge loan to Ireland on the basis he cited but reject a modest £80 million that would be paid back with interest and boost the opportunity of British manufacturers to have a substantial stake in the civil nuclear energy supply chain, which is currently dominated by overseas companies? At a time when we are looking for jobs and growth, the logic of that escapes me.
My third concern is the prospect of each eurozone country being bailed out as its economy falls into crisis without addressing the root causes of the continent’s problems.
Alan Johnson
No, I will not give way. The Prime Minister said:
“That is why a priority for any Conservative government led by me will be to create a much better environment for business… We know it can be done. Just look at the Republic of Ireland.”
Two years later, at exactly the time when Ireland’s six largest banks were forced to borrow €20 billion from the European Central Bank, the Prime Minister said that Ireland had
“a ‘future fund’ of assets, providing security against future liabilities and unknown shocks coming down the line.”
Perhaps those on the Treasury Bench will update us on how that future fund is doing in Ireland. Finally, in June 2008, at a Cameron Direct event in Harlow, he said:
“When it comes to the engine room of the country, the economy, you know you can look across to southern Ireland where they have created a dynamic economy. Well we’ve got to do that right here.”
Our message to the Chancellor as we prepare to support his Bill is not to replicate Ireland, but to repudiate the measures that put its economy in such a perilous position.
We understand that there is an O’Donnell circulating a plan B in Whitehall against the Chancellor’s wishes. As the Chancellor said in The Times, the Irish have
“much to teach us, if only we are willing to learn.”
Identity Documents Bill
Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Alan Johnson(14 years ago)
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Alan Johnson
My hon. Friend pre-empts a crucial point that I shall come on to in a moment.
There was no mention of scrapping second-generation biometric passports in the Conservative manifesto. In fact, the Tories have not only been in favour of biometrics but wholeheartedly and enthusiastically in favour of them. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr Garnier) summed up the matter in 2007 when he said:
“There is not a Conservative Member…who disagrees with the notion that there should be biometric passports.”—[Official Report, 5 February 2007; Vol. 456, c. 671.]
The Prime Minister himself has admitted that
“there is a need for the use of biometrics on passports”.
Why the change of heart when we know that by locking people to one identity using advanced passport technology, we would help protect our country against the use of multiple identities by criminals, illegal immigrants and terrorists? Why, given that updating our passports would bring us in line with the rest of Europe, which has already set minimum passport standards to include facial and fingerprint biometrics, do we intend to allow our country to become an easy target for illegal immigration and our citizens to be subject to onerous checks at airports and ferry ports around the world? We had already introduced facial recognition image biometrics in British passports in 2006, but now the countries in the Schengen agreement are going further and the US has already imposed a fingerprint requirement on all visitors who have not historically required a visa—in other words, those from the UK.
I turn to the important point that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South raised. In March, when I was Home Secretary and sitting alongside the then Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband), the House heard about the inquiry carried out by the Serious Organised Crime Agency, at the request of the Dubai authorities, into how 12 people with joint UK-Israeli citizenship had had their passports cloned without their knowledge. Those were pre-biometric passports. Second-generation biometrics would make such cloning impossible. Indeed, the current Foreign Secretary, who was then shadowing the position, when that statement was made, said:
“The Foreign Secretary said that the biometric passports introduced four years ago are more difficult to counterfeit. Does he consider these new passports to be as invulnerable to counterfeiting as it is possible to make them, or will the Government review whether any other steps are needed to protect the integrity of British passports? Is there any suggestion that British passports are more vulnerable than those of other countries, including other EU countries?”—[Official Report, 23 March 2010; Vol. 508, c. 135.]
No, there was not such a suggestion then, but there is now that, amazingly and incredibly, this Government are planning to abandon second-generation biometric passports and leave our country more vulnerable to attack. It is beyond me to understand how the new Home Secretary could have been lulled into that decision. Identity fraud, illegal immigration, terrorism and organised crime are international problems, and it makes sense for Britain to continue working with our international neighbours to tackle them. Biometric passports are part of an international drive to make travel documents more secure. Their electronic security features, including fingerprints, are a significant impediment to forgers and counterfeiters, and we need to keep pace with our neighbours if the UK passport is to continue to be recognised as having the highest integrity.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
I, too, congratulate you on your illustrious elevation, Mr Deputy Speaker.
In Dover, people are concerned that border security has been lax for years. Why did the right hon. Gentleman not put more energy into dealing with the security of our borders? If he had done that rather than dealing with ID cards, maybe we would have had less illegal immigration.
Alan Johnson
That intervention was not worth waiting for. We put considerable effort into securing our borders. As he represents Dover, he will know that the chief constable of Kent has seen the number of illegal immigrants roving around the county reduced by 92% since my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) went over and did a deal with Sarkozy, who was then the Interior Minister, and shut down Sangatte. We have taken every measure possible. If the hon. Gentleman is interested in the security of his constituents in Dover, I tell him that I am talking about the current Government abandoning second-generation biometric passports, probably on the basis of a decision at the hippy commune known as the Liberal Democrat conference. That is an incredible decision.
On funding, the Government claim that scrapping the scheme will produce an initial £84 million in savings in the next four years. I would be extremely interested to learn how the Home Secretary came to that figure. On none of the statistics I saw when I was doing her job only three weeks ago does that make sense. Seventy per cent. of the start-up costs for ID cards are linked to first-generation biometric passports, to ensure that they fall into line with international standards. Those costs are unavoidable and the money is committed, so where does the £84 million come from?