Care Bill [Lords]

Debate between Charlotte Leslie and Andy Burnham

Monday 16th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

They did, and they put those posters up at the election to try to scare older people—I do not know how they thought that was appropriate, in the same way I do not know how their contributions today have been appropriate.

What my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) says is exactly what is happening. People are not daft. They can see what is going on. They saw a Government legislate to place the market at the heart of the NHS in a way that means we now have the Competition Commission making decisions and forcing services out to open tender. We also have a Secretary of State who does not waste a day running down the NHS—“uncaring nurses”, “lazy GPs”, “coasting hospitals”; everything undermined, everything wrong—rather than celebrating good care. That is the agenda. They are softening the NHS up for more privatisation.

That will be the big choice come the next election. The Secretary of State can spin whatever lines he wants from that Dispatch Box, but that is the choice: a public, proud NHS under Labour, or a fragmented market under the Conservative party. I know which side of the debate I am on, and that is the choice we will put to people.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

Independent sector treatment centres—the right hon. Gentleman’s party started competition!

[Andy Burnham]

Across the NHS, people are spending millions on competition lawyers thanks to the Bill that the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) and others passed. That is being cited as the major barrier to the integration that the Secretary of State claims he wants. Let me quote the NHS chief executive to back up that point. He recently told the Health Select Committee:

“What is happening at the moment…we are getting bogged down in a morass of competition law…causing significant cost in the system and great frustration for people in the service about making change happen… In which case, to make integration happen we will need to change it”.

By which he meant the Health and Social Care Act. It could not be clearer. It is the biggest barrier to the integration of care and support for older people. That is understood across the NHS, but the Bill does nothing about it.

Instead, the Government have left an NHS bogged down in competition law. How did it come to that? Who voted for that change? Who gave this Prime Minister and this Health Secretary permission to do something that Margaret Thatcher never dared—put the NHS up for sale? The answer is no one. Ministers talk the talk about integration, but they have legislated for fragmentation and privatisation, and the Bill does not change that. Only Labour will repeal the Health and Social Care Act, and that will be the big choice, as I say. We will bring health and care together, creating a public service working for the whole person. That is the only way we can reshape health and care services around individuals in their own homes.

In conclusion, the Bill makes some sensible changes that we will not oppose, but as our reasoned amendment makes clear, it falls far short of the durable solution that England needs. Social care in England is getting worse, not better, and the Bill does nothing to change that. It will not stop people having to lose their homes and savings to pay for care, and in the end it deceives older people about the amount they might have to pay for care, which is fundamentally wrong. Older people deserve better, and it will fall to Labour to have the courage to deliver it.

Managing Risk in the NHS

Debate between Charlotte Leslie and Andy Burnham

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

The Opposition often say that we need to learn lessons—in many ways, I agree with them—and so I intend to go through some of the lessons we can learn. I note that on the 65th anniversary of the NHS, Labour made cupcakes saying, “We love the NHS”, which prompts an interesting question: do we love the NHS—the institution—or do we love, care for and want to protect the patients it serves and respect the professionals who work in it?

I was also very perturbed yesterday by the venom in the denial of some—not all—Opposition Members. As I said then, it reminded me that Julie Bailey faced the same venom and aggressive denial in response to her mission to try to expose some of the truths at Mid Staffs. I am equally perturbed and disturbed that a lot of that venom is coming from two Labour party members locally, Diana Smith, who used to work for David Kidney, and Steve Walker. I would very much like to know whether the Labour party will formally condemn those actions.

The shadow Secretary of State mentioned rewriting history, and I am also slightly concerned that there was a little rewriting of history or confusion in that state of denial. I remind him that it was not him who commissioned Francis 2. He commissioned Francis 1, which was an inquiry of far more limited scope where evidence was given behind closed doors. He had every opportunity to commission Francis 2, and if he had done so the lessons he is now saying we must implement more quickly—and I appreciate speed is always of the essence—could have been implemented some time ago.

[Andy Burnham]

I would like just mildly to correct what the hon. Lady said. When I commissioned Francis 1, I said to Robert Francis that if he did not think he was receiving enough co-operation from witnesses in the first-stage inquiry and he came back to me wanting me to give him powers to compel, I would be glad to give him those powers. The second point the hon. Lady needs to bear in mind is that when he delivered his first report I told this House, in February 2010, that I would be commissioning a second stage report looking at the wider regulatory issues.

[Charlotte Leslie]

That is very encouraging to hear post-event, but unfortunately it still leaves some questions as to why the Cure the NHS group was not able to go along and formally deliver the case studies of Bella Bailey at the Department of Health but instead had to go and see the former Secretary of State outside his constituency office—and for those who want to deny yet more evidence, that is on YouTube.

We have to ask why this review was not commissioned at the time if there were, through 81 requests, serious concerns raised. What did people have to hide? In 2009 the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) said fairly clearly that Mid Staffs was a one-off, but unfortunately we know from the Labour “lines to take”—which are in the inquiry so are in the public domain—that Labour knew there were 12 hospitals with equal or even worse mortality rates. That was denied, but, tellingly, that brief says Labour should try to avoid naming them. That stands in stark contrast to the approach taken in the Keogh report, which has been transparent in naming those trusts where there are problems. Unlike Labour, I do not think being honest about the situation prevents improvement; actually, I think it helps improvement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Charlotte Leslie]

I am terribly sorry. I will make progress.

I would also like to set the record straight on who knew what about hospital trusts. The right hon. Member for Leigh says that he took astute action. He knows, because I have the e-mails, as he does, that he was written to by Professor Sir Brian Jarman about 25 trusts about which he had concerns. He said he was concerned that the CQC was not doing its job. Seven of those were investigated by Sir Bruce Keogh. Fifteen of those trusts were in marginal seats and one, as he will know, was in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Leigh.

[Andy Burnham]

That list, when Brian Jarman gave it to me, was immediately referred to the CQC. Within weeks, six of the trusts, I think, on that list were registered with conditions before the general election.

[Charlotte Leslie]

The fact that the very same trusts appear in the Keogh report and have not resolved their problems proves that we have suffered a legacy issue. Those reports are still relevant.

The then Secretary of State referred those trusts to the CQC, which we now know he was leaning heavily on. We know that people were saying that the aim of the CQC’s operation was that no bad news should come out. The lessons that we need to learn about how to avert risk and to care for patients is to return to the specialist, honest medical analysis and inspection of hospitals that will give all Governments some uncomfortable truths. This party wants to hear uncomfortable truths. We do not want to smother them.

Labour has presided over a culture of bullying, threatening and aggressive denial, which we sometimes see in the Chamber. We will not be bullied now. The truth is out. Finally, patients and professionals struggling to care for those patients will not be stifled under a saccharine sickly-sweet cupcake icing which says, “We love the NHS”. We have seen in so many tragic cases that that love has been lethal.

Education Bill

Debate between Charlotte Leslie and Andy Burnham

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

He nods, but I have severe doubts.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise the massive gap between state education and private education in securing the top jobs in this country? Does he recognise that private schools offer more academic qualifications and that by not enabling state schools to offer those academic qualifications he is essentially relegating state school pupils from those top jobs?

[Andy Burnham]

I do not accept the hon. Lady’s analysis. I went from a state school to Cambridge and my dad said to me, “It will open every door for you in life. You will just walk into any job you want.” He said that because I took some persuading to go, as I was not convinced that it would be for me. My dad was wrong, because it did not open every door. It is the networks and the conversations around the dinner party table that open the doors to those top jobs. I am talking about the people who can sort out two weeks’ work experience in the holiday period, because that is what gets people through. What further restricts opportunities for young people is the culture of unpaid internships, where young people are expected to come to London to work for free. That is beyond the reach of many working-class young people in this country, who simply cannot afford to work for free for three months in London. That is what ensures that the top jobs remain in the reach of a small social circle, as the BBC creatively and accurately reported last week.