Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Skidmore and Grahame Morris

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

6. What steps the Government are taking to ensure the accessibility of voter registration.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)]

The Government are currently considering the 256 responses to our call for evidence on the accessibility of voter registration and voting. I will soon lay draft legislation to improve the accessibility of the anonymous registration scheme for survivors of domestic violence, and I recently implemented the findings of an accessibility review on the “Register to vote” website.

[Chris Skidmore]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising the report by Mencap, which has been working closely with the Cabinet Office and is a member of the “accessibility to elections” working group. I do not disagree with the premise of her question: we need to do more, in the 21st century, to make sure that our elections are accessible for everyone and that we remove barriers for those who are disabled. I am absolutely committed to doing that. It is right that we now consider all the responses and we will publish our report later next year.

[Grahame Morris]

Millions of people are missing from the electoral registers, but there are high levels of support for reforming our electoral registration system—in particular, for automatic voter registration when a person receives their national insurance number. When will the Government implement the necessary reforms to ensure that our democracy works for the many, not just the few?

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Chris Skidmore and Grahame Morris

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

We have already heard one Labour Member say that she welcomes the new measures on health inequalities, so it is a shame that the legislation could be repealed in its entirety.

Last week, Labour Members committed themselves to re-establishing primary care trusts and strategic health authorities—to reconstituting the NHS as if time had stood still, with middle-level management holding the reins. It is remarkable that Labour is not the party of the NHS patient but has become the party of the PCT, the SHA and, above all, the NHS manager.

[Grahame M. Morris]

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about efficiency, costs and so on, I draw his attention to an article in The Guardian today which says that the cost of replacing with a locum GPs who are away on clinical commissioning duties is £123,000 a year, while one clinical commissioning group has reported that 15 local doctors are each spending two days a week away from their surgeries. How is that an efficient use of resources?

[Chris Skidmore]

We are reinvesting the billions of pounds saved on managers into front-line care, and that is why we have already seen over 5,000 new doctors working on front-line services this year. I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from in terms of the political spectrum, but I believe that he is referring to a TUC press release that The Guardian published in full.

In a previous debate, the right hon. Member for Leigh said that he would put a cap on private practice in “single figures”. That would take the NHS backwards from its current position, and it is an arbitrary cap based on ideology, not on what is in the best interests of NHS patients. Nor is it in the interests of some of our best-loved hospitals. Dr Jane Collins, the chief executive of Great Ormond Street hospital, has said:

“The lifting of the private patient cap would allow us as a Foundation Trust to treat more patients, but also, through re-investment, to help more NHS patients.”

So Labour has set its face against Great Ormond Street hospital: well done!

We need a constructive debate about what needs to be done for patients in the 21st century. The right hon. Member for Leigh should stop using the shroud-waving language that he used today in stating:

“Time is running out for the NHS.”

In December last year, he said that there were 72 hours to save the NHS. What happened? He should beware, above all, of becoming the boy who cried wolf. I believe that this Bill will improve the NHS. I sincerely urge him to base his argument not on intuition but on facts, and, for the sake of patients, not to turn his back on reform that he once believed in and should go back to believing in.

National Health Service

Debate between Chris Skidmore and Grahame Morris

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

The hon. Gentleman will regret his comments. We have to pay back £65 billion on PFI deals that were originally signed for £11 billion—that ain’t minutiae. Many constituents are concerned about the waste that took place under the previous Government.

In 1997, there were 23,400 managers. That has gone up to 42,500. We are making a genuine attempt to tackle the problem. I could go on, but I will put the party politics aside.

[Grahame M. Morris]

Would the hon. Gentleman care to comment on the National Audit Office report in relation to savings that could be made from NHS procurement? Does he think that fragmenting the NHS will assist that or hinder it?

[Chris Skidmore]

We are spending £1 billion more than we should on procurement because of the lack of consistency across the NHS, delivered principally by the previous Government. That is one area in which we could make vital savings. The NHS needs to change. Your boss, the Leader of the Opposition, said:

“To protect the NHS is to change it”

and we need to do so. The reforms that we are bringing in are essential if we are to deliver savings and also to ensure that the NHS survives when our ageing population means there will be twice as many 85-year-olds by 2030.

We need to reform the NHS and we do so in the spirit of what Tony Blair and new Labour put forward. Julian Le Grand, Tony Blair’s key adviser, said that the reforms were

“evolutionary, not revolutionary: a logical, sensible extension of those put in place by Tony Blair”.

When I asked him in the Health Committee whether this is what Blair would have done, he said: “Absolutely. Blair ‘would have tried’ to get these reforms through, but I imagine the left of his party may have prevented him from doing so.”