National Health Service

Debate between Clive Efford and David T C Davies

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies]

I checked the Order Paper this morning, and no one had tabled a question about the NHS in Wales.

The shadow Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), said earlier that he was not responsible for Wales, but the reality is that there are 20,000 patients in England who are registered with Welsh GPs and who have their health care provided in Wales. The right hon. Gentleman is, to some extent, responsible for the poor level of service that those people are currently receiving.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David T. C. Davies]

I am happy to give way, but I have to say that Opposition Members have used up rather more of their allocation than Members on this side.

[Clive Efford]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be talking about records. This Government came in with no mandate whatever and planned to close nine of the 31 accident and emergency departments across London. What state does he think the A and E service in London would be in if his Government had been successful in every case? They were prevented from achieving their aim by public campaigns, including the one in Lewisham, in my part of London.

[David T. C. Davies]

I am absolutely certain that the A and E situation in England would be far better under this Government than it is in Wales, where, according to the House of Commons Library report, 13% of patients in major departments wait more than four hours in A and E. That is approximately double the percentage recorded by major departments in England. The question of ambulances has been raised several times today. Wales has the worst ambulance response rate in the United Kingdom, with around 55% arriving within eight minutes, compared with more than 70% in England.

The shadow Secretary of State talked about privatisation, but it was the Labour Government who, quite rightly, started using the private sector to improve the national health service. I have here a quote from the Labour Secretary of State in 2002; I will not mention his name. He said of the private sector that

“we intend to use it when it can bring expertise or resources to help improve services.”—[Official Report, 26 February 2002; Vol. 380, c. 547.]

We have carried on doing the same thing. A few years later, a different Health Secretary said:

“The NHS has always made use of the private sector and will continue to do so”.—[Official Report, 25 October 2005; Vol. 438, c. 163.]

She also promised that, the following year, patients would be able to choose from any health care provider—NHS or independent sector—that met NHS standards.

It was Labour’s policy in government to use the private sector. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is totally ridiculous for Labour Members now to pretend that the Conservatives are trying to privatise the NHS. That is a big lie: we will never, ever privatise the NHS, but we are quite happy to use the private sector when it can provide a better service, just as the Labour Government did. The last word on this came in 2005, when Professor Allyson Pollock wrote a damning book about the privatisation of the national health service. She was criticising the Labour Government.

Cost of Living

Debate between Clive Efford and David T C Davies

Tuesday 14th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford]

I think the IFS puts the increase at 1 million children, but I take the hon. Gentleman’s point.

There are no proposals in the Queen’s Speech to stimulate the construction industry and build social housing. It is worth remembering that the Government inherited the biggest council house building programme for more than two decades, and then scrapped it as part of their austerity measures. In London, there were 11,328 social rented housing starts in 2010-11. That figure plummeted to 1,672 in 2012-13. That is a time bomb hitting young people in London, and the problem goes right up the social scale. It does not just affect people on low incomes who are in desperate housing need. People on above-average incomes who have children cannot afford to rent or buy in the private sector in London. That time bomb will not go away, and the Queen’s Speech does nothing to address it.

[David T. C. Davies]

I cannot comment on the London statistics, but I know that social house building has fallen off a cliff over the past two years in Wales, an area that is run by a devolved Labour Government. What does the hon. Gentleman say to that?

[Clive Efford]

I say that we need to build more houses. I said that when we were in government, I am saying it now and I will continue to say it consistently.

There is nothing in the Queen’s Speech on sport. We have just had the greatest year for sport that this country has ever known, but the Government have not come up with a coherent strategy across the whole of Government that will deliver sport in our communities and use the armies of volunteers up and down the country who are working hard in sport. We need a coherent strategy that will allow them to plan ahead for the long term and deliver the elusive sporting legacy, but there was nothing of that in the Queen’s Speech.

All that we have had is the Government parties falling into warring factions over different parts of their own Queen’s Speech. It started with the Deputy Prime Minister saying within 24 hours of the Queen’s Speech that he was not happy about the changes to child care ratios in nurseries. We have heard from several people who have been advising the Government on the matter, such as Professor Cathy Nutbrown, whom they commissioned to conduct an independent review of child care qualifications, and Dr Eva Lloyd and Professor Helen Penn, two more experts whom they commissioned. Professor Cathy Nutbrown said:

“Watering down ratios will threaten quality. Childcare may be cheaper, but children will be footing the bill.”,

and Dr Eva Lloyd and Professor Helen Penn said:

“Deregulation in the UK would lead to a reduction in quality.”