NHS

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

We are seeing this across the NHS. We have also seen contracts going to companies whose shareholders are Tory party donors. The closeness of the links between the Tory party and private health care is worrying.

Since April, when their Act came in, seven out of the 10 contracts let have gone outside the NHS. That is the clearest of all wake-up calls about what is happening to the NHS under this Government: it is being broken up and sold off. Under section 75 of the Act, clinicians have to put services out to tender, regardless of whether they are performing well, and that is the big difference between this Government and the last one. They are enforcing competition and marketisation in the NHS, but nobody voted for it.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)]

Why, when the right hon. Gentleman was Secretary of State, were the previous Government prepared to pay private sector providers 11% more than NHS providers?

[Andy Burnham]

Let me explain the difference to the Minister. When we were in government we used the private sector in a supporting role to help bring down NHS waiting times; he is using the private sector to replace the public NHS. There is a very big difference. He might remember that as Secretary of State I introduced the NHS preferred provider policy. At the time, his party complained—it said it was wrong—but I did it because I believed in the public NHS. I believe in what it stands for, unlike him and his party.

[Dr Poulter]

I remind the right hon. Gentleman that, unlike him, I have worked for the NHS and understand what it is like to work on its front line. Will he confirm that the previous Government introduced private sector provision into the NHS and paid 11% more to private sector providers than to NHS providers? This Government will not allow that.

[Andy Burnham]

The Minister looks pleased with himself, but I am afraid he has got his facts wrong. We did not introduce the private sector into the NHS; it has always worked with the private sector to relieve pressure on waiting lists. As a doctor, he should know that. He might also know that waiting lists and times came right down under the last Government, because the private sector supported the NHS, and I am proud of how we brought waiting lists down, but he is using the private sector to replace the public NHS. He is saying that any qualified provider can provide NHS contracts. I had a policy of designating the NHS as the preferred provider. So let us get the facts straight. There is a major difference between the two positions.