Business of the House

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Lord Lansley

Thursday 26th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I shall ask the Department of Health and the Home Office to look at that. My recollection is that considerable work is being done looking carefully at the interaction between policing services and NHS services, particularly in sensitive areas relating to mental health and those suffering any kind of mental health problems—[Interruption.] No, I understand, but from the NHS point of view, with what it is presented with, it is sometimes very difficult to distinguish between those who have a mental illness and those who have symptoms. It is fair for the hon. Lady, and for us, to ask the NHS to explain how it responds. Saying, “You don’t have an illness, so you are not our problem” is not the way the NHS often responds. It responds by saying, “You are experiencing symptoms”—which people may well be—“and the question is whether they are treatable.” If they are not treatable, they may be something that requires support more from the local authority than from the NHS.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

May we have a statement on the arrogance of this Government, who have a Prime Minister who dispenses with normal staff vetting procedures, a Chancellor who refuses to debate the merits of an audit of manifestos by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, a Health Secretary who deems it acceptable to make announcements on patient safety to the media and has to be dragged to the House, and a Work and Pensions Secretary who is determined to push through his welfare reforms, regardless of the mounting evidence of their chaos and the untold harm to very vulnerable people in society?

[Mr Lansley]

On every point that the hon. Lady mentions she is completely wrong. I shall not go through them all, but to suggest that the Prime Minister somehow dispensed with security vetting is completely wrong. The hon. Lady can read the Leveson report, which sets out very clearly that civil servants, not the Prime Minister, were responsible for that decision, so her point was completely unfair. She referred to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, who made a written ministerial statement to the House; that is informing the House.

Business of the House

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Lord Lansley

Thursday 8th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

Yes. I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who raised the subject with my right hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House in the recent pre-recess Adjournment debate. DEFRA Ministers will be continuing to develop further investment in flood defences, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will update the House both on that and on the lessons learned exercises as soon as he can.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House issue a statement explaining why a Government official who used to work for an investment bank involved in the Pfizer-AstraZeneca deal is leading the takeover negotiations, and whether that lack of independence is in the public’s interest?

[Mr Lansley]

I do not know of any civil servant who is in any sense compromised in relation to conflicts of interest. I do not think one can reasonably say that any relationship at any point in one’s past professional life necessarily constitutes a conflict years and years later. Civil servants are committed impartially to working on behalf of the Government. They have no conflicts of interest, or if they had any conflict of interest it would have to be declared.

Business of the House

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Lord Lansley

Thursday 1st May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is right that the Government do indeed share his concern about those who drive while disqualified and cause death or serious injury on our roads. He will know from my statement that the first day on Report of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill will be on Monday 12 May. I direct him to that debate, where I know he will be in his place to hear the response from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

One and a half million pounds worth of donations to the Tory party from private health care providers resulted in £1.5 billion—

[Mr Lansley]

indicated dissent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Debbie Abrahams]

There is evidence. The Leader of the House is shaking his head, but I have cast-iron evidence. Those donations resulted in £1.5 billion-worth of NHS contracts going to those same providers. Will arrange a statement to explain why the Government are refusing to exempt the NHS from the EU-US trade negotiations, thereby threatening the future of the NHS as we know it—or is that also linked to those donations?

[Mr Lansley]

I scarcely know where to begin in refuting that nonsense. First, donations to the Conservative party do not result in contracts—they simply do not. It is a complete travesty and a disgrace to suggest that the people who take procurement decisions within the NHS would be influenced in any way—or, frankly, know whether the individuals associated with any particular company happened to have political affiliations or otherwise.

On the transatlantic trade and investment partnership negotiations, I wish that Labour Members—this was evidenced during our debate on the subject—would focus on the dramatic potential for increasing trade, jobs and growth in Europe and America rather than trying to focus on something that will not have the effect that the hon. Lady describes, because within the NHS there is already, as there was under her party’s Government before the last election, scope for private companies in America to access contracts if they are able to provide the best services inside the United Kingdom.

Business of the House

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Lord Lansley

Thursday 20th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

Of course, because we had data yesterday showing that it has gone up. There are something like 1.4 million more jobs in this country—I will be corrected if I am wrong—and the smallest number of workless households. Our pension reforms, which the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), has been steering through, are delivering for the people of this country the triple lock, the single-tier pension, auto-enrolment and, following yesterday’s Budget, a dramatic new potential for people to use their pensions funds as they think best. We are also ensuring that where we are reforming—this is true of personal independence payments—we are doing so carefully and steadily, recognising where there are difficulties and addressing them.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

On Tuesday, the Work and Pensions Committee published a report which, in addition to reporting on the delays in assessments, also showed that the Department for Work and Pensions is distorting statistics, which is denigrating to people such as the person my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) mentioned. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has been rebuked by the UK Statistics Authority at least twice. Does the Leader of the House agree that the ministerial code of conduct is not worth the paper it is written on unless it is enforced, and will he report back to the House on exactly what he is going to do about this matter?

[Mr Lansley]

No, I do not agree with that. I cannot see any evidence that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has breached the ministerial code of conduct. There are often, rightly, debates about policy and, indeed, about the statistics that support policy, but I do not see any basis for the accusation that, in using the arguments that he has, he has in any way breached the code.

Business of the House

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Lord Lansley

Thursday 12th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

In the light of these developments, I will of course talk to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Time for an oral statement is very limited and that could therefore be difficult to arrange, but I will see whether it is possible for a statement to be given to the House before we rise for Christmas.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

In response to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) about mental health funding, the Leader of the House implied that he was against NHS resourcing based on activity. So may we have a statement on why previous Health Secretaries and the current one have pushed for NHS resourcing based on activity? Will the right hon. Gentleman not then be supporting proposals that NHS England is considering next week, which emphasise health care resourcing based on activity and not on health care need or health inequalities?

[Mr Lansley]

If the hon. Lady reads what I said, I think she will find that I was supporting the principle of tariff-based funding, which is an activity-based funding scheme. In that sense, NHS England, independently, is responsible for allocating resources to clinical commissioning groups and the mandate to it is clear: it should do that according to the principle of equal access for equal need.

Business of the House

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Lord Lansley

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Councillors should be accountable for the decisions they make—[Interruption.] Opposition Members are helpfully making the point that if Labour councillors are making decisions that are contrary to the views and interests of my hon. Friend’s constituents, come the next election those constituents will have an opportunity to do something about it.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

This week 100,000 people signed a petition calling for a cumulative impact assessment on the effects of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 on sick and disabled people. Will the Leader of the House agree to a debate in this Chamber on that cumulative impact assessment?

[Mr Lansley]

I did, of course, write to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee noting that that petition had passed the point of 100,000 signatures. At the meeting on Tuesday that Committee received a submission from Members about a debate on that subject. It is now not for me but for the Backbench Business Committee to decide whether a debate should be timetabled.

Business of the House

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Lord Lansley

Thursday 28th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Given that £1.5 million-worth of donations from private health care companies resulted in £1.5 billion-worth of NHS contracts for those companies, and that the private supper arrangements with the Tory party have resulted in donations of £1.5 million to the Conservatives, may we have a statement from the Leader of the House on who these anonymous donors are and what exactly has been paid for?

[Mr Lansley]

I am afraid that the hon. Lady is completely wrong in all her assertions. For 20 years in the Conservative party it has been clear that we do not take anonymous donations and we do not take donations to which strings are attached. It is absolutely not true to say that donations lead to contracts in the NHS. Those contracts are administered independently and fairly, and relationships with Ministers before they came into office and while they are in office have absolutely no bearing on that. Indeed, the number of private sector contracts in the NHS has not increased overall since the election.

Business of the House

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Lord Lansley

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I cannot promise an immediate debate, although I must say that in due course such a debate would be useful and would be appreciated not least by myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), in whose constituency are two very successful sixth-form colleges at Hills road and Long road. My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) makes a very important point, and I hope that we can take it up at some point. If we had a debate specifically about sixth-form college teaching up to A-level, it would be the responsibility of the Department for Education to respond, but if the debate related specifically to apprenticeships and skills-based learning, it would engage the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Given that the Health Secretary, the Work and Pensions Secretary, the Lord Chancellor, the Chancellor and even the Prime Minister seem to have a basic lack of understanding of basic statistics, when will the Leader of the House organise a training course for them, and will it be a back-to-basics training course?

[Mr Lansley]

Since I do not accept the premise, I am not planning to arrange such a thing.

National Health Service

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Lord Lansley

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

No, because I have already given way to the right hon. Gentleman many times. Let me tell him this. If he was going to offer to try to work with others on GP commissioning, he ought at least to have demonstrated before the election that he was going to do something about it; and using a transparent political ploy to try and interfere with the passage of the legislation in another place carries no credibility with me or with anyone else. Labour’s tabling of a motion in the other place in an attempt to block the Bill completely showed no willingness to work together, and the fact that it was defeated by 134 votes ought to have given the right hon. Gentleman a reason—and sufficient humility—not to try to return to the subject by tabling today’s motion.

As I said earlier, I find it regrettable that neither the right hon. Gentleman’s motion nor his speech made any attempt to deal with what has happened in the NHS over the past year. Let me tell him, and the House—for I know my right hon. and hon. Friends will be interested as well—what has, in truth, happened during that time.

At the end of the last Labour Government, the average in-patient wait was 8.4 weeks. According to the latest available figures, that has fallen to 8.1 weeks. The average waiting time for out-patients was 4.3 weeks at the time of the last election; it is now 4.1 weeks. Over the last year, the number of MRSA bloodstream infections in hospitals has fallen by a third, and the number of clostridium difficile infections by 16%. Nearly three quarters of a million more people have access to NHS dentistry. Nearly 2 million people have access to the new 111 urgent care service, and the whole country will be covered within the next 18 months. When we came to office, I discovered that there had been talk about a 111 telephone system, but nothing had been done. It is now happening.

More than 75% of stroke patients now spend 90% or more of their hospital stay in a stroke unit. That is a 20% increase in two years. The Cancer Drugs Fund has given more than 5,000 patients access to the drugs that they desperately need, and which under the last Government’s regime would not have been available to them. We have embarked on an £800 million investment in translational research, increasing our financial support for it by 30%, to help to secure the United Kingdom as a world leader in health research.

The NHS is leading the way in the prevention of venous thromboembolism, with 86% of patients receiving an assessment for the condition. I believe that that constitutes an increase of some 30% in the last year. The bowel cancer screening programme is enabling many more patients and members of the public to be screened, there is more screening for diabetic retinopathy than ever before, and there were 188,000 more diagnostic tests in the three months to August than there were last year. Pathfinder clinical commissioning groups have been established virtually through England, and there are 138 health and wellbeing boards in local authorities, meeting and putting together their strategies to deliver population health gain across their areas.

In a single year, the year preceding the election, the right hon. Member for Leigh presided over a 32% increase in NHS management costs. That was the year after the banks had gone bust. It was the year when it was obvious that Government deficits were out of control. It was the year when the debt crisis was just about to crash over the whole public sector. What happened on the right hon. Gentleman’s watch? There was a 23% increase in management costs in a single year, to £350 million. In the year that followed, we reduced those costs to £329 million.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State tell us what the percentage of senior managers is, and how that compares with the percentage in the private sector?

[Mr Lansley]

Does the hon. Lady act as parliamentary private secretary to the shadow Secretary of State? Ah, she does. Well, she has the merit of consistency. I am reminded that in June 2006, when for a short period she was chair—I think—of Rochdale primary care trust, she resigned. She said that she resigned because the radical changes happening under the then Labour Government in 2006 would

“destroy the NHS as we know it.”

The hon. Lady has the merit of being consistent: she is against every Government and every change. She does not think that any steps will make the NHS into what it ought to be. I will not take any lectures from her, therefore.

I was explaining to the hon. Lady and the House what has been achieved. We have stripped out pointless bureaucracy. The number of managers more than doubled under Labour, but we have cut their number by more than 5,000, and we have increased the number of doctors in the NHS by more than 1,500. The Bill includes measures to abolish primary care trusts and strategic health authorities, but in the meantime we have clustered PCTs and SHAs together.

We are reducing the cost of bureaucracy in the NHS not only because it is necessary to do so. The transfer to clinically led commissioning in the NHS, for which there is a very good case of course, also involves reducing such costs. As the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), has frequently made clear, as part of the transfer process we will deliver £4.5 billion in savings in administration costs this year across the national health service. The transition itself involves costs of course, but they will be recovered by the end of 2012-13, and by the end of the Parliament we will have gone on to save more than £4.5 billion in total.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Lord Lansley

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am sure that we all share my hon. Friend’s view of the great importance of this matter. The Department of Health leads on ensuring that health care is available to people who have been rescued by the police from human trafficking. We also lead on promoting an awareness that local government has multi-agency safeguarding processes to assist in supporting people who have been abused and harmed. There is more to say, but I will write to my hon. Friend on the subject.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

T5. In the evidence session on the Health and Social Care Bill, the Secretary of State told me that he was committed to reducing health inequalities. We also heard from the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) on that subject a few moments ago. Will the right hon. Gentleman therefore explain why he made a political decision last December, against the advice of the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation, to reduce the health inequalities component of primary care trusts’ target funding from 15% to 20%, in effect shifting funding from poor health areas such as my constituency to richer health areas such as his own? The Government are saying one thing—

Health and Social Care (Re-committed) Bill

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Lord Lansley

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

No.

I return to the choice offered in this group of amendments between the Government and Opposition Members. The Government are putting forward a range of amendments to protect patients’ interests and to safeguard them when providers run into difficulties and access to services is threatened. The amendments show that the Government have listened and improved the Bill. These amendments are on top of the changes made at earlier stages to strengthen the safeguards and protections offered by Monitor as a new provider regulator.

The Opposition simply want to delete the whole of that part—delete the safeguards to stop price competition, delete the means to stop cherry-picking, delete the means to enable NHS providers to work on a level playing field. The Government’s new clauses and amendments move us forward with the right safeguards in place. Labour would take us back. I urge the House to support the Government new clauses and amendments in this group—specifically, new clauses 2 and 6 and amendments 90 to 107, 113 to 220, and 366 to 372.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has insisted that the amended Health and Social Care Bill shows that the Government are listening, but despite their reassurances there are many reasons why the Bill remains a threat to the future of the NHS. Central to the reforms is the proposal to increase competition across the NHS by opening it up to providers, particularly those from the private sector. The Government claim that increasing competition drives down costs and improves quality, but overwhelming international evidence suggests that this simply is not the case in health care.

NHS Future Forum

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Lord Lansley

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I agree very much with that. The Future Forum’s report, particularly the part that deals with clinical advice and leadership, has given us a robust structure for engagement with the range of professions that are capable of delivering that kind of integrated, joined-up and more effective care.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State reassure us that no services or hospitals will be taken over by the private sector?

[Mr Lansley]

There are no plans in the legislation or, indeed, in the Future Forum’s recommendations that would lead to that. In particular, as the hon. Lady will see in the detail published with the written ministerial statement this morning, we have proposed that Monitor should have no power to allow the private sector access to NHS facilities for reasons of competition and to take them away from NHS providers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Lord Lansley

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State or the Minister confirm whether they will take up the offer from my Front Bench for bipartisan discussions about the future of adult social care—or will he put political interests before the public interest?

[Mr Lansley]

We were very clear that the commission that we established, led by Andrew Dilnot, should look at the reform of long-term social care funding in such a way as to secure maximum understanding, consensus and agreement. Andrew Dilnot has gone about that process in an exemplary manner, and the right thing for us to do now is await his report, which should then form a basis for taking things forward.

NHS Reorganisation

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Lord Lansley

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

No, I am sorry, I am going to make progress so that everyone gets a chance to speak.

The Government have also said that the NHS commissioning board will ensure that NHS delivery is free from political control, but I am not so sure about that. The Bill contains a variety of contradictions, particularly in relation to the Secretary of State’s appointments to the various quangos. Another of the founding principles under threat from this Government is that treatment should be based on clinical need and not the ability to pay. We heard the Secretary of State say that that would be protected, but the Government’s reorganisation of the NHS will result in opening up that fundamental principle. The NHS commissioning board and the GP consortia will have the power to generate income, perhaps by charging for non-designated services. What constitutes designated and non-designated services has yet to be defined, however. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) tried to get some elucidation on that, but none was forthcoming.

[Mr Lansley]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Debbie Abrahams]

No, I am sorry, I want to make some progress—[Hon. Members: “Give way!”]

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Lord Lansley

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am afraid the hon. Lady sees a conflict where, to GPs, there is none. It is their responsibility—[Interruption.] No, their first duty is always to their patients, whose best interests they must secure. When she has an opportunity to look at the Health and Social Care Bill, which we published last week, she will see that it makes very clear the duty to improve quality and continuously to improve standards. We all know that we have to achieve that with finite resources, but we will do that much better when we let clinical leaders influence directly how those resources are used rather than letting a management bureaucracy tell them how to do it.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State explain why, at a time when front-line NHS staff in my constituency and elsewhere across the country are in fear of their jobs, it is proposed that the NHS commissioning board will be able to make bonus payments to a GP consortium if, to quote the Bill,

“it considers that the consortium has performed well”,

and that a GP consortium may

“distribute any payments received by it…among its members”?

Is that not the worst kind of excess? We do not want to see it in our banking system, and we certainly do not want to see it in our NHS.

[Mr Lansley]

I am glad to have the opportunity to welcome the hon. Lady to the Opposition Benches and wish her well in representing Oldham East and Saddleworth. I am sorry that she did not take the opportunity to welcome in particular the Government’s commitment to the new women and children’s unit at the Royal Oldham hospital.

For years, general practices have been remunerated partly through a quality and outcomes framework. The principle is that if they deliver better outcomes for patients, they should have a corresponding benefit from doing so. In the same way, if the commissioning consortia deliver improving outcomes for patients, that should be recognised in their overall reward.