Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill

Debate between Eddie Hughes and Sarah Wollaston

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

I want to make a brief but enthusiastic speech in support of the Bill. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton), although I have to admit to being mildly distracted by the tales of his stag-do in Portugal. I look forward to concluding my speech and finding out more details about that later.

An odd place to start would be my constituency, where 20% of constituents do not have a passport, and therefore do not get the opportunity to travel and have any concerns about reciprocal healthcare arrangements. However, they do need to worry about the healthcare arrangements that are provided in this country. Any country that might wish to engage in reciprocal arrangements with us will no doubt be looking jealously at our health service, which I understand employs 1.5 million people, making it one of the five biggest organisations on the planet. Clearly, it is an incredible organisation. We are spending over £100 billion a year on it, so why would other countries not want to enter a reciprocal arrangement with us? We have a lot to offer.

There has been some question about what the Brexit deal will be and what the future might look like next year, when we leave the EU. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) has made this point a number of times: if you were to sit down with your iPad now with nothing better to do and try to book a flight for next year to Europe, you would have no difficulty doing so at all. We do not know what the arrangements are for international travel yet. We have not seen the detail of that, in terms of what has been signed and agreed, but we know planes will take off and will land in Europe and I think we are fairly confident that people will be able to get healthcare when they go to Europe and that there will be no unusual situation where ambulances drive up to one end of the border and hand a patient over. That is not likely to be the case, so let us bring a degree of practicality to the debate. That is what the Bill does: it is a practical Bill in order for us to make the necessary preparations because we are, of course, leaving the EU. It is necessary partly because 25% of Brits who travel abroad do not have holiday insurance. Perhaps they are taking a bit of a flyer and hoping that those reciprocal arrangements will be the safety net that protects them.

I have a particular concern because that 25% figure rises to 40% for 18 to 24-year-olds and 38% for those aged between 18 and 30. I am the father of two kids, aged 22 and 27. I think it is very unlikely that if they were travelling to Europe they would have the common sense to book travel insurance, despite protestations by their father. So I am hoping that we achieve those reciprocal arrangements, not least because my understanding is that nine of the 10 top holiday destinations abroad for Brits are in Europe—if it were not for New York, the top 10 would be entirely in Europe. So we are leaving the EU, but we are not leaving Europe.

[Dr Wollaston]

Does my hon. Friend accept that at the moment people do not need to have health insurance as they are covered by the EHIC? The fact is that they will need to have such insurance if we do not have a deal. People who travel thinking and believing that they are insured next year may find, if they have a serious medical emergency abroad, that they are completely wiped out by the medical costs. We need to be clear about that with people.

[Eddie Hughes]

I completely understand, and to a degree accept, that point, except that I perhaps have more faith than my hon. Friend in the ability of our ministerial team and Government to negotiate an agreement with Europe that will mean that those worries are allayed. I confidently believe that the arrangements will be very similar.