Health and Social Care

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I shall come to that point directly, because the Queen’s Speech is a diversion from the real issues, an attempt to say, “Look over here at this other issue” and divert people’s attention from the chaos the Government have visited on the NHS.

On health and care, our objection is not to the modest measures the Government are proposing. We will of course wait to see the detail, but it sounds as though we will be able to give our support to many of them. Our objection to the Gracious Speech is not to what is in it, but to what is not in it and to the unpleasant political strategy that lies behind it. As a response to the developing crisis in our health and care system, it is inadequate. Worse, however, it tries to disguise that fact by pointing the finger at others. Forget compassionate Conservatism; this is straight back to the dog-whistle tactics—failed tactics, I might add—of the 2005 general election. This is the coded message the Government want the Queen’s Speech to send: “You see all those problems with accident and emergency departments? Well it’s all down to immigration. It’s nothing to do with us.” It is a Crosby-fied Queen’s Speech that is more about positioning and politics than a serious programme for government.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

On a real issue that concerns people, there have been 1.1 million immigrants from eastern Europe since 2004, so I repeat the question very courteously put by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge). The right hon. Gentleman talks about leadership, so will he show some and tell us whether the Labour party would grant the British people a referendum on Europe? Yes or no?

[Andy Burnham]

It is interesting, isn’t it? Here we are, in the middle of this Parliament, discussing the Queen’s Speech and health and social care, and what is the only issue Conservative Members can raise? Europe! We are talking about people waiting hours on end in A and E, about ambulances queuing outside, about a 111 service that does not ring anybody back, and about social care close to collapse, but they have nothing to say about those issues. Instead, they bang on about Europe. That is because they are preparing the ground for the 2015 election. The nasty party is back, scapegoating vulnerable people and stoking social division as a means of diverting attention from its own record, so get ready to hear how problems in the NHS are caused by health tourism and are nothing to do with the coalition’s toxic medicine of fragmentation, privatisation and budget cuts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I represent a Lincolnshire seat. I wish to say a bit about opinion in Lincolnshire and relay it to the House, if Members are not already aware of it from the local election results.

Coincidentally, today is the feast day of St Earconwald, who was born in 693 in Lindsey, north Lincolnshire. Various miracles were attributed to him. For example, when he was elderly and in his wheelchair, the wheels fell off but it kept going. I am reminded of how the coalition still keeps going, despite its wheels occasionally falling off. I think we may come to a time before the end of this Parliament when, such is the divergence of opinion—perfectly honourably felt—between very honourable people such as the Minister on the Front Bench and me, that for the sake of the nation we may have to bring this coalition to an end and honestly put our separate programmes to the people.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

When?

[Mr Leigh]

I have no idea when that will happen.

I said I wanted to talk about opinion in Lincolnshire. Despite all the Government’s success in their central aim of attempting to cut the deficit—we have cut it by a third—people there undoubtedly feel that their voice is not being heard. We have to listen to that voice. If I may be forgiven for being party political for a moment, I should point out that there is absolutely no enthusiasm for the Labour party, because people have not forgotten who created the borrowing mess we are in. We heard a lot about plain packaging from the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who led for the Opposition today, but the whole Labour party is plain packaged. We have no idea, frankly, what it will do.

[Barbara Keeley]

I cannot speak for all parts of the country, but I campaigned in the recent county elections in Lancashire and there was huge enthusiasm for the Labour party.

[Mr Leigh]

We will have to see what happens in various parts of the country.

It is said that this is a thin Queen’s Speech. As a Conservative, I do not object to a thin Queen’s Speech. I do not object to deleting unnecessary legislation either, whether on minimal alcohol pricing or plain packaging. I view all these as creatures of the nanny state, so it is good conservatism that we are not introducing them. However, if we are to have a Queen’s Speech that is, shall we say, somewhat light and has lots of room in it, that means there are various other things that we could do. One thing we do not need to do, I would have thought, is persevere with the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. I will not repeat all the arguments, but this is an area where many people in Lincolnshire feel that their opinions are being not represented.

If anybody wants to look at an excellent article on this subject, they should read Charles Moore’s in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday. There is a real problem. We are trying to deal with an economic crisis and the very first thing we will do after this Queen’s Speech debate—although it was not mentioned in it; as far as the Government are concerned, this is the Bill that dare not speak its name—is have two days on same-sex marriage. The Bill will then go to the House of Lords. There are enormous, complex issues at stake for the Church of England. I have no doubt that we are moving to a world in which the Church of England will be allowed to conduct only religious marriages, but will not be able to complete them. They will have to be completed by the state because of equality legislation. These are serious issues. The Government could easily mend fences with many of their supporters by putting the Bill out to further consultation.

[Steve McCabe]

If the coalition survives longer than the hon. Gentleman suggests, does he think that next time round it might be an idea for the Government to have a debate and then produce a Queen’s Speech, rather than producing a Queen’s Speech and then having a debate about what should not be in it?

[Mr Leigh]

That is an interesting argument. I have appended my name to the important amendment to the Queen’s Speech, and we should have a serious debate on the issue. This is not Conservative Members of Parliament obsessing about Europe; this is a real issue for people. It is no longer a dry as dust issue.

In Boston, a seat with a 12,000 Conservative majority, UKIP won nearly every council seat two weeks ago. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), the people there are not particularly worried about all the details of European legislation, but they are worried about immigration. I echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) said in his very measured speech: people in Lincolnshire are not closet racists. They welcome Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian people, but they want their public services to be supported, when, on the coast of Lincolnshire, public services are overwhelmed. Since 2004, 1.1 million have arrived in this country from eastern Europe, and we have to address that issue.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Leigh]

I am sorry; I have only a short time left.

Speaking personally as a comfortable, middle-class person living in the hinterland of the beautiful Lincolnshire wolds—where, incidentally, we held all the seats we were defending—and in a comfortable part of London, I have no angst about Poles. They are hard working, and I think that most of them will go back. Their religion is estimable, and I have no complaint whatever against them. But we should listen to the people who are worried about public services, and this is therefore a European issue.

I personally believe that we should listen to those people and that we should have a referendum. I would also say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) that I believe that the Prime Minister is absolutely a man of honour and a gentleman, and there is no doubt in my mind that if he is still Prime Minister in 2017 we will have that referendum. The trouble is that ordinary people—if I may use that expression—do not think like us. They do not think in terms of four-year Parliaments; they think about now. The question they ask is, “If this is such an important issue, why can’t we have a referendum in the next two years?”

There should at least be a mandate referendum that we can put to the British people, asking whether we should have a new relationship with Europe based on political co-operation and economic free trade. If we fail to listen to the people, we will create a sense of alienation and, despite all our success in driving through the Government’s central economic policies and tackling the deficit—the reason that the coalition was created and what we are really about—that would eat away at the support for the coalition. A sense of alienation is created when people are worried about their public services.

People are worried about other issues as well. In the middle of my constituency, the Government are erecting wind turbines more than 150 metres high—taller than the highest point in the Lincolnshire wolds—that are being paid for by ordinary people living in terraced houses in Gainsborough. They are paying £100 a year, and the money is going straight into the pockets of rich farmers, all in the name of dealing with global warming—if indeed there is global warming, if indeed carbon emissions are causing it and if indeed wind farms will make any difference. That all adds to people’s sense of alienation.

People also worry about the budget for international development. I am personally in favour of spending money on international development, but we have a commitment to spend 0.7% of our gross national product, for which there is no scientific basis. As we reduce the number of staff in the Department for International Development, we are loading more burdens on the remaining staff to hand out more money. That is simply not good economics. It is not a good way to run a Department.

I do not believe we should ring-fence the budget of any Department. We should spend wisely and carefully on the right things at the right time. Whether we are talking about same-sex marriage, about the EU referendum or about the DFID budget, we must recognise that people are feeling a sense of alienation, and that good, strong Conservative voters do not feel that their Government are representing them all the time. Let us also put the focus on the Labour party, but let us concentrate on the core issue of getting rid of the deficit. Let us make that the successful mission of this Parliament.