National Insurance Contributions: Healthcare

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

We all know that a lot of the debate on assisted dying revolves around the lack of hospice places to help people pass in the best way possible. Similarly, much of the debate on the NHS is about the lack of care home spaces. Leaving aside the cross-party name-calling, may I beg the Minister to consider exempting hospices and care homes from this national insurance increase?

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

1. What steps his Department plans to take to improve health outcomes in the east midlands.

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

Lord Darzi’s report concluded that the health service is in a critical condition across the country, including in the east midlands, where healthy life expectancy has declined in the past decade. Waiting lists in the region stand at slightly below the national average for 18-week waits, at 57% compared to the national average of 58%.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

With two thirds of people having to wait more than four hours at Lincoln County hospital’s A&E department and with horror stories from my constituents of people waiting up to 24 hours, does the Minister understand that if we are to save the NHS and give people the timely appointments they need, we must unleash the full power of the private sector?

[Karin Smyth]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for helping to underline the shocking inheritance from the previous Government. He is absolutely right. We are committed to cutting waiting times and serving constituents, like mine, by delivering the long-term reform the NHS desperately needs. The Government are committed to the funding model. We are not going to change it. He tries this every time, but we are committed to the funding model as it exists.

NHS: Independent Investigation

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I greatly respect the Secretary of State, and, as an older person who relies on the NHS, I support his radical zeal. I repeat what he said in his statement: cancer is more likely to be a death sentence for NHS patients than for patients in other countries. We have had this conversation previously, but can he at least look at the health systems in other countries, particularly those in the Netherlands, Australia, France and Germany? Those countries, which have wonderful health systems protecting the vulnerable, use a mixture of social insurance and public and private funds to maximise inputs into their health services.

[Wes Streeting]

Every time the right hon. Gentleman praises my zeal for NHS reform, Labour Members get very nervous. Let me reassure him that I have looked at other countries, and I will definitely continue to do that. I genuinely do not think that it is the model of funding that is the issue—the publicly funded, public service element. I hope that he knows me well enough to understand that if I did think so, I would be more than happy making, and would quite enjoy taking on, the argument, but I think that the equitable principle that underpins our NHS is one that we should cherish and protect. The single-payer model has enormous potential for the century of big data, AI, and machine learning. There is huge potential there that we must unlock, but that does not mean that we cannot learn from the way that other countries organise care, particularly in the community and particularly social care. This week, I met virtually with my friend the Health Minister in Singapore. I will continue to work with my international counterparts to learn from other countries whose health outcomes are far better than ours.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing to the Chamber his professional experience and the real-life consequences for his patients. If I may, I will unpack some of the details behind that invaluable intervention. The premise behind the Bill is exactly as he says—to stop the start—because there is no safe level of smoking and no safe tobacco product. In fact, it is the only product that, if consumed as the manufacturer intends, will kill two thirds of its long-term users.

The Bill is not about demonising people who smoke or stopping them from buying tobacco if they can do so today. It will not affect current smokers’ rights or entitlements in any way. Indeed, we want to help them to quit. We are supporting them by almost doubling funding for local stop-smoking services. Instead, the Bill is looking to the future, to give the next generation the freedom to live longer, healthier and more productive lives.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

How does the Secretary of State counter the Conservative argument that if we ban something, we massively increase criminality?

Building an NHS Fit for the Future

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Steve Tuckwell) on a superb election victory and on a great speech from a real local champion. That result shows how important it is for the Government and the Mayor of London not to get ahead of public opinion on green energy. We all want more green energy but it must be economically driven and we must take the general public with us. I am afraid that the Mayor of London, certainly in outer London, has not taken the public with him. In Lincolnshire we have an aspect of green energy that affects my constituency, with 10,000 acres ringing Gainsborough to be put under solar panels. That will involve a huge loss of agricultural land, enough to feed the city of Lincoln every year. We all want solar panels as long as it is proportionate, but 10,000 acres ringing one small town in Lincolnshire is overdevelopment.

The advantage of the King’s Speech debate is that we can range quite widely, and in the few minutes I have, I shall raise a few general points. We have a new Foreign Secretary, a new Home Secretary and a new Health Secretary. The challenges facing the Foreign Secretary are enormous, both in the middle east and in Ukraine. On the earlier intervention, I am all in favour of a ceasefire, but it must be by both sides, and there is no intimation yet that if Israel were to announce a ceasefire, Hamas would follow suit. If Hamas are now prepared to commit themselves to a permanent ceasefire with Israel and respect the right of Israeli citizens to live in peace and tranquillity, I am sure we can have a negotiation on that basis, but I do not see that happening.

We also need to have a tone of compassion for the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people are not Hamas. I was quite impressed by what President Macron was saying on this. The Israeli Government have the right to defend themselves, but it must be in proportion, and I think we are all devastated and concerned about the plight of women, children and babies in Gaza. The Israeli Government have to deal with this issue in a proportionate way.

On Ukraine, I do not suggest a ceasefire, because that would simply benefit President Putin, but if there is a stalemate, I am not sure that we can go on thinking that we can solve the problem by pouring in more and more weaponry. Eventually there will have to be some sort of settlement.

This is a debate primarily about the NHS. We in Lincolnshire suffer from a poorly performing NHS. I have constituents—people of my age—who have paid taxes all their lives and who suddenly fall ill, go to A&E in Lincoln and have to stay there for 24 hours, often in pain and difficulty. More and more doctors are insisting that people who want an appointment have to go online, and fewer and fewer doctors are providing prompt face-to-face service. The NHS simply cannot continue as it is.

We have a new Health Secretary and, as I have said before, I think we need fundamental reform. Frankly, our counterparts on the continent, in France, Italy and Germany, get a much better service. We have to look at some sort of social insurance system by which people who pay taxes all their life are entitled to treatment within a certain period and, if they do not receive that treatment, the state will assist them to go private.

I have made the point many times that a previous Conservative Government gave tax relief for private health insurance. This Government have not progressed that idea, which I do not think would be a wildly popular one, but we have to do something. The NHS is consuming an ever-larger proportion of the national budget and delivering a worse and worse service.

Over the next 12 months up to the general election, I hope the new Health Secretary will think big ideas to try to give people, particularly those of pensionable age, some right to the healthcare that they have paid for all their life and that they do not get at present. Having more children brushing their teeth at school under a putative Labour Government will not solve the problem; it is far greater than that.

Of course, we also have a new Home Secretary, who has an enormous challenge. I have confidence that he will speak up for Conservative Britain and Conservative voters who are deeply unhappy about the very high levels of both legal and illegal migration. It is completely unsustainable to carry on with the current net migration rate of some 600,000 people a year, which is overwhelming our services, the NHS, housing and everything else. It is said that we need these people to work in the NHS or in care homes, but we need to provide proper wages so that people who already live in Britain want to work in the NHS or in care services.

We should not allow employers to think they can solve their problems by constantly importing labour from abroad. There is a simple solution to help solve this problem. The average wage in the UK is about £34,000 a year and, at the moment, a person can enter this country for a job paying £26,000 a year. If we said that migrants have to earn a minimum of, say, £34,000 a year, we would bring in high-quality staff and not undercut our own indigenous labour.

[Mr Jayawardena]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have a structural problem because of our country’s ageing population, and that we need to have more children in this country so that we meet our replacement rate for the first time since the 1970s?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I have made a personal contribution by having six children. They are all now in their 20s and 30s, and they are finding it unbelievably difficult to get on the housing ladder. The Government really have to solve this problem. We cannot just fill this country with more and more people so that our young people cannot get on the housing ladder and cannot find a place to rent.

I am a bit dubious about reforming how landlords can evict tenants. I just want supply-side reforms to ensure there is more housing coming on to the market for young people to rent. I want the Government to be far more proactive on building houses, if necessary in grey areas on the green belt. That might not be universally popular with my colleagues, but we certainly have plenty of room in Lincolnshire. If people want to come up to Lincolnshire and build houses, they are very welcome. We will do our bit.

I am very dubious about the smoking ban and, as a libertarian, will vote against it. It will not solve the problem, and I believe it will result in a massive increase in criminality. Every time we ban something, we simply increase the criminal class. I am not sure a ban is even enforceable. In 50 years’ time, old boys will go into a tobacconist and say, “I am 64 years old and am entitled to buy cigarettes, but my friend here, who is 63, cannot buy cigarettes.” It is ridiculous, and it is not enforceable. I do not smoke, and smoking is decreasing all the time. The people who smoke are heavily taxed. I do not believe we can solve this or any other problem by banning things. Conservatives have to be primarily about freedom. They have to be about low taxation and deregulation. We have to give something for our own people to vote for, which is why I have talked about these issues and, in particular, curbing legal and illegal migration. I am a victim of that, as is the Home Secretary, because the previous Home Secretary was going to open a camp for asylum seekers in his constituency. I do not know whether the Home Secretary is still going to do that; if he decides to row back on that idea in his constituency, I hope he will not close that camp in Essex but keep open the putative camp at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, as that would be completely unfair. Being a fair-minded person, he will not do that, I am sure. I shall be knocking on his door soon to say that we need a compromise, as we cannot have 2,000 illegal migrants overwhelming local social services. After that brief run around the King’s Speech, I am sure you will be grateful if I now sit down and let others have a go, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

I confirm to the hon. Gentleman that, in the recent spring campaign, we deployed four approved vaccines—Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Novavax and Sanofi-GSK—as part of our roll-out. We are using a range of vaccines to protect us from the pandemic.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

13. Whether his Department has made an assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the potential impact of the availability of housing on young people’s mental health.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

We are working with a number of Government Departments, including the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, to tackle the effect of housing insecurity on young people’s mental health.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The mental health of young people is being impacted by the fact that net migration is far too high and we are not building nearly enough houses. The Government need to take action on that, but young people worry that, with an ageing population, the health service will not be able to provide for them in future. May I commend to the Minister the excellent paper published by the former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, which suggests things such as co-payments and personalised apps? Would it not be ironic if a former Labour Prime Minister were more radical on reform of the NHS than a Conservative Government?

[Maria Caulfield]

Actually, under this Government, last year, the number of first-time buyers passed the 400,000 mark, which is the highest number in 19 years. I will not take any lectures from a former Labour Prime Minister because when Labour was in government it saddled the NHS with a £10 billion failed IT system that never saw the light of day, an £80 billion failed private finance initiative contract that NHS trusts are still paying for, and a GP contract that enabled opt-out at weekends and evenings, which patients still suffer from.

NHS Long-term Workforce Plan

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

According to the King’s Fund, the proportion of GDP taken by the NHS has increased in the past 50 years from 3.4% to 8.2%. On the same trajectory, in 50 years’ time, it will take a fifth of all our GDP. That is totally unsustainable, especially as someone’s only right, despite the fact they are paying ever increasing amounts of tax, is to join the back of the queue. I ask again: will the Secretary of State launch a study—and, if necessary, appoint a royal commission—on fundamental reform of the whole nature and funding of our health system, so that we can learn from every other developed country, such as Australia, France, Italy and Germany, where they unleash private sector investment into healthcare and give people rights to their healthcare, while ensuring that those who need it get free healthcare at the point of delivery?

[Steve Barclay]

I hope my right hon. Friend is pleased to see the measures we are taking with the Lord O’Shaughnessy review on clinical research trials to make it easier and faster to do research in the NHS. That in turn attracts private investment to the NHS. He will have seen the announcement I made on Tuesday of £96 million for 93 different research projects, such as at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where we have allocated £3.5 million for research into rare conditions in children. That translates into research that is then deployed, usually in adults. We are investing there, and we are screening 100,000 children through Genomics England. We have got a deal with Moderna and BioNTech so that we can have bespoke cancer vaccines. On Monday, we rolled out national lung cancer screening. Previously, in our most deprived communities we were detecting lung cancer late—80% were diagnosed late—but in those pilots we turned that on its head with 76% detected earlier.

I know that my right hon. Friend, as a former Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, will agree that by detecting earlier, not only are patient outcomes far better but treatment is far cheaper, whether that is for lung cancer or through our innovation on HIV screening in emergency departments picking up HIV in people who do not realise that they have it. When we treat it early, the patient outcomes are better, and it is fiscally much more sustainable. That is how we will address some of his concerns.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien]

I had a useful conversation with the Scottish public health Minister where we discussed many of these issues. We are providing huge cost of living support—some of the most generous in Europe, worth £3,300 a household—and taking action across the piece. Whether it is smoking or obesity, we are tackling the underlying causes of the health inequalities that the hon. Gentleman mentions.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T8. Under the Human Rights Act, do the Government not have a duty of care to deal with the housing of illegal migrants? How can the Government ensure the health of 2,000 migrants cooped up in the former RAF Scampton? In particular, how will they ensure their health given the fact that the site is riddled with asbestos and contamination from 100 years of RAF usage? I see a case coming to the European Court of Human Rights.

[Steve Barclay]

Clearly, an increase in population in a specific area will have an impact on the health needs there. I recognise the concern that my right hon. Friend raises, and I will ask the Minister for Primary Care and Public Health to follow up with him on this important point. While the NHS is well equipped to deal with short-term pressures, this issue highlights the importance of the Prime Minister’s commitment to stop the boats and the Government’s overall strategy on illegal migration.

Patient Choice

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

As the record shows, numbers have been increasing. There are 37,000 more doctors and 52,000 more nurses within primary care than in 2010. We have already reached our manifesto commitment on additional roles in primary care to deliver more appointments. We have repeatedly said that we will bring forward a workforce plan and we are committed to doing so shortly.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on promoting more choice than in the socialist republic of Wales, which is a pretty low bar, but can we go further and promote real choice by adopting two previous Conservative policies? Both would be wildly popular. The first is a patient passport, by which a patient could get a free operation on the NHS, or take the same cost to a private or charitable hospital, which would promote choice and accountability. The second is tax relief for private health insurance, which is a matter for the Chancellor, but the Secretary of State could have a quiet word with him.

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend has lobbied me on this issue a number of times, including outside the Chamber. As such a senior parliamentarian, he well knows that tax is a matter for the Chancellor, who I am sure will have noted his wider point.

NHS Workforce Expansion

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House condemns the Government’s failure to train enough staff to tackle the worst workforce crisis in the history of the National Health Service with a current shortage of 9,000 hospital doctors and 47,000 nurses; notes reports that the draft NHS England workforce plan calls for a doubling of medical school places to address this crisis; calls on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to use the upcoming Spring Budget to end the 200-year-old non-domiciled tax status regime; and further calls on the Government to use revenue generated by ending that regime to adopt Labour’s plan to expand the NHS workforce by doubling the number of medical training places, delivering 10,000 more nursing and midwifery clinical placements, training twice the number of district nurses each year and delivering 5,000 more health visitors.

To anyone who has needed medical care in recent months, it is blindingly obvious that the NHS is desperately in need of more staff. Doctors and nurses are overworked, hospitals are understaffed and the staff are burnt out. Patients are waiting longer than ever before, and 13 years of the Conservatives’ failure to train enough staff has broken the NHS, leaving patients to pay the price. In the words of the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), Labour has a plan; where is the Government’s?

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The point I have been trying to make in recent months is that we should try to learn from the experience of Europe, where they have very effective social insurance systems and much more effective outcomes, so when the hon. Gentleman says he has a plan, I think we would all like to know what the plan is. Is it radical reform, or is it just more and more taxpayers’ money thrown into the NHS?

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful beyond words for that intervention. I will outline Labour’s plans immediately and return to the right hon. Gentleman’s challenge—proposing a social insurance system—a little later in my remarks.

The point of this debate is that there is a serious shortage of staff. Labour has a plan to address that shortage, whether that is measures for retention of the staff we have or our plan for the biggest expansion of the NHS’s staff in history. The Conservatives have no plan, so let me outline what Labour’s plan is. We will double the number of medical school places so that we train 15,000 doctors a year. We will train 10,000 new nurses and midwives every year. We will double the number of district nurses qualifying each year and train 5,000 more health visitors. In a formula that will become familiar in the run-up to the next general election, we are clear about how we would pay for it, too. We will pay for it by abolishing the non-dom tax status, because patients need doctors and nurses more than a wealthy few need a tax loophole.