Budget Resolutions

Debate between Florence Eshalomi and Wes Streeting

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)]

I begin by addressing the British Medical Association’s reckless call for resident doctors to strike in the run-up to Christmas. That is a cynical choice, coming as flu cases surge and we enter the most dangerous time of year for hospitals, and it is completely unjustified. After a 28.9% pay rise, the Government offered to create more jobs and put money back in resident doctors’ pockets. The BMA rejected that out of hand. My door has always been open, I have never walked away from the table and I stand ready to do a deal that puts patients first. We will prepare for this round of strike action.

I am extremely proud of the hard work and performance of NHS leaders and frontline staff who did so well to minimise costs and disruption during recent rounds of strike action. In fact, during the most recent round, we were able to maintain planned elective activity to cut waiting lists at 95%. Yet I must be honest with the House and with the country: if this strike goes ahead, this time will be different. Our hospitals are running hot and the pressures are enormous. That is why I urge the BMA not to go ahead. Not only does it put the progress we are making together in the NHS at risk; it threatens to do so in the worst way and at the worst time possible.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the hard-working staff at St Thomas’ hospital across the bridge, who deal with patients from right across the country, including many who have had surgeries and operations booked for many months, still kept the show going during the last rounds of strikes? Will he please do everything in his power to make sure that the strike does not go ahead?

[Wes Streeting]

I can certainly give my hon. Friend that assurance, and I absolutely endorse what she says about our local hospital, which I know very well. I genuinely thank frontline NHS staff, without whom the performance and improvements we are seeing simply would not be possible.

Let me turn to the substance of this debate. There was once a time, not long ago, when this place was bound in consensus on a number of issues addressed by this Budget. We used to be united on the need for a national health service as a publicly funded, public service, free at the point of use. The last Labour Government built a shared conviction that in 21st-century Britain, no child should grow up shackled by the scourge of poverty. We could go back as far as the Government of Benjamin Disraeli and find a Conservative Prime Minister committed to public health in a way that Labour and Conservative Prime Ministers have been in my lifetime. We did not always agree on how to get there, but there was at least agreement on the destination. However, as the opposition parties lurch to the right, consensus after consensus is breaking. [Interruption.] Admittedly, the Liberal Democrats have moved further to the left since their days in coalition; that is true. Maybe do not lead with your chins on that one, comrades.

Regardless of our friends on the centre left, old battles that were won must now be fought all over again, so it falls to Labour not just to cut waiting lists, improve the health of the nation and lift children out of poverty, but to win the argument, as well as hearts and minds. It falls to Labour to persuade people that we can and must help people lead healthier, longer lives, free from preventable disease; rebuild our national health service as a public service, free at the point of need; and give every child the best possible start in life, free from the scourge of poverty. Labour has won those fights before, and we will win them again.

NHS 10-Year Plan

Debate between Florence Eshalomi and Wes Streeting

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State for this really ambitious and bold plan to make sure our NHS is fit for the future. He will be aware that Professor Ian Abbs, the chief executive of St Thomas’ hospital in my constituency, will step down later this year. I want to thank him for his dedication and compassion in leading St Thomas’, especially during the covid crisis, when the hospital cared for so many patients, including the then Prime Minister in his crucial hour.

The Secretary of State may be aware that Royal College of Nursing analysis shows that by 2029, 11,000 nurses may have left the profession after working less than 10 years in the service. Nurses cite exhaustion, mental health and stress as their reasons for leaving the profession. Can he give us an update on how we will ensure we have a workforce that is fit, so that we can achieve our ambitious 10-year plan for the NHS?

[Wes Streeting]

I am so grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. I pay tribute to Professor Ian Abbs. He is an outstanding NHS leader, and we have loved working with him. As with many people of his calibre moving on from their positions of leadership in the NHS, it is a bit like the Hotel California—you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. We will not let him drift off into a quiet retirement; we are determined to make use of his expertise.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the importance of nursing. Nurses and midwives will play an increasingly important role in neighbourhood health. They are central to our shift to a modern, digital NHS. They are clinical leaders in their own right. Following the 10-year health plan, the chief nursing officer for England will work with the professions to develop a strategy that will make nursing and midwifery modern careers of choice, to address the decline in applications. As I have set out this week, we are looking forward to working closely with the Royal College of Nursing and Unison—of which, I should say, I am a member—to make sure that the status, the conditions and the impact of nursing on our NHS go from strength to strength, because nurses are the backbone of the NHS. We would not have a national health service without them.