Health Bill

Freddie van Mierlo Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 1st June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)]

All too often in my role as a local MP, I have been frustrated by the buck-passing in the NHS. My local ICB cuts a service, pleading no money, or refuses to fund a new one. It tells me to ask the Government, the Government tell me it is a local decision for the ICB, and the cycle goes on.

With this Bill, I welcome the accountability conferred on the Secretary of State, but I am slightly gobsmacked that he has agreed to it. Every Back Bencher should be rubbing their hands with glee. This legislation makes the Secretary of State personally responsible for commissioning arrangements in all ICBs. I look forward to sending him a letter on the day the Bill receives Royal Assent listing every change I want him to make. My ICB has one of the worst offers on IVF, it has been far too slow to adapt to new dynamics in ADHD and autism, it has left commissioning gaps in palliative care and closed down step-down beds, and now it wants to close down child and adolescent mental health services.

I make this prediction: the office of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will balloon under this legislation, because every Back Bencher will appeal to him to make sure that they get their local commissioning arrangements sorted. This reform is, of course, fully in line with the UK’s overly centralised Whitehall system, but it is not in line with the Government’s supposed devolution agenda. Mayors could be the answer, but the Government have been too timid about the role of mayors, who merely sit as members of the ICB. What of areas that have been slow to get mayors?

Although the Bill addresses ICBs, there is no reform of the sclerotically slow-to-act Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation or UK National Screening Committee; they have been painfully slow to act on spinal muscular atrophy screening.

Although I welcome the single patient record, I would like to raise a serious concern. In my constituency, I was recently made aware of a case of a patient’s record being accessed multiple times, unrelated to their care. In fact, they were not receiving care at the hospital at the time; instead, they were campaigning on maternity care. Clinicians had no business looking at the record. Although a single patient record of this scope is welcome, it opens up the abuse of data privacy on steroids. What steps will be taken to protect data and confidentiality?

Finally, I want to discuss how the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommendations are implemented. Trusts have 90 days to implement NICE technology appraisals, yet this Bill confers on the Secretary of State the right to change that. How will that be handled? It should definitely be considered further in Committee.

Health Bill

Freddie van Mierlo Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 8th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth]

I apologise, but I am going to press on. There is a lot to get through.

We are committed to tackling health inequalities wherever they arise. There are strong duties on both ICBs and the Secretary of State to tackle these inequalities, and we remain firmly committed to doing so. We continue to drive forward improvement plans including the national cancer plan and the mental health strategy, which will transform mental health care into a system that responds and intervenes early, reduces waiting times for support, and ultimately supports people to participate fully in education. I note in particular that the Government are already making record investment in mental health. All ICBs are expected to meet the mental health investment standard over the next three years, and all are forecast to meet it for 2026-27.

We are also committed to delivering the national cancer plan and focused on driving improvements, including on diagnostic capacity, which is key to addressing waiting times and tackling variation in access to better treatment, as we have heard today from my hon. Friends the Members for Easington (Grahame Morris), whose work in this area I commend, and for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist).

[Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Karin Smyth]

I am going to press on a little bit, if I may.

I remind the House that we are doing this within the existing legal structures, and that our approach is not to put in place additional duties and layers of detail and specificity in primary legislation. I think we should avoid the temptation to create separate statutory obligations for each condition or patient group, particularly in an age where people are living longer and very often with more than one health condition. Instead, we should commit ourselves to tackling inequalities for everyone, everywhere.

We have again heard from the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), about corridor care. The Government have been consistently clear that corridor care is not an acceptable standard of care and should not be normalised, and it is our intention to reduce and ultimately eradicate it. I think it is worth reminding the House that corridor care does not occur everywhere; some places have made huge steps to avoid it, and we want to share that learning. I particularly commend Barnsley foundation trust, South Warwickshire foundation trust and the Dudley group foundation trust, where there have been zero incidents in the last reporting. We must recognise that corridor care is one of the most visible and distressing symptoms of systemic pressures across the urgent and emergency care pathway, and our focus is on taking action now to tackle those underlying pressures.

We are improving patient flow, strengthening discharge arrangements, investing in urgent and emergency care services, and providing targeted support to the systems and trusts facing the greatest challenges from corridor care, so that improvements can be delivered where they are needed most. To ensure that we can understand where these challenges are, we have already introduced a national definition of corridor care, and strengthened reporting and oversight arrangements.