Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Harman Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I know that this has been very disappointing news and that my hon. Friend has been very active on this matter. The work force and the local community have worked tirelessly to help the administrators to secure the long-term future of the refinery. We are keeping in close contact with the administrators, who are still looking at further options, and working with Thurrock council’s taskforce as well. The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), has met representatives of the work force and local community. I will, of course, draw my hon. Friend’s remarks to the attention of the Prime Minister as well.

[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)]

May I join the Foreign Secretary in paying tribute to Lance Corporal James Ashworth of 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards and Corporal Alex Guy of 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment? They died serving our country with the utmost bravery, and we join the Foreign Secretary in sending our deepest condolences to their families and friends.

We know that there is still a long way to go before the people of Burma get the democracy to which they are entitled, but the fact that progress has been made is due to the extraordinary commitment and courage of one woman who has endured more than two decades of house arrest. Will the Foreign Secretary join me in expressing our utmost admiration for Aung San Suu Kyi?

[Mr Hague]

I absolutely will, and I think it highly appropriate to raise this matter during Prime Minister’s Question Time. I believe that I was the first European Foreign Minister to visit Aung San Suu Kyi and to visit Burma at the beginning of the year, and I found her, not only in reputation but in substance, an inspirational figure.

As the right hon. and learned Lady says, there is still a long way to go, not only in bringing democracy to Burma but in ending ethnic conflicts, one of which is still going on in Kachin state. We look to the Government of Burma to continue to travel on this road and to release remaining political prisoners, and I think that across all parties we look forward to giving Daw Aung San Suu Kyi a tremendous welcome tomorrow.

[Ms Harman]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his answer. He was right to visit Burma when he did. We support the suspension of sanctions on Burma, but will he reassure us that the position of the British Government will remain that sanctions will be re-imposed unless there is sustained progress towards democracy and the rule of law?

[Mr Hague]

That is very much our position, and I have said so in terms to the Foreign Minister of Burma. Indeed, we have argued in the European Union that sanctions and other restrictive measures should not be lifted unconditionally, but should be suspended so that they can be re-imposed if necessary and if progress comes to a stop. They have been suspended for 12 months, and we will of course continue to review progress throughout that period.

Having met the President of Burma on my visit, I believe that he is absolutely sincere in his intentions, but there will of course be elements in the Government of Burma who are not so enthusiastic about these changes and who will be alarmed by the success of Aung San Suu Kyi and her party in recent by-elections. We will keep up the pressure, as well as the welcome, for these changes.

[Ms Harman]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for that answer, and for his commitment to keeping up the pressure for progress. Let me now turn to domestic issues, and specifically to the national health service.

This week a survey showed that 90% of primary care trusts are restricting access to treatment because of the financial pressure that they are under. That will hit older people particularly. How can the Foreign Secretary justify an elderly person with cataracts in both eyes being told that they can have surgery in only one of them?

[Mr Hague]

It is totally unacceptable if trusts are rationing on the basis of financial considerations. The NHS medical director has written to trusts telling them that the criteria for decisions must be only clinical and not financial. If evidence is found that they are ignoring that, the Secretary of State can intervene. The Department of Health will look into any cases in which trusts are using financial conditions for the purpose of decisions. Allegations have been made about this issue before, including under the last Government. The Department of Health is very clear about what it will do, and that should be welcomed throughout the House.

[Ms Harman]

But there is evidence and the Foreign Secretary is still not acting. This is not just about cataract operations: 125 different treatments are being rationed on grounds of cost, including hip and knee replacements. What does the Foreign Secretary say to an elderly patient who needs a hip replacement—“Wait in pain” or “Try to pay and go private”? What does he say?

[Mr Hague]

I say three things. First, I say what I said a moment ago when answering the right hon. and learned Lady’s question about rationing. Secondly, I say that arbitrarily restricting access to operations was not just happening under the last Government, but allowed under the last Government. In 2007, patients in Suffolk had to wait for a minimum of 14 weeks for routine surgery, and York NHS Trust was told by its primary care trust not to operate on non-urgent cases until they had waited for a minimum of 20 weeks.

Thirdly, I say to any of those individuals that their GP—their doctor—should be at work tomorrow, and not on strike. We on this side of the House encourage those doctors to go to work, and I hope that the right hon. and learned Lady and all those on her side of the House will say clearly today that those doctors should be at work tomorrow.

[Ms Harman]

We do not want patients to suffer, so we do not want the GPs to be going on strike, but we are proud of what we did in the NHS—more doctors, more nurses and cutting the waiting lists. It is always the same: Labour builds up the NHS and the Tories drag it down.

Today, the Foreign Secretary is saying that he is 100% behind the Government’s health plans, but it is a different story in his own constituency. Last month, he took to the streets, marching in protest against the NHS cuts. Let us remind ourselves of what the Prime Minister said about midwives. Just before the general election, the Prime Minister wrote for The Sun newspaper—because, professionally of course, they were all in it together—and said that

“we will increase the number of midwives by 3,000.”

Can the Foreign Secretary confirm that they have broken their promise on midwives?

[Mr Hague]

That was a long question, although I congratulate the right hon. and learned Lady on not having the shadow Chancellor here today, which does help everyone to hear and concentrate. [Interruption.] The Chancellor is at the G20; the shadow Chancellor is presumably doing another opinion poll on what people think of him—and by the way, we could have told him that for nothing. [Laughter.] More value under the Conservatives.

On the questions that the right hon. and learned Lady asked, I am glad that she says that GPs should be at work tomorrow. She should tell that to her own spokesman, the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), who said that she had “a lot of sympathy” with the British Medical Association and that there would be a lot of public support for the action it is taking. So there is a clear division across the Floor of the House.

It is perilous for the right hon. and learned Lady to go into the affairs of another constituency, because what is happening in my constituency is nothing to do with funding or health reforms. But I will tell her all about that separately, if she would like. She says that Labour Members are proud, but we are proud of what has happened in the NHS. Average waiting times for both in-patients and out-patients are lower than at the last general election; the best performance ever has now been attained for patients waiting after 18 weeks to be treated; the total number of qualified clinical staff is higher than at the election; there are 3,900 more doctors since the election; and hospital infections are at their lowest level since surveillance of them began.

[Ms Harman]

And he never answered the question about midwives, because before the election the then Leader of the Opposition was all “Yes we Cam,” but as soon as he became Prime Minister it is “No we can’t.” Services rationed, patients suffering and public satisfaction at a new low—that is the Tories on the NHS. The Prime Minister once told us that he could sum up his priorities in three letters—NHS. Isn’t it more like “LOL”?

[Mr Hague]

It obviously took a long time to think of that one. I have set out the achievements of the Government on the NHS. Even the King’s Fund, in its latest report, which has sometimes been quoted by the Opposition, says:

“There is no evidence of a…decline in service quality or performance”.

It also says:

“infection rates have not noticeably deteriorated—remaining relatively stable in…most measures…or, in the case of MRSA and C difficile, reducing.”

These are important achievements in the health service, and they are a contrast with the Opposition health spokesman saying in June 2010:

“It is irresponsible to increase NHS spending in real terms”.

They are also a contrast with the number of managers doubling under the Labour party; a contrast with Labour’s last year in power, when the number of NHS managers rose six times as fast as the number of nurses: and a huge contrast with the situation in Wales, where Labour is cutting NHS spending.