NHS Funding (Ageing)
Debate between Jamie Reed and Edward Leigh(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, Sir Edward, to speak under your chairmanship again, although I am afraid I am not a brother knight.
Mr Reed
I am even more afraid that it is a fraternity I will never be invited to join.
I thank the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) for securing this timely debate and for her opening remarks. Particular thanks should go to Government Whips for drafting so much of it. As she knows, the last Labour Government took a malnourished, failing NHS with an annual budget of approximately £30 billion and left it with a budget of more than £110 billion. The Conservative party voted against every increase in that budget. The same Labour Government oversaw the biggest ever hospital building programme in this country. It recruited tens of thousands more doctors and nurses. It inherited an NHS in which Bruce Keogh said people were dying waiting for treatment, and left a service with the lowest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction rates in its history. Of course, there was much more to do.
I warn the hon. Lady against complacency. If she wants to see a health economy that has been plunged into crisis as a result of the Government’s policies, she should come to Cumbria where a crisis is unfolding, patients are paying the price and the Secretary of State is entirely disinterested in what is happening.
It is incredible to hear that NHS England does whatever it is told by the Labour party. That is extraordinary—this must be the most powerful Opposition of all time. Government Members should consider whether they are in office but not in power. A canard seems to be being established whereby the NHS England board have become the new reds under the bed. That fascinating argument will be rolled out between now and the next election.