Defending Public Services

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes). Coincidentally, my mother, like hers, has been taken into hospital over the last week, and I can only echo her praise for the dedication of the NHS staff who have been providing the treatment. My hon. Friend made a number of powerful points about mental health services, which is a cause close to my heart, and I entirely agree with what she said in her very good speech.

I am pleased to speak in today’s debate on public services, at a time when hospitals, schools and other public services are facing cuts, unnecessary change and uncertain futures. My constituents in south Manchester will be surprised to hear the Prime Minister label this Queen’s Speech a continuation of his Government’s life chances strategy. Manchester City Council has seen more than £350 million-worth of cuts over the past six years, resulting in cuts to leisure centres, libraries, road repairs, community mental health support and social workers. This is a statistic I have used in this place before, but if Manchester had our fair share of cuts—I am talking not about being protected from cuts, but about having our fair share—we would be £1.5 million a week better off, which would pay for a lot of public services. We have not had our fair share. We have been hit, as have so many deprived northern boroughs, very unfairly.

Not only that, but my constituents have suffered from the bedroom tax, from unfair sanctions and from cuts to the benefits that help them to get by in life. For many people in south Manchester, it will be hard to accept the contention that the Queen’s Speech has quality-of-life concerns at its core when so many of the local services that make up the fabric of our communities are being stripped away. That is the context in which we discuss the Queen’s Speech today, sitting as we do in an institution that is at the heart of British culture and tradition.

There are two other great British institutions that, more even than anything in this place, make me feel proud to be British, and they both face big challenges. Our NHS, still reeling from the unwanted top-down reorganisation, is in a crisis of rising demand for services paired with massive financial deficits in NHS trusts. For patients, the latest statistics confirm a worrying trend. The proportion of patients being dealt with in A&E within four hours of arrival decreased to 87%, against a 95% target. In March, performance against the key target of patients starting treatment within 18 weeks of a GP referral reached its worst level since the target was introduced.

My constituency is home to many of the 5,000-plus medical and healthcare students in Manchester universities. With the attack on student nurse bursaries, the Government are asking them to do more with less and to work long hours with no help. That, at the same time as the junior doctors’ dispute, has hit the morale of the staff who form the backbone of our NHS. A survey by the healthcare professionals network showed that four out of five healthcare workers had considered leaving the NHS in the last year, and that stress has become the single greatest cause of sick leave for doctors. That is the legacy of a Tory Government for the NHS.

Similarly, the BBC faces an uncertain time, overseen by a Secretary of State whose commitment to it is questionable. The Government’s concessions on scheduling and finance were welcome, but in the Labour party we believe that any final proposals must protect the BBC as a financially and editorially independent public service broadcaster.

I do not want to be entirely negative. There are some measures in the Queen’s Speech that I agree with, if they are done properly. I certainly support reforms to adoption processes, and reforms to support for young people in care and care leavers. If they go alongside properly funded social workers and adoption staff, they could help to tackle what I think is one of the biggest problems in society, namely, that we fail too many of our people in care and we fail them when they leave care, with devastating consequences for their future and for our society.

I also welcome the potential of the local growth and jobs Bill to make a difference. I have always argued for local authorities to retain business rates growth, so I am interested to see the detail of the plan for councils to keep 100% of business rate revenue. The devil will be in the detail, however, and there will have to be some kind of floor-and-ceiling redistribution mechanism to ensure that the poorest areas, such as Manchester, are not hit hardest. Similarly with the new school funding formula, it is vital that the areas that need additional funding most are not hit.

Perhaps of most immediate interest for the people of Manchester is the prospect of a buses Bill in this Parliament. Finally, there is the prospect of Manchester being given the powers that London has had for so long—powers to franchise a bus system that better serves the people of Greater Manchester. We have been calling for that for years, and it is time the Government acted. A deregulated bus service has failed Greater Manchester, and if the Chancellor is to revive the northern powerhouse initiative, this is a good place to start.

Too often, an inefficient marketplace produces unbalanced bus networks. I see that 100 yards from my house on the bus route through Wilmslow Road in Withington. Popular routes are being flooded with different providers, and other routes in my constituency have to go without services because the profits of companies come before a good service to the public. The public purse still provides 40% of the revenue that goes into bus services in Greater Manchester. We need to be able to make that money work more effectively. The buses Bill is a vital first step towards the flexible and inter- connected transport system that Greater Manchester so desperately needs, but it must be implemented properly. I look forward to working with the Government on this where possible and to the Bill moving forward.

Although there are some good proposals in the speech, there are plenty of underwhelming measures, and some bad and dangerous proposals, too. The proposed British Bill of Rights is, as a policy, as confused as it is unnecessary. The Human Rights Act 1998 that we have today is a modern-day Bill of Rights that has repeatedly protected the vulnerable. Let me quote Liberty:

“Day in, day out, the Human Rights Act is used by ordinary people—including victims of crime, those with physical disabilities or mental health problems, and children—to achieve protection, truth and justice. It is one of the cornerstones of our modern and diverse democracy.”

If the Government really are going to listen to consultation, they should listen to the many voices across the country who say that they should think again, recognise the indispensable protections that the Human Rights Act offers and drop these proposals.

Ultimately, there is a lack of vision and ambition in this Queen’s Speech. It is a missed opportunity to tackle the inequality and insecurity in our country. There is the failure to address homelessness, the lack of an industrial policy, the misplaced focus on ensuring that good and outstanding schools have to become academies, instead of on producing the high-quality teachers of the future, and the lack of measures to link up health and social care. This Government are not addressing the most pressing issues in our public services.

This Queen’s Speech will give little hope to my constituents, who are hoping to see an ambitious Government aware of the struggles that they face. Although I welcome some of the Bills planned, the Government have shown that they are not prepared to fund public services properly. This Queen’s Speech will be forgotten quickly. However, the painful legacy of this Government on public services will not be.