Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Karen Lee

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

T5. The human rights situation in Tibet is deeply worrying. It is difficult to know how many Tibetans have been imprisoned unjustly in China. The situation will continue to deteriorate without transparency. What steps are this Government taking to facilitate independent observers’ immediate and unhindered access to Tibet in order to accurately address the human rights situation on the ground?

[Mr Hunt]

I completely share the concerns that the hon. Lady has raised. This is one of a number of human rights issues that we raise regularly with the Chinese Foreign Minister, and I will continue to do so.

NHS Long-Term Plan

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Karen Lee

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Absolutely. The most important way of spending to save is to invest in prevention, and a lot of that work comes from strong local hospitals. Before my hon. Friend finally leaves this place, I have no doubt at all that her local hospital will be called not the Horton General Hospital, but the Great Horton General Hospital.

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree with me that without the reinstatement of the nursing bursary, we cannot even hope to train enough nurses. The figures show that the numbers training have fallen—this is a serious inquiry—and until we can train enough nurses, we can talk about extra nurses, but we will always need agency nurses. Does he agree that we need to reinstate the nursing bursary so that people can afford to train?

[Mr Hunt]

The reason why we took what I fully accept was a very difficult decision was that we wanted to fund the training of an additional 5,000 nurses every year. When there is a reform of higher education funding, there is always an initial dip in applications. In this case, record numbers of 18 to 19-year-olds applied, but there was a dip among mature students. That is why we have introduced the apprenticeship route. We need to make sure that that works if that dip is to be reversed.

NHS Outsourcing and Privatisation

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Karen Lee

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, which would be echoed by many Government Members who represent rural constituencies. There is a balance to be struck between the benefits of specialist surgery, where greater volumes of a particular procedure are done, leading to better outcomes for patients, and the trade-off that we make with travel times. I know that that is something that the local NHS, in all parts of the UK, thinks through very carefully.

There is another myth we always get from the Labour party that I think it is very important to dispel: the narrative about the NHS being in total decline. Let us be clear about the pressures facing the NHS. We had to deal with the financial crisis of 2008, which left this country’s coffers empty. We have had to deal with the fact that over the last seven years, we have had half a million more over-75s. We had to deal with a crisis of care at Mid Staffs, which turned out to be a problem affecting many other parts of the NHS.

Yes, it is true that we are missing some important targets at the moment, but let us not forget the extraordinary things that have been achieved despite that pressure, such as for cancer. We inherited some of the lowest cancer survival rates in western Europe. In 2010, only 10% of patients got intensity-modulated radiotherapy; that figure is now 44%. We have two new proton beam therapy machines—at the Christie and University College London Hospitals—and there are 7,000 people alive today who would not be had we stayed with the cancer survival rates of 2010. Every day, 168 more people start cancer treatment than did in 2010. This is a huge step forward.

On mental health, previously we had no national talking therapy service for people with anxiety and depression; today, 1,500 more people are starting or benefiting from talking therapy services every single day, and we have huge plans to extend mental health provision to 1 million more people.

[Karen Lee]

Does the Secretary of State think it acceptable that ambulances were waiting outside Lincoln A&E for up to seven hours over the winter? Is that a mark of progress?

[Mr Hunt]

No, I do not think it acceptable at all, but I would ask the hon. Lady to bear it in mind that we have 2,000 more paramedics than we did in 2010 and that we have invested in a huge amount of capital equipment for the ambulance services. Of course we need to do more, but, when she talks about A&E, she should recognise the achievements of many hospitals, including her own. Every day across the NHS—even over this difficult winter—2,500 more people are seen within four hours than were in 2010.

Labour seems to think that quality problems in the NHS started in 2010. I should point out that because of what we have done to deal with the problems of Mid Staffs, which happened on Labour’s watch, including through the new Care Quality Commission regime, 2.1 million more patients every year benefit from good or outstanding hospitals than did five years ago. A couple of weeks ago for the first time the majority of hospitals in the NHS were good or outstanding, which is a huge step forward and a huge tribute to NHS staff. That might be just one reason the Commonwealth Fund last year said that the NHS was the best healthcare system in the world. When Labour was in office, it was not even the best in Europe.

There is another reason to oppose the motion. It has nothing to do with health policy, but is a much bigger point of principle. After more than five years in this role, the one thing I have learned is that good policy can be made only through frank and open discussion between Ministers and officials. It will not surprise the House to know that Ministers are human, we make multiple mistakes—not me of course—and it is critical that the Secretary of State in charge of the largest health system in the world can get honest, high-quality advice, but the motion would fundamentally undermine that.

This is not a party political point. Many Labour Members have benefitted from such advice, and all of us would want Ministers of any party in power to benefit from such advice, regardless of whether we support the Government, yet the motion asks us to release not just that written advice from officials, which would have an enormous chilling effect, but notes of confidential discussions between Ministers and officials. In short, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington) said only last week, it would undermine the safe space within which Ministers and civil servants consider all the options and weigh up the best approach. Officials must be able to give advice to Ministers in confidence. The candour of all involved would be seriously affected if there were any fear of those discussions being disclosed.

No Government of any party have ever operated in an environment where advice is sought one week and made public the next. Let us look back to what Andy Burnham said in 2007 when he as a Minister was asked to release information. His words were:

“Putting the risk register in the public domain would be likely to reduce the detail and utility of its contents. This would inhibit the free and frank exchange of views about significant risks and their management, and inhibit the provision of advice to Ministers.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2007; Vol. 458, c. 1191.]

Far from increasing the accountability of the Executive to the legislature, releasing such information would risk weakening it, as more and more discussions would end up taking place informally with no minutes taken at all.

NHS Pay

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Karen Lee

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Hang on. I think it is important to listen to what the Governor of the Bank of England said. Sir Mervyn King said:

“we came into this crisis with fiscal policy along a path that was not…sustainable and a correction was needed.”

What was he talking about in 2010? The Government borrowed £1 in every £4 that they spent. The deficit was 10.2%, the highest since records began. The reason that, say, Germany did not have to go through austerity is not because a German equivalent of the Leader of the Opposition was throwing prudence to the wind but because Germany did not allow its public finances to get recklessly out of control, which is what happened under the Labour Government.

[Ms Karen Lee]

This is a genuine question. I am a nurse, and I see the situation at first hand. I go to work once a month—I still do bank shifts—and the situation is truly awful. We are so understaffed that it is unbelievable. I looked after 10 patients on my last shift. That is not for the audience; it is the truth. The NHS is in that sort of state. Lincoln’s walk-in centre is threatened with closure. All that is going on. I take the Secretary of State’s point about paying for it, but the Conservative party talks about cutting corporation tax and it is paying the Democratic Unionist party more than £1 billion. While that is happening, he cannot talk to us about austerity and say that we cannot have decent NHS services. I am sorry, but he should listen to what I am saying. The NHS really is in crisis.