National Health Service (Amended Duties and Powers) Bill

Debate between John Healey and David Nuttall

Friday 21st November 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry). He made an attempt to make a serious speech, but his 30 minutes were based on one argument that is fundamentally wrong, which is that this Government have made no changes to the basis of the NHS in this country. These 457 pages of his Government’s legislation show that that is wrong. If he looks at sections 72, 73 and 80 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, he will see that the Competition Act 1998, the Enterprise Act 2002 and the Office of Fair Trading are brought into play for the first time in our NHS.

So why no Tory apology to NHS staff, patients and the public? Why no Tory apology to NHS staff for forcing through the largest internal reorganisation in 65 years of NHS history and for forcing them to cope with increasing confusion, complex bureaucracy and wasted cost? Why no Tory apology to the public for an NHS that they now see has longer waiting lists and service cuts? Why no Tory apology to the public for breaking election promises and the terms of the coalition agreement to stop top-down reorganisations of the NHS, which have often got in the way of patient care? Finally, while we are at it, why no apology to this House for the way we were misled about the reorganisation and the legislation in 2010 and 2011, which became the 457-page Health and Social Care Act 2012?

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I will tell the right hon. Gentleman why there has been no apology: because there is nothing to apologise for. That is the simple reason. We have a better health service now than we had before; that is why there has been no apology.

[John Healey]

Patients say exactly the opposite of what the hon. Gentleman has just argued. However, I understand that he feels he has nothing to apologise for. If he fundamentally believes that the NHS should be a system based on full-blown competition, delivered by the private sector, then of course he would want to legislate in that way.