Budget Resolutions

Debate between John McDonnell and Madeleine Moon

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

It is absolutely shocking when, as a society, we are looking to integrate everybody into the mainstream as best we can. It means that those children will be deprived for the rest of their lives. More than 4,000 children with an approved education, health and social care plan are still not receiving the provision they are entitled to, which confirms what my hon. Friend reports.

The Local Government Association is now warning the Government that the cuts to local government will mean schools being forced to turn away students with special needs. Yesterday’s Budget offered £177 million for additional maths and IT teachers, supposedly to make us fit for the future, at a time when just 10% of our schools offer IT GCSEs—£177 million to compensate for £1.7 billion, or £1 pound given back for every £10 taken away. Capital spending on schools is also scheduled to be cut by £600 million over this Parliament, at a time when class sizes are rising.

On the NHS, experts and health professionals are agreed that it is approaching breaking point. The NHS needs proper funding. The chief executive of NHS England has said our national health service needs £4 billion this year to prevent it from falling over. He has warned of 5 million people being left on the waiting lists if there is not additional funding.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that clinical commissioning groups in the NHS are looking to introduce new taxes on patients? Kernow CCG proposes to make kidney dialysis patients pay for transport to their dialysis. This is a death tax of £120 a month. Dialysis or death—that is their option.

[John McDonnell]

Under the figures that have been announced this week in the Budget, there will be more of this. There will be more rationing. There will be more people suffering. There will be more people’s lives put at risk.

Under this Government, 4 million people are now waiting for care—the highest level in a decade. More than 100,000 patients were left waiting more than two weeks to see a specialist after being diagnosed with cancer, and more than one in 10 did not start treatment within 62 days. Only three in 10 of the most urgent 999 calls for help are answered within the targeted time. Yet, the Government have brought forward less than half the amount that is needed and that professional, sober assessments say is needed. The claim in yesterday’s Budget that £10 million in capital funding is available is totally misleading. The Government will provide less than half of that. The remainder will come from selling off NHS estates or from the private sector.

Nor has the pay cap that has driven hard-working public sector workers to despair been tackled. The dedication of the staff is extraordinary. There are nurses waiting behind after 12-hour shifts to give care to keep the system from imploding. These are the same NHS nurses who have seen their pay fall so much in real terms that one in four must take a second job to make ends meet. The Royal College of Nursing reports that nurses are even visiting food banks, such is their desperation. It is not possible to run a health service worthy of the name on the unpaid and underpaid dedication of its staff alone. The Chancellor is able to offer nothing for them.