Health and Care Bill

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I start by thanking all those who served on the Bill team and the Clerks, the Library and all the staff of the House who supported them. I also thank the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), my hon. Friends the Members for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) and for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) and the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) who chaired the Committee deftly. I put on the record Labour’s thanks to the Minister for Health, the hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar)—my constituency neighbour in Leicestershire—who both in Committee and over the past two days in the House has been courteous and patient in responding to the various amendments and in how he conducted himself across the Dispatch Box. We are grateful for that.

Equally, I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) and for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) for working so hard on this Bill and making the case for our amendments. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston had his birthday yesterday—there is no greater place to celebrate one’s birthday than at the Dispatch Box—and I am told that he may well be putting in an appearance at the Strangers’ Bar after tonight’s vote. I am sure that hon. Members from both sides of the House may want to join him in his celebrations.

Of course, Labour welcomed parts of this Bill. It did indeed scrape some of the worst remaining vestiges of the Lansley reorganisation off the boots of the NHS. The compulsory competitive tendering of contracts, which we warned against nearly 10 years ago, are finally put in the dustbin. Of course, it was this Secretary of State, as an enthusiastic and loyal Back Bencher, who spoke in those debates supporting that reorganisation, but we welcome the ending of section 75.

We also welcome some of the provisions around public health, particularly those on childhood obesity and advertising, but we wish the Bill had gone further on smoking cessation and alcohol. Madam Deputy Speaker, I know it is not the convention to praise Members on Third Reading as one does on Second Reading, but I praise the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford)—the constituency in which I grew up and went to school—who spoke with great eloquence, emotion and very personally about the impact of alcohol addiction on his family. It has also had an impact on my own family, as some hon. Members know. Although the Secretary of State did not accept either the hon. Gentleman’s amendments or ours, perhaps he will be prepared to meet us on a cross-party basis to discuss how we can take that agenda forward.

In saying all that, however, we are not minded to support the Bill in the Lobby tonight. We remain unconvinced by the arguments put forward by the Minister for Health in the past 48 hours. We still believe that this is the wrong Bill at the wrong time. As the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) said in his intervention on the Secretary of State, this is an extensive reorganisation of the national health service at a time when we are still in a pandemic and when NHS staff are exhausted and facing burnout. We should be prioritising the monumental waiting lists, the huge referrals for mental health treatment, the crisis in A&E, and the huge pressures on ambulance services and general practice. This Bill is not only a distraction, but it contains provisions that Labour thinks are deeply damaging.

Yesterday, the House focused on the care cap amendment. It represents a change to existing policy and differs from the position outlined in the “Build Back Better” document, under which the House was asked to endorse a national insurance rise. The change means that those with wealthier estates and more expensive houses will see a greater proportion of their assets protected. Somebody with a £1 million house will have 90% of that asset protected, but somebody with an £80,000 house in Barrow, Mansfield or Hartlepool will lose nearly everything. That cannot be fair.

The Secretary of State, who was working the phones yesterday, may have won the battle, but I dare say that there are further skirmishes ahead. I suspect that Members in the other place—certainly those on the Labour Benches —will return to the matter, and I hope that they send the Bill back to us so that we can look at it again.

There are other provisions in the Bill with which we are uncomfortable. We are not convinced about the prohibitions on the private sector’s role in sitting on integrated care boards; we do not think that the Government’s amendment is strong enough. We will return to that point at a future opportunity.

Although the Bill gets rid of the Lansley competitive tendering requirements, it still allows the Secretary of State to hand contracts out to the private sector without proper scrutiny. We have seen a £10 billion contract going to the private sector to use 8,000 beds. That money would have been better spent on elective treatment in the national health service.

In conclusion, the Opposition cannot support the Bill, so we will divide the House tonight. On the care issue, I know that the Secretary of State thinks that he got his policy through the House yesterday and that it is all over, but I am afraid that it most certainly is not.