National Health Service Funding

Debate between Jonathan Ashworth and David T C Davies

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

My hon. Friend is eagle-eyed, and I congratulate him on reminding us that the Government should have balanced the books by 2015, and that they completely failed on that pledge.

Then the new Prime Minister made this promise:

“We will be looking to ensure that we provide the health service that is right for everyone in this country.”—[Official Report, 7 September 2016; Vol. 614, c. 333.]

Fine words, but it is by their deeds that they shall be known. What did we actually get? An NHS that is going through the largest financial squeeze in its history. Far from protecting the NHS through the years of this Tory Government, NHS spending will represent an average annual increase of just 0.9%—a decade of barely any increase in spending despite an ageing population with increasingly complex needs.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

rose—

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I will give way in a few moments.

By 2017, NHS spending per head will level out, and, head for head, by 2018 NHS spending will be falling under this Conservative Government. Trusts ended last year in deficit for the second year running—they were £2.45 billion in deficit and they are reported to be heading for a deficit of around £670 million at the end of this financial year.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I will be coming on to those secret plans as I develop my speech.

We will be spending less on the NHS as a proportion of GDP than our European neighbours such as Germany, France and the Netherlands. The NHS maintenance budgets have been repeatedly raided, with billions that had been allocated to capital routinely being switched to revenue to plug gaps.

[David T. C. Davies]

rose—

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I will give way in a moment.

The maintenance situation has got so bad that the NHS faces a backlog of £5 billion in repairs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I shall make a little progress because many other Members want to speak and I want to give them a chance.

The scale of the financial pressures engulfing the NHS are such that the chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, said recently:

“The gap between what the NHS is being asked to deliver and the funding it has available is too big and is growing rapidly.”

The King’s Fund said, with respect to the NHS deficit, that

“it signifies a health system buckling under the strain of huge financial and operational pressures.”

In the most damning assessment of the Government’s handling of the NHS, the National Audit Office concluded today that financial problems in the NHS

“are endemic and this is not sustainable.”

Even the former Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, said that

“in 2010 we knew we had to implement a tight budget squeeze for five years, but we never thought it would last for ten.”

[David T. C. Davies]

Surely the hon. Gentleman has seen the report from the Nuffield Trust on the four health systems of the United Kingdom, which shows very clearly that there is only one part of the United Kingdom that has seen a real-terms cut in NHS expenditure, and that is Wales under a Labour Government.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

There will be a cash injection in Wales in 2017, whereas spending per head in the English NHS will be levelling out and then falling in 2018.