NHS Winter Crisis

Debate between Jonathan Ashworth and Ellie Reeves

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

When we had a Labour Government, we trebled in cash terms the investment going into the NHS. When we had a Labour Government, we had trolley waits, but under this Government we have had 560,000 people waiting on trollies and 2.5 million people waiting more than four hours in A&E. That is the difference between a Labour Government planning for the health needs of this country and a Tory Government cutting for the health needs of this country.

This is not just a winter crisis; it is a year-round funding crisis, a year-round staffing crisis, a year-round social care crisis and a year-round health inequality crisis, manufactured in Downing Street by this Government. We have had eight years of underfunding and cuts; 14,000 beds have been lost; the number of district nurses has been cut by 3,500; the number of mental health nurses has been cut; child and adolescent mental health services budgets have been raided; the number of GPs has fallen; we are 40,000 nurses short; community and mental health services have been privatised; and social care has been savaged and staff demoralised.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

In my borough of Lewisham, CAMHS are facing a budget cut of up to £200,000, leaving many children without the treatment and services they need. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government have failed to provide mental health services to some of the most vulnerable in society, particularly at this difficult time?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

Half this country’s clinical commissioning groups are raiding children’s mental health services because the money is not in the wider NHS. Yet this Secretary of State remains in place, even though the truth is that doctors and nurses have lost confidence in him, patients have lost confidence in him, and it seems the Prime Minister has lost confidence him. He fights for his own job, but he will not fight for the NHS. Our patients are crying out for change, but they will look at the Health Secretary, still in post today, and see that, to coin a phrase, “Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed.” I commend our motion to the House.

NHS Pay

Debate between Jonathan Ashworth and Ellie Reeves

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I will let the hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey) in because he has been very persistent, but first let me make some progress.

It is not good enough for the Chief Secretary to grant the Secretary of State flexibility and not grant him the funding that the NHS needs. Overcrowded, overstretched hospital trusts cannot be expected to absorb pay rises from existing budgets. We need extra investment now to give the staff the fair pay they deserve.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

Let me make a little bit of progress, and then I will give way.

Over the past seven years, a public sector worker on the median public sector wage has seen the value of their wage drop by £3,875. That is more than the cost of feeding the average family for a year. Given what we know about inflation, on the figures published yesterday and on the Treasury’s own inflation forecast, if this cap was to remain in place until the end of the Parliament, a public sector worker on the median wage since 2016 will have seen their pay drop by at least another £2,200.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ellie Reeves]

In my constituency, NHS staff are having to rely on food banks in order to be able to eat. A constituent, an ambulance technician who transports critically ill children across the country, told me that she does not have nearly enough money to live on. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a disgrace?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

It is a shocking disgrace, which is why the Labour party has consistently campaigned to get rid of the pay cap; it is why, in our manifesto, which we took to the British people a few months ago, we said we would get rid of the pay cap, and why it is absolutely disgraceful that Conservative Members stood on a manifesto to keep the pay cap.