NHS Outsourcing and Privatisation

Debate between Jonathan Ashworth and Vicky Foxcroft

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I greatly respect the hon. Lady, and I greatly enjoyed her Red Box blog on mental health provision last week. I know she thinks carefully about these matters, but this is not about ideology. It is about what works. Let us take the example of the East Kent contract for integrated NHS 111 and GP out-of-hours services, which began in January 2017. After only seven months of Primecare running it, the service was placed in special measures after it was rated inadequate. That is happening in her own backyard. This is not working, and that is the point we are making.

The history of PFI is that when we came into government, a third of hospitals were more than 50 years old. That is why we carried on with the John Major PFI scheme, which was the creation of that Government. Current Cabinet Ministers such as the shadow Health Secretary at the time, now the Secretary of State for International Trade, stood at the Dispatch Box and congratulated the Labour Government on taking up the private finance initiative developed under the previous Government. He said he would not object to the use of PFI

“exclusively to fund private capital projects”—[Official Report, 8 January 2003; Vol. 397, c. 181.]

In this House, the current Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster gave a “warm welcome” to a PFI in his own constituency. The Brexit Secretary said in this House:

“The PFI has many virtues—after all, it was a Conservative policy in the first instance.”—[Official Report, 10 March 1999; Vol. 327, c. 429.]

The Business Secretary said:

“PFI was initiated by the previous Conservative Government”—[Official Report, 12 February 2013; Vol. 558, c. 787.]

The Scottish Secretary has said that PFI is a “successful basis for funding”. The Welsh Secretary said:

“I am a fan of PFI in general.”—[Official Report, 4 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 1124.]

We will take no lessons from the Tories when it comes to PFI.

We have not only seen facilities management contracts having to be brought back in-house in Leicestershire and Nottingham; we have also seen them deliver a poor quality of service across Lewisham and Greenwich. Those contracts at Lewisham Hospital should come back in-house. I know that the Labour candidate in Lewisham East will be campaigning to bring them back in-house, and I hope the Tory candidate will do the same.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I will give way to my hon. Friend from Lewisham, and then I will make progress.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

I thank my hon. Friend. He is right: the candidate in Lewisham East will absolutely be campaigning on that, because it is out of order and outrageous that many of the people working under that contract are not receiving pay for one week because Interserve is not paying them.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

Absolutely. I wish the Labour candidate in Lewisham East well and will be campaigning with them. We will be sending a firm message to the Tories that privatisation of the NHS will end. The NHS is not for sale.