Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill

Keith Vaz Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 24th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for outlining the overarching principles of this Bill, which, as we have heard, seek to allow the NHS to better control the cost of medicines and to close some of the loopholes, which have been the subject of blatant abuses in recent years.

I also thank the Minister of State for taking the time to meet me and other hon. Members last week to set out what the Government were seeking to achieve with this Bill. I only hope that this increased appetite for state intervention in the market that we have on display will spread more widely across Government. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris) said, this kind of approach used to be called Marxist, anti-business interventionism. I never thought that I would say this, but, having heard what the Secretary of State said today, I believe that he is now a fully fledged Corbynista.

In all seriousness, it is clear that the market is not serving the patient or the taxpayer as well as it could. As we have heard, expenditure on medicines is a significant and growing proportion of the NHS budget, standing at £15.2 billion in England in 2015-16, an increase of more than 20% since 2010-11. One can only imagine where we would be now if the whole of the NHS had seen such an increase during the same period.

The incredible advances in science that we have seen in recent decades, often led by companies here in Britain, mean that people in this country are living longer, healthier lives than ever before. Although we celebrate that, it is also right that we work hard to secure value for money for the NHS to ensure that as many patients as possible can benefit from medical advances.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I declare an interest as a type 2 diabetic and chair of the all-party diabetes group? Ten per cent. of the expenditure of the NHS budget is on dealing with diabetes and complications related to it. Does my hon. Friend agree that there may well be a desire to prescribe more medicines, which will cost more, rather than providing diabetics with a structured education which, if appropriately used, can bring down the cost of diabetes to the health service? It is not just about pills.