Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I suspect that many Members from all parties in this House will agree that mental health services have for too long been treated as a poor cousin—a Cinderella service—in the NHS and have been systematically underfunded for a long time. That is why I am delighted to say that the coalition Government have announced that we will be introducing new access and waiting time standards for mental health conditions such as have been in existence for physical health conditions for a long time. Over time, as reflected in the new NHS mandate, we must ensure that mental health is treated with equality of resources and esteem compared with any other part of the NHS.

[Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

Q5. When the Health and Social Care Act 2012 passed through Parliament, the Government said it was not about privatisation. A recent study by the British Medical Journal says that one third of all contracts have gone to the private sector and only 10% to the voluntary and social enterprise sector. Does the Deputy Prime Minister regret supporting that legislation?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is being highly selective in describing what that report said. It actually said that of all NHS budget contracts, 6% had gone to the private sector. Guess how high it was when this Government took office: 5%. So Labour presided over a 5% delivery of contracts to the private sector, and we have added 1%. The Opposition delivered £250 million-worth of sweetheart deals to the NHS, deliberately undercutting the NHS for operations that did not help a single NHS patient in the country—and they have the gall to lecture us on the privatisation of the NHS!