Brexit: Risks to NHS Sustainability

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, has performed a very signal service in introducing this debate and I congratulate him most warmly on the way that he did so. We desperately need clarity from the Government—we have not had it, but I hope that tonight we might begin to see it. It could all have been so much more simple. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, referred to the pledge to EU nationals in this country. Would the number of nurses have declined in the way that he illustrated, with that figure of 90%, if we had in fact used our sovereign power, taken control, and said from the onset, as the leave campaign did say from many a platform, “Your position, for those of you who came here in good faith, who have paid your taxes, who have become part of our communities, is not at risk”? It is still not too late for Ministers, led by the Prime Minister, to say this.

The Prime Minister has appealed recently for cross-party work and consensus. When I spoke in the Queen’s Speech debate, I suggested that one way of dealing with these matters was to have a joint Grand Committee of both Houses, which could look at these things. I did not get any answer to that; I hope that I will. The previous week, I was sacked from the Home Affairs Sub-Committee of the European Union Select Committee of your Lordships’ House, on which I enjoyed serving, for my vote on the Article 50 amendments. That is hardly consistent with the principle of appealing for cross-party accord. When we have a Government who do not have a majority and who lost their majority in a thoroughly needless general election, we need a new start and to call upon the talents sitting on all the Benches in your Lordships’ House.

This afternoon, I had the pleasure—I think that others in the Chamber probably also had this pleasure—of hearing in the Royal Gallery a very moving and inspiring speech from the King of Spain, who expressed his wish and determination that relations between our two countries should continue to thrive and prosper. We would all say amen to that. However, he made equally plain his sadness at our leaving the European Union, where we and Spain have, as constitutional monarchies, played a constructive part. We must not be hamstrung by doctrine, particularly the doctrine of those behind the £350 million pledge pasted on buses, to which the noble Lord, Lord Warner, has already referred. We need a real route map; we need to know where we are going and how we are going to get there.

The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, illustrated very graphically that the greatest of our national services—our National Health Service—is teetering on the brink of collapse. We desperately need plurality of funding and to look at some of the proposals of the committee so ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, at the end of the last Parliament, which I think reported on 5 April. We have all the pointers. We have diagnosed the disease. The Government seem unable to accept that there is a remedy and it is in their hands. We need to work together across this House and the other place to address matters of enduring importance and continuing worth, of which the National Health Service is perhaps the greatest and most important example as it touches all our citizens at unpredictable as well as predictable points in their lives.

I just hope that my noble friend, for whom I have a high regard—he has competently mastered his brief since he took on his responsibilities—will be able to give us some hope this evening. I hope that he will also talk to the Secretary of State and others because we desperately need a leadership that is not hamstrung by doctrine. Brexit will dominate all our debates for the foreseeable future, but let it not dominate them in a totally negative way.

I accept, with great reluctance, the result of the referendum—of course I do, like others in your Lordships’ House. But we have to start talking in detail about transitional periods. All this cannot be accomplished in under two years, especially as the real negotiations will not begin until after the German election later this year. That gives a period of a little over 12 months. Therefore, if we are to avoid what the Prime Minister has called the cliff edge, we have to have proper transitional arrangements, in particular when we are considering the invaluable, and in the short term irreplaceable, contribution of EU nationals to our National Health Service. That 90% figure is alarming, and if it is replicated across the National Health Service, it will place countless British citizens at risk.

Therefore, in supporting the noble Lord, Lord Warner, I ask my noble friend to forget the lies on the bus and put aside the doctrine that Brexit means Brexit—which I think is the most meaningless slogan I have ever heard in my 50-odd years in politics. Let us now tackle the real issues with a real programme and bring parliamentarians of all parties and both Houses together to contribute their suggestions and their solutions.

I therefore end more or less where I began, by asking my noble friend to pass on to those in high authority—I do not want him to tell us that it is above his pay grade—the idea of something unique: a joint Grand Committee of both Houses of Parliament. A committee can put party political considerations to one side and concentrate on trying to ensure that, from what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, called the mess that we are in at the moment, a stronger nation can indeed emerge.