Building an NHS Fit for the Future

Mel Stride Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

May I begin by welcoming the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), to her place? This has been a good and full debate. It has, in large part, been fairly well-informed, although I thought the quality of the offerings from behind me was a little ahead of that from in front. None the less, it has been a good and passionate debate.

No effort today was in any way better than that of my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Steve Tuckwell), who gave us a virtuoso example of a maiden speech. He referred to the fact that it was in his constituency that Winston Churchill first uttered the immortal words,

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

Of course, Churchill then repeated that in this Chamber, but not with the same eloquence as my hon. Friend, and he certainly did not manage to squeeze in a tribute to the Middlesex Arms, my hon. Friend’s local pub, where I am sure a free beer awaits him—that is probably where he is at this very moment. Now that I too, in addition to him, have mentioned his local pub, I hope that a second pint awaits him.

There are certain things that the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), and I can agree on, and smoking is one of them. I was interested to learn that she is a former smoker. They always say that former smokers have a passionate desire to stop other people smoking, and she certainly demonstrated that. We know that one in four cancers is caused by smoking. As a father of three young daughters, vaping is of great concern to me personally, and I was pleased to see the reference in the King’s Speech to getting on top of those kinds of products and the way in which they are retailed.

The hon. Lady also mentioned mental health, as did many of this afternoon’s speakers. We have said that we will come forward with a mental health Bill if parliamentary time allows, and of course that does not mean we have not already done a very great deal in exactly that space, or will not do a great deal further. Some £2 billion of extra funding is already going into mental healthcare compared with four years ago, with a 20% increase in staffing since 2010. It does not stop there: we will also be bringing forward mental health hospitals and 100 specialist ambulances.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

We have now been waiting six years for a change to the Mental Health Act 1983. The Minister says that the Government are committed to mental health, but earlier this year we saw the 10-year mental health and wellbeing plan scrapped. I am sorry, but I have to say to the Minister that words are pretty hollow; when it comes to action, the Government are doing very little.

[Mel Stride]

I have just set out for the right hon. Gentleman two very significant actions that this Government have taken: £2 billion of additional funding compared with just four years ago, and a staff increase of some 20% since 2010.

I have to pick up on the non-doms point, because we hear it so often from the Opposition. Those poor old non-doms are going to be paying for the entire British economy over and over again. They pay UK taxes on their UK income, and it is just not realistic to expect to be gaining more tax in the longer term as a result of taxing them.

We have heard much about waits for NHS services. We have been working very hard on that issue, and it has to be recognised that we have had a pandemic, as well as a considerable amount of industrial action. Frankly, if the Opposition had done more with their trade union paymasters to encourage them to go back to work, we would have had smaller backlogs than we do at the moment. We have already largely eradicated the 18-month waits; the two-year waits have already been abolished; and we are rolling out all sorts of approaches to make sure we have more provision going forward, including 140 new surgical hubs. When Labour tells us about their plans, we need only to look at Wales, where we can see the results of Labour’s stewardship of the health service: on average, waiting times in Wales are five weeks longer than in England.

The hon. Member for Leicester West spent some time discussing employment, an area in which we have a first-class record. Economic inactivity, which she raised, is almost 300,000 lower than it was at its peak during the pandemic: it is below the average level of the OECD and the average level across the European Union. Unemployment is at a near-historic low, the number of those in payroll employment is at a near-historic high, and youth unemployment is down 44% on 2010. What happened under the Labour party? As Opposition Members know, it went up by almost exactly the same amount—another 44%. Labour is the party of unemployment; it has never left office with unemployment anything other than higher than when it came in. Under Labour’s stewardship, 1.4 million people were languishing on long-term benefits for over a decade, and that is a disgrace.

[Liz Kendall]

The Office for Budget Responsibility has said that

“A sustained rise in health-related inactivity poses a significant risk to fiscal sustainability by reducing the UK’s medium-term economic growth prospects and tax receipts”.

Does the Secretary of State disagree with the OBR?

[Mel Stride]

I do not, inasmuch as I recognise that long-term sick and disability has been on a rising trend for at least five years now. The hon. Lady knows that, but that is not the point that I was making; neither was it the point that she was making when she referred to the figures on economic inactivity.

That brings me to what this Government are doing. In the previous Budget, the Chancellor set forth plans for £2 billion to go towards resolving issues around long-term sickness and disability. We have consulted on occupational health across businesses to get upstream of this issue. The hon. Lady will know of our White Paper and the structural reforms that will make sure that, for the 2.5 million people on long-term sickness and disability benefits, we always focus on what those people can do, not on what they cannot do. The universal support we are rolling out is there to place people into work and give them a whole year’s worth of support, so we can make sure that those people stay in work. She will be aware of the pilots that we are now rolling out under the Work Well banner, which are there to bring people together with work. We believe that is one of the answers to mental health issues alongside medical support. Of course, we have just concluded our work capability assessment consultation, in which we are looking at how we can further help those people who can and want to work to go into employment, because we believe that that, ultimately, is in the best interests not just of the economy and of society, but very much of those people themselves.

This Government are not afraid to take long-term decisions in the national interest. The next generation of welfare reforms that I am bringing forward are part of this Government’s mission to deliver a better future for everyone across the country. It is a future that brings together employment support and healthcare to help disabled people and those with health conditions to realise their full potential. It is a future in which, thanks to the decisions we are now taking, the NHS can deliver better care in a changing world. It is a future that sees the first smoke-free generation become a reality, a future in which the most vulnerable in society continue to be the Government’s priority and are protected, and a future where work grows our economy, but perhaps more importantly still, changes lives, with thousands more people enjoying all the financial, social and health benefits that employment brings.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Mr Mohindra.)

Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

Health and Care Bill

Mel Stride Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 22nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I simply take my hon. Friend back to my previous point: when compared to the current system, this is a significant improvement and step forward, particularly when taken in the round with the overall package of measures that see the floors go from £23,250 up to £100,000 and from £14,250 up to £20,000. We have to look at this issue in the round, considering all those aspects rather than purely one element alone.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Edward Argar]

I would like to move on to ICBs and ICSs, but I suspect that, assuming there is time, my right hon. Friend, who chairs the Treasury Committee, may have the opportunity to intervene during my winding up, or to give a speech during the course of the debate.

Currently, the NIS regulations cover NHS providers in England, rather than commissioners. Government amendment 30 allows us to mitigate cyber-risk in a wider sense, making cyber-security a responsibility for organisations that have duties across the system, and to drive forward a shared and collaborative effort towards reducing the risk to patients. I hope that Government amendments 29 and 30 will be uncontentious and supported on both sides of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Burgon]

We are not seeking to wage war on GPs; we want to support GPs and properly resource them. We see so many GPs retiring and not being replaced. It is this Government who are waging war on our NHS with this further Americanisation of our NHS. It is a dangerous cocktail where the dodgy contracts we have seen throughout covid risk becoming the norm. The billions squandered on test and trace should serve as a warning of what the Government could do to the whole of our NHS.

There is a sleight of hand going on with this Bill. It is true that under the Bill NHS bodies will no longer have to put services out to competitive tender to the private sector. Such tendering to the private sector was made a requirement under section 75 of the coalition Government’s Health and Social Care Act 2012. It was a shameful Act and its scrapping has long been demanded by those opposed to privatisation of our national health service. However, the change in this Bill does not reverse privatisation, because without making the NHS the default provider, that simply means that contracts can not only still go to private healthcare corporations but can do so without other bids having to have been considered.

To prevent all this, I tabled amendment 9, which I want to put to a vote—unless of course the Government accept it—because it establishes the NHS as the default option. [Interruption.] Conservative Members groan, but the only reason for people not to support my amendment is if they do not believe in the NHS not moving to a privatised insurance model. Why else would people object to the NHS being the default provider of healthcare? The British Medical Association supports it, so the Tory groans are groans against the position of the British Medical Association. Unison supports it, so the Tory groans are groans against the voices of those who work in the NHS—for most of whom, if they need to have more than one job, it is because they do not get paid enough, not because they are trying to get their own snouts in the trough. I will be voting against the whole Bill, but if the Government refuse to accept amendment 9 to make the NHS the default provider, that shows what the Government of the party that objected to the foundation of the NHS in the first place are really up to, despite all the warm words.

[Mel Stride]

I rise to speak to new clause 49. In doing so, and whatever its merits or otherwise, it is worth reflecting on the comments made by the Minister that we are at least here this evening looking at a part of a process that will lead to some progress in meeting social care costs going forward and removing the catastrophic risk that has hung above the heads of all our constituents up and down the country: that their healthcare costs may end up costing them all of their assets. We are also here having taken the tough decisions around having raised taxes to fund those arrangements.

I have problems with new clause 49. It seems to me that to make good law in this place, first, we need time to consider the matters put before us and secondly, we need the appropriate information upon which to take those decisions. On both those points, I have real concerns about how new clause 49 has been brought forward. The first we heard of it was not in Committee or in September when the general measures were put forward, including the taxation measures on which we all divided and voted, but on Wednesday evening, when the amendment was tabled.

It was fortuitous that the Treasury Committee happened to have Sir Andrew Dilnot before us the very next day. We were able to discuss many of the issues inherent in new clause 49. A number of issues were raised, to which only the Government have the answers. One of them has been put forward powerfully by speaker after speaker tonight, which is: what are the impact assessments associated with these measures? I wrote to the Chancellor immediately after that session and asked him for some impact assessments, including geographical impact assessments, of which we have had none.

It seems that the only information we have had was released by the Department of Health and Social Care on Friday night, in a document called “Adult social care charging reform: analysis”. I am very short of time, which is a shame, but there is, for example, a chart of a 10-year care journey that looks at individuals with different asset levels. While it is true, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, that these arrangements, even with new clause 49, are better for almost every level of wealth than under the status quo, it is not the case that everybody is better off compared with the measures brought forward in September.

[Alison McGovern]

The right hon. Gentleman gets to the heart of the matter, which is what people will get, compared with what they were promised. Is that not the heart of this matter?

[Mel Stride]

I think the heart of the matter is that we have to be clear and wide-eyed about what this change will do. Yes, it is true that it will leave us in a better position than the status quo, but it is not the case that it will leave those who are less well-off in a better position than if new clause 49 were not passed by the House. For those with assets of about £106,000, by my read of this graph, about 59% of their assets would be lost on average under the original proposals. Under the amended proposals, that figure would rise to 70%. When it comes to those who would be better off as a consequence of new clause 49, many are the better off, because they benefit from the changes being made to daily living costs, to which my hon. Friend the Minister referred.

I am out of time, but I believe that these measures should have been better ventilated in this House—certainly in Committee, if not earlier. We would then have had better information and more time in which to make these important judgments.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I want to speak briefly to amendment 15, which focuses on the membership of integrated care partnerships—the bodies that will be responsible for developing plans to address the health and care needs of local populations. The amendment would enable the Secretary of State to make specific provisions ensuring the representation of particular areas of healthcare on ICPs via secondary legislation.

In particular, I am concerned about having a strong voice for women’s health in ICPs. I also mention in passing the need for other groups to be represented, such as carers, in an ICP area. As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on sexual and reproductive health, I have seen how the experience of women in relation to their healthcare is often an afterthought in a fragmented health system, as in the case of the vaginal mesh scandal; the recent debate about pain during the insertion of intrauterine devices, a form of contraception; maternity provision; and cuts to contraceptive services.

The amendment would ensure that the issue of representation was considered by the Government. It has strong support from the medical bodies in this area, including the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, as well as in other areas of healthcare, such as childhood cancer, and, as previously mentioned, carers groups.

It is important to protect the independence of ICPs and ensure that they can set a strategy that effectively meets local needs, but there is also a need to ensure that women’s voices are not left behind in the decision making. Without this amendment, it cannot be assumed that those voices will be heard on all ICPs. I hope that the Government will consider the purpose of the amendment, which is to strengthen the Bill.

Budget Resolutions

Mel Stride Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mel Stride)]

May I begin by associating myself and Government Members with the pertinent comments made by the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) in respect of the terrible tragedy that has befallen Leicester City football club in his constituency?

In 2010, we inherited an economy in disarray. It has been the discipline of a Conservative Government that has brought that back on track, combined with a monumental national effort on the part of millions of determined people in our country. Together we have turned the economy around. We now have near record levels of employment and near record levels of women in employment. Unemployment is at its lowest level since 1975, and we have halved youth unemployment since 2010. Debt is falling, and of course the deficit has been reduced by no less than 80%. Those points were all quite rightly made by my hon. Friends the Members for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) and for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan).

In yesterday’s Budget, we showed the British people that their hard work has paid off, because the people of this country now deserve the rewards that are available in our strengthened economy. This Budget is a demonstration that we are coming out of austerity and into a brighter future. Today we have had a full and thoughtful debate on health and public services, and this Budget provides significant additional investment in our precious national health service, our carers, our schools and our police—those serving on the frontline, helping and caring for our families and communities, and working to build a better, safer and healthier Britain.

This Government have ensured an increase in NHS funding every year since 2010, including a pay rise for more than 1 million workers. We took this commitment still further in the Budget, delivering on the Prime Minister’s announcement in June of the largest single public services cash commitment ever made by a peacetime Government —the biggest cash boost to the national health service in its history. Of course, it is essential that every pound of that money is spent wisely so that the national health service is put on a more sustainable footing, and we look forward to Simon Stevens’s 10-year plan setting out exactly what the British people can expect to see.

The Chancellor announced yesterday that within the NHS settlement we will provide a significant uplift in funding for mental health, to the tune of at least £2 billion a year by 2023-24. We are committed to record levels of spending on this vital area, and the NHS plan will include up to £250 million a year by 2023-24 to support people living with poor mental health. It is time to address the stigma and the suffering of those affected by mental health issues and to work towards achieving parity of esteem between mental and physical health. Mental ill health is a pressing need to be addressed, and yesterday’s Budget committed to doing precisely that.

Alongside our NHS settlement, the Budget’s commitment to social care will give a much needed boost to councils, families and patients. The Government will provide £240 million in 2018-19 and a further £650 million next year for local authorities. This money will help people leave hospital when they are able, freeing up hospital beds. All of this builds on the additional £2 billion set aside in last year’s spring Budget for councils to spend on adult care services.

Along with health and social care, a vital pillar of our public services is our world-class education system. Our children deserve the best, so we are already funding schools at record levels—schools will receive over £42 billion of core funding this year—and the results are showing: 86% of schools are now rated good or outstanding, compared with 68% in 2010.

We know that school budgets often do not stretch as far as we would like, so this year’s Budget provides even more support. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced a one-off £400 million in-year funding bonus for schools and sixth-form colleges in England, which means that the typical primary school will receive £10,000 and the typical secondary school will receive £50,000. All of this tops up our existing commitment to invest £23 billion in improving, refurbishing and replacing school buildings between 2016 and 2021. This is a Conservative Government committed to giving every child the greatest possible start in life, and we are investing in education to make sure that happens.

This Budget is the start of a new era for our country. After eight hard years of clearing up the mess left to us by the Labour party, we are now in a position to substantially increase our support for our vital public services. We have done that by facing up to the challenges laid before us in 2010. The crippling deficit, the highest in peacetime history, was the fallout from the wanton and reckless profligacy of the Labour party. A party that is always quick to blame, to point, to impugn and, of course, to promise without the inconvenience of having to deliver. A party that now finds itself captured by those who would return us to the dark days of the crash, and far worse. A party utterly incapable of facing up to the serious responsibilities of government.

It is we, this Government, who took the tough choices and did what we always knew to be right—to be responsible even when that was the hard way, not the easy way. Those tough choices were taken not for reasons of ideology but for reasons of compassion. For we knew all along that if we stuck the course, if we kept our nerve, if we could be brave and true to our values, then we could spare the country from the cruel impossibility of the Labour party’s promises, and bring us to a place where better times were in reach.

That is where we are now. The deficit is fading, real wages are rising, better times are returning and there, right at the heart, lie those things we hold most dear: our national health service and our public services. This is a Budget for them, and I commend it to the House.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Michelle Donelan.)

Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

Health and Social Care

Mel Stride Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in the health and social care debate on the Queen’s Speech, which seems to have been rather wide-ranging.

I pay tribute to the Government for introducing the Care Bill. It shows that they have listened to the concerns of many people. I support the proposals for three main reasons. First, the Bill will put people in control of their care and give them greater choice. Secondly, it will simplify the system and processes to provide the freedom and flexibility that local authorities and social workers need to innovate and achieve better results. Thirdly, it will provide people with a better understanding of what is on offer, help them to plan for the future, and ensure that they know where to go for help when they need it.

The Care Bill is essential to the modernisation of adult care and support in England. One purpose of the Bill is to set out clearly what support people can expect from the Government and what action the Government will take to help them to plan, prepare and make informed choices about their care. I support the well-being principle as an underlying principle for care and the support for carers. However, I urge colleagues in the Department of Health to monitor the implementation of the Bill carefully to ensure that local authorities are completely clear about their responsibilities.

I have a constituent who suffers from an acquired brain injury. His parents sought assistance from the adult care services department of their local authority, Derby city council, and from the primary care trust. Both organisations say that it is the other’s responsibility. That is causing great distress and frustration to my constituent’s elderly parents who are caring for him and his six-year-old child. I have written to both parties, as well as to Ministers in the Department of Health, and so far both have repeatedly refused to take responsibility.

I have also written to Health Ministers about another constituency case. A constituent of mine is suffering from severe chronic pancreatitis and has been told he needs to undergo a pancreatectomy and an islet cell transplant. However, as the national specialised commissioning group has not issued confirmation of funding for an islet cell laboratory in my region, my constituent is left suffering in extreme pain unnecessarily. I would like to see movement on the two cases that I have raised with the Department of Health.

Over the past three years, I have also raised constituency casework concerning the cancer drugs fund, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister who set up that initiative. Some 23,000 cancer patients in England have benefited from the additional £650 million provided by the Government to fund cancer drugs.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend, I welcome the cancer drugs fund, which I think is important. About 150 of my constituents will die from cancer this year—about 100,000 people a year. Currently, 15% of 15-year-olds are regular smokers. Does my hon. Friend feel, as I do, that we should have standardised plain packaging of cigarettes to discourage the take-up of smoking and the cancer that results from it?

[Pauline Latham]

I certainly do, and having watched my mother die from lung cancer, I passionately believe in anything that will stop people smoking. It is not a pretty sight, and I would do anything to stop young people in particular taking up the drug of smoking. That is important.

Thalidomide Trust (Grant)

Mel Stride Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

As I indicated in my statement, I had to respond to an Adjournment debate on the subject in Westminster Hall on my very first full day in the job. The presence of so many thalidomiders at that debate sent a very powerful message to me about the need for us to face up to our responsibility to support those individuals.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s statement, which will mean a huge amount to sufferers up and down the country, including those in my constituency. I wish to pay tribute to Ruth Daniels, one of my constituents, who has campaigned very hard on this issue.

The Minister mentioned that money would be made available for physical health needs. Can he confirm that it will also be made available for those suffering from mental effects as a result of thalidomide?

[Norman Lamb]

Ruth Daniels and many others have campaigned long and hard for justice, and it has taken too long for that to be properly acknowledged. I absolutely confirm that the money can be used for any health-related matter, and mental health can be affected as well as physical health, and is just as legitimate as any other health need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mel Stride Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

The whole purpose of that approach is to ensure that patients get appropriate care at the end of their life. There is very strong consensus supporting that approach, including on the part of Marie Curie Cancer Care and Age UK. It is really important that all GPs and others involved in the care of people at the end of their life engage fully with the patient and the patient’s loved ones. That is the right approach.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will know that in this country, over 1,000 people a year die as a consequence of asthma. We have one of the highest prevalences of asthma in the world. Will he outline to the House what action we will take to get those mortality rates down?

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

We are doing a lot of work on the outcomes strategy that will directly impact on asthma sufferers. As part of that work—we are as concerned as my hon. Friend is about this—we are looking at every single asthma death in a 12-month period, starting from this February, to try to understand better the causes of mortality, because we need to make very rapid progress.

NHS Risk Register

Mel Stride Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Simmonds (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

I draw the attention of the House to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The only thing on which I agreed with the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) was the commitment that he has, I have and all Members on the Government Benches have to the national health service and its future as a taxpayer-funded service, with access based on need, not on ability to pay. I think I speak for everybody on the Government Benches when I say that I would not vote for any Bill that privatised the national health service. The Health and Social Care Bill is not about that.

I can also confirm that my personal experience of using the national health service recently, both at Pilgrim hospital in my constituency in Boston and at Peterborough hospital—which, as the Secretary of State said, is highly indebted because of the previous Government’s PFI scheme—was first class and excellent.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Labour party’s suggestion that we are privatising the health service is not only utterly disingenuous, but extremely cruel and frightening for elderly and vulnerable individuals, of whom there are many in my constituency, who are perturbed by what is being said, which is untrue?

[Mark Simmonds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. He is absolutely right. Certainly, some of the communicating that both Government parties need to do will be myth-busting on what is being portrayed as the future of the NHS and its services. They will be improved and enhanced, as will patient outcomes and services, as a direct result of the reforms that we hope to implement though the Health and Social Care Bill. They will not go backwards, as Opposition Members suggest.

Two distinctions can be drawn between the Government and Opposition sides of the House on this matter. First, we on the Government side are committed to increasing resources and investment in the NHS—in contrast to the Labour party. We can see that distinction in the enhancement of services in England and the deceleration and paucity of services in Wales. Secondly, Government Members understand the necessity of reform, whereas Labour Members do not. I accept that there are some exceptions, such as the previous Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), who I think understands the importance of reform. Maintaining the status quo in the NHS is the greatest risk; it is not an option.

I think that today’s debate is a red herring and a cloak. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) completely destroyed the argument about the necessity of publishing the risk register, because it is no longer relevant. I am sure that the ministerial team would have been looking at that risk register and changing policies in order to mitigate and negate the initial impact of the risks recorded in it. Every former Government Minister who has spoken from the Labour Benches today, whether in a speech or an intervention, has form in refusing to put risk registers in the public domain when they had a chance to do so in office, and they know very well that risk registers can be misleading. Even the Information Commissioner, in his judgment, said that safe space was required.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

During my short time as a Member of the House, I have heard many speeches by Opposition Members. While I have often disagreed with what they said, I have found myself respecting them because their speeches have been based on conviction and, sometimes, on the lofty ideal of the pursuit of the truth. In today’s debate, however, I have heard little other than naked political opportunism. It is the kind of opportunism that we see when Labour continually suggests that we are in favour of the privatisation of the health service and, by extension, that we are willing to attack the notion of health care being free at the point of delivery and universally available, irrespective of the ability to pay. That is not only disingenuous; it is a cruel deception, particularly on the elderly and the vulnerable, many of whom live in my constituency, who get very frightened as a consequence.

I am afraid that I see exactly the same game at play in this debate. Opposition Members know that risk registers think the unthinkable. They know that the game plans worked out in them are worst-case scenarios, and that if the information were to be made public, it is likely that it would be misinterpreted. They know that that would probably lead to Ministers and officials not having candid and meaningful discussions about the matters at hand. They also know that we have published a comprehensive impact assessment that ran to 436 pages, and that it was updated as recently as last September. They know that it is conceivable that exposing certain risks to the public domain could make them more likely, rather than less likely, to happen. They also know that if they get what they want, it could set a precedent not only for the Department of Health but for all Departments and for all future Governments.

How do we know that the Opposition know all those things? It is because they, as the previous Government, did exactly the same things that we are attempting to do when they were faced with broadly the same situations. I know that the shadow Secretary of State will quibble with the words “strategic” and “transition”, but I listened carefully to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) that we might be talking about exactly the same strategic register. The reality is that Labour adopted that position then, but it is not prepared to do so now.

Opposition Members also know that our record on the health service has been good. We should be proud of that record. In contrast to the increasing health inequalities and the decreasing efficiency of health care that occurred under the previous Government, we have seen decreasing in-patient and out-patient waiting times and a 95% reduction in mixed-sex wards. We are the party, after all, that went into the election and honoured our commitment to increase expenditure on the health service in the years to come. We are the only party in this House that was prepared to do that.

In conclusion, I believe that it is unfortunate that we have had to commit so much parliamentary time in the Chamber to this issue. Surely the most important issue we face is not the risk register but getting the health service ready for the 21st century. On that point, I hope that the Government continue to show the courage to take the brickbats, the knocks and the game-playing that the Opposition throw at us, to stand up for the health service, to reform it and to ensure that it is there to deliver for millions of people in the years to come.

Health and Social Care Bill

Mel Stride Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Joan Walley]

What we have seen is the university college of North Staffordshire linked to the medical college at Keele. We have never before seen that kind of medical training going on outside London in areas like Stoke-on-Trent. Hayward hospital has been rebuilt and there has been investment in clinics and a huge increase in the number of staff. That does not mean just bureaucrats—like everyone else, I do not want to see unnecessary bureaucrats. I am talking about the number of health personnel trained to do their jobs and to treat people, which has been second to none—despite what the Minister says.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

In looking at NHS performance, should we not seek to compare ourselves with international equivalents today rather than with the past? If we look at coronary heart disease, for example, we find that we have twice the death rate of France, and we are also lagging behind the rest of Europe on cancer outcomes.

[Joan Walley]

I am coming on to public health, as it is the main issue on which I wish to concentrate.