Infected Blood Inquiry
Pete Wishart Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Clive Efford
I am fully aware of the consultation that took place, but what Sir Brian Langstaff describes is the ongoing involvement of the victims in the process, by their being part of an advisory panel and continuing to advise the compensation board.
I know that David Foley was at the conference at the weekend for the organisation that represents people with hepatitis. That organisation was pleased with the discussions it had with him, but none the less and in spite of that, people who were at that conference have since made clear to me that they feel frustrated and that, ultimately, the Cabinet Office is in control of the decision-making process. My right hon. Friend may take issue with that, but he should take note of the fact that that belief is out there, and we need to deal with it.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman is right to labour the point. All that we are hearing from the representative groups—those who make sure that they represent all those in the infected or affected communities—is that they want consultation with Government. They just want to be listened to and properly consulted as all these regulations are designed going forward. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I do not understand the Minister’s sensitivity around all this. He has to be aware—I am pretty certain that he is—that there is this sensitivity when it comes to the community.
Clive Efford
I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. I am trying to make my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General aware of the strength of feeling out there that needs to be addressed. We will not satisfy people about the process unless we address those concerns.
One thing driving that concern is that the current process is not what was described in Sir Brian’s report, and it is not what was expected at the time he published his reports. The victims and their representatives feel excluded. On top of that, they feel enfeebled because of the lack of resources for advice and advocacy. There is further to go, if the victims are to have complete faith in the process. There is frustration that the people they have been battling against have been put in charge of the reparations. Surely my right hon. Friend can see their concerns. The death rate is now one every three days, and the increase in the rate is largely due to the fact that those with hepatitis have been suffering with long-term chronic liver disease. The Red Book for the Budget sets out that compensation will be paid over five years. At that rate, another 600 people will die without getting justice. The Treasury must not become another reason for justice for victims being delayed. Will my right hon. Friend guarantee that that will not be the case?
I am aware that Sir Brian Langstaff has written to my right hon. Friend about the rule on siblings of 18 years of age at the time the sibling passed away. Will he explain to the House—or write to me on this—exactly where that ruling came from? It does not seem to appear in any of the recommendations or in Sir Brian’s report.
I have spoken before about the £15,000 offered to former pupils of Treloar school, which they consider derisory. It is another example of what happens when victims are excluded from the process.
I also draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to the report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which is an excoriating criticism of the Cabinet Office. It exposes what it describes as a lack of clear and understandable information in the explanatory memorandum and a lack of preparedness for delivering the compensation scheme. The Committee doubts that the Cabinet Office will be able to pay compensation by the end of the year. Is he confident that the Committee is wrong and that payments will be made by the end of the year?
Lastly, large amounts of money were made by pharmaceutical companies and others while victims were being exploited and, in some cases, even being experimented on. That did not come about because of mistakes; they were deliberate actions, which in many instances were criminal. The British taxpayer must not pay the full cost alone. Those who made money from this appalling scandal should be required to make a significant contribution. In spite of what my right hon. Friend may consider a negative speech, I welcome the progress that we have made, but there is much further to go to deliver the justice that Sir Brian Langstaff set out in his report.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
It is always difficult to follow somebody who has said almost exactly what I had intended to say in my speech. What I will try to do for you, Madam Deputy Speaker, is rephrase it in a way that will hopefully be helpful and useful to the House. I am grateful to follow the hon. Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford), who raised a number of really important issues about which those on the Government Front Bench should listen carefully.
I noticed the Paymaster General’s reaction to the hon. Member for Eltham and Chislehurst; he has got to relax a little. We are trying to help and to be the voice of the community, who are telling us these things. They want to be engaged and properly consulted with. They want to be part of the process. That is what they are telling the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood, and that is what we are hearing from all the representative groups right across the United Kingdom. Perhaps the Paymaster General should just take on board some of the things that we are trying to put forward about the feelings and opinions of a lot of the community and what they are saying to us directly as a consequence of what is happening.
I congratulate the Government on honouring their commitment to have a debate. It is a pity that we did not get the full day, but one thing I have noticed is that it is getting a bit quieter in the Chamber when we have these debates and statements. I hope that there will not be fatigue when it comes to discussing important issues relating to the infected blood scandal, as we as a House will need a detailed approach to the ongoing compensation schemes.
I really hope that we will not get to a stage where the Government see this as “job done” and another box to be ticked, thinking, “There we go: infected blood is dealt with and we can now move on.” It is incumbent on all of us who were involved in the campaign to ensure that we continue to press the Government, ensuring that we talk up on behalf of our constituents and those impacted and affected.
I really hope that we start to see some newer Labour Members, in particular, taking a bigger interest—we used to have really involved, detailed debates where people turned up and played their part—as I am sure that many of them represent people who are impacted and affected. It would be good to see a few of them turn up.
John Glen
I think it is it is a good sign that there are fewer Members of Parliament in the Chamber, because it shows that there has been meaningful progress. I do not see tetchiness from the Minister; what I see is somebody who has listened carefully to the representations of the community and acted on them. I accept and acknowledge that there are outstanding matters, but actually, when infrastructure has been set up—in some cases for 20 years—to campaign, it can be quite difficult to adjust to delivery mode.
Pete Wishart
There is no one in the House more experienced than the right hon. Gentleman. I pay tribute to what he did in government and how he brought this issue forward. He is right; we must be a bit careful, but all of us involved are just trying to take the debate forward. He is possibly right that there may be satisfaction that things have moved on and we are at a different stage in the campaign, but it is still important that we continue to ask questions of Government. That is what we are all trying to do in this debate.
Pete Wishart
I will, so long as the hon. Member does not poke me in the back, as he did the other evening.
Jim Shannon
My constituent has mentioned an outstanding issue that must be addressed. Current proposals only include siblings who were under the age 18 and lived in the same household as an infected person for at least two years after the onset of the infection. The requirement for siblings to have lived in the same house should be removed. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the loss and suffering of a sibling who did not live in the same household for two years is no less than that of a sibling who did?
Pete Wishart
I do, and I am happy that my speech has provided the hon. Gentleman with another opportunity to make one of his interventions, as he does in practically every debate that he attends. He makes a good point, which the House has now heard.
I want to reinforce the point about IBCA’s arm’s length process. The hon. Member for Eltham and Chislehurst is right that it is abundantly clear, in both the interim and the full report, that there is a general expectation that IBCA will be truly at arm’s length, divorced and separate from the Government. We cannot get into the head of Sir Brian Langstaff when he designed the scheme, but I think that he expected there to be a proper arm’s length body that would be responsible to Parliament, not Government. What we have is the other way around, and that will probably be okay, but for extra security, those of us who are interested would like to make sure that it is properly independent, according to Sir Brian Langstaff’s original intention.
As long as there is a sense that this is a Government-influenced body, there will be continuing suspicions—from a community that has been let down so badly for decades by decision makers and Government—that this is the same old approach that we have seen in the past. I ask the Minister to find a way to ensure that we get that proper judge-led, arm’s length body that is responsible to us as the representatives of the people of the United Kingdom, and not just exclusively to Government. I have no issue with all the tributes that people have made to David Foley and all the other people involved, because they have been fantastic, but we are already beginning to see Cabinet Office-based appointments coming through for IBCA. Again, we are not really seeing consultation with those at the sharp end of all this. We need some more of that.
Sir Brian Langstaff said that two expert panels—one representing the legal parts of the issues, and the other the health parts—would work almost simultaneously and in concert with each other, to feed back to the chair of the board. It would be good to see that starting to emerge. He also said—not as clearly, but it was intended—that an expert panel would comprise those representing the community, both the infected and the affected. They would have a similar role to feed into the chair of IBCA. I hope that some of that will happen.
There is widespread support for what this Government have done, and £11.8 billion is a significant sum that everyone is confident will go most of the way towards meeting the compensation expectations, but there are issues. Members have touched on some of them. I will rattle through them—I do not want to detain the House and I have raised them before—but I just want to make sure that we do touch on them.
The hon. Member for Eltham and Chislehurst is absolutely right that the £15,000 for those caught up in unethical research is far too low. This is coming back to all of us again, so I really hope we are able to revisit that. Then there are those who were treated with interferon as a matter of course. They have not been properly and fully included in the compensation scheme, so again I hope the Government are able to look at that. There is concern that hepatitis C payment bandings do not match and reflect the suffering caused. That is what I have been hearing from constituents involved in the campaign, so I hope the Government will be able to look at that.
There is the issue about bereaved parents and children, who will receive very low compensation payments if they are not the beneficiary of the estate of bereaved family members. I think that could be addressed. No compensation has been paid to siblings for their loss and suffering if they were over 18. Compensation for lack of earnings should consider future career progression that was prevented from occurring, rather than simply existing careers that were cut short. Lastly on my list, which is not long but is substantial, is the fact that the need for a date of infection is causing a great deal of anxiety and confusion among the community.
I believe that most of those issues could be properly addressed with the full involvement of community representatives if they have full and open access to Government Ministers and are able to play their part in designing any future schemes. The community should be involved to provide valuable information and advice on the most pressing issues that need to be addressed.
One issue that I want to turn to in the bulk of my remarks is the part of Sir Brian Langstaff’s report that has probably received the least attention thus far: the “why” of all this. Why did this happen? Why were we misled for such a long time? We have had useful discussions about compensation and it is great to see that progress, but unless we explore and examine the reasons why it happened, we will not learn all that much as we go forward. The duty of candour Bill, which I will come on to, is a useful, positive and helpful development, but unless we have a proper examination of what went so badly wrong, then I am not entirely sure we will learn the full lessons of what happened over the past couple of decades.
The inquiry uncovered shocking revelations about the Government’s handling of the issue, including failures to provide full information to those affected by contaminated blood and the delay in acknowledging the extent of the problem. Sir Brian’s inquiry found that both Ministers and civil servants adopted lines to take, or strategies to avoid providing full and candid responses to the crisis. That lack of openness contributed to the suffering of those impacted, leaving many victims and their families feeling unheard and ignored for decades. Those of us in the House in the noughties who were raising these concerns and issues on behalf of constituents who presented in our surgeries remember being dismissed by “nothing-to-see-here” letters from successive Health Ministers. I would not say we were fobbed off exactly, but we were certainly told that there was nothing we should really be concerned about. With all the serious issues that were raised, there was a real sense that none of it was being taken seriously.
Sir Brian Langstaff recommended that Ministers and senior civil servants should be legally required to provide candour and completeness in their responses to public concerns. That brings us to the duty of candour Bill promised by the Government. I think all of us involved in this campaign were delighted to see it featured in the King’s Speech. We look forward to the Government introducing it. Most of the Bill is predicated on the response to Hillsborough. Key lessons have been taken from the infected blood scandal, and from other scandals such as the Horizon Post Office scandal. All of us who have been involved in these campaigns will look forward to our opportunity to debate and design the Bill.
A statutory duty of candour for all public servants, including civil servants and Ministers, would hold public officials accountable for their actions and require them to be transparent in their dealings with the public. Such a law would compel civil servants and Ministers to act with integrity and fully disclose all relevant information, even when it might be uncomfortable or damaging to the Government’s reputation.
In the course of the Langstaff inquiry, Andy Burnham pointed out that during the tainted blood scandal and even earlier, in various materials, the Government had frequently employed the phrase
“no wrongful practices were employed”.
In our debates on this issue, I often refer to Andy Burnham’s evidence to the inquiry, because it was particularly compelling and very helpful. I probably received more letters from him when he was Health Secretary than I did from any other Health Secretary. He talked about the letters that he used to send to Members of Parliament, and expressed his concern about the inaccurate lines provided by departmental officials. He believed that those lines perpetuated false narratives that failed to address the needs of those whose lives had been so devastatingly affected. He emphasised that the Government’s response to the infected blood issue was driven primarily by a fear of financial exposure, and he believed that explained the comprehensive failure to address the concerns of the victims over five decades.
I have called for a further investigation or inquiry into why this was allowed to happen in a major Department of State, given that it clearly led to many of the difficulties that we are now addressing through various compensation schemes. Much of the debate has touched on the Langstaff inquiry, but a separate look at what went wrong would be useful and cathartic for the Government, and would help them to shape their duty of candour Bill. I am not here to criticise them, although it sometimes sounds as though I am; I think that they have made a good start with all this, and we are all grateful for the £11.8 billion for the compensation schemes.
I became involved with this issue when a couple of my constituents were caught up in it. I remember those early days when we did not know what was going on, and the letters from the Department of Health made the situation all the more confusing. Over the decades, I have come to know members of the community. Some have come down to the House of Commons, told their story, and asked us to question Ministers. I pay tribute to Haemophilia Scotland and the Scottish Infected Blood Forum, which have made excellent representations on their behalf. The fact that we are discussing the issue now and have been able to see a clear way forward is largely due to the case that they put, and the fact that they were able to confront Members of Parliament, the Government and Ministers, and we should give them due credit for what they have done to bring us here today.
Andrew Gwynne
I should clarify for my hon. Friend that IBCA is operationally independent—that is important —but it is absolutely right that Members of this House are able to scrutinise its operations, its working and, indeed, its use of public money. We are talking about a great deal of public money, and IBCA has to be democratically accountable to this House, albeit operationally independent of Government Ministers in its day-to-day business.
Pete Wishart
This is a really important point—both myself and the hon. Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford) have now raised it with the Minister. He has rightly identified the experiences of so many people caught up in this crisis, and the fact that they do not trust the Government or Government institutions. Would it not be more of a comfort to them to know that IBCA is like the National Audit Office: accountable to Parliament, rather than to Government?
Andrew Gwynne
I agree with the hon. Gentleman, which is why IBCA is operationally independent—that is the crucial thing here. It does not have the fingerprints of Ministers all over it, because that is where the distrust comes from. It operates independently, but as a public body it is accountable to this House for how it spends that money and how it operates as an organisation. While IBCA is operationally independent to ensure a separation between Executive Ministers and the functioning of that body, it is accountable to this House. I think that is absolutely the right balance.
Income Tax (Charge)
Pete Wishart Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Edward Argar
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. You cannot tax your way to growth and you cannot invest in public services without that growth. If the predictions we are seeing about growth are borne out, there is a real risk to our public services’ sustainability in future.
The Chancellor said that the funding would help to deliver 40,000 more NHS appointments a week, but again we see no reference to specific actions by which that will be achieved. The Government seem not to know the difference between a target and a plan, and simply restating their ambition while throwing money at the challenge will not be enough to deliver on that commitment.
As I have said, elements of the Budget relating to the Department of Health and Social Care were welcome, one of them being the Secretary of State’s one-nil win over the Chief Secretary in respect of funding. An additional £2 billion to drive productivity is important. I fear that it is a slimmed-down version of the £3.4 billion NHS productivity plans that we announced and funded, but I will study it closely, and, similarly, the Secretary of State’s plan for mental health is deserving of serious study. On both sides of this Chamber, we recognise the importance in mental health investment of not only parity of esteem but parity of services, and it is therefore right for us to scrutinise very carefully how the right hon. Gentleman intends to build further on the success that we had in driving that agenda forward.
Let me now turn to the subject of capital investment, which was touched on by the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell). It concerns me that, as far as I am aware, the Secretary of State has still not told us exactly when his review of the new hospital programme will report and set out the future for each and every one of the hospitals that he committed himself to delivering during the election campaign—the programme to which the previous Chancellor had committed funding, building on the original £3.7 billion allocated in 2019. The question for the Government, and the question for the Chief Secretary to answer when he winds up the debate, is: “When will that review report, and when will each and every one of those colleagues and communities who are looking forward to a new hospital know whether it will be delivered in line with the Secretary of State’s pledge, or whether the programme will be cut?”
Nearly a week after the Budget, Members will be familiar with the verdict of the Office for Budget Responsibility: namely, that the £25 billion assault on businesses risks lower wages, lower living standards and lower growth. And let us not forget what this tax hike will mean for those providing essential services across primary, secondary and social care—the general practices, care homes, adult social care providers, community pharmacists on our high streets, hospices and charities such as Marie Curie and Macmillan which provide additional care for patients alongside the NHS.
I was deeply disappointed that the Secretary of State did not take the opportunity offered by my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) to state clearly that all those groups would be exempt and would not be hit by this hike, and I hope that when the Chief Secretary winds up the debate he will be able to give that reassurance. The Royal College of General Practitioners has warned that the extra costs of the employer’s national insurance hike could force GP surgeries to make redundancies or close altogether, and the Independent Pharmacies Association has warned that community pharmacies will have to find an extra £12,000 a year, on average, to pay for the hike.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his place. I was waiting for the Health Secretary to turn to devolution issues, but he never quite did. We have a particular issue in Scotland: up to £500 million of extra costs will be forced on to the NHS there because of that national insurance hike. We have heard no commitment from the Secretary of State that he will meet those costs in full, and we look forward to hearing such a commitment. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will share my concern about what this is doing to devolved services across the United Kingdom.
Edward Argar
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the ill-thought-out consequences of this hike for hospices and general practices, both in Scotland and elsewhere. I would dearly love to be able to respond to his question. Sadly, however, I am on this the side of the House and not the other side, but I am sure that the Chief Secretary will attempt to do so.
The Nuffield Trust has said that without additional financial support, the tax raid is likely to force social care providers to pass higher costs on to people who pay for their own care, or potentially collapse financially. Charities are not exempt either. As a result of the increases in the national living wage and employer’s national insurance contributions, one of the UK’s largest social care charities says it is facing an unfunded increased wage bill of £12 million a year, and Marie Curie has warned that the rises in employer’s NI contributions will only serve to put the services that it delivers on behalf of the NHS under further pressure. Those charities will be looking to the Chief Secretary to say what succour he can offer them in the form of an assurance that they will not be hit.
John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)
Glasgow has the shortest life expectancy in Scotland and in western Europe. The people of my city, who bring me so much joy, live shorter and less healthy lives than those anywhere else in the UK. Far too many die too soon. They do not get the happiness that the autumn of life brings: time with grandchildren, time with friends and time volunteering at a local church or a local mosque.
My constituency has some of the highest levels of poverty in the United Kingdom. Poverty is one the principal causes of ill health and early death. Health is the topic of today’s debate. Many of my constituents cannot afford to pay for the essentials and live in shocking housing conditions. They live every day petrified of what tomorrow will bring. This Budget confronts poverty. It increases the national living wage, giving a pay rise to the lowest paid in my constituency, and gives pensioners more than £400 this year under the triple lock and more than £1,700 over the course of the Parliament. This Budget makes a choice—it targets our scare public resources at the poorest—and I support it.
My constituents rely on the Scottish NHS, but the Scottish NHS is in crisis. Almost one in six Scots is on an NHS waiting list.
John Grady
I am discussing Scotland. This is a serious topic about my constituents’ health. The waste by the Scottish Government—hundreds of millions returned to the EU unspent and hundreds of millions wasted on ferries—could have been diverted to the hospitals in Glasgow, to put beds in the Royal Infirmary, where they are needed.
The SNP is never to blame. The 62-day cancer treatment standard has not been met for over a decade, despite cancer being one of Scotland’s biggest killers. I have met countless pensioners who have been forced to pay thousands of pounds to go private for their hip replacements and knee operations, because the Scottish NHS waiting lists are so long. This Budget means £1.5 billion this year for the Scottish Government to spend on the NHS, and an additional £3.4 billion next year.
Our Budget puts the people of Scotland first and enables the SNP to fix the mess it has made of our health service. With its record increase in Scottish funding, this Budget demonstrates our commitment to Scotland.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
It is a long time since I have had the pleasure of speaking in a Budget debate. Usually there is a bit more competition for the opportunity to speak, but given the much-diminished numbers present, I got this chance today.
Having been more of an observer in the past few years, I have noticed one aspect of the Budget: the form, the tempo and the rhythm that seem to be part of every single Budget debate. It always starts with a high, fevered crescendo of excitement. The Government reel off all the staccato of freebies and giveaways. Cheers come from the Back Benches, Order Papers are waved, and the nation feels bamboozled by this apparent avalanche of largesse. Then, of course, the first cracks appear—a negative forecast from the OBR here, bad news on the gilt markets there. Beyond that, it all starts to fall apart. Once the public realise what the Budget means to them and get over the intoxication, the hangover starts and the first opinion polls start to come out. There was one in Scotland at the weekend, and it showed a calamitous decline in Labour’s fortunes, just as the party was measuring up the curtains for Bute House. It is not so straightforward for Labour any more.
I want to do something different and actually praise the Labour Government. I want to thank them and say, “Well done for getting that funding for infected blood. That’s great!” I also thank them for the extra funding that Scotland will get—it would be churlish not to do so. It is what we asked for, and I am really glad that they have started to listen to us. I just wish they would do a little bit more of that.
However, there are issues with all of this. One of the main issues is the change in employer’s national insurance contributions, which has caused a real problem for some of our colleagues in Scotland, because we do not know what we will get as a block grant. Will we be fully funded for the national insurance contributions in our health and policing budgets? We need to have clarity, and the money has to be in addition to the block grant funding, not in place of it. I would like clarity from the Minister on that issue.
There is one local issue that I want to raise: the levelling-up funding for Perth. Levelling-up funding was pork barrel politics at its most gratuitous, and we were the only city local authority that did not get one penny from the Conservative Government. We finally got a paltry £5 million, and we were so excited about that. We had three shiny projects in Perth city centre that we were going to develop. Then, of course, the Budget came along. After we secured practically nothing from the Conservatives, a Labour Government are taking the money away from us. I want to hear the Government say that they will give Perth what it is due.
Budgets are like fireworks on bonfire night: they go up like a rocket, with lots of noise and colour, then they come down like a damp squib. Today, the Government’s Budget feels very much like that damp squib.
Darren Jones
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the ombudsman reported to this House before the election, making a number of recommendations, but did not conclude the basis on which a compensation scheme might apply. Further work is therefore required, which the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is looking at, but I would point him to the fact that this is a Government who honour their promises. If we look at the infected blood scandal or the Post Office Horizon scandal—an issue that I worked on for many years—we were told by the Conservatives that they were doing the right thing by compensating the victims, but they did not put £1 aside to pay for it.
From education to our justice system, we have inherited public services that are on life support, but I do not need to tell working people that. Sadly, they know it all too well, because the last Government lost control of both our public finances and our public services. This Budget and this Government will get both back under control. I will now outline how we should do that, by focusing on one simple word: reform. Reform is urgent, because we cannot simply spend our way to better public services.
This is a Government for working people, and we are determined that they will get the best possible public services for the best possible price, but public service reform is not just about policy or IT systems or procurement, as important as they are; it is about people. It is about the people at the end of each of our decisions: the patient in the hands of the NHS with worry and hope in their heart; the pupil in a school, college or university with aspirations that should be met; and the pensioner who wants to feel safe walking to the shops on their high street. Behind each of those people is a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, a police officer or a civil servant.
These are public servants who have chosen to work in public service to serve the public, as this Government do. They are public servants and people who today feel frustrated by not being able to access public services and not being able to deliver them. These are public services that, when performing well, deliver a well-functioning state and help keep workers educated, well and able to help grow our economy and protect our country. It is for these people that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor confirmed we will deliver a new approach to public services that is responsible, that looks to the future and that balances investment to secure public services for the long term with reforms to drive up the quality of those services today, and with reform as a condition for investment. From the Attlee Government founding the NHS to the Blair Government reforming poorly performing state schools, reform is in Labour’s DNA.
I now turn to some of the points made by right hon. and hon. Members today, and I begin by congratulating my hon. Friends the Members for Broxtowe (Juliet Campbell), for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) and for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles), and the hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance), on delivering their maiden speeches.
There were many speeches today, so colleagues will have to accept my apologies for not being able to address all 80 contributions individually. However, I join my Labour colleagues in celebrating this Budget, because building an NHS that is fit for the future is one of this Government’s five missions. That is why we have invested over £22 billion, the highest real-terms rate of growth since 2010 outside of the covid response.
I have also heard the voices of hon. Members from Northern Ireland and Scotland, including the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald), who encouraged me so dearly to listen to his speech but has not returned to the House for my summing up. Under this Labour Government, the largest real-terms funding increase since devolution began has been delivered for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This Labour Government are delivering from Westminster for the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and we will work in partnership with the devolved Governments to deliver the change for which people voted, and which we have now given the devolved Governments the money to deliver.
Pete Wishart
We thank the Minister for that, but will he reassure the Scottish Government right now that their £500 million of national insurance contributions for public sector employees will be given back in full compensation to the Scottish Government, rather than being put into the block grant?
Darren Jones
It is the greatest real-terms increase in funding since devolution began. If the devolved Government wish to take responsibility for devolved matters, they should do so. If they do not wish to do so, Labour will happily take over at the next election to deliver better services for the people of Scotland.
Many Members have asked me to comment on the new hospitals programme. As the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has confirmed, this Government are committed to delivering a realistic and deliverable plan, and we will deliver the outcomes of the review to the House in due course.
Many Members have also asked me about the difficult decision to increase employer national insurance contributions, in the context of Labour honouring its promise to working people not to increase employee national insurance contributions or income tax in their payslips. It is right that the Government are not legislating to exempt non-public sector organisations from these changes but, as the Secretary of State said, we pay for these services and it will be reflected in their settlements. To answer the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, whether now or in the spring at the conclusion of the spending review, those departmental settlements will be published in the normal way.