Income Tax (Charge)

Peter Lamb Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Peter Lamb (Crawley) (Lab)]

I am grateful for being called to speak in the Budget debate, particularly during this discussion of the UK’s most beloved national institution. The NHS may be well loved, but unfortunately it has not been well cared for over the past 14 years—and don’t we all know it: our inboxes are filled with messages from people crying out for our support in getting the treatment that they desperately need. All the data shows the problems. In my area, we are more than four times over the NHS national target rate for people waiting in A&E for over four hours. Elective operations are being cancelled at the last minute. In the first quarter of 2010, when the last Labour Government were in power, just 75 such operations were cancelled in my area, but 520 operations were cancelled in the first quarter of this year. That shows the scale of the problem that we face.

We know from personal experience—from whenever we come into contact with the health service—that NHS workers bend over backwards to try to make things work for us, often when they are in overtime, but mistakes and delays are inevitable in an organisation that has been systematically under-resourced. NHS workers need a Government who are on their side. In this Budget, we are providing exactly that by delivering a £22.6 billion increase in NHS funding, with 40,000 new elective appointments per week, and new surgical hubs and scanners. That will get on with the job of clearing the Conservatives’ backlog.

I found some of the comments made by Conservative Members deeply surprising. They are best summed up by what the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) said. He wrings his hands for millionaire families, but was perfectly happy to see child poverty grow to include over a third of children in the UK. Conservative Members talk of the Budget plunging people into debt, when they racked up £2.6 trillion of debt—three times the amount they inherited from the Labour Government. They talk about the amount of tax on businesses while ignoring the fact that working people in the UK have never been more highly taxed than under the last Government. They talk about being on the side of businesses, but ignore the fact that a Prime Minister who they put into office used a very rude four-letter word to say what he thought about businesses in this country. When it comes to NHS investment, there is one thing that we can all rally around: it is desperately needed for research on the collective amnesia of Conservative Members.

While the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is in the Chamber, it would be remiss not to mention that Crawley could do with a brand new acute hospital, if they are being dished out. However, as this Government do not tend to promise hospitals and then not put any funding aside for delivering them, I will leave that debate for the future. The services that we have need to deliver for patients once more. The Darzi report has shown us the way forward, and this Budget puts us back on course to deliver the world-class, cradle-to-grave health service that Labour Members gave to the country in the 1940s, that Labour Members rescued in the 1990s, and that Members here will save again in the 2020s. If Conservative Members wish to save that service, they are perfectly welcome to join us in the Division Lobby later in the week.