The National Health Service

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Let me explain my argument and then I will give way. What is not currently publicly provided? What about drugs and pharmaceuticals? Is the hon. Member for Leicester South really saying that only drugs manufactured by the NHS can be used in an NHS hospital? That is what his amendment says. Will he go and tell that to the patients who use Brineura, aspirin or cutting-edge cancer treatments? What about the new breakthrough announced this morning that could delay the onset of Alzheimer’s? My grandmother died with dementia, and his amendment would stop access to new drugs because he is against anything that is not publicly provided. The Government reject that ideology. What about other things that the NHS buys? Will he only buy pencils that are manufactured by the NHS? What about all those blasted fax machines? Is he suggesting that the NHS starts to manufacture its own fax machines? I want to abolish fax machines in the NHS; he wants to nationalise them.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Does he agree that by insisting on public provision, the Labour party would also abandon virtually the entire primary care network in this country, which is provided by private businesses owned and run by doctors?

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend’s mind is so aligned with my own that that is the very next line in my speech. What of GPs, dentists, opticians and pharmacists? They are all privately provided into the NHS, and they have been since Bevan, but this hard-left amendment would nationalise them.

I like the hon. Member for Leicester South. He is a good and sensible man, so I can only assume that he has been captured by the militant hard-left within his party, whose aggressive proto-Marxist ideology I know, deep down, he has little sympathy for. He is far more right-wing than the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), and I know it because we have it on the record. He used to say that

“there has always been a private element of health provision in this country.”

That is what he really thinks, but he is hostage to the hard-liners and has been captured by Corbyn.