Income Tax (Charge)

Polly Billington Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his place, but before throwing stones, will he just remind the House that under his Government’s plans, there would have been £15 billion less for the NHS, leaving it broken?

[Edward Argar]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her place as well. I think this is the first opportunity I have had to respond to a intervention or question from her.

In fact, we put record funding into the NHS—£164.9 billion per year—and on top of that we recruited more doctors and more nurses. We did not do that by piling tax hikes on hospices and general practices, among others. I am not sure how hitting primary care, social care or charities supporting NHS services will help the Secretary of State to deliver his aim of cutting waiting lists. I hope that the Chief Secretary will tell the House what steps the Treasury is taking to ensure that those organisations are not hit by these changes.

Let me take a moment to consider what was not included in the Budget.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

Even those of us who are new to this place know to expect more communication from our constituents about what is wrong than what is right, so it is notable that I received emails of thanks and congratulations from constituents last week, after the Chancellor delivered her historic Budget. Stability is highly prized by people after so much chaos, and investment, especially in our NHS, is something that people have been crying out for.

However, we must be honest with ourselves about the state of our NHS in east Kent and in coastal communities like mine. East Thanet has been overlooked for far too long. The service has had to endure the chaos and incompetence of the past 14 years, and has not been as resilient as other places to the onslaught. The director of public health in north-east Lincolnshire, Stephen Pintus, has described people living in coastal communities as “old before their time”. We need to reform the way we deliver NHS services in coastal communities. Investment on its own will not be enough. We need to redesign our health service to answer the questions: what care do people need, where do they need it and how do they need it delivered?

My constituents have been suffering with poor NHS services for far too long. East Kent hospitals university NHS foundation trust, which runs the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital in Margate, is ranked the third worst in England for its 12-hour waits for emergency services. Its maternity services have been deemed inadequate. When staff were asked, “If a friend or relative needed treatment, would I be happy with their care?”, only 45% of staff said yes. I have people emailing me about their urgent care and essential appointments being delayed by waiting lists. People in dire need of mental healthcare are being told to wait for months to get the help they desperately need. There is denial of continuous care due to costs and a lack of staffing—and, shockingly, poor communication and record keeping resulted in a cancer patient being misdiagnosed.

In a 2021 report by Chris Whitty entitled “Health in Coastal Communities”, he highlighted the problems faced by constituencies such as mine, and found that they had some of the worst health outcomes in England, with low life expectancy and high rates of major diseases. One of the major reasons for that is simply lack of access to healthcare services—both a lack of NHS services in coastal communities and a lack of transport options.

Whatever the reasons for the challenges in coastal communities, we need to see reform. The extra funding the Chancellor announced last week is crucial to bringing down waiting lists and stopping the chaos of 14 years of Tory mismanagement. The British people delivered us a mandate to fix the NHS. If done well, this reform will be transformative for the country, especially in coastal communities like East Thanet.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I am about to call the final Back-Bench Member. No doubt a lot of colleagues who have contributed will be making their way back to the Chamber for the Front-Bench speeches. I call Matt Turmaine.