Budget Resolutions

Debate between Rachel Taylor and Edward Leigh

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh]

No; I have to keep going.

I accept that some issues, such as hospital capacity, can only be dealt with by spending, but we do not need to reinvent the wheel; we need to learn from other countries. The Health Secretary, who I admire for his apparent radical zeal—although we have not seen much evidence of it—studied Australia, for instance. Let me break the national taboo on “our NHS”, our religion. There are other countries that are like ourselves but which deliver much better—incomparably superior—health outcomes. It is my personal belief, and I think I am about the only person who has said this year after year, that we should adopt Australia’s social insurance model. There is nothing wrong with encouraging private provision in health. Is that some great heresy? Is it some sort of right-wing philosophy? Well, it is followed by France, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands, and all those other countries produce much better health outcomes.

Australia slowly developed a hybrid system of state and private health insurance. Everyone has universal public health insurance, but workers are encouraged to purchase private health insurance on top of that. My point is that, with a ballooning, ageing population, yes, we have to spend more on health, but we have to get people to put more of their own money into health; and they must be assured that, having put their money in, they will not just end up at the back of a queue, because they have personal rights and are committed to this health service.

For instance, the average cost of a treatment-only plan for a 20-year-old in Australia is just £23.14 a month, and comprehensive cover starts at £31 a month. That cost rises to £109 per month for a 70-year-old. People earning less than £119,000 can claim rebates to reduce the cost of health insurance, and higher earners without insurance pay a surcharge of between 1% and 1.5%. Research commissioned by Australia’s Department of Health shows that the cost to the taxpayer would be greater without the rebates, because there would be increased stress on the public system.

The health outcomes are noticeable. Australia has one of the lowest rates of avoidable mortality among the developed nations. Its cancer survival rates are several percentage points higher than the UK’s, and stroke and heart attack mortality rates are several points lower. It is not perfect, of course, and not everything can be imported from other countries, but Australia’s system shows that there are other models.

We must have a national debate about how, with an ageing population, we can produce the kind of health outcomes that people desire. There is a cumulative effect: in 2022, the Australian Government debt was 70% of GDP. In other words, it is running a tight, well-run ship. That is a country much like us—but the UK has already, even before this Budget, reached a staggering 104% debt in the same year. We are going broke because we do not have the courage, on either side of the aisle, to think from first principles. I am making this argument as much to those on my own Benches as I am to the Government. This situation simply cannot go on and on, otherwise people will start talking about charging or giving tax relief for private health insurance.

We have to have a fundamental debate about the whole structure of health, and the Health Secretary has the good will of people across the House and across the country to start thinking big and thinking of new ideas. If he can find a way forward and improve health outcomes, he will go down in history as one of the greatest Health Secretaries we have ever had.

The second fundamental problem we have is the ballooning benefits system, particularly when it comes to incapacity. It is trapping more and more people in dependence. We need a culture of the necessity of work. We have 4 million people on incapacity benefit, and two thirds of them—recent joiners—are claiming mental illness. The situation is out of control. Work should always pay more than benefits. I would have liked to have heard more from the Chancellor about how she is going to attack the benefits system and incapacity, which is gradually reducing the Government into penury.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

Would the right hon. Member join me in congratulating the Chancellor on raising the national living wage—an uplift that will have a transformative impact on the lives of more than a third of children living in poverty in Gainsborough as well as children living in poverty in my constituency of North Warwickshire and Bedworth? The measure will make such a massive difference.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The hon. Lady has made her point, although I was talking about incapacity benefit, so I am not sure how her point has addressed mine.

The culture of people living off the state for years, when they are capable of doing some work, needs to be stamped out. We have to work together in the House to get people off benefits and help them. It is about not just reducing benefits, but having innovative schemes, like those that the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), was trying to bring about to encourage people back into work, making their whole lives better and more productive.

Thirdly, tackling benefits is a vital ingredient of curbing immigration. What is the spur for mass immigration? It is that health and social care simply cannot get enough workers for the salaries they are paying. There are too many people on benefits, and we are dragging more and more people from all over the world into our system. We need to insist that anyone entering the country earns at least average UK earnings. We cannot go on undercutting our native workers with cheap foreign labour. We have to pay decent wages in our care service, and reform the whole benefits structure so that people actually want to work. We cannot solve our problems with mass immigration, and mass illegal immigration is part of the problem. It is gradually destroying the social contract and people’s belief in the system, and the Government must have a plan to deal with it, which basically means arresting people when they land illegally on these shores, and offshoring them.

The other great problem in our national psyche that we have not really addressed is the whole pension system. I have to declare an interest: I am of pensionable age. [Hon. Members: “Never!”] Some Members will be very happy when I retire from this House, but I do try to tell the truth according to my own lights and to state difficult truths. The fact is that we have more and more elderly people, more and more sick people, and more and more people with multiple health problems. We are all committed to keeping the triple lock, and I would get into awful deep water if I said that doing so is becoming increasingly unaffordable, but of course if the portion of the state spending devoted to pensions increases every year in real terms, we will gradually ensure that the country cannot pay its way.

This is a difficult truth that nobody yet has had the courage to address: we have to do more to encourage private pensions, and not—I say this to the Chancellor—seeing private pension pots as a convenient thing to raise taxes on. Many years ago, I served on the Social Security Committee under the late, great Frank Field, a man immensely respected on both sides of the aisle. We studied countries like Chile that were making explicit the creation of contributory pension systems. People were encouraged to put more into their pensions and plan for their old age. That is the only way, with an ageing population, that we can solve our problems.

In addition to all this, I am afraid that wokery and human rights legislation are gradually eating away into our—[Laughter.] Government Members may all laugh, but it is true. Many people feel that they are not part of the way in which this country is run. These are just lessons that the Government have to learn.