National Health Service

Simon Burns Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), although he would not expect me to agree with everything he has just said.

I listened to the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) with considerable interest. One thing that struck a chord with me was when, at the beginning of his speech, he said, basically, that the NHS should not be a political football. I could not agree more. It does a great disservice to the people who work so hard—the doctors, nurses and ancillary staff—to provide health care for the citizens of this country, to see it turned into a party political football. Let me explain what I mean by a political football.

The Opposition have, of course, a democratic right to hold the Government of the day to account for their stewardship of the health service, as they do on education or anything else. Of course, every individual Member of Parliament, regardless of party, has a right to fight for the interests of their constituents with regard to health care if they feel that it is failing their constituents.

[Ian Austin]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Burns]

No, I will not, because I only have eight minutes.

What I decry, however, is when, in the generality, the health service is used to attack a political party, whether the Government or whatever, simply to try to score cheap party political points. That does a grave disservice to the NHS. As the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton said, people in this country love the health service. They believe in it, free at the point of use for all those who are eligible to use it. I, like I imagine millions and millions of taxpayers, have no objection to paying our taxes to have a free health service. To appropriate the four freedoms of Franklin Roosevelt, there is a fifth freedom: the freedom from fear of a medical bill dropping on one’s mat and financially ruining one’s family.

Where I see the greatest and, to my mind, the most disgraceful attack is in the accusation, which is not new—it was being made in 1979, and, I suspect, before then, but fortunately I am a bit too young to remember exactly—that the Conservative party wants to privatise the health service. We do not and we never have done. As long as I am a politician, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is, we never will. I find it extremely aggravating and hurtful when this cheap shot is made.

One of the examples of privatisation given is the use of the private sector to improve and enhance the health care of our constituents. Let me just explain something. Over Christmas, I read an extremely good new book, which I strongly recommend to the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), if he has not already come across it. “Nye”, by Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds, is the new biography of Nye Bevan. It is a fascinating book, particularly the part about when he was the Minister for Health from 1945 to July 1948 and putting together and negotiating the creation of the NHS. It sets out the arguments he had with the medical profession and others, and the compromises he had to make to establish the NHS. Many people do not realise that even to this day, as a result of those compromises, 95% of GP practices are private small businesses. I do not decry that, because they are treating patients, under the national health service, free of charge.

Historically, a lot of mental health care has been free of charge, but provided by the private sector. In the 1990s, when I was a Health Minister, I remember John Major using the private sector to bring down waiting lists and waiting times for operations. My constituents had no problem whatever with that, providing it was free and kept to the core principle of the NHS. The last Labour Government, the Blair-Brown Government, were quite happy to use the private sector providing it was benefiting NHS patients.

The shadow Secretary of State kindly mentioned—albeit in passing—Chelmsford walk-in centre and suggested it was a great political scandal and the next bandwagon he was going to jump on. May I point something out to him? The walk-in centre was created from the dying embers of his stewardship of the NHS, in March 2010, to be run by a private company. I have no problem with that, if it is serving NHS patients. However, its sole purpose was to reduce pressures on A and E at the local hospital, and I am afraid it has singularly failed to do that. The use of A and E at Broomfield hospital, just down the road, has increased inexorably and, in that respect, the walk-in centre has failed.

[Andy Burnham]

I am listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman. As he knows, I have huge respect and affection for him, but he is arguing that NHS privatisation is a myth and that our accusation is wrong. If he does not mind, I will quote what he said during the Committee stage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012:

“As NHS providers develop and begin to compete actively with other NHS providers and with private and voluntary providers, UK and EU competition laws will increasingly become applicable.”—[Official Report, Health and Social Care Public Bill Committee, 15 March 2011; c. 718.]

Why, then, is it a myth that he and his Government have exposed the NHS to a greater risk of commercialisation, marketisation and, indeed, privatisation?

[Mr Burns]

First, competition was introduced on the current scale by the Blair-Brown Government, and secondly, there is nothing wrong, per se, with competition to get the best providers providing the best care for patients, so long as they keep to the sole ethos of the NHS, which is that that good care be provided free at the point of use for NHS patients. We saw that under his Government and under the Major Government, and this Government have used the private sector to ensure that patients are treated more quickly. We want them to be treated as quickly as possible, and if there is not enough capacity in the NHS, and if a private provider can provide the capacity, I see nothing wrong with that, and neither do most people in this country, if they are treated more quickly.

Returning to the walk-in centre, there were 40,000 attendances last year, 10,000 of which were by people beyond the Mid Essex CCG area. Of the remaining attendances, one third should have been self-caring or using their community pharmacy or 111, which the CCG is paying for, and another third should have been using their community pharmacy or GP, which the NHS is paying for. The CCG was therefore paying twice for the same care for the same patients, which is an utter waste of money. That money should be being used to care for more patients quicker, which is why the CCG has taken the decision it has. It is a rational decision, because the centre is failing to meet the aims it was set up for and instead ensuring that the NHS pays twice for the same patient to be treated. In place of the walk-in centre, there will now be an urgent care service at the local hospital for those people who should be going there. Sometimes, politicians have to do the right thing, regardless of political point scoring. Where it is in the interest of patients and the configuration of services, they should take the right decision, be reasonable and responsible and explain why it is the case.

In conclusion, I am delighted to see the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) in her place. I am fascinated to note that the nub of the motion is a call for an extra £2.5 billion for the NHS, which I am sure she strongly supports. What worries and concerns me—she may have a problem when it comes to voting at 7 o’clock tonight—is that the motion goes on to say that it is going to be

“funded by measures including a tax on properties worth over £2 million”.

Given the battle the hon. Lady had on the radio with a member—a right hon. Member— of her party from a southern Scottish constituency, I imagine that she is in turmoil, wondering how to justify that funding from that source.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I am in no turmoil whatever. I will be walking through the Lobby with pride behind my hon. Friends. We cannot know exactly how much a mansion tax, if levied, would raise towards the national health service. What we do know is that the British people who want to save the national health service from the depredations of Government Members have to vote Labour. We have to vote for my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) to become Secretary of State for Health—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We do not need a statement; we have got the message.

[Mr Burns]

In conclusion, it is sad that the hon. Lady has completely undermined the case and the costings of the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham). I have no doubt that when she has swallowed her pride and gone through the Lobby today, she will battle as hard as she is renowned for battling and will hit the leader of her party over the head to try to get him to see common sense and abandon this ridiculous policy that she also thinks is ridiculous.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—