Defending Public Services

Debate between Simon Burns and Heidi Alexander

Monday 23rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that intervention. He might want to rake over the last general election but he clearly does not want to talk about the crisis in NHS finances today, with a £2.45 billion deficit among hospitals at the end of this year, cuts to public health spending, and £4.5 billion coming out of the adult social care budget over the past five years. I am quite happy to debate NHS finances with him. The truth is that the NHS is getting a smaller increase this year than it got in every single year of the previous Labour Government.

The King’s Fund and the Health Foundation concluded:

“Getting public spending figures right is important, otherwise they can mislead and detract from the real issues. The fact is that the NHS is halfway through its most austere decade ever, with all NHS services facing huge pressures.”

[Sir Simon Burns]

May I recommend that the hon. Lady read a recently published book by Tom Bower which shows the utter failure of the Blair Government, who pumped billions of pounds into the NHS over a period of years but had no control over it and made no attempt to increase productivity, so that from 1998 performance flatlined for six years, and the then Health Secretary was forced to bring back health policies that they had abandoned in ’97?

[Heidi Alexander]

I am grateful for the reading advice from the right hon. Gentleman, but I simply say this: I am very happy to defend the record of the previous Labour Government, who trebled the NHS budget and had the highest-ever public satisfaction ratings and the lowest-ever waiting lists.

We should be crystal clear about the crisis that we face today. The decade from 2010 to 2020 is set to be marked by the biggest sustained funding squeeze on the NHS ever. As a percentage of GDP, spending on health is set to fall from 6.3% in 2009-10 to just 5.4% by the end of the decade.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Burns and Heidi Alexander

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

The Department is currently reviewing updated lists of properties for proposed transfer. Thereafter, the boards of the sending and receiving organisations will endorse the transfers and give their final approval in the next few weeks to allow the legal transfer process and human resources consultations to commence. The legal transfer of assets to either NHS providers or NHS Property Services Ltd will take place on 31 March 2013.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

T7. We have learned today that public satisfaction with the NHS has fallen dramatically. We also know that satisfaction with GP services has fallen for the second consecutive year, and that satisfaction with accident and emergency services is going down by 7% each year. The Prime Minister promised that the NHS would be his priority. Is it not about time that this Government lived up to that promise?