Oral Answers to Questions

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm whether funds will be held by the consortia or the GPs in the practices, because there is confusion among GPs in my constituency of South Dorset on that point?

[Mr Speaker]

With reference to the discussions that have been held with the Welsh Assembly Government.

[Anne Milton]

I am grateful, Mr Speaker. I was going to make that point. Although Dorset is a long way from Wales, I assure the hon. Gentleman that GPs will not have the money in their personal bank accounts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Last year, the Prime Minister made a very clear pledge to protect front-line NHS services. Will the Secretary of State confirm that in the run-up to next year’s Olympics, which will bring around 1 million extra people to the capital, the London ambulance service is cutting 560 front-line staff? Will the Secretary of State also confirm that nationally, A and E waits of more than four hours are up 65%, that the number of patients waiting more than six weeks for their cancer test has doubled, and that more patients are waiting for longer than 18 weeks than at any time in the last two years? Will he now admit that the Prime Minister’s pledge to protect front-line care is unravelling even faster than the Secretary of State’s chaotic Health and Social Care Bill?

[Mr Speaker]

There were three questions there, but I know that the Secretary of State will provide a characteristically succinct reply.

[Mr Lansley]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. None of those questions reminded the House that the Labour party wanted to cut the budget of the NHS, nor that in Wales, a Labour-led Welsh Assembly Government are cutting the NHS budget in real terms—there is no increase at all.

Let me tell the hon. Lady that waiting times in the NHS are, on average, nine weeks for patients who are admitted and three and a half weeks for those who are not admitted. That is broadly stable.

The hon. Lady will know that the chief executive of the London ambulance service, Peter Bradley, has made it clear that the ambulance service, like the NHS, needs to maintain front-line services while continually improving efficiency. That will happen in the ambulance service and it will happen right across the NHS.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Burns]

I should like to reassure my hon. Friend. As he will know, we do not propose to introduce price competition into the NHS; rather, we propose to introduce competition based on quality. His clinicians are correct that the price will be the same. However, they must remember that we are going to stop the practice of the last Government, who, with independent sector treatment centres, paid the private sector over 11% more per operation than they were prepared to pay the national health service.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Derek Twigg.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Speaker]

I thought that the hon. Gentleman wanted to come in on this question. That is what I have been told, but never mind: we will wait to hear his dulcet tones in due course.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

15. Whether he has made an assessment of the effectiveness of the 111 non-emergency number; and if he will make a statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lansley]

As my hon. Friend knows, we intend health and wellbeing boards to bring together HealthWatch, plus councillors, commissioning bodies and providers, as part of the process of local representation, so that we can link up NHS commissioning with public health and social care, to see how they collectively meet the joint strategic needs assessment led by the local authority.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Diana Johnson.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I apologise to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson). The change of mind on the part of the Opposition Front Bench fazed me, for which I apologise. The hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) wants his opportunity to ask a question, and he should have it.

[Derek Twigg]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think there was some confusion between questions 13 and 16.

We obviously want to see important improvements to the Bill, including the deletion of part 3, which drives competition to the heart of the NHS, and of clause 150, which removes the private patients’ income cap. I also want to ask the Secretary of State a specific question. On 16 March, during the Bill’s passage through the House, the Prime Minister said to the Leader of the Opposition:

“Perhaps he would like to…support our anti-cherry-picking amendment.”—[Official Report, 16 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 292.]

Will the Secretary of State tell us whether it is still the Government’s policy to table such an amendment in this House, or whether they intend to do so at a later stage?

[Mr Lansley]

As I said earlier, when we have completed this process of listening and reflecting, we will table amendments to the Bill. I will tell the House about them then, just as I told them on 4 April that we were going to go through this process. Let me make it clear that we are intending not to allow cherry-picking. We intend to make it absolutely clear to the private sector or anybody else that they must not be able to compete with the NHS on uneven terms because, actually, that is what the last Labour Government did. Under that Government, we ended up with £250 million being spent on operations in private hospitals that never took place because of the poor nature of the private sector provision that they put in place. We are not introducing competition into the NHS through this Bill. Why does the hon. Gentleman suppose that the last Labour Government set up the competition and co-operation panel, if not—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am grateful to the Secretary of State. I call Diana Johnson.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

17. How much funding he plans to allocate to local authorities in order to perform their new public health duties in each of the next three years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry to disappoint colleagues but as is so often the case, demand has exceeded supply and we must now move on.