John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I rise to oppose the Bill, which is wholly based on a false premise. The hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) said that the Bill was necessary to stop the privatisation of the NHS. Well, the privatisation of the NHS is not occurring, so going by her own words, the Bill is completely unnecessary.
The hon. Lady laid the blame for the so-called privatisation of the NHS on the Health and Social Care Act 2012, and she thinks that repealing that Act will therefore solve the problem of what she describes as the privatisation of the NHS. The hon. Lady, who cannot seem to be bothered to listen to the debate, even though it is about her Bill, might have acknowledged that the so-called privatisation of the NHS started long before the 2012 Act. In fact, it gathered pace during the time of the last Labour Government.
If we look at the figures for expenditure on private providers, we see that from a near standing start under the Labour Government, the amount of the total NHS resource expenditure going to private providers grew much more rapidly under the Labour Government than it has under this Government. The increase in resources going to those providers has actually slowed down; it is much slower than it was. It was the hon. Lady’s party that introduced the private sector into the NHS and allowed private sector providers to provide NHS treatment.
I welcome that, as it happens. I do not see it as a bad thing. If my constituents need hospital treatment on the NHS, they have usually had to go to either the Bradford Royal infirmary, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah), or to Airedale hospital, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins). However, under the current provisions, whereby the NHS can allow private providers to supply services, my constituents can now go to the Yorkshire Clinic in my constituency for high-quality treatment. They are served much closer to their homes, and their treatment is still free at the point of need.
As far as I am concerned, that is the essential founding principle of the NHS that must be preserved—that treatment is free at the point of need. That is what matters to people. That is what they want when they need healthcare treatment—free, high-quality healthcare at the point of need, at a location that is convenient for them and convenient for their family members to visit. Whether that is carried out at an NHS hospital or a private hospital is neither here nor there, as long as they are getting treatment free of charge at the point of need. My constituents have benefited greatly from being able to have treatment at the Yorkshire Clinic rather than having to go to one of the NHS hospitals outside my constituency.
The last Labour Government, of course, were far worse when it came to giving contracts to the private sector. Those of us who were here at the time will know that they did not pay the same tariff—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) keeps chirping away from the Opposition Front Bench; if she listened, she might learn something. [Interruption.] Well she might, and other hon. Members might well too. Many of them were not here at the time, but those who were will recall—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is exercising his democratic rights as a parliamentarian, so he must be heard—preferably with courtesy, but certainly without noise.
Philip Davies
Thank you, Mr Speaker; I appreciate that.
I was making the point that when the Labour party gave out contracts to the private sector, it actually paid the private providers a higher tariff for carrying out that work than they paid NHS hospitals and providers. To my mind, that was a complete outrage. If Labour was so much against the private sector, why on earth was it paying private providers a higher tariff than NHS providers? It was the current Government who stopped that absurd practice and made sure that private providers were paid the same tariff as NHS providers. The hon. Member for Wirral West could have mentioned that in her remarks, but she failed to do so.
As I said, the whole Bill is based on a false premise, because it was the last Labour Government who introduced the private sector into the NHS and paid private providers more for carrying out the same work, and the current Government have dealt with that absurdity.
The hon. Lady was pretty quiet about the part of the Bill that deals with section 38 of the Immigration Act 2014, which she wishes to repeal. That section requires nationals from outside the European economic area who come to the UK for longer than six months to pay a health surcharge when making their immigration application. Although no statistics are yet available on the amount of revenue raised from that surcharge, an answer to a parliamentary question last year showed that the Government estimated that they would recover about £200 million a year from foreign nationals using the NHS. The hon. Lady wishes to repeal that legislation. In effect, she wants foreign nationals to come to the UK and use the NHS free of charge. No wonder she mentioned so little of that. At the end of her speech she talked about the financial crisis that the NHS is suffering, yet she is bringing forward a Bill that will stop the NHS being able to recover some of the money spent on treating foreign nationals. The whole Bill is a complete absurdity and nonsense.
If the hon. Lady is proud of that provision in the Bill, why did she not mention it during her speech? Perhaps she is secretly embarrassed about it. Perhaps she knows that her constituents would not particularly appreciate her attempt to introduce legislation to give foreign nationals free treatment, which would cost the NHS more money rather than saving it money. I know that she is one of the last remaining supporters of the Leader of the Opposition, but even he might think that that was rather a strange way of trying to improve the NHS’s financial position.
I know that this is the same Bill that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) presented during the last Session. Perhaps the hon. Member for Wirral West did not actually read the Bill. Perhaps she presented it without having looked at it, and did not realise that it included that particular provision. Either there has been an omission on her part, or we have the rather strange absurdity that she wants to introduce legislation to take at least £200 million a year away from the NHS. She might be able to discuss how that would help the NHS, but I do not see the logic in it.
I do not intend to prevent the hon. Lady from having her moment in the sun. I merely wished to point out that the whole Bill is based on a false premise. It was the last Labour Government who introduced the private sector into the NHS, not the current Government. No matter how many times the hon. Lady repeats that particular myth, it will not get off the ground. Her Bill would cost the NHS more rather than saving it any money, and on that basis, when it comes before the House, I shall be here.
Question put (Standing Order No. 23) and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Margaret Greenwood, Caroline Lucas, Dawn Butler, Stella Creasy, Nic Dakin, Peter Dowd, Mike Kane, Liz McInnes, Yasmin Qureshi, Marie Rimmer, Stephen Twigg and John Pugh present the Bill.
Margaret Greenwood accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on 4 November 2016 and to be printed (Bill 51).
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During a debate on 13 June, I raised the issue of British taxpayers’ money being used to fund convicted Palestinian terrorists. I twice requested that the Minister of State, Department for International Development, publish the memorandum of understanding between DFID and the Palestinian Authority. The Minister has now written an extraordinary letter to me, saying that his officials are seeking a meeting with the Palestinian Authority to discuss the release of the document. The Palestinian Authority is being given the right to veto a Member of Parliament’s request for information. How are we supposed to hold the Government to account when they refuse to release crucial documentation unless they are given permission to do so by the Palestinian Authority?
Mr Speaker
It sounds a rum business, I am bound to say, but it is not a matter for the Chair. It is a matter that will have to be pursued with a terrier-like tenacity, and knowing the hon. Gentleman—as I have done for 30 years, since our robust skirmishes in the students’ union of the University of Essex—I can testify to his possession of that quality in a high degree. I therefore rather imagine that he will pursue the matter until he gets what he wants.
Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Order, 30 June, and Standing Order 118(6)),
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will appoint Jenny Willott to the office of ordinary member of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority with effect from 7 August 2016 for the period ending 31 December 2020.—(Margot James.)