Health and Social Care Levy (Repeal) Bill

Debate between Steve Brine and David Rutley

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

Without question. We had some success with our tobacco control plan, but progress has stalled. We cannot ignore the pandemic, as the Opposition Front Benchers sometimes try to, and I understand that it disrupted the smoke-free England plans, but we need to get back to it, for social reasons, and for economic reasons relating to the health service that we seek to fund.

I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members from across the House have heard of the “Be Clear on Cancer” campaign, and of the “Touch, Look, Check” message encouraging women to check their breasts. I lost my mother to breast cancer; it destroyed much of my family. I brought a ten-minute rule Bill on the subject to the House earlier this year. Breast Cancer Now tells me that it thinks that there are 12,000 undiagnosed breast cancers in this country today. One does not need to be a genius, a former Health Minister or a breast surgeon to understand what that could mean: undiagnosed breast cancers move beyond stage 1, into 2 and 3, when they are untreatable. That is what happened to my mother, and I do not want it to happen to others. If the nanny state means implementing “Be Clear on Cancer” campaigns to help people avoid cancer, I am a nanny state-ist.

[David Rutley]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about raising awareness, particularly on public health, and I support the points that he makes, but does he agree that, at this time of real challenge, it is also important to drive public awareness of how to use energy more efficiently, in order to help people with their fuel bills?

[Steve Brine]

I know why Dame Rosie is smiling: she thinks that I have possibly attempted to fit my Second Reading speech into this response to new clause 1. If I go down the road of energy policy, I may test her patience. All I would say to my hon. Friend is that, if the energy price guarantee was a price cap, and people could not pay more than the amount at which the cap was set, there would be some argument for not having a public campaign advising people on their energy use. It is not a cap; it is an energy price guarantee. If people use more energy, they will pay for more energy. It therefore seems logical to me, on lots of levels, to help people save energy—but what do I know?

I was just coming to diabetes. The NHS spends about £10 billion a year—that was about 10% of its budget, when I was in the Department—on diabetes care. That is a phenomenal amount of money, yet type 2 diabetes is preventable and, as we have heard from Members, people can turn it around. Why would we not want to encourage people to manage their weight better, when weight is one of the big drivers of diabetes?

Finally, stoke is a big killer in this country. It costs the NHS billions. During conference recess, I visited a group in my constituency called Say Aphasia—I figured it was a better use of my time. I met a group of 15 men who had had strokes. One was two years younger than me. They had severe communication difficulties. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), a former public health Minister, by the Front Bench. She knows what I am going to say. Why would we not want to help the NHS prevent stroke through a proper salt reduction strategy? Given my surname, when I tried to suggest one to the Department, it caused some amusement among officials, but I think it is the right thing to do. If we cannot prevent stroke, I will meet a lot more people like those I met in the Say Aphasia group last week. Their ongoing cost to the NHS is significant.

In conclusion, the point I am trying to make, and maybe I am not making it very well, is that, if we do not believe in prevention—and in my heart I believe that those on the Front Bench do believe in prevention—the costs of the NHS predicted in the OBR book are going to look quite conservative. I think I am right in saying that those projections include this levy being in place, not repealed—