Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rob Marris]

The right hon. Gentleman may well be correct on that specific point, and I fully accept that. There is in privatisations, however, a nexus between quality and price, and very often—although not always—the companies that promise a quality at a certain price are unable to deliver it. They cannot deliver the quality of service, and/or they cannot do so at the price at which they promised to do so. He can correct me on this if he wishes, but we see that time and again when rail franchisees come back to the Government and say, “We promised a certain level of service for a certain price. We cannot do it: we need a bigger bung.”

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I think that the hon. Gentleman may have stumbled into a quagmire in referring to Hinchinbrooke. The Public Accounts Committee, of which, as he may know, I was a member for four and a half years, found that pricing was not the significant issue that led to the end of the franchise of the private provider Circle. The significant issues involved the wider healthcare economy, and the failure of the strategic health authority to discharge its duties in respect of clinical business for the hospital.