Health and Social Care

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am pleased that we hit our A and E target in the NHS last year, but disappointed that in Wales, which is controlled by the Labour party, the A and E target has been missed since 2009. Those on the Opposition Front Bench still refuse to condemn that.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hunt]

I will make some progress.

Even worse, when signs of how the targets policy was going wrong became clear, Labour’s response was to ignore or cover up the findings.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

I thought the new compassionate Conservative party was meant to have stopped “banging on about Europe”—that was the phrase, was it not?—but now its Members are all dancing to UKIP’s tune and reading out what Mr Crosby gives them. It will not wash. The country can see that this is a shambles of a Government who look ridiculous to the country they purport to govern. When Britain needed leadership, it got the farce of this coalition. There is no need to send in the clowns; they are already here.

[Toby Perkins]

Does my right hon. Friend think, like me, that perhaps the Government feel more comfortable exposing their divisions on Europe than facing up to their record on the NHS, which, as many people across the health service recognise, is an absolute disgrace?

[Andy Burnham]

I shall come to that point directly, because the Queen’s Speech is a diversion from the real issues, an attempt to say, “Look over here at this other issue” and divert people’s attention from the chaos the Government have visited on the NHS.

On health and care, our objection is not to the modest measures the Government are proposing. We will of course wait to see the detail, but it sounds as though we will be able to give our support to many of them. Our objection to the Gracious Speech is not to what is in it, but to what is not in it and to the unpleasant political strategy that lies behind it. As a response to the developing crisis in our health and care system, it is inadequate. Worse, however, it tries to disguise that fact by pointing the finger at others. Forget compassionate Conservatism; this is straight back to the dog-whistle tactics—failed tactics, I might add—of the 2005 general election. This is the coded message the Government want the Queen’s Speech to send: “You see all those problems with accident and emergency departments? Well it’s all down to immigration. It’s nothing to do with us.” It is a Crosby-fied Queen’s Speech that is more about positioning and politics than a serious programme for government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Toby Perkins]

The link between health and unemployment was addressed very well, under the previous model of the NHS, by Derbyshire primary care trust, which supported and funded programmes to get the long-term unemployed into work. This does not seem to be happening as much in the restructured NHS. Will my hon. Friend expand on the importance of getting the long-term unemployed into work and the impact that joblessness has on their health?

[Mark Lazarowicz]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Measures to address long-term unemployment and child poverty, to tackle housing inequality and poor housing provision, and to provide more security in jobs and housing and in other ways are some of the biggest things that could have been done to promote health throughout our country.

I wish that Conservative Members who have spoken in the debate on the Queen’s Speech and the debates leading up to it had shown as much concern and passion about these issues as they have with the in-fighting on European issues that has taken up so much of the internal debate within their party. I accept that in the past few hours we have heard mainly constructive and thoughtful speeches on health issues by Conservative Members, but I suspect that that is simply because the ones who are doing the plotting and the in-fighting are doing it elsewhere. It is a pity that more Conservative Members have not paid attention to the issues that the people in our country want addressed—health, employment and housing. In those areas we need a significant change in direction from the Government which the Queen’s Speech did not give us.