Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tony Baldry and Lord Cryer

Thursday 21st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Tony Baldry]

May I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that it is slightly more complex than he suggests? Some of those who are opposed to women bishops are themselves women. They are conservatives and evangelicals who have theological objections because they believe in male headship. I do not think that we can necessarily castigate people who are against women bishops as being against women. The good news is that we now have a way forward that will enable us to have women bishops—I hope by the end of this Parliament.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

The congregation of the Church of England has been in headlong decline for a long time, and that is continuing. How likely is it that that trend would be reversed were the Church of England by some chance to pursue its existing policy of barring women from being bishops, which most people think is redolent of a past era?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I am glad to say that a large number of parishes are growing. The Archbishop of Canterbury has made it clear that his primary mission is growth. We want to see the Church of England grow. Hopefully, now that we have resolved the issue of women bishops, everyone in the Church of England and everyone who supports it can focus their intention on that growth.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tony Baldry and Lord Cryer

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I am sure that that message will be heard by the General Synod.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

I wish to associate myself with the comments about Stuart Bell, who is very badly missed.

The Church has spent many years avoiding this issue, so if the Synod fails to do the right thing, what does the hon. Gentleman think the consequences will be for the future of the Church of England?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I think that the consequences for the Church of England will be very grim indeed. I hope that the General Synod, and those who might be tempted to vote against this Measure in it, will reflect on that point.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Tony Baldry and Lord Cryer

Wednesday 9th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Tony Baldry]

The hon. Gentleman has just heard me comment on the legacy of his Government, so I find it extraordinary that he has the cheek and audacity to ask such a question. The Labour Government left the country with no money and the biggest debt crisis of our lifetime. Indeed, over many years, this country built up massive debts, which we have to pay off. Of course, it is much more difficult to do that when so much of the rest of Europe is in recession. As I suspect France will soon demonstrate, trying to pile debt upon debt is what got Britain and Europe into such difficulties in the first place. It did not work for Britain over 13 years of a Labour Government and would not work now. The eurozone’s troubles are caused by too much debt, the burden of excessive public spending and the burden of excessive public borrowing. It is not surprising that Government are seeking the approval of Parliament relating to the agreed financial stability mechanism within the euro area.

It is no mean task recovering from the deepest recession in living memory, accompanied as it was by a debt crisis. Our banks had too much debt; our households had too much debt; and the Government had too much debt. As Sir Mervyn King, commenting on the performance of the last Government, observed in “The Today Lecture” that he gave last week while the House was in recess:

“Bailing out the banks came too late though to prevent the financial crisis from spilling over into the world economy. The realisation of the true state of the banking system led to a collapse of confidence around the world...unemployment in Britain rose by over a million....to many this will seem deeply unfair and it is. I can understand why so many people are angry.”

One can speculate only that perhaps more than a million people may have lost their jobs unnecessarily because the previous Government failed to act on warnings from the Bank of England.

Notwithstanding the challenge, Britain has so far hung on to our triple A credit rating. We have kept a lid on borrowing costs and, compared with other countries in the eurozone, many of which are in the process of changing leaders or just starting to tackle their debts, we are thriving.

[John Cryer]

I thank the hon. Gentleman—or is it right hon. Gentleman? [Interruption.] Well, I am sure he should be right hon., and I shall put down an early-day motion tomorrow to achieve it! Returning to the last election, is the hon. Gentleman aware that at that time both unemployment and the deficit were falling, yet they are both now rising? The Office for Budget Responsibility predicts that the deficit is going to be a lot higher at the end of this Parliament than was predicted two years ago.

[Tony Baldry]

I think we need a bumper book of excuses from the Labour party, explaining why it was not responsible for getting us into the difficulties we face. Let us develop a bumper book of excuses and put all these various contributions into it, saying “Nothing to do with us, guv”! That would be impressive. We must not be complacent. The UK has to rebalance its economy. We need a bigger private sector; we need more exports; and we need more investment. In short, we need to do everything possible to boost growth, competitiveness and jobs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tony Baldry and Lord Cryer

Thursday 1st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Tony Baldry]

As became clear in our recent debate on metal theft, there is a general desire across the House for the courts seriously to consider deterrent sentences for what is a despicable crime.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

This crime is a threat to some of the greatest buildings and monuments across Britain. Is there any possibility of grants being made available to churches so that security can be improved to protect against it?

[Tony Baldry]

As may come up later, those churches that use SmartWater or that install roof alarms have found that the incidence of metal theft has been substantially reduced. SmartWater and roof alarms are not necessarily that expensive and I hope that all churches will look at how they can improve security to deter metal theft.

NHS (Public Satisfaction)

Debate between Tony Baldry and Lord Cryer

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Tony Baldry]

I have not missed the point at all. The point being made by the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead is that nine out of 10 people are satisfied with their GPs, so somehow all is well with the NHS and nothing need change. If my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) had read the report of the Public Accounts Committee, chaired by the former Labour Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), he would know that it concludes that although the previous Government increased the amount of money going into the NHS that did not lead to greater outputs. The report makes sobering reading, and I am concerned that more parliamentary colleagues have not read it and that it has not received the attention in the House that it deserves.

[John Cryer]

The point effectively made by the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) is that satisfaction rates are not remaining level but climbing markedly. The British social attitudes survey shows that in 1983 satisfaction stood at 55% and plummeted to 35% in 1997. It is now up to 64%. According to Ipsos MORI, 90% of outpatients, 88% of inpatients and 81% of accident and emergency patients are satisfied—the highest levels ever recorded.

[Tony Baldry]

The hon. Gentleman, again, makes his own point in his own way. He says, and I understand him, that members of the public are satisfied with the NHS so nothing need change. I am not sure whether he has read the unanimous PAC report that was published only weeks ago, but I remind Members that it says:

“The level of hospital activity has not kept pace with the increased resources as hospitals focused on meeting national targets, but not on improving productivity, and productivity has actually fallen over the last decade…Though the increased money going into the NHS has helped to reduce waiting times, improve facilities, and deliver higher quality care, the Department promised at the same time to improve productivity. It failed and, in future, the Department needs to have a more explicit focus on improving hospital productivity if it is to deliver its ambitious savings targets without healthcare services suffering.”

[Tony Baldry]

I am sorry to hear the apologia of Opposition Members, who are confronted with concerns about what is happening in the NHS. I commend to the hon. Gentleman the National Audit Office report published on 17 December 2010, “Management of NHS hospital productivity”. The NAO has no difficulty in measuring NHS productivity, and neither does the PAC. Before Opposition Members jump up, they should remember that the Labour party left the NHS with a huge, unpaid overdraft of £60 billion. It is a staggering fact that of the £65 billion of hospital building works carried out in the 13 years of the Labour Government, only £5 billion was paid for. Despite a number of very generous private finance initiative projects, the NHS still has an overdraft and must pay for £60 billion of hospital building works. The previous Government, while they may have put more money into the NHS, saw no improvement in outcomes and have left the NHS with a substantial overdraft.

As the Chair of the Health Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), has observed, even if, as intended, the Government manage to ensure that spending on the NHS is ring-fenced and runs ahead of inflation, the NHS, in the next few years, has to become substantially more efficient in how it uses its assets, and treats and looks after patients—hence the need for reforms. Let us be clear. The reforms are about cutting bureaucracy and improving patient care and have been proposed by the coalition Government to improve the NHS and to ensure that we maintain public satisfaction and support for the NHS. We need to ensure that the Health and Social Care Bill, which is going through Parliament, delivers those reforms in the best possible way.

I have no doubt that Ministers will give proper attention to the report next week of the Health Committee and that, in due course, the Government will have regard to any constructive suggestions from the other place to ensure that the Bill is as clear and effective as possible. In any health system, however, difficult decisions have to be made about how one best utilises finite resources. However much money as a country we commit to the NHS, that money will be finite. Choices will have to be made about how that money is best spent: at one end of the spectrum, about whether and in what circumstances people get treated for varicose veins; and at the other end of the spectrum about when, and how often, major and significant, complex and expensive invasive surgery takes place. It seems to me that it makes extremely good sense for those decisions to be made in a collegiate manner, on behalf of their patients, by GPs. It seems to me to make very good sense to allow GPs, individually and collegiately, to make value judgments about the quality of services being provided by individual hospital providers for their patients.

As the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead made clear when introducing this debate, patients trust their GPs and I see no reason why we should not, collectively, trust GPs to commission the best available services in the NHS. Critics of the reforms have sought to present them as something that they are not. However, as the Prime Minister has made clear on a number of occasions:

“we have ruled out price competition in the NHS.”

He went gone on to make it clear that

“we must avoid cherry-picking by the private sector in the NHS.”—[Official Report, 16 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 292.]

[John Cryer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tony Baldry]

I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I would just make the observation that I suspect that quite a number of his colleagues wish to contribute to the debate, and that every time I allow an intervention it probably reduces the time that they have.

[John Cryer]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, both for giving way and for his valuable advice that I will hold dear to my heart.

May I just point out that, although the exposure to EU competition laws—he is referring indirectly to that—is not in the Bill, primary care trusts are officially regarded as state enterprises? As state enterprises, they are not exposed to EU competition law. The new consortia that will replace them, because they are not state enterprises, will be exposed to EU competition law, and will therefore expose the NHS, generally, to EU competition law. Does he support that?

[Tony Baldry]

Again, that is a slightly bizarre argument from the hon. Gentleman. There has been much talk about competition in the NHS, which is surprising as the Labour party appeared to be in favour of competition in its own election manifesto. The coalition Government have made it clear that the only competition that will exist in the NHS is competition on quality, not price. The Secretary of State could not have made that clearer in the House when he said:

“At the point when a patient exercises choice or a GP undertakes a referral, the price of providers will be the same. By extension, competition must be on the basis of quality.”—[Official Report, 16 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 387.]

To deal with another misrepresentation, EU competition law already exists and the health reform proposals do nothing to change that. They do not, in any way, extend competition law. The Bill makes it absolutely clear that any competition can only be on quality, not on price. In any event, I find it strange that the Labour party and others suddenly seem to be coming forward to express concerns about the private sector in the NHS, when it was the previous Labour Government who, for example, in Banbury set up a privately run, privately managed, privately owned independent treatment centre and a privately managed, privately owned independent Darzi GP centre. The previous Labour Government, bizarrely, gave the private sector—because their contracting was so poor—some £250 million for operations that were never carried out. However, given that they have left the NHS with an overdraft of £60 billion, I suppose that they would consider £250 million thrown away on operations that were never actually carried out as, possibly by their standards, small change.

We have to realise, with an ageing population, more extensive treatments and new drugs becoming available, that we have to tackle bureaucracy in the NHS. We need to reform the NHS to make sure that it is as efficient and as effective as possible. We are ensuring that patients have choice—choice based on quality and from whom they receive care. There is simply no issue on this, in that the Labour Party said in its manifesto at the general election, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead has read it:

“Patients requiring elective care will have the right, in law, to choose from any provider who meets NHS standards of quality”.

We have made it absolutely clear, under the coalition Government, that the NHS will remain free at the point of need, paid for from general taxation, and be based entirely on need, not on the ability to pay. Those are fundamental principles of the NHS. They have been fundamental principles of the NHS ever since it came into being, and the coalition parties are, I am sure, determined not to undermine, in any way, any of the rights in the NHS constitution. Indeed, the coalition Government are seeking to protect the NHS, throughout the duration of the Parliament, by increasing NHS funding by £10.7 billion. A substantial number of GP groups, all over England, have volunteered as pathfinders to demonstrate how GP commissioning can work. GPs throughout Oxfordshire are coming together to form a suitable GP consortium.

Let me tell the House what is being said by those in my constituency who are involved in the GP consortium. Local GP Dr Judith Wright, who is co-ordinating the north Oxfordshire GPs, has said:

“Andrew Lansley’s proposals will give power to local GPs to decide how that budget should be spent to meet local health needs. Priorities will be decided by doctors through a process informed by patients, local authorities, public health and secondary care”.

Dr Wright went on to observe:

“I believe that GPs are best placed to be able to meet this challenge. Collectively they know the health needs of their local population. They can act as a catalyst for change. They will have a role in deciding the destination of local services and the route to get there.”

Andrew McHugh, who is the practice manager at Horsefair surgery in Banbury, observed:

“The health budget is a finite resource. Andrew Lansley’s proposals will give power to local GPs to decide how that budget is spent in order to meet local health needs. Priorities will be decided by doctors through a process informed by democratically accountable public and patient involvement. We need to be looking for innovative ways of spending the health budget wisely.”

In a recent issue of Prospect magazine, Ali Parsa pointed out that, as a nation:

“We used to spend 3 per cent of our GDP on healthcare in the 1980s…6 per cent in the 1990s, 9 per cent now and on our way to 12 per cent.”

In the current financial climate, that is unsustainable. Business as usual is not an option. We need to review what treatments are provided to ensure they are clinically effective and cost-effective—in other words, evidence-based practice. I think that Dr Judith Wright and Andrew McHugh’s comments are extremely balanced and sensible.