Health, Social Care and Security

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

It is good to follow the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), who always makes a thought-provoking speech. I join the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary in paying tribute to our police force and emergency services, who have dealt with so many difficult incidents in the past few weeks, and in expressing sympathy with the victims of both the terror attacks and the Grenfell fire.

The Queen’s Speech suggests that the Government are carrying on as if, in the words of the Prime Minister, “nothing has changed, nothing has changed.” In fact, very much has changed. The Prime Minister called the election wanting a landslide. Instead, she has a hung Parliament. That means that this hung Parliament has to work differently, and that the Queen’s Speech has to respond differently too. Many Members wish to speak in the debate today, so I will keep my remarks short and concentrate on two areas where the Government need to change course as a result of the hung Parliament delivered to us by the electorate: public services and the approach to the Brexit negotiations.

This week, the Government recognised the importance of investing more in public services in Northern Ireland. They have rightly supported additional investment in schools and hospitals in Belfast, but what about those in Birmingham, Bristol and many other parts of the country? I support the Democratic Unionist party’s request for more investment to stop school cuts in Portadown, but I want to stop the school cuts in Pontefract as well. The DUP is right to request more support for jobs in County Down but what about in Castleford and in other places across the rest of the country?

The Government cannot say to parents, patients and people who need the support of police officers right across the country that, as a result of this hung Parliament, they cannot have more support for their public services—that they will have to face further cuts to their public services, with teachers lost from our schools and services squeezed from our national health service—but those in Northern Ireland can have additional funding. They cannot say to Mark Rowley, Cressida Dick and the other police chiefs doing such a magnificent job in difficult circumstances despite being overstretched that the Government can somehow find £1 billion to support Northern Ireland and to support those in the Government keeping their own jobs, but they cannot provide the additional resources the police and emergency services need to support their jobs at this difficult time.

That is why the Government have to rethink. It would be easy to rethink the police cuts and to decide not to go ahead with the cuts to capital gains tax that the Chancellor has pledged. It would be easy to cancel those cuts and put the investment into additional police officers on our streets. It would be easy for the Government to recognise that if we care about recruitment and retention in our public services—in particular in our national health service, which in many parts of the country is struggling to recruit the nurses and doctors it needs—then continuing with the public sector pay cap will make it harder and harder for our NHS and all our public services to get the talented staff they need. In the end, that will cost all of us, including the Government, more in the long run.

The second area in which the Government need to change course is their approach to the Brexit negotiations. Britain voted for Brexit in the referendum and Parliament has voted to trigger article 50, but the Prime Minister did not win the free hand that she wanted for the Brexit negotiations. She asked for it, but voters said no. That means that the Government need to change their approach to the Brexit negotiations. If we are to get a deal that is not only the best for our country but is also sustainable—one that does not unravel in a year or two years’ time and does not end up undermined because there is so much disagreement, not just in this House but across the country—then there must be an effort to build a consensus around that deal as well, not just to get agreement in Europe but to build that consensus across Britain.

That is why I urge the Government not to keep pursuing the negotiations through a narrow cabal but instead to open up the process—to set up a cross-party commission to hold the Brexit negotiations or to find other ways to include more voices and more transparency, and to strengthen the powers of the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union, so that this House can properly have its say as well. I know that that means difficult ways of working and will be a challenge to those on both Front Benches, but they, and the whole House and the whole country, will benefit if we find a different way to do this.

[Joanna Cherry]

The right hon. Lady is making a powerful and persuasive speech as usual. I agree with what she has just said. Would she extend that to giving the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government a place and a say in the negotiations to leave the EU?

[Yvette Cooper]

I certainly think that the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government, and Northern Ireland too, need to be involved in this commission and this process, because it has got to work for the whole of the United Kingdom. I think that is possible, but only if all parts of the House and those on both Front Benches behave in a different way and recognise the responsibility that has been placed on us by the hung Parliament that we have been given. That means, too, that the great repeal Bill that the Government want to put forward can no longer be a Bill that simply accrues powers to the Government through Henry VIII powers, because in a hung Parliament the legislature simply cannot hand over huge power to the Executive. The legislature itself must be involved in those decisions, step by step along the way.

The right hon. Member for Mid Sussex was right when he said that the course before us is more complex than anything he or I can remember at any time. With a hung Parliament we will have to work differently, but that has to start with the Government. I urge them to start today by changing course on public services and, as the amendment before us asks, on public sector pay and supporting our public sector workers, but also by changing course in the approach to Brexit, in a way that can build consensus, not division. That ought to be the spirit of what the Prime Minister has said.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

I thank the Opposition for choosing to have this debate on security, health and social care. Like the Home Secretary, the shadow Home Secretary and the shadow Health Secretary, I want to start by paying tribute to the amazing work of our emergency services in the recent terrorist atrocities. There are many stories, but two in particular sum up for me just how brilliant they were. The first was of an anaesthetist who picked up his daughter from the Manchester Arena when the bomb went off. He checked his daughter was safe, dropped her off at home and then went straight to work at Stepping Hill hospital. He worked through the night, and it was only in the morning that his colleagues realised he had actually been there when the bomb went off.

I also want to mention the paramedics who arrived on the scene at London Bridge. They arrived minutes after the incident. Gunfire was still happening and they thought they were being fired at, but they walked straight into that gunfire. When I met them, they said they were just doing their job, but I think that shows that there is no such thing as “just a job” in the NHS; it is a vocation. On behalf of the whole country as well as this House, I want to thank them for showing us the NHS at its best. I want to record the fact that it is not just in times of tragedy that our NHS is there for us; it is there seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

We have had a good and wide-ranging debate this afternoon. I congratulate, as the shadow Health Secretary did, the Members who made their maiden speeches; we heard some fantastic ones. I start with my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami). It is great credit to him that his mother is a pharmacist and his father is an NHS doctor. It is marginally less credit to him that he became a lawyer, but only marginally. He spoke with great passion and fluency about the importance of education. It was an excellent and moving first contribution to this House.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Colin Clark), a notable Conservative gain in the election. He spoke with great eloquence about the attractions of his constituency, including castles, beaches, restaurants and a golf course owned by the President of the United States. As for his campaign to get the Scottish Government to do more to deal with NHS staff shortages in his area, it is unusual for me to be on this side of the argument, but I can wholeheartedly support his campaign.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) for his excellent speech. A teacher of medieval history, he taught us about the 9th century church in his constituency and the need to learn the lessons of the peasants’ revolt against excessive taxation. I can assure him that on the Conservative Benches we do not need to learn those lessons; we have reached enlightenment.

I thank the hon. Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan) for his beautiful panegyric to his stunning constituency. He spoke very powerfully against witch hunting in the military and very powerfully in favour of the Union; both positions will have strong support on the Government Benches.

I welcome to the Labour Benches the hon. Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams). It is excellent to have another doctor in the House. He is, I think, the first ever Member to invite all hon. Members to join him at his 6 o’clock boot camp. As the shadow Health Secretary said, I feel as Health Secretary that I should set an example and join him, but unfortunately I have an unavoidable diary clash; that is a phrase he will learn to use as a new MP, I am sure. His passion for dealing with health inequalities came through loud and clear, and did him great credit.

I also want to thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine). She talked about the majesty of the three bridges across the Forth. For a couple of my teenage years, I grew up under one of them. She was absolutely right to want to reassure EU citizens working in the NHS of the vital importance of their role. I hope the Prime Minister’s comments this week will give them reassurance that we are seeking a deal that gives them the same rights to live and work here as UK citizens.

I apologise for not being able to mention all of the many other contributions, but there were some important themes that I want to touch on. A number of Members talked about the possibility of developing a more cross-party consensus on difficult issues around health and social care. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) spoke powerfully on that point, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) and my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). I would make this point. Governments of all colours always seek to get consensus on difficult policy issues, and this Government are no different. However, it takes two to tango, and we have had two elections in a row that the Labour Opposition have tried to turn into referendums on the NHS. If those on the Opposition Front Bench are willing to engage, then we on this side of the House are most certainly willing to do likewise.

[Yvette Cooper]

On an issue on which I hope there will be consensus across the House, the Secretary of State will, I hope, have heard the words of the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), who said that whether women from Northern Ireland can get an abortion in the English NHS is a matter for the English NHS. Will the Secretary of State agree to change the rules, so that Northern Ireland women do not have to pay in England for an abortion, if they need one?

[Mr Hunt]

I agree that all women, in all parts of the United Kingdom, should have the same rights to access healthcare. I note that a consultation on this matter is about to happen. The most important thing is that the voices of the women of Northern Ireland are listened to in that consultation.

We had powerful speeches on mental health, in particular from my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) and the hon. Members for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) and for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), but also from many others. Mental health is a very big priority for the Government, particularly children and young people’s mental health, because half of all mental health conditions become established before the age of 14. It is particularly important to have better links between the schools sector and the NHS if we are to crack this problem. We have a Green Paper coming up later in the year that will seek to address that.

We also had a number of important speeches on the workforce and morale, including from my hon. Friends the Members for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) and for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), a doctor and a nurse respectively, who spoke with great authority. We also heard from Opposition Members, including the hon. Members for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), for Halifax (Holly Lynch), for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) and for Halton (Derek Twigg), who touched on issues around GP recruitment. On pay, all Members will recognise that whichever party is in power, we have to do the right thing for the economy. People will recognise that in the very difficult period that we have just had, it would not have been possible to increase the number of doctors by nearly 12,000 and the number of nurses in our wards by nearly 13,000 if we had not taken difficult decisions on pay. What I can say is that we will not make our decision on public sector pay until the pay review body has reported. We will listen to what it says, and to what people in this House have said, before making a final decision.

I want to mention what my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) said about his battle against sepsis. Everyone in this House, on all sides, is totally delighted that he won that battle, but how typically selfless of him to use his speech to talk about the 44,000 people every year who do not win their battle against sepsis. We will look carefully at what he said about a national sepsis registry. I also thoroughly agree with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) said about leadership in the public sector and the NHS. I look forward to more discussions with him about that.

On security, the shadow Home Secretary basically tried to turn an argument about public safety into an argument about austerity. However, I would gently say that for a shadow Home Secretary to protest about austerity in policing when she herself wanted to cut MI5 and the Met’s special branch, and when her leader wanted to cut the armed forces, is patently absurd. What she never mentioned is why we got into austerity in the first place: a global financial crash, made infinitely worse by profligate spending and a failure to regulate the City of London by the last Labour Government.

The shadow Health Secretary, the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), spoke eloquently about the NHS.