Finance Bill
Debate between Lord Redwood and Iain Wright(14 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Redwood
I will give as much precision as the Leader of the Opposition and say that they are the squeezed middle. They are exactly the people in whom the Opposition are meant to be interested but whom they clearly now wish to attack in the debate.
Mr Redwood
The right hon. Gentleman may well be right. It is quite obvious that the NHS is the dominant health provider in our country—it has been for the many years since its foundation, and it will continue to be so under any schemes proposed by any governing party or parties in this House of Commons.
I wanted to concentrate on the cost and benefit of the proposals. I am an agnostic on this issue, which may come as a surprise to the House, because I am far from being a deficit denier, and I believe that we must weigh carefully any proposal for tax relief against other such proposals. In this case, I would be interested to know more about what the savings would be. There could be significant savings. If Ministers do not adopt the proposed scheme, they need to introduce others to promote more private health care of the right kind, because we will need a lot more of that to meet our targets and requirements, alongside the very large, and rightly favoured and supported, NHS.
Perhaps my hon. Friends the Members for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald), who have spoken so strongly for the new clauses, wish to move closer to the Liberal Democrat coalition partners. Perhaps they had ringing in their minds the words of the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), who set out a comprehensive universal insurance scheme for health in the Orange Book. We will have to disappoint him today, because the proposal is modest, and it will not cover nearly as many people as he would like. Were he here, we could debate that with him, and perhaps he would see that caution and moderation is the hallmark of Conservative approaches to such things. This proposal might be the way to get started on the journey that he wished to make.
Mr Iain Wright
In terms of spending on health, does the right hon. Gentleman believe that we should move away from a policy of funding through general taxation and towards comprehensive medical insurance, which is the policy advocated by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws)?
Mr Redwood
No, I was just wondering whether my hon. Friends had that in mind, knowing how much they treasure the coalition with the Liberal Democrats, and knowing that such bold statements were made in the Orange Book by no less than a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who presumably knew the price of everything and the value of some things, and who would want to ensure value for money.
I hope that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench consider the wider issue that was rightly raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley. How do we get extra resources and money spent on health in a friendly and sensible way, on top of the very great and important NHS, which my hon. Friends the Members for Mole Valley, for Christchurch and for North East Hertfordshire rightly back? If not by their route, what route? May we please have some numbers? The proposal could be a good-value buy, but that depends very much on how much cost would be taken out of the NHS.
Academies Bill [Lords]
Debate between Lord Redwood and Iain Wright(15 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Redwood
It cannot be done on that short a time scale—these things will take a bit of time to go through. As soon as schools want to make a proposal, they will have to put in an application, and of course they will notify parents at that time. It is quite possible for them to do so by e-mail or post in the school holidays, and the schools will be back in September, when there will be opportunities for the dialogue to continue.
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman is being most generous in giving way. May I point him to paragraph 7 of the explanatory notes accompanying the Bill? It states:
“The Secretary of State expects that a significant number of Academies will open in September 2010 and for the number to continue to grow each year.”
As the hon. Member for Southport (Dr Pugh) says, there is simply not the time to consult in the way that the right hon. Gentleman suggests.
Mr Redwood
I think hon. Members are making obstacles where none need occur. Changes will go speedily only if the local community is happy. As soon as it gets out that a school is considering academy status, the local community will be engaged. There are local newspapers, local websites and all sorts of ways to do so, and the usual school grapevines will be in operation.
Opposition Members protest far too much—we all know they hate freedom, and they do not believe that free people can mobilise themselves in a good cause. I can assure them that people can do so very quickly if need arises. They should not be so afraid of the idea that their local schools might want a bit more freedom and a bit more of their own money to spend. It is dreadful that they believe that all their local schools need so much control from the centre that they want ever more regulation and control from Whitehall of the kind that Labour Governments meted out, and continued or increased control from local education authorities in the hope that one day there will be more Labour authorities to exercise it.
Surely it is high time that we set free the schools that wish to be set free. I can assure the Committee that should groups of parents not wish a change to academy status to happen, they will mobilise quickly and democracy will work. It is still alive and kicking.