NHS Spending

Adrian Bailey Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that the Vote Leave group during the EU referendum campaign claimed that an extra £350 million a week could be spent on the NHS in lieu of the UK’s EU membership contribution; further notes that senior figures who campaigned, including the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire, the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip and the Rt hon. Member for Surrey Heath have subsequently distanced themselves from that claim; and calls on the Government to set out proposals for additional NHS funding, as suggested by the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire on 4 July 2016.

It is a pleasure once again to face the Secretary of State for Health.

Nobody can doubt that much of the case that was made by the Vote Leave EU campaign was based on assertions that have since crumbled. For instance, within hours of the vote to leave the European Union, the Tory MEP, Daniel Hannan, said that taking back control of immigration did not necessarily mean cutting it. That will have been news to millions of people who voted to leave.

We also heard that there was no hurry to get on with leaving the EU. Why then the urgency of the campaign? The most striking reversal of all came from Nigel Farage. Within hours of the vote, he said that it was a mistake for the Vote Leave campaign to claim that leaving the EU would mean £350 million a week more for the NHS. Some of us were surprised by that, because this was no ordinary campaign slogan; it was painted on the side of the Vote Leave battle bus, which travelled thousands of miles up and down the country. It was emblazoned on the backdrop to speeches by the luminaries of the Vote Leave campaign. The British public is entitled to ask: where is the £350 million a week and when can we expect to see the Government start pumping that new money into our NHS? We all know about the financial and other pressures already facing the NHS.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend not think the public are also entitled to ask where the serried ranks of leave campaigners are today?

[Ms Abbott]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I do not see a single solitary leave campaigner in the Chamber this evening. It makes me wonder what the whole campaign was about. Was it about their egos? Was it some elaborate Eton wall game? Are they not concerned that the public may have been misled?

As I was saying, we know about the financial pressures already facing the NHS. A survey by the Healthcare Financial Management Association of 200 NHS finance directors in hospitals and clinical commissioning groups reveals that no fewer than one in five believe that the quality of care will worsen in 2016-17, and even more of them—one in three—fear that care will deteriorate in 2017-18 as a result of financial pressures. Waiting times, access to services and the range of services offered were seen to be among the most vulnerable areas. There is no doubt that those pressures will be made worse when we leave the European Union.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bailey]

I understand the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making. On the other hand, I believe the Treasury has downgraded our prospective growth rate from 2% to 0.5%. Presumably, future spending plans will be based on that revised future growth rate. Is it not reasonable, therefore, to start making the assumptions that he has been wary of making so far?

[Mr Hunt]

It is perfectly reasonable to make the assumptions that the hon. Gentleman mentions, and there are plenty of reasons why we could look at some of the early impact on the economy even in the past 12 days and be concerned about the potential impact on the tax base and public spending more broadly. My nervousness as a Minister about talking those things up is that I do not want to talk down the British economy. Even though, as I say, I campaigned against the Brexit vote, I recognise that we are now going to leave the EU, I want the economy to be successful and I want us to make the most of the opportunities that face us.

On the broader issue of NHS funding, this debate indicates that there is some consensus—the Prime Minister mentioned this earlier today at Prime Minister’s questions—on the umbilical link between the health of the economy and the amount we are able to spend on the NHS. We are proud of the fact that we were able to protect spending in the last Parliament and to increase it by £10 billion in this Parliament on the back of a growing economy. Given that Health is the second biggest spending Department, we must recognise that it is vital to the NHS that we maintain that growth, despite the choppy period we are possibly about to go through.