Health and Social Care

Alison Seabeck Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) and the hon. Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick), who care passionately about health care in its widest and broadest sense.

This Gracious Speech is unprecedented. I cannot recall in all my years of working in this place, dating back to 1977, another instance of a Prime Minister saying it is okay for their party to vote against the Government’s programme. I cannot see the late Baroness Thatcher condoning such a move. This coalition Government are in meltdown, and the public must be wondering whether any of the proposals in the Queen’s Speech have the wholehearted support of their Members.

That said, there are measures in the health Bill that could and should be shaped and improved on a cross-party basis. It is therefore important that adequate time be allotted for the various debates and the Committee stage. The proposed programme is hardly onerous, so the guillotining of Bills should not be required—unless the Government decide that they dare not encourage full debate, and chicken out. We shall see.

Before moving on to the health-related elements of the Gracious Speech, I would like to mention the draft consumer rights Bill because it revisits the private Member’s Bill introduced by my father—Michael Ward, who was a Member of Parliament—which became the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977. He was supported by the late David Tench in enacting what was groundbreaking consumer legislation. Lord Denning, the then Master of the Rolls, described it as

“the most important change in civil law”.

My father would, if he were alive, be very keen to ensure that the streamlining and simplification process in bringing together so much consumer legislation does not water down consumer rights.

There are a number of health-related proposals in the Queen’s Speech. In Plymouth—a mesothelioma hot spot because of the nature of its industrial base—people will welcome the further progress that has been made on speeding up the process through which insurance companies accept liability and pay compensation. However, for too many of my constituents progress has been tragically slow: they have not survived this awful disease long enough to benefit from the legislation. We have a moral duty to do everything we can to support the victims, and we need to ensure that the Bill, which has had a very slow gestation—it was discussed under the last Labour Government—does what it says on the tin and guarantees faster pay-outs. The failure to address other asbestos-related diseases is also giving rise to concern.

Those who are more fortunate are now, with support, living into grand old age, and we have to resolve the issue, which has dogged successive Governments, of providing care for our older citizens, as well as younger people with illness or disability. The care and support Bill should be welcomed as a step in the right direction, but I fear it will not be enough and, rather than having a full-blown national care service, we will end up with a piecemeal one. The level of the cap has been set too high—higher than Andrew Dilnot recommended—and without investment in local services the Bill will have serious consequences, as clearly set out in the opening speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham).

To deliver much of what will need to be delivered, local authorities will therefore be required to step up to the plate—the joined-up care that the Secretary of State talked about. Yet we know that many are having to dismantle the architecture upon which good care and support is offered—as we are seeing in Torbay, an exemplar—because of the deep cuts being made to their budgets. Can the Government please be clear about who will be running these care and support networks? If it is the private sector, how will they ensure that there is not a postcode lottery?

Oddly, earlier the Secretary of State was behaving like one of those nodding dogs we see in the backs of cars when it was pointed out that hospitals are under pressure and staffing levels are not all they should be. However, he has provided no real answers in this Queen’s Speech.

At long last, after almost four years, we have a Bill paving the way for a potentially dramatic change to the way defence procurement is carried out. There is consensus across the political divide that successive Administrations did not sufficiently reform defence procurement. Equipment programmes were overheated in respect of funding, and the Ministry of Defence was underpowered in the skills required to deliver increasingly complex programmes. There are too many questions that need to be asked for the time available, and today is not about defence, but we will need to come back to those questions. The themes, however, are the accountability of the proposed GoCo —Government-owned, contractor-operated organisation —and where the risk lies. For example, does it lie with the taxpayer or with the private company? Warning bells are already ringing around Westminster about the management of risk. We know from successive Public Accounts Committee and National Audit Office reports that the MOD struggles when it comes to assessing risk. We need to know whether the Ministry of Defence, like the Department of Health, is producing legislation that removes the Secretary of State’s power to intervene and take responsibility.

Finally, I come to the Bills that were not mentioned. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition emphasised the missing legislation in his response to the Loyal Address. The cold hand of the Prime Minister’s henchman, whose links to the tobacco industry as a lobbyist are well documented and who has accepted major donations to his campaign in Australia from British American Tobacco, is writ large on this Gracious Speech.

[Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)]

I agree that not having legislation to introduce standardised packaging for tobacco products is the wrong decision, but does the hon. Lady agree that it is appalling how the unions, too, have tried to stop this legislation?

[Alison Seabeck]

People work in those industries, and, understandably, the unions representing them have to consider the membership’s point of view. Among the unions as a whole, there is a broad range of views, very much reflecting those in this place today.

Returning to my point, perhaps that is why No. 10 has U-turned, from a position where it was wrong for children to be attracted to smoking by glitzy designs on packets and there were statements that children should be protected from the start, to the obverse position, where we are not being allowed to have legislation that would have a beneficial impact on the future health of our population and on the NHS budget. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) said, we need to know who is pulling the strings in setting Government policy. The Government have bottled it; they are in thrall to their right wing. Young people in Plymouth, particular our Youth Parliament members and those in our youth cabinet, who wanted very much to see this change brought forward, will feel that they have been sold down the river. Many young people are asking what is in the Queen’s Speech for them; there is nothing to protect their future health and nothing to help them into work.

If the Government were serious about improving the health of the nation, we would have given these measures a fair wind. They would have had broad support from the Opposition, as would investment in other areas, such as housing that is affordable to rent, because good housing equates to good physical and mental health. Nothing has been said on those issues. The Queen’s Speech is a huge missed opportunity, and it is simply not good enough.

--- Later in debate ---

[Norman Lamb]

I disagree. We brought in Jennifer Dixon of the Nuffield Trust to advise on this matter. There will be ratings for specific services within hospitals to identify areas of great care, but the single rating will give the hospital the incentive to bring up to a proper standard those areas that are falling short, and that will be a good thing.

[Alison Seabeck]

Will the Minister give way?

[Norman Lamb]

I want to make some progress; I am conscious of the time.

The Bill will introduce a single failure regime, so that, for the first time, a trust can be put into administration because of quality failure as well as financial failure. Until now, it has been only the finances that can put a trust into administration. This Government recognise that quality failure is just as important, if not more so, and that such failure must carry consequences.

The stories recounted by the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) and the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) reinforce our determination to make improvements and to ensure that people get the best possible care. I again pay tribute to the impressive work carried out by the right hon. Lady, and I thank her for her work on complaints procedures. The hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) also talked about the importance of compassion in good nursing care.

The Bill will make it a criminal offence for providers to provide false and misleading information. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who has done great work representing his constituents in the most honourable and responsible way, drew our attention to the importance of mortality statistics being accurate so that we can rely on them. Alongside this Bill, we will introduce the statutory duty of candour—something of which I am personally proud. It does not require primary legislation, but the Government will introduce it.

The funding of care is to be reformed so that there will be a cap on the care costs that people will pay in their lifetime. This is long overdue. Reform has been in the long grass for too long. Several hon. Members, including the hon. Members for Worcester (Mr Walker), for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) and for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), made the point that people will no longer have to sell their homes during their lifetime to pay for care. So often people have had to sell their homes in distress at the moment they go into a care home. When they cannot organise their affairs properly, they have to sell up to pay for care. No longer will that be the case. They can delay all those issues because of the right to deferred payments.

It is this coalition Government who have bitten the bullet on a very important reform. I am very proud of the fact that we are doing this, introducing a long overdue reform. Andrew Dilnot himself has strongly supported the Government’s action. That is happening together with a very significant extension of support—I take on board what the hon. Member for Leicester West said—to help people of modest means with their care costs. Each one of those measures would be significant by themselves. Together, they provide real optimism that we can shake off the shackles of the past and look towards the future, not with fear, but with optimism. The Opposition are wrong to dismiss the importance of this Bill. They should recognise just how much it could improve the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in society.