Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Miliband Excerpts

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are certainly very good friends of the Republic of Ireland and the people of the Republic of Ireland. It is their choice whether to sign the treaty of fiscal union, and their choice whether to have a referendum on that treaty. As in all things, people’s views in a referendum should be respected.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

Before turning to other matters, does the Prime Minister agree with me that the allegations made by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers in the Leveson inquiry about widespread corrupt behaviour at the heart of the press and the police are devastating, and that such behaviour can have no place in the national institutions of our country? Does he further agree with me that this underlines the importance of the police inquiry, which must get to the bottom of these allegations without fear or favour, and of the Leveson inquiry itself?

[The Prime Minister]

I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman about this issue. There is all-party support for the Leveson inquiry, which needs to get on with its work—which it is conducting in a very reasonable and thorough way—and also proper support for the police inquiry. It is important to make the point that there is always a debate about what is right for newspapers to do to get stories that are in the public interest, but it is hard to think of any circumstances in which it is right for police officers to take money.

[Edward Miliband]

I thank the Prime Minister for that answer. On the Leveson inquiry, may I ask him to ensure that, in the weeks and months ahead, none of his senior Ministers does anything to undermine its work? Would he accept that it was ill-judged of the Education Secretary to say last week that the inquiry was having a “chilling” effect on freedom of expression? Does the Prime Minister now dissociate himself from those comments, and urge his colleagues, whatever their closeness to particular newspaper proprietors, not to undermine the Leveson inquiry?

[The Prime Minister]

I answered this question last week. The Education Secretary, like the rest of the Cabinet, fully supports the Leveson inquiry and wants it to proceed with the very important work that it does. That is the position of the Education Secretary and the position of the entire Government.

[Edward Miliband]

I thank the Prime Minister for that answer, but I have to remind him that the Education Secretary said:

“The big picture is that there is a chilling atmosphere towards freedom of expression which emanates from the debate around Leveson.”

I hope that the Education Secretary, who is sitting further down the Bench, will have heard the Prime Minister’s words.

Now, let me move on from one area where I hope there can be cross-party agreement, to an area where there is not. On Sunday, Lord Crisp, the man who ran the NHS for six years, said about the Prime Minister’s Bill:

“it’s a mess…it’s unnecessary…it misses the point…it’s confused and confusing and…it’s…setting the NHS back.”

Why does the Prime Minister think that, with every week that goes by, there are yet more damning indictments of his NHS Bill?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me just make one further point about the Leveson inquiry, because I think it is important. What my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary was saying—and I think it is important for all of us in this House to say—is that while these inquiries are going on, it is important for politicians who, let us be frank, benefit sometimes when the press are a little bit less hard hitting than they have been in recent years, to say that we support a free, vibrant, robust press. I do think that that is an important point, which is what my right hon. Friend was saying.

Turning to the health reforms, the right hon. Gentleman actually said something last week that I agreed with. He said:

“The NHS will have to change.

…because of the rise in the age of the population”,

because of the rise in

“the number of long-term conditions”,

and because of the rise in “expectations and costs.” It sounds a bit familiar. He is right that it has to reform. The problem for the Labour party is that it is against the money that needs to go into the NHS, which it says is irresponsible, and that although it supported competition and choice in the past, it does not support them any more.

[Edward Miliband]

The Prime Minister seems to have forgotten the question I asked him; it was about Nigel Crisp who ran the health service for six years. He was the chief executive of the national health service and he says that the Prime Minister’s Bill is “a mess…and confusing”—but the right hon. Gentleman will obviously not want to listen to him.

Let me ask the Prime Minister about somebody else, who appeared on the Conservative party’s platform at the spring conference in 2010. He hosted the first speech of the Health Secretary—he is not here, I do not think—and he advised the Labour Government, that is true. He is the GP at the head of the clinical commissioning group in Tower Hamlets. He wrote to the Prime Minister on Monday and said this:

“We care deeply about the patients that we see every day and we believe the improvements we all want to see in the NHS can be achieved without the bureaucracy generated by the bill.”

[Interruption.] Government Members say no, but this is a man who is in charge of a clinical commissioning group. Is it not time that the Prime Minister recognised that he has lost the confidence even of the GPs whom he says he wants to be at the heart of his reforms?

[The Prime Minister]

There are 8,200 GP practices covering 95% of the country implementing the health reforms, which is what they want to see happen. The right hon. Gentleman asks me if I will listen to those people who ran the NHS over the last decade, so let me give him a selection of people who ran the NHS in the last decade and see what they think of competition. This is what Lord Darzi said:

“The right competition for the right reasons can drive us to achieve more”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 October 2011; Vol. 730, c. 1492.]

This is what John Hutton said. He was a Health Minister under the last Government—[Interruption.] Opposition Members do not want to listen to Labour Ministers from when they used to win elections. Anyway, this is what he said:

“Competition can make the NHS more equitable.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 October 2011; Vol. 730, c. 1569.]

That is the view of a former Labour Secretary of State. What about an adviser to the last Labour Government, Julian Le Grand, who specifically looked at competition? This is what he said:

“the measured effects of competition have not been trivial…evidence shows that the introduction of competition in the NHS could be credited with saving hundreds of lives.”

The truth is that the right hon. Gentleman does not want to listen to past Labour Ministers because he is taking a totally opportunistic position in opposition to this Bill.

[Edward Miliband]

The reason that 95% of GPs are now having to implement part of these changes is that the Prime Minister has imposed them. Dr Everington addresses this in the last line of his letter, where he says:

“Your government—

I believe that this is a letter to the Prime Minister—

“has interpreted our commitment to our patients as support for the bill. It is not”.

And 98% of those in the Royal College of General Practitioners oppose the Bill. I have to say that it is hard to keep track of opposition to this Bill, because in the past seven days alone the Royal College of Physicians has called the first emergency general meeting in its history about the Bill, and the Prime Minister has lost the support of the British Geriatrics Society and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. So every week that goes by more and more health care organisations come out against this Bill. I have a simple question for the Prime Minister: can he now give the House a list of significant health organisations that are still wholehearted supporters of the Bill?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman specifically said—[Interruption.] This is very important—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Hon. Members]

More!

[Edward Miliband]

Government Members are obviously well trained today, but let me tell them that their support for the health Bill is digging their own burial at the next general election. I asked the Prime Minister a specific question. I know, by now, that he does not like to answer the questions, but I just simply asked him who supports his Bill, and answer came there none from this Prime Minister. Let me refresh his memory as to who opposes his Bill. By the way, it is no good the Deputy Prime Minister smirking—I do not know whether he supports the Bill or opposes it.

[The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)]

I support it.

[Edward Miliband]

Oh, he supports it! Well there is firm leadership for you.

Let me refresh the Prime Minister’s memory as to those who want the Bill withdrawn: the Royal College of General Practitioners; the Royal College of Nursing; the Royal College of Midwives; the Royal College of Radiologists; the Faculty of Public Health; the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy; the Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association; and the Patients Association. Does it not ever occur to him that, just maybe, they are right and he is wrong?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman did not mention: the National Association of Primary Care—supporting the Bill; the NHS Alliance—supporting the Bill; the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations—supporting the Bill; the Foundation Trust Network—supporting the Bill; Lord Darzi, a former Labour Minister—[Interruption.] Who was Lord Darzi? He was the surgeon Labour hired to run the health service. Here we are having had four weeks in a row of NHS questions but not a single question of substance—not one. It is all about process, all about politics, never about the substance. We all know that it is leap year, so maybe just this once I get to ask the question. We all know what the right hon. Gentleman is against, but is it not time he told us what on earth he is for?