The National Health Service

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I inform the House that Mr Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the official Opposition.

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[Jonathan Ashworth]

Let me deal with this point first.

The people of Leicester can see what is happening. Although the Secretary of State is putting money into Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester General Hospital in the constituency next door loses maternity services, loses the hydrotherapy pool, loses renal services, loses—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Remember that we were all going to try to be polite. The hon. Gentleman is talking about hospitals that people care about, and we must listen to him.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

It loses elective orthopaedics, loses urology, loses brain injury and neurological services, loses gynaecology, and loses podiatry.

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[Jonathan Ashworth]

Absolutely.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Let me say before the hon. Gentleman answers the intervention, that he has been very generous in taking interventions, and that is good for the debate, but I am sure he will bear in mind that he has been at the Dispatch Box for nearly half an hour, and I just say to him gently that that is all right with me, but he will incur the wrath of those who are waiting to speak later in the debate when they only get three minutes.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

Thank you for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. You are absolutely right. I will not take any more interventions and I will move to wrap up.

My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) is absolutely right that the compulsory competitive tendering provisions of that Act have forced through the privatisation of £9 billion-worth of contracts. Everything that was promised in the Act, from delivering on health inequalities to delivering more integrated care, has not come to fruition, which is why everybody understands that it needs to be repealed.

But there is another reason why the Act needs to be repealed: while it is on the statute book, it runs the risk of the NHS being sold off in a Trump trade deal. Under the World Trade Organisation, public services can only be excluded from trade deals where there is no competition with private providers or where they are not run for profit, but the enforced competitive tendering of contracts through the Lansley Act means private health providers already operate in competition with public NHS providers, and the so-called standstill ratchet clauses and the inter-state dispute mechanisms would mean a Trump trade deal would lock in the privatisation of our NHS ushered in by the Health and Social Care Act.

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[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (IGC)]

I enjoy the knockabout that has been going on, but will the Secretary of State accept that the NHS reforms brought in by Andrew Lansley led to fragmentation, duplication and inefficiencies, which we are now trying to remedy by reconstructing and bringing groups together, as we are doing in north-east London, and that therefore there is merit in that part of the Opposition’s amendment?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. If the Secretary of State answers the intervention, I will say to him what I said to the Opposition spokesman, which is that he has been generous in taking interventions but having been at the Dispatch Box for nearly half an hour, I hope he will be careful not to incur the wrath of Back Benchers who will have to wait until 7 o’clock to speak.

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I am trying to take as many interventions as is reasonable. I feel as though I have been sitting down for most of the half hour that I have technically been speaking for—

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[Mr Sheerman]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State has made a serious allegation about my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South. I have been in this House for a long time and I recall when PFI started under the John Major Government. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. That is a point of information, not a point of order. I will make no comment on it.

[Matt Hancock]

I will debate the hon. Gentleman’s involvement in PFI, which hamstrung the hospitals, every day of the week. Now, however, I wish to—

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[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State has been talking now for nearly half an hour, yet he has not really referred to the amendment in respect of the relationship between public health and trade, particularly the ability of tribunals and companies to sue.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. That is not a point of order; it is a point of debate. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s frustration, so I will repeat what I said earlier: the Secretary of State has been, as was the Opposition spokesman, most dutiful in taking lots of interventions. I have allowed those interventions because I recognise that Members want to refer to particular hospitals and other things in their own constituencies. I allowed them, but I now encourage the Secretary of State to cease—

[Geraint Davies]

It is a point of order.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

No, it is not a point of order if I say it is not a point of order.

I encourage the Secretary of State to make progress. I appreciate his generosity to his colleagues, but we will have to make some progress.

[Matt Hancock]

Quite right. I am voting for you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), to whom I will not give way—