National Health Service (Amended Duties and Powers) Bill

Joan Walley Excerpts

Friday 21st November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford]

I should like to make some progress. The Bill is in four parts. Part 1 deals with the powers and duties of the Secretary of State. It reinstates the legal duty of the Secretary of State to promote a comprehensive national health service. It gives powers of direction to the Secretary of State over NHS England and local commissioners. It also requires the Secretary of State to put the needs of patients above those of the providers, or the market within which providers operate. It also provides that all contracts will be deemed to be “NHS contracts”. The significance of that is that they will not be subject to competition rules. All complaints will be dealt with within the framework of the NHS, with the Secretary of State having the final say—not lawyers or the courts.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for securing this private Member’s Bill. One urgent issue that we must address is that of the purchaser/provider split. Will he assure us that the proposals in this part of the Bill will mean that health services can be run purely on health grounds?

[Clive Efford]

The Bill does not attempt to rid the NHS of the purchaser/provider split. That would require a new top-down reorganisation of the national health service, which people in the NHS say they do not want. What I can say is that this Bill will create a framework in which NHS contracts are not open to competition rules. As long as the commissioners of services stay within the confines of the NHS contracts, they will not be open to competition. They will be compelled to do that by sheer cost, because if they step outside of NHS contracts they are then into European competition rules and will have to spend millions on lawyers and accountants to oversee the tendering process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Poulter]

In a moment I will address in a little more detail a couple of the points that were raised. I reassure my hon. Friend that the section 75 regulations that underpin the 2012 Act, which are almost identical to regulations that the previous Government were involved with, outline very clearly, under regulation 10, that integrated service, or encouraging co-operation between providers in the interests of patients should not be seen as anti-competitive. Regulation 15 makes it clear that Monitor cannot direct a commissioner to hold a competitive tender. There is strong support throughout those regulations, as there is throughout the 2012 Act, for integrated service delivery in the best interests of patients, where that is appropriate.

[Joan Walley]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Poulter]

I am going to make some progress—I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me—because Mr Deputy Speaker is looking at me.