Health and Social Care

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I would like first to take this opportunity to thank the people of Washington and Sunderland West for re-electing me as their representative. It has been a privilege working on their behalf over the past decade; I look forward to continuing to do so over the next five years.

Today’s debate focuses on health and social care, which is one of the issues I heard a lot about on the doorstep during the election campaign. The Gracious Speech included sections on health that were similar in tone to policies that Opposition Members campaigned on during the election. However, as too many have learned the hard way over the past five years, we should always take Tory promises on the NHS with a rather large pinch of salt. The Gracious Speech spoke of securing the future of our NHS. That is the same future that five years of Conservative policies have put in dire jeopardy, which is why Labour in opposition must work harder than ever to push the Government to do what is necessary to help our struggling NHS services.

I would like to focus my remarks on the specific problem of continuing health inequalities experienced in many parts of the UK. Compared with the rest of the country, my region, the north-east, has ingrained health inequalities. That is clear from the persistently lower life expectancy, and we also have the highest national rate of early deaths from cancer. The situation will only get worse if the investment into the NHS is not forthcoming and properly tailored. The coalition Government oversaw a number of disastrous policies that put our NHS under increasing strain in the north-east. It will be my job and that of my north-east colleagues to make sure that this Government do not keep ignoring our needs and that something is done not only to cure the problems we currently have but, crucially, to invest in prevention to stop them from taking root in the first place.

Similarly, all across the country, other health inequalities exist that this Government must do more to address, none more so than the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. It is estimated that by 2020 half the entire population can be expected to be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, so it is crucially important to make sure that we have a system that works for everyone. This will mean boosting greater awareness, more innovative training of doctors, investing in the drugs needed to treat the conditions, and having the staff available to help people as they go through what is likely to be the most traumatic period of their lives. This takes investment, but it also takes the will to do it. We need the Government to be truly proactive and positive in getting to grips with this issue. I can assure Ministers here today that I will continue to press them on this as, I hope, co-chair of the all-party group on breast cancer, and again I hope, if I am re-elected, as chair of the all-party group on ovarian cancer. I am sure that my colleagues will do likewise.

In my capacity as shadow Women and Equalities Minister, I have been very aware of the shocking health disparities seen among people from BAME—black, Asian and minority ethnic—backgrounds. Incidence rates of myeloma for African and African-Caribbean men and women are twice as high as for white men and women. Mouth cancer rates in Asian females are 50% higher than they are for white women. Black men have higher rates of prostate cancer than men of other ethnicities. These and many other equally alarming statistics make for worrying reading. I was proud to see in Labour’s BAME manifesto that our party made a commitment to focusing on delivering greater health equality. Over the past five years of the coalition Government, however, I have seen nothing to suggest that reducing health inequalities has been anything like a priority for a Conservative Administration. I fear that if that remains the case for the next five years, the situation is only going to get worse.

I fought the general election with a desire not just to save our NHS but to make it the best service anywhere in the world. Our policies would have made great strides towards achieving that, not only helping patients but improving the way we treat the brilliant medical, care and support staff who are the lifeblood of our NHS. Over the past five years, those staff have been overburdened and undervalued. That needs to change immediately, as does our over-reliance on agency staff, which has been all over the news today. According to a recent report from the Royal College of Nursing, spending on agency nurses in 2014-15 stands at £980 million, and the overall spend on agency staff is a staggering £3.3 billion. Surely this is not prudent or value for taxpayers’ money by any measure.

Worrying developments outlined in the Gracious Speech about workers’ rights undermine the already ridiculous assertion by the Conservative party that it is the party of working people. The Prime Minister and Chancellor like to don a high-visibility jacket now and again for a photo opportunity, but that does not fool the people of my constituency that they have their best interests at heart. If they banned exploitative zero-hour contracts, pursued tax dodgers and those who do not pay the minimum wage, tackled the blight of low pay all across the country, stopped punishing and demonising the most vulnerable, and upheld rather than sought to scrap the hard-won rights of working people across our country, then perhaps they would start to earn the right to call themselves champions of working people. Perhaps they will surprise us, but I, for one, will not be holding my breath.

I will finish by looking at another area that has been much harder for ordinary working people over the past five years—the provision of childcare. In my newly reprised role as shadow Children and Families Minister, I listened very carefully to the passage of the Gracious Speech on the Government’s commitment to increase free childcare for working parents. In principle, of course, this is a policy that Labour Members believe in. Indeed, we championed it during the election, and then the Tories copied us. Childcare for three and four-year-olds has suffered underfunding problems for some time now, with nurseries in the north-east suffering the worst. That has gone hand in hand with parents being consistently hit hard over the past few years, with childcare costs having reached simply unsustainable levels, going up a staggering 47% in the north-east. I hope the Government understand how badly they need to do something about this and that they cannot cut precious child benefit to plug the funding gap. I will be watching out for that very closely.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

It is an unexpected pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Howarth—although Mr Speaker is now taking over just as I say that. It is a pleasure to serve under you both. The maiden speeches that have been given this afternoon have been uniformly excellent, and I am sure that they betoken a bright parliamentary future for those Members. To the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), may I say that I knew Bob Russell well for the 18 years he served here. Our offices were a few doors apart on the Upper Committee corridor. If the hon. Gentleman can serve the people of Colchester one tenth as well as Sir Bob Russell did, he will be doing very well indeed.

In my reflections on the Queen’s Speech, I would like to say something about health, if I have the time, but there are other things that I want to say before that. First, perhaps surprisingly, I welcome the inclusion of the European Union Referendum Bill. I have been a supporter of a referendum on our future relationship with Europe, and a few years ago served on the Committee for the European Union (Referendum) Bill, which was introduced by the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton). I noticed that he retained his seat with a swing of 4.5% to the Conservatives, as opposed to the 2% swing to Labour in Stockton North, and think that it might have something to do with the role he played in picking up the Bill. It was a reward for his effort.

The Bill was known by the denizens of the fourth estate as the Wharton Bill, but that is not actually true. It was a No. 10 Bill that the hon. Gentleman picked up having been drawn first in the private Members’ ballot. The Committee was an interesting experience, not to mention entertaining, because it was entirely led by the Minister for Europe, the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington). The hon. Member for Stockton South said not a word until the final sitting and the pleasantries that conclude every Committee stage. We were also entertained by the bizarre sight of the Prime Minister having to pay obeisance to the Eurosceptic right wingers on the Committee, to whom he was in thrall, by sitting in the Public Gallery of the Committee Room on a Tuesday evening. I have tried to check whether any previous Prime Minister has been forced to suffer such humiliation, but so far I have drawn a complete blank. The Bill was a device to hold the Tory party together more than anything else, and it foundered as a consequence.

My support for a referendum is based on the belief that our relationship with and position in the EU needs to be clarified, and only the electorate at large can do that. Polls show majority support for the referendum, even among those who would vote for the UK to remain a member of the EU. I felt that my party’s position at the general election—refusing to support a referendum on the grounds of uncertainty—was always untenable. The only way to remove uncertainty is to deal with it, not to ignore it. Denying people a say on the grounds that they might come up with the wrong answer is unworthy of any truly democratic party. I am neither a Europhile nor a Europhobe; I am what I prefer to call a Europragmatist. I believe that the interests of this country, its economy and its people are best served by remaining in the EU, but I see that there can be life outside the EU, even though I do not think that that is the optimal solution.

I speak as someone—I think I am in the minority in the House—who actually voted in the 1975 referendum, and voted no. However, I offer the Prime Minister a word of caution. Harold Wilson devised the referendum in 1975 largely as a device to hold the Labour party together, and it did so in the short term, but that did not endure. It also resulted in defeat at the next general election in 1979, which left the Labour party languishing on these Opposition Benches for the next 18 years.

Childcare was mentioned in the Queen’s Speech and it is immensely important to hundreds of thousands of families. The Labour party promised an extra 10 hours of childcare on top of the current 15 hours, and the Conservatives promised an additional 15 hours, so there is no real difference on the principle. Everything revolves around the practicalities of capacity and cost.

At the moment, it is estimated that under the 15-hour scheme there is a 20% funding shortfall. The average amount that most local authorities pay is £3.88 per hour, but the true cost to those providing the service is 70p an hour more than that. The Family and Childcare Trust, the National Day Nurseries Association and the Pre-school Learning Alliance have all expressed grave reservations about what is being proposed, as well as saying that it is necessary to get things right.

Just a week after the general election I received a letter from somebody who runs a Montessori nursery in my constituency. He is actually a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and also sits on the executive of the private providers, Bromley council partnership group, which represents about 200 private providers in the borough of Bromley. He wrote:

“The reason so many of us are concerned is that MPs and certainly a minister in charge of this portfolio must know how private providers in London and South East are currently subsidising the ‘free’ 15 hours with the additional time purchased by families above the 15 hours at a rate more in line with the real cost of provision. You will also know that raising the ‘free’ entitlement to 30 hours will almost eliminate this approach and I am sure you will not insult our intelligence by suggesting the promised increases in the Government’s rate of funding will get anywhere near replacing this revenue.”

[Mrs Hodgson]

My hon. Friend is making some extremely valuable points in expanding on what I said towards the end of my speech. Is he as concerned as I am that the Government have not come forward with any proposals about how they will pay for this scheme? Indeed, the only benefit that we have heard might be at risk is child benefit. Is he also worried about that?

[Jim Dowd]

Yes—I am worried about anything that has not been specifically stated in the Queen’s Speech. I know that the Government have engaged in a review of the implications of this proposal, but they should have engaged in that before promising anything. To put the promise up front and then say, “Well, we’ll sort something out afterwards”, is a recipe for chaos.

What will happen if the Government are not careful is that we will move to the disgraceful position that we have had for many years in residential care for the elderly, whereby it is the private payers who subsidise the local authority residents, because the local authority residents’ rates are fixed and the private payers have to pay a premium on top of those rates. If that is what this proposal results in, it will be a complete and utter disgrace, and it will not work because there is not the capacity in the private nursery sector for everybody to take advantage of it.

Finally, the reservations of the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), who is not in his place, about the right to buy for housing association tenants are entirely justified. That proposal is little more than a scandalous bribe to those who are already adequately housed. A discount of anything up to £102,000 in London is not only grossly unfair but an insult to those in the private sector who would dearly love to be given £100,000 to buy a house or to rent. This will add nothing at all; it does nothing to deal with the housing crisis, either here in London or anywhere else. It is a sordid Government-sponsored corruption scheme worthy of FIFA.