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Mr. Stephen: How can the hon. Gentleman say with a straight face that the NHS has been undermined, when he knows perfectly well that it now treats more patients to a higher standard than ever before in this nation's history?

Mr. Winnick: The hon. Gentleman is not facing reality--he should visit a number of hospitals. Drawing on my experience, I told the Secretary of State about the pressure on hospitals; I should add that there is now even greater pressure as a result of the changes that have been made in the past two or three years. If the hon. Gentleman does not accept my word, I suggest that he talk to some of the doctors, surgeons and nurses in the national health service, who will confirm what I have said.

Mr. Sykes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Winnick: No, I wish to conclude my speech.

The Government have undermined the welfare state in all the areas that I have mentioned--including through the jobseekers' allowance, reduced housing benefits and much-increased prescription charges. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) referred to the leaked document and to related matters. In every constituency, especially in marginal constituencies, we have to get the point across in relation to what a re-elected Tory Government would do.

We should have a general election now. If what I am saying is not true, why are the Government terrified? Why are they not calling an election until the last possible moment? They know what would happen if there were a general election now, which is why they are holding on. The Government know that people accept what my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury, other Labour Members and I have been saying: the welfare state is being eroded and undermined because the Government have no serious commitment to it. When Labour is in office, we will try to help in every way we can the people who elect us to the House of Commons. We have a duty and a responsibility to the ordinary people of our country. A Labour Government will carry out their responsibilities accordingly.

5.11 pm

Mr. Peter Ainsworth (East Surrey): I congratulate the Opposition on choosing this important subject for today's debate. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security has said, this is one of the most important topics with which Governments in the developed world are grappling--they are wrestling with the cost of providing welfare against a background of demographics that involves fewer people providing for more people.

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This is an international trend and it is facing every single Government. It is right for the Labour party to bring this subject before the House.

Mr. Sykes: Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating the hospital that treated the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), as it obviously did a good job? However, will he remind hon. Members that it was not that long ago--perhaps 1978 or 1979--that members of the Confederation of Health Service Employees and other unions were picketing the hospitals?

Mr. Ainsworth: Yes, I remember those dark and terrible days. The hon. Member for Walsall, North seems to be in sparkling form, but, alas, his hospital treatment seems to have done nothing to improve his judgment.

It is important to put any debate on welfare in its proper context. Any welfare state depends on the wealth creators in society. If we impede their ability to prosper--if we hinder their enterprise by excessive regulation, by state interference or by bureaucracy, or if we tax them too highly--they will suffer, as will the most vulnerable people in society who depend on the whole process of wealth creation. The ability of the state to provide depends on the ability of individuals to prosper.

I ask one key question about the welfare state in Britain: is it working? I understand that, since 1949, spending on welfare in this country has increased by 5 per cent. over and above inflation every year--in fact, it has grown by double the rate of the national economy. This has created an enormous burden for this generation and for future generations of taxpayers. The welfare budget is currently costing the average working person £75 a week. Therefore, one would expect the problems that the welfare state was set up to tackle too have been eliminated--but that is far from the case. Despite the excellent efforts of my right hon. Friend to rein back future growth expenditure, the overall rate of expenditure on welfare is projected to increase. It is quite clear from that fact alone that the welfare state is not working as it should be or as was intended.

Any civilised society that can afford to do so should establish the sort of safety net that Beveridge intended when he established the welfare state. There should be a set of basic provisions to protect the poor, the disabled, the vulnerable and the weak in society. Is it right that the welfare industry should stretch so far beyond that? Is it not the case that, to the extent that the state acts as a surrogate for individual responsibility, it diminishes individuals? It closes off options, it increases dependency and, eventually, it undermines humanity's basic right to choice.

The arguments for reducing the scope of the welfare state, for encouraging greater self-reliance, greater individual and family responsibility, are not only economic--important though the economic arguments are--but moral. Some hon. Members thought that the Labour party had grasped this essential point--the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) appears to have grasped it, and he speaks with great authority on the subject of welfare and social services. If he had not grasped that point, he would not be leading his Social Services Committee on a delegation to Chile in September

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to learn the lessons of the most privatised pensions system in the world. He is at least prepared to explore alternatives and to think radically about these important issues. I think that some of this radicalism lay behind the thinking of the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) when he instructed the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) to go out and think the unthinkable.

I fear that very little progress has been made, and I am depressed. It seems to me that one of the things that is unthinkable about the current welfare state is that it should continue as it has over the years--that it should get more and more expensive and not solve the fundamental problems that it was set up to tackle. In so far as Labour policy appears simply to advocate a further increase in spending and more of the same, that is certainly thinking the unthinkable. The Labour party's proposals, such as are visible, increase spending dramatically and do nothing to lessen dependency.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, the guaranteed minimum income for pensioners--if set at 10 per cent. above income support--would cost no less than £3 billion more than it currently does. In addition, it would bring more pensioners on to income support, increase costs and increase dependency. The flexible decade of retirement would cost another £15 billion a year, or there would be much lower state pensions.

Far from thinking the unthinkable in the terms that the Leader of the Opposition had in mind, the Labour party is committed to doing away with the excellent reforms that my right hon. Friend has been working on. They are aimed at reducing the cost of welfare and at targeting those in real need. As my right hon. Friend said, they amount to around £5 billion of savings in this Parliament. We are already up to £20 billion on Labour's spending plans but, oddly, we hear of absolutely no plans to increase taxation. I simply do not understand how the Opposition have the gall to come forward with proposals that will cost billions of pounds and not tell a soul how they will fund their proposals.

I began by congratulating the Opposition on choosing this important subject for debate and, as we have heard, they obviously prepared their ground carefully. I suspect that they were inspired to choose the subject by the so-called leaked Treasury document about which we have heard so much. My hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen), among others, has drawn attention to the extraordinary draft press release that seems to have found its way into the wrong hands. It is entitled "Tories Set to Dismantle the Welfare State". It states:

"Speaking on the day the House of Commons debates the future of the welfare state"--

blank--

"MP for"--

blank--

"spelt out today his/her fears about secret Tory plans to dismantle the welfare system on which we all depend.


"Last Wednesday we saw the plans that have been under discussion in the Treasury," said"--

blank--

""It is a nightmare vision".

So it continues.

Oh dear. It turns out that the author of the Treasury document was one Helen Goodman, a Labour party activist who is seeking selection in a safe seat in the north

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of England. When the subject was raised earlier, the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury leapt to her defence and said that everything was all right because she was an unsuccessful Labour party activist who had not been chosen for the safe seat of Barnsley, East. That will not wash.

Mr. Chris Smith: Is the hon. Gentleman seeking to imply that Helen Goodman is not capable of showing due impartiality in her duties as a civil servant? If he is, he is traducing her reputation as a professional civil servant.

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