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9.48 am
Mr. Peter Brooke (City of London and Westminster, South): I am conscious that many hon. Members wish to speak, so I shall be extremely brief. There is an element of continuity in the events to which I shall refer. I spoke in the Adjournment debate before the Easter recess in 1995 on the subject of Bart's, and I wish to return briefly to that subject. I shall dwell only on that single issue.
Some 30,000 people in south Hackney and south Islington, as well as my constituents in the City of London, have been adversely affected by the proposed move of Bart's to the Whitechapel site. Although the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) referred to East London and the City health authority, it is ironic that in 1993-94 Camden and Islington used more general medical beds at Bart's. That also has some relevance to present circumstances.
I shall ask my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House a single question at the end of my speech, so he does not need to take elaborate notes of the events that I wish to place on record. The easiest way of describing events since late 1995 and early 1996 is to quote the first two paragraphs of a letter from the two relevant community health councils--Islington and City and Hackney--to the Secretary of State on 22 April this year:
No doubt, cost has played a role. There are rumours that the special trustees at Bart's are being pressed for any money that can be used to help the Royal Hospitals trust. There is a degree of irony in that, as the conventional wisdom was that the backstop of the special trustees had previously allowed Bart's to get into lax financial ways.
That was clearly a belief in the Department of Health, as my right hon. Friend, now Secretary of State for National Heritage, made clear in comment after comment to me in 1992-93 before Bart's took itself in hand so rigorously and effectively.
It is, however, cost pressure that I want primarily to raise as a matter that should detain the House from adjourning until it is settled. The matter is urgent because there are rumours that the Government would like to sign the private finance initiative contracts relating to the hospital in Whitechapel in October, which may well be before the House returns.
My question to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, of which I have given him brief notice, is whether there have been any modifications--either upwards or downwards--in the cost stated in the outline business plan submitted by the Royal Hospitals trust in 1994 and approved by the Secretary of State for Health in 1995 in the invitation to bid for the private finance initiative and, if so, what are the percentage changes. My right hon. Friend will recognise the significance of that query from his past service in the Department of Health.
Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East):
Just before the parliamentary recess, or what my brother-in-law persists in calling the parliamentary recession, we have the opportunity either to deal with the particulars--and we have heard important particulars from the previous two hon. Members who have spoken--or to speak in more general terms. I shall turn to the latter and reflect on what one may call the state of the nation as the Government stagger with great relief to the recess, having lost a number of Ministers on the way.
The Government's major concern is to survive. We have endured the politics of survival for some considerable time and that is not in the interests of the country. Therefore, it is to the state of the nation that I shall address one or two remarks and on which I shall make some reflections.
I was spurred to raise the subject by yesterday's exchange between the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition during Prime Minister's Question Time. My right hon. Friend asked the Prime Minister:
The Government's broad position is absolutely correct, however. The decision need not be taken for some years hence, when the circumstances may have changed and Britain can take a decision rationally on the basis of the configuration of countries and circumstances at the time. Why does not the Prime Minister at least say, "Yes. If the circumstances were correct, I would be prepared so to recommend"? The fact that he is not prepared to do so not only amounts to a deception of our partner countries, which let him and our Government into discussions on the basis that, if the circumstances were right, we would join, but is highly indicative of the state of the nation and of British politics.
The man in the street surely thinks of the Prime Minister as fundamentally decent, but with a wholly impossible balancing act to perform. He is seen as someone who is trying to hold together a party that is fundamentally divided. I have tried to find a character in Greek mythology who was in the same position. I recall one who was suspended between heaven and earth because neither would receive him. I thought of Sisyphus or some other character. I am sure that the Greeks would have conceived of some person on the rack or in circumstances alike to the Prime Minister's at the moment. He is certainly tortured as rivals position themselves for the post-election struggle for the leadership.
All serious commentators surely agree that this Parliament is already dead and that, effectively, we have already embarked on an election campaign. There will be some disagreement on when the Parliament died. Was it when Britain was forced out of the exchange rate mechanism, just after the then Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont), so eloquently told us about its advantages? With a certain political amnesia, he is now bidding us to forget the eloquence of the speeches that he made shortly before the forced withdrawal. Certainly, for several months, the Government have been paralysed and Parliament has been dead. It cannot be right for the country that there is such politicking and paralysis in policy.
I travel fairly extensively and discuss matters with parliamentary colleagues on the continent. It is already clear that, in respect of the intergovernmental conference,
a number of our partner countries are seriously considering putting relations with the United Kingdom on hold so far as is possible because they perceive the Government as a lame duck. Our partners are looking forward to a time after the election, whatever the result may be, when they can deal with a Government who are prepared to govern. I know of that position from very highly placed sources. That is sad and cannot be good for this country.
On politicking, we know that we shall return after the spillover session to an abnormal Queen's Speech. It will effectively be the Government's manifesto. It will be a shop-window Queen's Speech because, realistically, the Government will not be in a position to put into effect many of its proposals. In November and December, we shall be dealing with some Second Readings and the Budget, and in January and February, the Government will find it very difficult to get many of the ideas through. The Queen's Speech will be a parading of theory and not really relevant to the country's problems. It will be more relevant to the Government's wishes to be re-elected and their desire to encourage the country to view the form of their policies.
As the election campaign becomes shriller and more intense over the recess, it cannot have the traditional themes that the Government prefer, such as law and order and the wicked Labour party that is in thrall to the trade unions. Given our policy, that can hardly be a credible position to put before the country. One fears, therefore, that the theme chosen will be the flag and the idea of wrapping oneself in it over foreign policy. One fears a rather nasty campaign against foreigners, especially our European partners, along the lines of those in the popular newspapers that follow the Government. At home, alas, the flag will relate to the devolution policies of the Labour party and all other parties, with a slogan about the break-up of the United Kingdom.
We are, of course, in a world of slogans. "New Labour, new danger" is parroted in Prime Minister's questions like a music hall act. That is not serious politics. Serious questions need to be addressed in relation, for example, to the future shape of the United Kingdom. The Conservative party, under Disraeli for example, stole the clothes of Mr. Gladstone when it saw the way in which the Liberal party was addressing issues surrounding the urban working classes. Disraeli said that we must educate our masters and sought to address real problems. This Government are paralysed; they will not debate or try to address issues such as the Scottish and Welsh questions, which concern identity. It should be recognised that there are already clusters of government in Edinburgh and Cardiff that are not accountable. There can be a serious debate on how to address that. One cannot simply run away, chant slogans and pretend that such problems will go away.
"Just over a year ago the accident and emergency department at St. Bartholomew's Hospital closed. Assurances were given in writing by East London and City Health Authority, which agreed to the closure, that general practitioners would have direct access to the local hospital for their medical patients. In reality this has proved extremely difficult with obstacles being put in their way whenever they have attempted to get people admitted. This has led to people from south Islington, south Hackney and the City being sent down to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel where they have had to wait sometimes for many hours before being admitted and in some cases transferred back to Bart's for admission.
which I shall not quote--
In the autumn City & Hackney CHC learned from unofficial sources that there were plans to close the general medical beds at Bart's at the beginning of February 1996 so terminating entirely the services available to local people. This was confirmed just before Christmas. The enclosed letter,"--
"objecting in the strongest terms to the proposed bed closures, was sent to the General Manager of East London and City Health Authority. These closures had not been consulted on and were contrary to the agreement that the Health Authority had made with the Royal Hospitals Trust following its decision in March 1995 to go ahead with the plans set out in its consultation document, Health Services for the Future. The Royal Hospitals Trust maintained it was quite safe to close the beds because there had been so few admissions over the past 12 months. The reasons why are explained above."
There was then a two-month gap before the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam), replied on 18 June 1996, with what was an essentially procedural answer on the subject of consultation. He did not dwell on the substance of the letter. I fear that the absence of any reference to its substance did nothing for morale either at Bart's or in the area to which I referred, and that is a subject on which I have commented before.
"Does he agree with his Chancellor's recent statement that he can see circumstances in which he would recommend that Britain joins a single currency during the next Parliament?"
The Prime Minister replied:
"We have made the position on a single currency entirely clear."
So my right hon. Friend continued:
"Can he, like his Chancellor, see circumstances in which he would recommend that Britain join a single currency during the next Parliament--yes or no?"
24 Jul 1996 : Column 269
The Prime Minister replied:
That exchange was extremely significant. The Prime Minister's response was astonishingly evasive, and one is bound to ask why. Why could not the Prime Minister give a straight answer to a straight question? If it were the case that in not even the most theoretical circumstances could the Prime Minister see a case for entering the single currency, he is surely deceiving our partners because, by remaining in discussions, he is implying that--if the circumstances were right, if the various convergence criteria were met, and if it were deemed to be in our national interests--he would be prepared to recommend to the House that we should join a single currency. However, he could not even say that he would do so in those theoretical circumstances. Why was that? He was in the awful position of having to look over his shoulder and say to left and right, "Have I done well? Have I answered correctly?" He was in the difficulty of not daring to identify his policy on that issue.
"Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can tell the House whether he agrees with the argumentation in the pamphlet that I have here".--[Official Report, 23 July 1996; Vol. 282, c. 142.]
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