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Mr. Menzies Campbell: I suspect that the Secretary of State has the support of the whole House for what he said, but are we not also required to be anxious about--to use a word of the moment--the drift downwards in defence expenditure among many NATO members? If we are anxious about extending rigour to those who wish to join, should we not be similarly anxious to ensure that the existing members are still able collectively to fight the high-intensity warfare that the Secretary of State rightly mentioned?
Mr. Portillo: The hon. and learned Gentleman makes a good point.
If I may say so in response to the hon. Member for South Shields, it is not only Britain whose defence expenditure has been reduced. Since 1985, the European
average has reduced by a third in real terms and today, European countries spend a good deal less of their gross domestic product on defence than does the United States.
I was reading some of the figures yesterday. Seven European countries spend less than 2 per cent. of their GDP on defence. The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East makes a valid point, but what has been remarkable about Britain is that we have been willing to take tough decisions, we have taken out the numbers in the armed forces and in the civil service, we have not held on to redundant estate and therefore we have been able to achieve great efficiency.
The fact that I was able to tell the House that, in the past year, we have ordered cruise missiles for submarines and for aeroplanes and all the other assets that I mentioned earlier, shows that Britain, at her present level of commitment, is capable of engaging successfully in high-intensity conflict if necessary.
That is because we are a country with global responsibilities. We are an island, but we have never been little Englanders. We have always had to trade with the four corners of the globe. That has made us very outward looking. Today we are still a global trading, global investing, globally conscious country, dedicated to the spread of democracy throughout the world; dedicated, through free trade, to the spread of wealth, which, as was well observed during the debate, underpins democracy, drives up living standards and makes the terrorist less welcome.
We have a responsibility for security in the world. We play our part, as we demonstrated in the Gulf and in Bosnia. We are a highly deployable country. Britain will go on playing its part in world affairs, by deed as well as by words. As long as there is a Conservative Government, we will be a reliable ally.
It is difficult to arrive at a consensus with the Labour party, because many of its Front Benchers were supporters of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. They made a fundamental misjudgment about the key decision of the second half of the 20th century, and I, for one, simply cannot trust Labour on defence.
Debate adjourned.--[Mr. Ottaway.]
Debate to be resumed tomorrow.
Ordered,
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Ottaway.]
Mr. David Rendel (Newbury):
I am delighted to have the opportunity today to raise the issue of hospital services in Newbury, and I am grateful to Madam Speaker for giving me the opportunity. Before I start, however, I feel that I should make my position clear--to avoid any possible accusation of sleaze--by saying that my wife is a general practitioner who works in the health service in Newbury. Therefore, I have a personal, if somewhat indirect, interest in the matter, which I hope that the House will accept puts me in an even better position to speak up for the interests of all those who are concerned about the future of hospital services in Newbury--whether as patients, staff or in some other capacity.
I shall begin by setting the scene. Newbury currently has two small hospitals. The first--Newbury district hospital--was originally built in the 19th century. I should repeat that fact, because it is hardly credible: Newbury district hospital was built in the last century, more than 100 years ago. It has, of course, been developed in fits and starts since then, and not all the buildings are quite that old. The original buildings, however--the heart of the hospital--are more than 100 years old.
Within that heart, the hospital has two wards: one for men and one for women. The wards are used to treat some 2,000 in-patients and day case surgery patients each year. Perhaps more important, however, the hospital also treats 24,000 out-patients each year. It also provides X-ray and pathology services, and a minor injuries unit.
The other hospital in Newbury--Sandleford hospital--is even older. It was originally built as long ago as the 1840s, and one can get some idea of what the hospital is like when I say that it was built as a workhouse. Sadly, it used to provide many more services than it does now, but gradually it has been run down in the constant expectation that the new Newbury hospital was about to be built.
Sandleford hospital is now used primarily to care for elderly patients, for rehabilitation or to provide for those who, sadly, have enduring mental health problems. The hospital also contains a more modern block--the Charles Clore Macmillan day unit, which is the most modern block of any of the hospital services in Newbury--which serves cancer patients and those who have life-threatening illnesses.
After hearing about the current situation, it will not surprise the House to learn that hospital services in Newbury have long been an issue of great concern to everyone living in west Berkshire. As a result, in election after election, the Conservatives have promised the people of west Berkshire that a new hospital would be built. They promised it in 1979. They promised it in 1983, and they promised it in 1987. They promised it in 1992, and they promised it again during the Newbury by-election, in 1993. By that time, of course, not many people still believed the Conservatives' promises--as the people of Newbury showed in that by-election.
Our concern for west Berkshire's health services was greatly increased in the mid-1980s when the town, loyally supported by the local paper, the Newbury Weekly News, had to fight off plans to close the existing Newbury
district hospital without any replacement. We were delighted to win that battle. Localised hospital services are a crucial part of any health service built round the needs of people, rather than the convenience of bureaucracy. However, that win was by no means the end of the long-standing struggle to secure modern hospital facilities to serve west Berkshire.
On a recent visit to the current hospital, I spoke to a senior nurse. She began her training at the hospital in 1960, and is now nearing retirement. She told me that she hoped that she could still look forward to working in the new hospital before she finally retired. Amazingly, she also told me that she remembered that when she started training in Newbury 36 years ago, the trainee nurses were even then being assured that a new Newbury hospital was due to be built shortly.
In case anyone should think that that nurse was exaggerating, let me quote from today's edition of the Newbury Weekly News. One article in the section called "Old Memories Revived"--often the most interesting and revealing part of the newspaper, where articles taken from previous editions are reprinted--refers to a joint meeting of the Newbury town and district councils that took place exactly 30 years ago today, on 24 October 1966.
The article, headed "No New Hospital for 10 Years", says:
People in Newbury are patient; we are used to waiting. The one thing that everyone now knows about Newbury is that we have had to wait for more than 30 years for relief from chronic traffic congestion--we are still waiting--but 36 years, a whole generation and more, is far too long to wait for a new hospital. Even now, there is no end in sight.
The excellent health service staff work wonders to provide the level of service that they do and they are greatly appreciated by the people of Newbury, but our doctors and nurses have their hands tied behind their backs. Day in, day out they strive to overcome the problems of working in l9th-century buildings. Inevitably, it is impossible for them to work as efficiently and as effectively in their patients' interests as they could in more modern buildings.
The fact that patients and visitors have to cross a busy main road to get from the car park to the hospital is not good enough; the fact that hospital services are split
between two sites is not good enough; and the fact that 18,000 trips a year have to be made to the Reading hospitals because of insufficient facilities in Newbury is not good enough. That is a huge number of unnecessary journeys, often made by people in considerable pain, and even those figures ignore the visits that may be made by patients' relatives. When one adds to that the fact that Battle hospital in Reading is due for closure, one can see that the pressure on the other main hospital in Reading--Royal Berkshire hospital--will become acute. That is also an excellent reason why the new Newbury hospital is needed so soon; it would relieve much of that pressure.
The number of both in-patients and out-patients due to be served by the new facilities is roughly double the number who can be treated in the present Newbury district hospital. What is more--I should have thought that even the Government would accept this point--the cost of treating Newbury people in Newbury hospital is far less than the cost of treating them in Reading.
In case there is any doubt about the effect on service standards of the ancient facilities that I have described, I shall report briefly what happened when I took up a complaint from a constituent with the Nuffield orthopaedic centre. In its response to my letter, it put the point simply:
But the agreement in principle was not enough for this Government. Although in every other part of the country it is accepted that it is the job of the national health service to provide facilities for the health care of local people, the Government decided that in Newbury's case, a large chunk of the necessary finance would have to be provided by the people of Newbury themselves.
The Newbury Hospital Helpers League, of which I am proud to be a member, was persuaded to pledge the proceeds of a very generous bequest from a Miss Rook towards the cost of the new building. Not only that, but the Government then insisted that the value of the land was not sufficient and that it should, therefore, be given planning permission for development to enhance its value. A green-field site which, in all likelihood, would never otherwise have been developed, was sacrificed by the local population, desperate as we were to make sure that the Government had no further excuse for putting off the hospital any longer. That very precious green-field site makes up part of the strategic green gap between the towns of Newbury and Thatcham. That site would never have been given development permission were it not for the very special community need that the new hospital represents.
I suggest to the House that the people of Newbury have already more than played their part in making it easy for the Government to go ahead. In fact, had the health service reforms to which I referred a moment ago not put the whole question of what to do and when to do it back into the melting pot, there is little doubt that the new hospital would have been built by now.
Even under the new regime, the proposals for a new hospital were accepted by Berkshire health authority in December 1995. They were then accepted by Anglia and Oxford regional health authority in June this year. That is not exactly great progress in 36 years, but at least it is something. We are getting closer. But the frustration felt by the people of Newbury is now met by another brick wall--the private finance initiative. It has already become abundantly clear that the PFI has been a failed attempt to privatise by stealth. However, it has also been a smokescreen for cuts in capital investment.
There may well be some areas where the PFI has a role to play, but when public health needs have been established, the PFI must not be allowed to introduce additional delays, as has happened in this case. Public health is just too important for that. So the health service is not the best place for the Government to experiment with private funding.
What the people of west Berkshire want from the Government is a cast-iron assurance that funds to build the new hospital will be forthcoming now. What the staff and patients of Newbury district hospital want are decent, modern facilities that afford the best available standard of care.
The country is crying out for investment in its infrastructure. When will the Government put aside their ideological insistence on private finance and provide that infrastructure? The whole point of the public purse is to fund public benefits. There can be few greater public benefits than first-class hospital services.
I look forward to the Minister's assurance that the people of Newbury will have their hospital by the end of the century and, I hope, in good time before that long-suffering nurse, whom I referred to at the start of my speech, retires.
That Mr. Peter Thurnham be discharged from the Committee of Public Accounts and Mr. Charles Wardle be added to the Committee.--[Mr. Ottaway.]
Ordered,
That Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith and Mr. Doug Hoyle be discharged from the Committee on Standards and Privileges and Sir Archibald Hamilton and Mr. Ernie Ross be added to the Committee.--[Mr. Ottaway.]
24 Oct 1996 : Column 227
10 pm
"Newbury must make do with its much-criticised district hospital for at least another 10 years,"--
I remind hon. Members that the article was written in 1966--
"members of the Newbury Town and District Councils were told at their first joint meeting on Monday. A letter from the secretary of the Regional Hospital Board informed them that there were long-term plans for a new 400-bed hospital at Newbury,"--
would that the hospital currently planned had anything like 400 beds--
"but it was not expected to be built until 1975-76.
I only wish that the very worst predictions of the 1960s had come true--that is, the construction of the new hospital in the 1980s.
The news was given to the meeting by the Town Clerk who had asked the board what proposals there were for improving hospital facilities.
Dr. R. Warwick-Brown of Thatcham, added that a new hospital in Newbury was so far down the priority list that it might not be built before the 1980s."
"The facilities available to us at the Newbury District Hospital are of a poor standard, which does not allow the Orthotist to provide the standard of service that he/she would like to."
But of course the Government accept that the facilities offered by the aging hospitals in Newbury are not good enough. The case has been made and it is clear for all to see. Indeed, before the Government introduced their health service reforms and transferred the hospitals to the new Priority Care trust, it had long been agreed in principle that a new hospital should be built.
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