| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Spearing: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's comments, but is it not even worse than that? Is he aware that on 22 July I asked for the figures and that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, who happily is here, said that they were unsuitable for publication?
Mr. Frank Field: That is not surprising.
Mr. Spearing: Indeed. It was only after the recess and the happy chance of coming up in the ballot and of securing the Adjournment debate last Wednesday, the Session's last debate, which lasted 50 minutes, that we managed to extract the promise that the Minister would supply some figures. Some came last week, but not all the ones that I asked for.
Mr. Smith: It was noticeable that the Government's figures were produced the day after my hon. Friend's Adjournment debate, so that the figures could not form part of the debate. Not only were they unsuitable for publication on the Government's part; they were somewhat embarrassing on the Government's part.
Perhaps the clearest evidence in recent days of the crisis facing the health service comes from the discussions currently under way in London on ways in which accident and emergency services should respond to the likely pressure that will face them this winter. The Greater London accident and emergency co-ordination protocol group is drawing up emergency plans for what A and E services facing intolerable pressure should do in London. Those plans, which I have here, give the options that will be available to A and E services when they are under extreme pressure. They are divided into complete closure of an A and E department, agreed diversions and rotas. Those categories mean that, this winter, A and E services in London will close completely to taking emergency admissions, either on a temporary or a semi-permanent
basis, because the pressure will be so great. Small wonder that the accident and emergency consultants to whom the proposals were put yesterday unanimously rejected them.
Those discussions revealed that NHS emergency services in London are having to accept as normal not occasional but regular bouts of intense pressure, causing temporary diversions or closures. That speaks volumes about the pressure to which not just accident and emergency services but, as a run-on consequence, elective acute surgery will be subjected.
Any sensible person putting together procedures for dealing with emergency services will devise a simple formula. I will entertain the House by quoting a paragraph that describes how such a rota system is supposed to operate:
Mr. Smith:
As my hon. Friend says, but that is precisely the way that the internal market leads to disaster in the health service.
A crisis is looming this winter across the accident and emergency services in London and elsewhere in the country, elective surgery has been abandoned in many parts of the country and difficulties are facing health authority after health authority, yet the Government come up with a Queen's Speech that does not address the many real issues affecting the NHS and the patients who depend on it.
The Government are busy trying to pretend that they love, cherish and believe in the health service. We were expecting a White Paper on the NHS next week, but I gather that the Government are delaying that demonstration of love and belief in their cherished health service for a couple of weeks.
Sir Rhodes Boyson (Brent, North):
I welcome the Gracious Speech and want to give my views on three issues--two of them concerned with social security and one with education, on which I shall speak at greater length.
The same social security issues arise time and again because human nature remains consistent. One may try to solve problems but 10, 20 or 30 years later, they arise again. Social problems that were covered by Acts of Parliament in 1601 and 1834 are recurring today, to be dealt with again.
One such problem is the breakdown of the family, which is threatening social welfare, education and behaviour, and which poses a real challenge to our society. When any new Bill is proposed, one must ask whether it will strengthen the family or weaken it. So much that has been done--with the best of intentions--in recent years has weakened the family. Of that there is no doubt. For example, the cut in the married person's tax allowance, by which it was decided that we should all be treated as individuals, hampered the family. Before any Bill is introduced, we should be told not just the financial implications, but the implications for the family. If the family breaks down, social welfare will be in a massive mess.
In certain parts of the country, the family is already breaking down. One boy in three grows up without a father figure. That has a serious effect on discipline in schools and on many other matters. So we must buttress the family, because otherwise we shall be in a massive mess in social welfare, education and many other areas.
My second point is also a financial matter. Long-term care has been mentioned this morning. How can long-term care be afforded, particularly bearing in mind the fact that people now live so much longer than before? Nobody is really dealing with the issue of long-term care--we are just playing around with it. I know that the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), for whom I have great respect, has considered the issue, but society, the Government and the Opposition in general do a bit here and a bit there without considering it as a major issue.
Long-term care is a moral issue. It came up in 1601, it came up in 1834 and it is coming up again. Should a person spend their money on a cruise abroad every year, knowing that the state will look after them at the end--and it will--or should they save for their old age so that they will have independence? Those who are spent up when they reach 65 or 70 will be looked after in the same way as those who have saved throughout their lives. A saving society is being destroyed.
The issue is not a party one. The hon. Member for Birkenhead is pointing in certain directions, but the issue of what should be done is a problem for the whole House, not just for one party. A case in 1871 showed that if it is seen that people who have put nothing towards their care are as well looked after as those who look after themselves, certain sections of society will break down.
As we are considering social security today, I shall leave those two points and go on to a third issue, which I shall take by the neck. I cannot imagine any dispute on what I have said already, except on whether we are really facing up to the issues. I do not think that we are. However, there is dispute between hon. Members on both sides on my third issue--selection in education. The Government have grasped the nettle on selection in education and I must commend their actions and the contents of the Gracious Speech on that issue.
For a long time, the Labour party did not believe in selection and the Conservative party apologised for it, as though it were an evil aspect of human nature, but we
were born that way. Selection was not considered to be necessary. I am not a Darwinist on this, but selection is necessary. We are selecting all the time. We have been selected here. Some hon. Members may wonder why other hon. Members have been selected, but we have been selected and elected to the House. We have been through a series of selections. A candidate is put on a list and is interviewed time and again. If one is liked by a panel one day, one gets the chance to be elected to the House. Then, 50,000 to 70,000 people make their selection. The House lives on selection, and any party that does not like selection should not be in the House.
Mr. Frank Field:
It is not so much selection as deselection that worries hon. Members, is it not?
Sir Rhodes Boyson:
If the hon. Gentleman is under threat of deselection, most Conservative Members will hire a coach, go to his constituency and temporarily wear red roses to help him gain re-election to the House.
Mr. Peter Bottomley:
That will help.
Sir Rhodes Boyson:
I thank my hon. Friend for that comment.
There is selection in many spheres. The tone-deaf are not encouraged to take up music. I am slightly tone-deaf, and in church my wife always tells me to shut up if suddenly I feel an urge to sing at the top of my voice. Perhaps in church I should be selected to be placed with others who cannot sing in tune. In music, someone who has a part 1 certificate does not play with someone with a part 6, because they are not so selected. Everyone is good in some spheres and not in others.
Selection takes place in sport. There is no mixed-ability football. I shall believe in mixed-ability football when there is a centre forward with a wooden leg. We shall have mixed-ability football when there is such a player. There is no mixed ability in other spheres, but there certainly has been in education in recent years.
The question is how the selection is made, and whether it is fair. We have selection in many parts of the United Kingdom. There was an authority in the north-east that had 5 per cent. selection, whereas in Wales and in other areas there was 40 or 50 per cent. selection.
What happens to people who are selected out? Every time one person is selected in, someone else is not. What happens to them? Let us consider the situation in Halifax, in the north of England. The mess in comprehensive schools in dealing with lower ability pupils is worse than ever it was in secondary modern schools. Secondary modern schools never broke down like the school in Halifax has, because they took account of children's interests, interested them in what they should be doing and attached the school's image to achieving that goal. The system of merits and demerits in that school in Halifax, and bringing together two schools, illustrates the fact that comprehensive schools do not work in themselves. We must realise that pupils have different abilities and that they should be in separate classes.
Mixed-ability teaching is evil--that is a good four-letter word. Mixed-ability teaching makes the very able arrogant, because they think that they are the answer to everyone else. The poor little beggar who is in a mixed-ability class and cannot get on will put a brick
through the window--or he should do. If I were such a pupil, I would do that. It is an insult to such a pupil to have to go to school every day and never be able to shine in the classroom. At its worst, mixed-ability teaching is evil.
Let us consider some examples from abroad. Apart from Sweden and some places in the United States, there has always been some form of selective schooling. Sweden is about the only place in the world with lower abilities in mathematics than the United Kingdom, and one can draw one's own conclusion from that fact. The situation in America is also very messy. There is, however, selection in the rest of the world. There are three types of schools in Germany, and students can move easily between them. One school is academic, one is technical and one is general. General schools in Germany usually have better standards than most British comprehensive schools.
Before the collapse of the Soviet empire, I was visited by the headmaster of a school of mathematics in Moscow. Each year, after an examination, that school admits only 50 pupils in mathematics, out of a population of 5 million people. I believe that that is still the situation. The exams are called "the Olympiads". I do not suggest that we go to that extent here, but I know that Russia did quite well in getting to outer space--or perhaps it was inner space; I get mixed up about that, not having flown up there. That school did very well in the mechanics of what they were doing, and it worked very well.
At last the Government have grasped this issue. As I said earlier--I will say it again to remind hon. Members--the Labour party took the baton of non-selection and ran with it, and Conservative Members tried to slow down that drive. We now offer the alternative philosophy that selection is best for children. Children should be selected fairly and they should be able to move if their abilities blossom or decline. They should be given a fair chance in life.
"To implement a Rota, the Responsible Person at each hospital will fax Form 1 to the London Ambulance Service CAC, who will implement the Rota once the requisite three or more forms have been received. Each Responsible Person will also fax the form to all hospitals that their hospital is listed as 'Covering For' in the Cluster list, whether or not they form part of the Rota. This is to alert those nearby hospitals that may be affected by the Rota diversions. Form 1 will also be faxed to the EBS, Host Purchaser and any other ambulance service that may be affected. The form will specify the category(ies) of patients included in the Rota."
Mr. Frank Field:
The Minister, thank God, is against issuing parliamentary nasties.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |