| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Frank Dobson): And so it was.
Mr. Dorrell: That is an interesting recognition from the right hon. Gentleman. On the strength of her piercing insight into the managerial skills of the traditional health service, the right hon. Lady was transferred and given responsibility for the whole of British industry and commerce. It is clearly easy to impress with one's understanding of managerial strength. She departed quite soon after I became Secretary of State for Health.
The second spokesman whom I faced was the present Secretary of State for Social Security. It is fair to say that she suffered from no such blinding flash of inspiration when she was looking at the history of the national health service. She, after all, was a member of the health team who argued during the 1987 Parliament that the establishment of local management of trusts was "a monumental irrelevance". She said that there was no demand among Britain's general practitioners for the establishment of fundholding--words that she had to eat when it became clear that more than half of them demanded fundholding status. At a meeting that we both attended she proudly described the private finance initiative as the privatisation initiative. We had better introduce her to the hon. Member for Norwich, South, who seems to have disappeared again. I would be pleased to organise a tutorial by the hon. Gentleman, with his old Labour background, so that he can ensure that the Secretary of State for Social Security properly understands the benefits of the private finance initiative and the fact that it has nothing to do with privatisation.
I remember the right hon. Lady, during her time as health spokesman, being responsible for what was best described as a high-octane whinge. For me, she summed up new Labour. She was dressed by the hon. Member for Stevenage (Ms Follett), coached by the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), and educated at the best schools--schools that the Government want to deny to children whose parents cannot afford to pay the fees. She was a new label on an old and bitter vintage.
The right hon. Lady moved on to apply--[Interruption.] I am waiting for the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) to rise to his feet to defend the new Secretary of State for Social Security.
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock):
I have been very patient and have not intervened yet in this Parliament. It occurs to me to ask what the devil all this claptrap has to do with the Gracious Speech. We should be talking about the Government's programme, not the dress sense and style of people who have served on the Opposition Benches and who now form an important part of the new Government.
Mr. Dorrell:
The hon. Gentleman ought to arrange an appointment with the hon. Member for Stevenage. I suspect that not all my hon. Friends are aware that she
The present Secretary of State for Social Security moved on to apply her forensic skills to the problems that had baffled my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), the previous Secretary of State. We look forward to seeing how she finds her way through that particular jungle. She was replaced as Labour's health spokesperson by the present Secretary of State for National Heritage, the right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith).
When the right hon. Gentleman arrived, he announced to the world that he had been tasked with forming a health policy for the Labour party. I thought that that was a trifle ungallant as a way in which to refer to his predecessor. It was, however, perfectly true that his apparent commitment to draw up a health policy for his party was at least novel. I have good news for the new Secretary of State for Health. The right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury did not tie his hands with anything that need constrain his options in terms of health policy.
The present Secretary of State for National Heritage held the health brief for the Labour party for roughly nine months. It is not unfair to say that the future historian of the national health service will not devote a whole chapter to the evolution of health policy under the Secretary of State for Health's predecessor.
It is more likely that the right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury will be remembered for the judgment passed on his efforts by the Health Service Journal. It said:
The right hon. Gentleman is not an altogether convincing face of new Labour. I do not think that he would present himself as being the authentic voice of the changed Labour party. He comes with attitudes aplenty and prejudices aplenty--all of them on the record. As yet, his hands have not been much tied by policy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Paul Boateng):
Get on with it.
Mr. Dorrell:
I now propose to satisfy the Under-Secretary of State. He is not yet a right hon. Member, but no doubt he will be before long. I propose to move on to deal with some of the aspects of policy to which Labour's health team now have to address their minds.
Mr. Boateng:
It is about time.
Mr. Dorrell:
It is about time that they did so; that is right. They were in opposition for 18 years without a
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow):
While the right hon. Gentleman is giving advice to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, what advice would he give on the serious problem of the Human Tissue Act 1961? With his experience as the previous Secretary of State for Health, what advice would he give on a kidney donor and organ opt-out proposal of the kind that I and others were constantly suggesting during the previous Parliament, both to him and to the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam)? On reflection, might he not have had a more benign attitude towards the matter?
Mr. Dorrell:
The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) raises an important point, which reveals the difficulties in each proposed way forward. We sought to ensure that where there was a demand for tissue to be transplanted, there were proper safeguards, but that the tissue was available with those safeguards being observed. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will pursue the subject with his Government with the same enthusiasm that he did with my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) and me. Frankly, the problems in that area do not get any easier because there has been a change of Government. I would be happy to engage in a detailed discussion on the matter either with the hon. Gentleman or with the Secretary of State for Health.
I now turn to the health issues that the Government have brought forward in the Queen's Speech. First, they have committed themselves to introducing legislation to allow the private finance initiative to go ahead and to clarify the legal position of trusts entering PFI contracts. I welcome the fact that they are introducing that legislation. I think that the Secretary of State will confirm that there was a Bill in his top left-hand drawer, as it were, when he took office on 2 or 3 May. If the new Bill is essentially the Bill that was agreed before the election, I welcome the fact that he is proceeding apace with that measure.
I ask the Secretary of State when he addresses the House to clarify what exactly his policy is on the use of private finance projects to deliver clinical support services where there is consent and agreement among the local clinicians about the use of the private sector. There was an article in the Financial Times on 14 May which reported:
It is important that the Government maintain a degree of flexibility on the issue, but that was not the line taken by the right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury in the election campaign; nor was it the line taken by the present Prime Minister during the election campaign. Both of them criticised the PFI project at the Sheffield Royal Hallamshire hospital precisely on the ground that it recognised that there was a grey area around some of the clinical support services. It would be nice to hear from the Secretary of State that some of the rhetoric in the election campaign on that issue was wrong. If he
will not recognise that, will he disown his unnamed Minister who was talking to Nick Timmins in yesterday's Financial Times?
While we are talking about the capital programme, I hope that the Secretary of State can clarify another point which relates to the position of London hospitals. Labour has clearly committed itself to a moratorium on the process of change in London's hospitals. I think that that is a step backwards because it will inhibit the process of change and the process of commissioning new facilities within London's health service. More important from the point of view of the House is that we need to know from the Government what kind of review it will be.
When the previous Government set up a review of London's hospitals, it was headed by Sir Bernard Tomlinson. It was a total review of all the options which looked at bed availability, each specialty in London in detail and the implications of the proposed changes for the research programme of the national health service. It made it clear that it wanted to listen to the views not just of the big battalions within the health service, but of the health authorities and of the general practitioners. It wanted to apply a proper priority to the development of primary care within the health service and it took three years to deliver its conclusions.
I do not ask the Secretary of State immediately to recognise that all the conclusions of that process were right, but I do ask him to recognise that a review process that took three years to produce its conclusions is unlikely to be supplanted convincingly by a review headed by a Minister of State which has been given seven months to produce the answer. Especially it will not be convincing when the Secretary of State has already ruled out one possible conclusion of the review. He was reported in the Evening Standard as saying:
"At the last election, the Natural Law Party proposed to improve the health of the nation through yogic flying. Mr. Smith's plan to levitate standards in the NHS by cutting 'bureaucracy and red tape' shows a similar lack of concern for cause and effect wrapped up in mumbo-jumbo . . . Mr. Smith is too bright, and Mr. Blair too astute, surely, to believe all this."
The right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury came to health to provide a policy and his epitaph is that what he left behind was yogic flying dressed up in mumbo-jumbo. That point brings us to the new Secretary of State.
"Radiology and pathology may continue to be open to private finance deals in the National Health Service."
It said, however, that when a Minister was asked whether that was true or false, he said,
"'We will have to wait and see . . . It remained a grey area.'"
I think that that is true; it is a grey area.
"This Government will not end up endorsing the previous Government's policy".
I do not ask the right hon. Gentleman to endorse the previous Government's policy, but I do ask him not to set up a review and then to rule out potential conclusions before the review has even started.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |