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8.52 pm
Mr. Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead): Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to make my maiden speech this evening. I must begin by apologising to the Opposition for using a short period of the Supply day in order to obey the normal conventions governing such speeches. I hope that I will be forgiven for that.
In connection with those conventions, I want to introduce myself as the Member of Parliament for Hemel Hempstead. Of the four people who have been closely associated with the seat, three still have the distinction of serving in the House. One is the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page). Of the two others, one sits on the Opposition Benches and the other on the Government Benches. The one on this side is my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett), and many people in my constituency still think that he is their Member of Parliament.
My immediate predecessor was Robert Jones, who served with great distinction on environmental matters. In 1986, he produced a Bill to preserve hedgerows; he was
Chairman of the Select Committee on the Environment; and he later served as a Minister at the Department of the Environment. I pay tribute to his work in that connection and, as a member of various environmental organisations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, I hope to be able to continue his work. I particularly want hedgerows to be preserved, even if they contain somewhat fewer than seven separate identifiable species of leaf, which seems to me to be still too little protection. My predecessor served for 14 years, and I believe it would be fair to say that he was rather surprised by the general election result, but that is the way that things go in politics.
My constituency is called Hemel Hempstead, but it includes quite a lot of countryside around the new town that gives it its name. That countryside includes the Ashridge National Trust property, which I believe to be one of the few areas in the south of England that is owned by the National Trust. If one flies over the constituency, one gets a strong sense of greenery and of rural atmosphere.
There are villages in the north: Great Gaddesden and Little Gaddesden--in the British way, the latter is larger than the former--Markyate and Flamstead. In the south of the constituency is Kings Langley, which the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire used to represent and which I now do.
In the east of the constituency is the M1--most people only see the sign and zoom straight by--near Leverstock Green, where there is long-standing evidence of Roman settlements.
The major part of the constituency is Hemel Hempstead, a new town which has been fantastically successful. It is a great tribute to the concept of planning--the concept that each community in the town could have a green area for recreation and that good-quality housing could be provided for people who were being moved away from the devastation that had been caused by the second world war.
The town has running through it one of the longest stretches of canal in my constituency. I should very much like to see a major improvement in transport which might put Hemel Hempstead more prominently on the map.
To come to health matters, within that town is a hospital. The hospital is badly located, as so many hospitals are. Access to the general hospital is difficult; but it would not be difficult if a very short section of road were constructed from the A414, across a field that was long ago nominated for the purpose.
I have heard much from Opposition Members about how we might get additional funds into the health service, but I note that, in today's edition of The Times, it is suggested that the windfall tax proposed by the Government might be interpreted much more generously than has been thought.
I have taken the opportunity to suggest to my right hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) that my link road--very short, very cheap--would enable people to develop skills, that the revenue implications in future years would be very insignificant, and that that road might be used as part of that programme. After all, if young people must work, they must work on something, so why not a road to my hospital?
Perhaps in future we shall be more imaginative about the ways in which we raise funds than the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) has
suggested. I wrote to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions about my road, but I have not yet had a reply. I suspect that I shall not have one until after Wednesday 2 July, and in many ways this debate seems extremely premature, because we do not know what the funding arrangements will be.
The other aspect of my local hospitals is closed wards. Fifty-six beds are being pulled out of service. The local NHS trust has a deficit of £2.5 million, and the health authority has a reputed deficit of £10 million. That is the local variation of our inheritance from the Conservatives.
It is often felt that, when the Conservatives were in government, they wanted a system that meant that, if one could afford to go private, one would be cosseted and looked after, but, if one went into the public sector, one would have to make do with a really bad system. The idea was that as many people as possible who had the money would remove their custom from the public to the private sector.
Wards are closed for all sorts of reasons--sometimes for refurbishment. The closure of our wards means that older people are denied access to them, and paediatric provision is being cut. The fact is that wards are usually closed for lack of money.
It is therefore right to ask whether we are ingenious and committed enough to halt the decline in services which is our inheritance from the Opposition. I really hope that ways will be found to provide my general hospital with proper access, so that it can flourish and people can go there secure in the knowledge that they will be treated properly. I hope that they will not find, on turning a blind corner, a place full of dust and decay. They should not be worried about leaving sick relatives there.
Mrs. Theresa May (Maidenhead):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter) on an excellent maiden speech and on having spoken without notes. That is a brave move in the House--almost as brave as asking Ministers for money to be spent in his constituency.
During the short time I have been in the House, the mantra consistently heard from Ministers has been that they are doing whatever they are doing because it was in the manifesto. One might applaud that apparent commitment to the manifesto, were it not for the fact that Ministers have just as consistently turned their backs on the manifesto and broken their election promises. Take, for instance, the Local Government Finance (Supplementary Credit Approvals) Bill, which does not release local government's capital receipts, but merely increases borrowing. The assisted places scheme is being abolished, but no extra money is going into primary schools to reduce class sizes.
Nowhere has this disregard for election commitments and manifesto promises been so callous as in the subject under debate tonight, the national health service. Time
and again, before and during the election, the Labour party told us, and the electorate, that, if the Conservatives got back into government, the future of the NHS would be dire; but, if Labour got in, everything would be rosy. Suddenly, it was claimed, all the problems in the NHS would be solved: the electorate could trust the Labour party with the NHS.
Labour's manifesto has already been quoted by several hon. Members, but I make no apology for quoting it again. It is important to remember exactly what it said:
In his opening remarks, the Secretary of State gave some insight into the review, but it did not amount to much. He said that the criterion against which the proposed charges would be judged was whether access would be related to ability to pay or whether people might be put off using the national health service. As the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) pointed out, charging people for visiting a GP is entirely inconsistent with that criterion.
It is open to the Minister who will respond to the debate to state clearly that he accepts what is in the manifesto--that access will be based on need, not on ability to pay--and recognises that, as both Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members have pointed out, charging people to visit a GP is contrary to the principles set out in the Labour party manifesto. Will he put our minds at rest tonight by saying that there will be no charges for hospital stays, access to GPs or prescriptions for pensioners?
It is a simple matter. The Labour party manifesto sets out principles for the national health service. Either the Government believe in those principles or they do not. If they believe in them, they should rule out the three possibilities of charges that are raised in the motion, because they are clearly incompatible with the principles set out in the manifesto. I urge them to give a commitment tonight, not only to Opposition Members but to Government Back Benchers and people who are extremely worried by statements that they have heard from the Secretary of State for Health on those issues.
Last Friday, this issue hit the front page of the Maidenhead Advertiser, the main paper in my constituency--[Hon. Members: "A very important
paper."] Absolutely. Labour Members may scoff, but the issue hit the front page because of the significant number of my constituents who will be affected if pensioners are charged for prescriptions.
My constituents are extremely worried, and they want to know why a Labour Government who, in opposition, said that the health service was safe in their hands, and claimed that the Conservative party was a threat to pensioners' access to the health service and to pensioners' way of life, were now considering charging pensioners for prescriptions, and had gone back on statements made during the election and in their manifesto.
"Labour commits itself anew to the historic principle: that if you are ill or injured there will be a national health service there to help; and access to it will be based on need and need alone--not on your ability to pay".
Yet, a few weeks after the election, the new Secretary of State for Health announces that there will be a review, with no holds barred. Everything is on the agenda:
"We are ruling nothing out".
When asked specifically about charges for seeing a GP, he said:
"You can't pick bits out of it. We are going to look at everything."
Today, the Secretary of State said that he was paying the price for telling the truth. He cannot, however, have it both ways. Either the Labour election manifesto was telling the truth or the Secretary of State is. The statement that access to the NHS will be based on need and need alone, not ability to pay, is incompatible with the Secretary of State's refusal to rule out charges for pensioners' prescriptions, stays in hospital, or visits to the GP. I challenge the Government to tell us which we should believe: the Labour party manifesto or the Secretary of State for health?
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