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Mr. Hughes: The hon. Gentleman is raising an old argument in trying to deal with two embarrassments afflicting him and his colleagues. The first embarrassment is that the Liberal Democrats had a costed manifesto, while Labour did not--the figures did not add up. One cannot defend public services or
- "save the NHS in 14 days"
The second embarrassment, which the hon. Member for Bolsover cannot cover, is that those on his Front Bench spend more time on news management than on health service management. They manage the figures on allocations to health authorities, and they will try to manage tomorrow's figures on the waiting lists so as to pretend that they are not going up as much as they would have done, but actually have come down a bit--although that is only because of summer. Their attempt at news management has not worked well over the past few weeks over tobacco, and it is not working well on anything else in the health service.
Mr. Skinner:
Your "Focus" leaflets are full of lies.
Mr. Hughes:
The hon. Gentleman and the rest of his colleagues know that the public services are funded from taxation raised by Government and spent by Government. Until his Government understand that they cannot make promises without asking people fairly to pay, it will be his side that is in increasing difficulty, not ours. We said the same thing before the election, during the election and after the election, and, in the by-elections being fought this week, people will know that that is the truth.
The Labour amendment asks us to be grateful for the money that has gone into these services--of course we are grateful for it. It is right to put extra money into the health service; but the much trumpeted £1.5 billion amounts, after inflation, to only £400 million. For the person waiting for an operation, that means a much longer wait--if he ever gets to have one at all. The capital building programme under Labour is the same as it was under the Tories: there has been no increase in public money at all.
It amounts to £1.3 billion this year of public money--
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. Alan Milburn)
indicated dissent.
Mr. Hughes:
I am talking about public money for which the Government are responsible. If the Minister of State is saying that public money does not count, he had better come clean and tell the public that they will henceforth be paying out private money for the NHS, for education, and for social services.
My party stands for public investment in public services. We do not believe it right to tell people that, if they cannot pay for something, they must go without.
As for the Conservative amendment, the Conservatives say that my party cannot hold the Government to account, because we are in effect in a coalition with them. The Conservative amendment is notable for the absence of a single word about health. I wonder whether the voters of Winchester will be interested in that; given the candidate there, it might indeed be wiser to say nothing. Nor is there a word in the amendment about social services.
We are willing to engage in partnership politics. Indeed, we were willing to engage in that when the Conservatives were in office, on issues such as Ireland, Europe and the middle east.
Mr. Keith Simpson (Mid-Norfolk):
Hard choices.
Mr. Hughes:
We are quite willing to make hard choices, and we have trooped through the Lobbies in the past when hard choices had to be made. We are happy to engage in partnership politics when it comes to cleaning up politics, dealing with sleaze, recording donations and so on.
We do not, however, want partnership politics when the Government go in to the election saying that they will ban tobacco advertising, when they then say that they will ban tobacco sponsorship, and when they then suddenly take formula one off the agenda. As I have told the Secretary of State, there can be partnership politics for the future of the NHS. We want it to be secure beyond party politics; but we will be merciless in our attacks on the Government when they claim to want to save the NHS, but do not come up with the goods to enable them to do so.
We are in favour of partnership politics when it comes to constitutional reform, but we will be very determined on issues such as fair voting, to ensure that Labour does not perpetuate a con. If we are to have reform, it must result in a fair, not a rigged, system.
The Tories ask people to look at the Liberal Democrats' record in local government. We are proud of that record. That is why our colleagues in councils throughout the country win awards as the most popular local authorities, and gain satisfaction ratings of 80, 85 and even 89 per cent. That is why we are now the second party in local government, having overtaken the Tories. We are willing to go back to the electorate, and fight for our local services.
Mr. Hughes:
I will not give way. We are not involved in simplistic calls for higher taxation. We believe in fair taxation and sufficient taxation. When there is a crisis in the public services, we believe that it needs a crisis response. The public services in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England--ask any councillor or employee in the public service--are clearly under threat.
New Labour promised much, but is not delivering. We do not trust the rhetoric: we look at the figures and the facts. Public services are the common bloodstream of our people--they keep the heart of the nation beating. They
are the very activities that preserve the common wealth. Without public services, there can be no private success. Unlike some people in the House, therefore, we do not believe that there is no such thing as society. We believe that there is such a thing, and that it is held together by decent, properly funded public services.
We therefore say to the Government, "You are on trial. So far, you have let the people down. So far, you have promised much but delivered less. So far, you have asked the people to believe you, but you have not delivered the goods."
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Frank Dobson):
I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
Mr. Mike Hancock (Portsmouth, South):
It is not in real terms.
Mr. Dobson:
We hear a cry from the Liberal Democrat Benches, "It is not real money." I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the doctors think it is real money, the nurses think it is real money, and it will be a real benefit to--
Mr. Hancock:
The spin doctors.
Mr. Dobson:
Not the spin doctors--the doctors and nurses working in hospitals. They welcomed that announcement because they have a bit of common sense, which is more than can be said for many Liberal Democrat Members.
We are finding an extra £10 million to treat breast cancer this year. That is real money, bringing real benefit to women suffering from breast cancer. We are finding an extra £5 million for children's intensive care. That will bring real benefit to real children who need children's intensive care.
Next year, we are finding an extra £1.2 billion--£1,200 million--for the national health service. On top of that, with the agreement of the Chancellor, we can keep any money that we save on prescription fraud and any money that we save on the preposterous spending on insurance that was introduced under the Tory system. We shall be able to keep all the money that we raise under the Road Traffic Act 1988 when we have changed the law so that we get in the money that was supposed to be collected over the years.
The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey has invented a new way of measuring the money that goes to the health service--the NHS current account. That is not a good measure of what gets to hospitals, because that figure, NHS current, includes the running costs of the Department of Health, including my civil servants, and that certainly has not increased, because we have cut spending on the Department's running costs by 2.7 per cent. I hope the hon. Gentleman agrees that that is a good cut.
The hon. Gentleman should also know that that budget, NHS current, includes family health services, the stuff people get when they visit the general practitioner's surgery, and we have increased that, not by 1.9 per cent., but by 4.7 per cent. That is money going where people want it--into primary care, which is what they receive when they visit their doctor or the practice nurse.
It is not true that the increase in that current account is the smallest for five years. Our increase was the same as last year and it is higher than that in the previous year, even on the measure that the Liberal Democrats have chosen. Then they shift to saying that the growth is less than an average of 3.1 per cent. That is not true: it has not been 3.1 per cent. in the past five years, but has averaged 1.7 per cent. during the past five years.
The Liberal Democrats are asking the House to believe that the extra money that we have provided for the national health service will not go as far as the smaller sum that the Tories provided. That may make statistical sense to a statistician, but it makes none to a human being.
The Liberal Democrats are comparing the Tories' November 1996 Budget, using the 2 per cent. gross domestic product deflator, with our July 1997 Budget, using the honest 2.75 per cent. GDP deflator. They are therefore not comparing like with like, but are giving the Tory Budget the benefit of 2 per cent. deflation and judging us against 2.75 per cent. They must apply one deflator or the other.
"welcomes the extra £1.5 billion the new Government has made available to the National Health Service since taking office; notes that this is more than the Liberal Democrats promised in their Election Manifesto; further welcomes the £100 million shifted this year out of NHS red tape and into frontline patient care, including £10 million for breast cancer treatment and £5 million for children's intensive care; further welcomes the £1.3 billion hospital building programme announced since the election; welcomes the £2.3 billion extra over Conservative spending plans announced in the Budget for education, including £1.3 billion to tackle the backlog of repairs in schools and to bring further improvements for education in the future; further welcomes the public/private partnership approach adopted in education which will increase that sum further to £2 billion by 2002; welcomes the start that has been made on achieving the Government's pledge to reduce infant class sizes and to phase out the assisted places scheme; welcomes the enormous strides that have begun in improving standards in schools; and congratulates the Government on the commitment that has been thus shown to the public services, in particular in education, health and social services.".
The problem with the motion moved by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) on behalf of the Liberal Democrats is that it is plain wrong. It says that the Government will spend less on the national health service than did their predecessor. That is untrue. This year, we have found an extra £300 million to help with the winter pressures.
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