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Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): Where is she?
Mr. Howard: It is not surprising that the right hon. Lady is not here because she would not want to hear what I am about to remind the House of. She said:
Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton): I raised with the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), correspondence from consultants in Wonford hospital in Exeter showing that the craven focus on targets meant that they could no longer make clinical judgments about people on the list who had deteriorated and whose treatment needed to be brought forward. Is this not an example of the Government thinking that they know better than people who have trained for many years and who put patients' interests first?
Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend is right.
What is the result of all the targets? In the national health service, there are now more administrators than beds. A survey today reported that the national health service ranks between services in Slovenia and Poland for offering choice to patients. As I said, 300,000 patients without insurance were forced to go private last yearnot by choice but because the service on the NHS is so poor.
Figures today from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority show that one in three children left primary school last year unable to read, write or count properly. Last year, more than 30,000 students left school without a single qualification. The gap between children in Britain's inner cities and elsewhere is growing. The British people are right to think that they deserve better. People are right to demand that the Government stop wasting their money. People are right to demand that the Government end their obsession with ludicrous targets, which prevent public service reform, not promote it. People are right to demand a Government who give them a fair deal.
Mr. Nigel Beard (Bexleyheath and Crayford): Given the right hon. and learned Gentleman's diatribe against targets generally, if he were in charge of a major programme of public investment, how would he control it to ensure that the money achieves what is intended; or is it that he does not expect himself or his party ever to be involved in a major programme of public investment?
Mr. Howard: It is certainly not the latter. The hon. Gentleman asks that question at the right time because I am about to deal with precisely that point.
There is another waya better way: the way of real reform. Real reform means allowing teachers to restore discipline in their classrooms. It means allowing police officers to get back on the streets to fight crime. It means allowing doctors to treat patients on the basis of clinical need, without constant diktats from Whitehall. It means trusting professionals to get on with their job. It means being willing to learn from the success of other countries. We want the priorities in our public services
to be driven by the needs and wishes of patients, parents and local communities, not by distant civil servants sitting behind a desk in Whitehall.Last week, the Prime Minister told us what he had to offer: his 10th relaunchmore of the same. He said:
The Government no longer even try to claim that services have improved; instead, they admit defeat. As the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said so memorably on the "Today" programme on Friday:
Can there ever have been a Government who raised people's hopes so high, only to see them so cruelly dashed? Can there ever have been a Government who
have promised so much, but delivered so little? All they offer for the future are more empty promises. This is a Government who have lost their purpose. This is a Government who have lost their direction. This is a Government who have now lost every vestige of their legitimacy to govern. The sooner they go the better it will be for patients, parents and all the people of this country.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gordon Brown): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
Mr. Brown: I shall give way in a moment.
We have also met the main juvenile offenders target, concerning the time between arrest and sentence; our homelessness target; and our debt relief target. It is interesting that the shadow Chancellor should spend half an hour talking about targets and fail to mention all the economic targets. We have met our inflation target, our debt target, our public borrowing target and our employment target. We said that 250,000 young people would move from welfare to work, and we not only met but far exceeded that target.
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