| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
7.39 pm
Mr. Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con): It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter), who gave us an elegant explanation of why the Chancellor's curriculum vitae has remained firmly in London rather than being dispatched to Washington. I hope later to pick up on the wider economic themes that he outlined.
First, however, I want to pick up the debate's health theme. I listened to the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) on expenditure in Hampshire. I want to lay claim to his speech and say simply, "Delete Hampshire; insert Surrey." The situation is precisely the same in Surrey, which is why there is a crisis in the public service provision of education and health in Surrey, given the relative expenditure in the south-east.
As I listened to the Secretary of State produce his litany of figures on the numbers of doctors and nurses, it seemed like a flashback to the 1980s when I watched the then Prime Minister—I watched from outside the Chamber—at Question Time reciting statistics in exactly the same fashion about how the health service was improving. Of course, it was improving then, because there was a real increase in health expenditure throughout the time of the Conservative Government. However, a remark made by the hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins) was especially important. He said that the output per unit of resource was quite remarkable during those years. The Conservative
party's focus on reform in the health service ensured that the output per unit of resource was sustained throughout its period of government.If the Government wonder why they have such a trifling increase in output per unit of resource despite throwing such an enormous amount at the health service, perhaps I can give one small explanation by citing an example that a junior doctor in my local hospital gave me. He pointed out that the Government claim that there are 10,000 more doctors than there were in 1997, of whom 5,000 are junior doctors. However, one should examine the number of hours for which those doctors work. Their hours have reduced from 72 hours a week in 1997 to 56 now. When the Government calculate the increased number of doctors, they calculate the number of whole-time equivalents on the basis of doctors working 40 hours a week. If we use the Government's methods to calculate whole-time equivalents by considering hours worked on the ground, we find that there are perhaps 1,447 fewer doctors in terms of hours worked. That explains why output has failed to keep up with the resources devoted. Of course, the figures calculated by the junior doctor are based on an assumption about the reduction in the number of hours worked by doctors, but it makes a fairly convincing case for why the Government face enormous difficulties in achieving a rise in output that will begin to measure up to the resources provided to the health service.
It was a huge treat to hear the eloquent testament of the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), to the property-owning democracy. A friend of mine, Mr. Peter Scrope, was the right hon. Gentleman's opponent in Darlington in 1997, and he would have enjoyed the philosophical journey that the right hon. Gentleman has undertaken over the past six or seven years.
Mr. David Ruffley (Bury St. Edmunds) (Con): A bit late.
Mr. Blunt: Better late than never. The right hon. Gentleman's eloquent testament to the need for reform and a property-owning democracy was extremely welcome, even though it came from the other side of the House.
I would have been more impressed by the statistics cited by the Secretary of State, and, indeed, the case presented by the right hon. Member for Darlington when he was Secretary of State, if the figures had not been subject to the most shocking manipulation. Targets themselves manipulate. They manipulate the behaviour of the health service as clinicians' priorities become secondary to the political priority of delivering targets.
Of course, the measurement of achievement of those targets is manipulated. We are all aware of waiting lists for waiting lists and of the redefinition of parts of accident and emergency departments as observation wards so that it can be claimed that people have been moved out of those departments. A deeply unhappy story from my constituency shows political manipulation in the health service through the amalgamation of Crawley and East Surrey hospitals into a single trust. Simply disgraceful decisions were
made to serve political interests in the marginal Labour seat of Crawley. I have made this case many times, and I shall continue to remind the Government of it. The exercise not only put patients in the area served by the trust in danger by twisting clinical priorities to fit the political necessities of the hon. Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt), but had a financial cost: some £50,000 a month of health money was taken away from the people of the United Kingdom because the subsidy to pay for the exercise came directly from the Department of Health. Additionally, there was a £200,000 study to investigate the possibility of building a new hospital at Pease Pottage, although it found that that would be economically impossible unless one wanted to bankrupt the entire health economy in east Surrey and north-west Sussex.The right hon. Member for Darlington was correct about the Budget's political astuteness. In many ways, it did virtually nothing, and I suppose Conservative Members should be grateful when a Labour Chancellor does virtually nothing because that is usually much better than his doing anything at all. However, my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) pointed out the totally non-Budget elements of the Budget—the acceptance of the Barker report and the appalling proposal that planning should take place at regional level. That represents a total demolition of local democracy because it will avoid responsibility being exercised by people on the ground who are closest to where planning decisions should be taken. They will not be able to decide, in the interests of people whom they represent, whether they want a liberal or restrictive planning process.
My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire referred to the excellent speech on Wednesday by our right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley). He talked about the length of the economic fuse in the hands of any Chancellor. The Chancellor claims credit for the current performance of the economy, but one should examine the trends that he inherited in 1997. Growth had been sustained since 1992–93 and the fiscal position was improving extremely rapidly. Inflation had been tamed—we had delivered inflation of 2.5 per cent. in 1997—and unemployment was falling so fast that it made a complete mockery of Labour's policy to deal with youth unemployment. Its election manifesto contained a target of dealing with 250,000 young unemployed people, but by the time it got into office, 167,000 of them had already found work. We had a 10 per cent. savings rate, and our future pension provision for the people of the United Kingdom was the envy of the rest of Europe. We also had a high position in the competitiveness league in the developed world. The Chancellor received a golden economic inheritance that was built on work done in the economy, which to a degree had started in 1976 when the International Monetary Fund began to dictate economic policy to the previous Labour Government.
The Chancellor has gambled successfully on his growth forecasts over the past year or two. His growth forecast last year turned out to be a successful gamble. His Budget presents us with a growth forecast for the next two years of 3.25 per cent., which is well above the
trend. Nearly 20 years ago, when I was stationed in Germany with the Army, I spent some of my quieter evenings at the casino in Bad Oeynhausen indulging in a little gambling. A friend and I had a little system. We went around the roulette tables to find a trend, which we would bet against. For an uncomfortably long time, we kept leaving the casino with more money than we went in with. Eventually, the probability of that trend continuing meant that we went back where we started.My point is that trends end. To rely on a presentation of economic growth of 3.25 per cent. for the next two years and 2.75 per cent. for 2006 is a pretty serious gamble against an underlying position that has wholly changed since 1997. Public expenditure is set to rise by £120 million a year by 2007–08. Private debt has risen by 93 per cent. to nearly £1,000 billion since 1997. The private savings rate collapsed from 10 per cent. down to a lowly 3.3 per cent. a couple of years ago. It is now at 5 per cent. Our pension provision is worsening rapidly from the position inherited in 1997, when the UK was the second largest relative investor in countries as remotely connected to the UK as Mexico. That investment happened because there was an enormous amount of money, managed by the City of London, that would provide for the future pensions of the people of the UK.
On the television programme "If . . . The Generations Fall Out", to be shown, I think, on Wednesday, people speculate that our future pensioners will not be properly provided for and there will be a huge battle between their interests and those of the working population. That was simply not the case in 1997. The Chancellor has presided over a huge missed opportunity.
The scale of private debt and public debt is accelerating. The simple fact is that those trends are not sustainable. There will have to be a reckoning, which will come at the cost of economic growth. We will need a much tighter fiscal policy, which will mean tax rises and, quite probably, expenditure cuts from the plans presented in the Budget.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |