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Paul Farrelly: I did not expect to intervene on the subject of coal mine methane in a health debate but I suppose that there is a health spin-off. I remember my dad converting from methane—the old town gas—to North sea gas years ago. Does my hon. Friend agree, notwithstanding his point about coal mine methane, that it is different from coal bed methane, and that we do not want a lot of mining companies trampling over
virgin greenfield land trying to tap into seams of coal under the ground, as they tried to do in north Staffordshire after stripping assets out of local pits?
Mr. McCabe: My understanding is that, although health has served as part of the focus for the debate, it is an economic debate on the Budget and we are relatively free to range across subjects, but I take his point. What he describes would be entirely unacceptable and bears no relationship to the matter that I was describing, which is about trying to recycle coal mine methane in order to produce electricity and in so doing relieve the stress on the environment. I am grateful to him for making that point.
I am aware that the Budget has been well received in a great many quarters. School teachers in my constituency have told me about their plans to build on the progress that they have been able to make. They are already describing equipment that they will purchase and renew. They are already planning what to do for children in the years ahead. People who work in the skills and training sector are already looking forward to what we can do to develop and boost areas of our economy in which we have real difficulties and deficiences.
I understand that the director general of the Confederation of British Industry has welcomed the Budget. I noticed that not too many Members on the Opposition Benches referred to that today. Of course, pensioners know the difference between what is really in their pockets and what they have a real guarantee of receiving, and promises that are ever out of reach.
There is really only one obvious place where the Budget has not been welcome: the Opposition Benches. Rather than acknowledging demands for education, training and investment, rather than celebrating the low level of Government debt compared with that of our G7 partners and rather than congratulating the Chancellor on helping this country to avoid the recessions that have done so much damage to the American and Japanese economies and to those in the eurozone, Opposition Members have insisted that this is a Budget that we cannot afford.
I have listened with fascination for some time now to the arguments advanced by the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) and by the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin). They like to tell us that they are changed men—new men, as one of them suggested earlier today: the right hon. and learned Gentleman would like us to forget all about his past.
Paul Farrelly: Is my hon. Friend puzzling, like me, about the real agenda behind Conservative policies? I shall quote what the current chairman of the Conservative party has said about reconstruction:
- "As one of, I think, the unreconstructed Thatcherite free-marketeers in the shadow cabinet, I'm a great believer genetically in markets . . . The biggest problem that we have in the NHS is that it is not a proper market."
Mr. McCabe: I am certainly not puzzled. I could not agree more with those comments.
The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe would like us to forget about his past; but, I remember, as do millions of others, what happened to the economy of the west midlands the last time a Conservative Government implemented the policies that the official Opposition now advocate. I have heard the Tories telling us that people are best at deciding how best to spend their tax money, but I remember that Lady Thatcher, as she now is, boasted in 1979 that income tax was too high and that the Conservatives would reduce it and pick up the lost revenues by indirect taxes. That is exactly what they did. It is true that the Conservatives reduced income tax when they came to power in 1979, but in their first Budget, VAT on what were then called luxury items rose from 12.5 per cent. to 15 per cent. and VAT on everything else rose from 8 per cent. to 15 per cent.—virtually double. That is how they believe in people spending their own money.
Mr. Lansley: While the hon. Gentleman is talking about income tax and VAT, perhaps he would like to tell the House and, in turn, his constituents that the Chancellor expects to increase the take on income tax by £15 billion and the revenue from VAT by £10 billion in the next financial year—so there will be more taxes and more taxes again from the Chancellor.
Mr. McCabe: I have no problem with increasing the tax yield in an expanding economy. I do not know anyone, other than the hon. Gentleman, who would find that a problem. The way that the Conservatives trust people to spend their money is by creating the illusion of tax cuts by banging up the VAT rate. That is what they did in 1979, when they also taxed sickness and unemployment benefits and doubled the cost of NHS prescriptions. In their second Budget, they doubled the cost of prescriptions again. While they were doing all that to the British people, they cut public spending on education, schools, health, transport, housing and most other areas. In fact, they cut spending on anything that really mattered. That is the real record, but the Tories talk about affordability and waste. In fact, they were so successful in 1980 that their second Budget was described as the meanest by any Chancellor since 1931.
What was the effect of that great Tory approach? It was the collapse of industries like a set of dominoes right across the west midlands. We were plunged into recession and millions were thrown out of work. Senior managers and factory floor workers were all the same. Many never worked again, and their sons and daughters became the generation who lived in the workless twilight zone of Tory Britain—a generation purged of opportunity and condemned to be the victims of economic madness, Tory obsessions and Tory prejudice.
Alistair Burt: I am deeply moved by what the hon. Gentleman says but, if that is the case, why on earth did his constituents not vote for socialism at the past two elections? Why do those on the Government Front Bench parade a modern mixed economy? Why do they talk about all the reforms that the Conservative Government introduced on which the Chancellor is now
basing the success of his economy? What happened to the socialism that the hon. Gentleman is spouting about? It never worked and never appeared—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. This is meant to be an intervention, not a speech.
Mr. McCabe: The hon. Gentleman should be deeply moved, but he appears to have missed the fact that my constituents and the British public voted in the last two elections for economic sanity as opposed to the economic madness that they suffered under him and his lot, and would do again. At the time that the Tories were doing all that to the British people, they were boasting that it was a price worth paying. I say any price is worth paying to avoid going back to those desperate years.
My experience and that of most of my constituents and a whole generation in the west midlands tells us that cheap soundbites about credit card Budgets are nothing more than a cover for cuts, recession and untold misery at the very time that we need investment, expansion and growth. That is why I am clear that there is only one man capable of delivering on the British economy. That is why I am delighted to back this Budget.
9.22 pm
Mr. Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire) (Con): I am entertained by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe); I enjoy listening to him. He was at risk of speaking in a way that was interesting and that reflected a certain amount of expertise. The problem is that that was restricted to his discussion of coal mine methane. Everything else was neither interesting nor displayed any expertise whatever.
Still less did the hon. Gentleman's remarks have anything to do with health. Of course, he was right to say that he was free to talk about other issues, but it is surprising that so few Labour Members have sought to talk about health. Presumably, in Cabinet, the Secretary of State sought a debate on health because he saw it as a priority issue for the Government. However, Labour Members did not agree with him. Thirteen speeches have been made by Back Benchers; nine of them were made by Conservative Members and all but one—I shall return to that point in a minute—spoke about the substance of the issue of health and with experience of their constituencies. Just four Labour Members made speeches and only three of them spoke about health. Apart from the speech of their Front-Bench spokesman, what was the Liberal Democrat contribution? Nothing.
I am used to Conservatives winning the argument, but I normally expect the Government at least to mount an argument. However, they did not even do that; they simply caved in. They hope that no one is out there watching and that no one cares whether Parliament debates the Budget—still less debates health. Now, for once, we have it on the record that we care about health and what is happening to the NHS. We care about the health experience of our constituents, and we are prepared to debate the substance of the issue.
Let me say a few words about the Secretary of State's speech. He was invited to blame his predecessor for the current situation and verged on doing so—we are
pleased that his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), is with us and that he contributed to the debate—but in truth, he actually blames his predecessor but one. He made that perfectly obvious when he said that the Government made a start on remedying what they saw as the failings of the NHS with the NHS plan in July 2000. Everything that came before that represented two or three years of completely wasted time—although we have had pretty much six years of wasted time from the Government.The Secretary of State made one or two points of substance to which I want to respond. He talked about the additional money in the Budget that is intended for clinical research, which I welcome. As chair of the all-party group on stroke, I welcome the fact that he has included stroke among the three diseases—Alzheimer's, stroke and diabetes—on which there will be an additional emphasis on clinical research. I hope that he and his colleagues will ensure that research on stroke is directed not only at the disease itself, but at rehabilitation and how we can best achieve that.
If I may digress for a moment, it is interesting to note the lack of research on stroke compared with the main diseases of cancer and coronary heart disease, so the announcement is extremely timely. We need to begin to understand better the circumstances in which we could intervene early during stroke management and stem the extent of the disease. In the past, we tended to say that if people have a stroke, they are admitted, and that if we are lucky, they are admitted to a specialist stroke unit. Perhaps the Government will be able to tell us at the end of next week how many people are admitted to specialist stroke units. Unfortunately, the figure will not be 100 per cent., which ought to be the target in the national service framework for older people.
In the past, we tended to say that the degree of disability and deficit that results from a stroke is pretty much fixed and that the effects can be mitigated only through rehabilitation. However, in the future—perhaps research will enable us to identify this—we may be able to use new treatments such as Desmosteplase, which is in use and licensed in America. Although imaging is required for such treatments, their use in early intervention tends to reduce the extent of stroke deficit. Tens of thousands of people are affected by stroke each year and we might be able to reduce the extent of their disease. I welcome the research on stroke. When we discuss health, it is important to talk about health issues rather than only funding and how much money should go where, which is why I welcomed what the Secretary of State said.
The Secretary of State briefly mentioned drugs for children. I commend the work carried out before the 1997 election by the Select Committee on Health under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe). The Committee published reports on children's health just prior to that election, one of which drew specific attention to the lack of clinical trials of such drugs, and especially the lack of drugs for which there were protocols on, and indications of, the extent to which they were suitable to be prescribed to children. It is important to begin to remedy the problem so that we have greater confidence in the system.
I reiterate the point of principle on which our approach to the NHS is based, which my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) set out: it should be free at the point of use and based on need, not on the ability to pay. The Secretary of State retreated in confusion on that point. He argued at the Dispatch Box that we should spend more in the private sector than my hon. Friend suggested.
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