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Mr. David Rendel (Newbury): Much of what the Secretary of State has announced may be welcomed on both sides, but does he agree that cuts in incapacity benefit and widows' pensions will not improve health?
Mr. Dobson: The hon. Gentleman should wait to find out what the proposals actually are before commenting on them. No doubt he will say that there ought to be increases, and that they will all be financed by the penny on income tax that the Liberal Democrats have been promising everyone.
We are investing £800 million in the new deal for communities to help the most deprived parts of the country. A reshaped single regeneration budget of £2.3 billion over the next three years will be targeted on the most deprived authorities to a greater extent than it was under the last Government. The integrated transport White Paper will help to ensure that public transport is a powerful weapon to alleviate poverty, improve access to jobs, and strengthen families and communities. The social
exclusion unit will continue to co-ordinate a national drive to support people who have been cut off from the mainstream of society, which also damages health.
We are already doing most of what is called for in the Acheson report. We are tackling health inequalities with action throughout Government, and there is an important--although not exclusive--role for the Department of Health. Modernising the health service and ensuring fair access in every part of the country to services is a vital component of that effort.
Health action zones are already starting to identify and tackle health inequalities in the most deprived areas. There will be a network of healthy living centres throughout the country which will be working to improve the health of the worst-off. We shall soon be publishing our White Paper against smoking, with action focused on the socially disadvantaged who are most likely to smoke and therefore most likely to suffer the evil consequences.
Our Green Paper, "Our Healthier Nation", made clear our commitment to tackling health inequalities. The Acheson report will be used to ensure that the White Paper on public health, due next year, will be based on the best available evidence.
I am grateful to Sir Donald Acheson and to the many knowledgeable people who assisted him in producing his report. Inequalities that have persisted throughout the century and often worsened in the past two decades will not be swept away overnight. Their work will be a key influence on our long-term strategy to narrow the health gap.
Miss Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone and The Weald):
The Secretary of State commented that the Opposition should sometimes say thank you. The right hon. Gentleman has demonstrated clearly that sometimes the Government should say sorry. That is what he should have started by saying.
The proposals on health in the Queen's Speech show finally and beyond all doubt that the Government are much more interested in political control than in patient care. They further reflect a great wasted opportunity, in that the Secretary of State has not addressed the central problem in the health service, which will trouble any Government, no matter what their political complexion: the huge disparity between expectation and demand and the capacity of resources and manpower to keep up with that expectation and demand.
The fact remains that even if the Secretary of State were spending all that he is claiming to be spending, it would still not be possible to close that gap. The absence--in this addressing of the health service, which in reality addresses nothing at all--of any serious plan for coping with the single greatest problem of the health service cries out as an indictment against the Government's approach.
There is something else for which the Secretary of State should apologise, although it is a matter for him: in the course of an exchange with me, he made a frivolous
comment about Alzheimer's disease. I must tell the right hon. Gentleman that Alzheimer's is not a joke. Many people will be grossly offended by what he has said, including people who are caring for the sufferers of Alzheimer's--and I dare say that there are people in the House who fall into that category.
Political control lies at the heart of the Government's agenda. It is an agenda to control everything from the fiddles in the waiting list statistics to the medicines that a family doctor is allowed to prescribe to patients. That is what the measures in the Queen's Speech will permit the Government to do. There will be top-to-bottom turbulence in our health service that will disrupt and disturb the work of doctors and nurses, and create uncertainty and upheaval for patients for years to come. That is exactly the reverse of what the Prime Minister promised. In June 1996, the right hon. Gentleman pledged to health service managers that there would be no great upheavals. That is another Labour pledge broken.
The control culture that is being imposed on our health service is set to cause great harm to patients and to the morale of our doctors and nurses. Already our hospitals are buckling under the strain of trying to meet the Government's bogus pledge on waiting lists. We know that operations are being cancelled, that hospitals are facing terrible staff shortages, we know that doctors and nurses are working horrendous hours to force through quick procedures, and the trolley problem is growing. Do we remember the trolley problem? That was what Labour promised to abolish the moment it came to power---[Interruption.]--the patients lying in corridors waiting to be seen, which is now, apparently, a subject of great hilarity on the Government Benches.
The right hon. Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) had the trolley problem in mind when she opined:
The situation seems to be particularly serious at the Royal Liverpool hospital. The Liverpool Echo tells of patients waiting for hours on trolleys in hospital corridors, apparently terrified by out-of-control youths. An elderly patient's daughter wrote to me, telling of her mother's seven-hour wait in pain on an uncomfortable and unsuitable light trolley in appallingly hot conditions, just to be seen by the doctors. It is horrifying to hear of a 95-year-old man examined in public on a trolley in the waiting room of the accident and emergency department, to be told that his leg was to be amputated. That happened just one week after the first anniversary of the new Labour Government. The man died one week later.
Just two years ago, as Leader of the Opposition, the present Prime Minister said:
Another example is the Minister of State's comment on accident victims. He said:
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. Alan Milburn):
In the interests of accuracy and the pursuit of truth again--and to set the record straight for the right hon. Lady, as I would not want her to be wrong again--what I have campaigned against both in opposition and in government is the emergency treatment fee. It is insensitive to patients and embarrassing for staff. The right hon. Lady's Government promised to abolish it, but they failed to deliver that promise. This Government are abolishing it, and I am proud that we are.
Miss Widdecombe:
The Minister of State referred to a tax on accidents. If, as a result of the Government's proposals, it is true that insurance premiums will go up--I shall not make a value judgment on whether that should happen or not--is that a tax on accidents? Is that the first new charge that the Labour party is to introduce on free NHS treatment? I shall willingly give way to the Minister of State, who made the comments, but I see that the Secretary of State wants to respond.
Mr. Dobson:
My right hon. Friend the Minister of State was correcting the right hon. Lady's assertions about him.
"If I am Secretary of State for Health I will lie awake at night worrying until we get this sorted out."
I do not want to disturb the peaceful nights that the right hon. Lady is doubtless now enjoying, but Labour's obsession with its fiddled waiting list pledge is resulting in an army of trolleys descending on the health service.
"I do not see why people should be kept waiting on trolleys for hours in a modern NHS."
He promised a task force specifically to look into the problem of patients waiting on trolleys. The right hon. Member for Camberwell and Peckham promised weekly performance checks on the number of patients waiting
on trolleys. What happened? Where is the task force? Where are the performance checks? More broken promises, and more early pledges cancelled.
"The increased charges are a tax on accident victims"
and described the provision in the Road Traffic Act 1988 as "a sick law". Is it still a sick law, now that he is responsible for widening its scope? If not, how does his proposal differ from the present system, and will the extended charge be compulsory?
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