Andy Burnham
Prime Minister · MP for Makerfield · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“The right hon. Lady mentions leadership. Let me tell her and the whole House where Britain is showing leadership. There have been Conservative politicians at this Dispatch Box—Labour politicians, too—for decades who have talked about the importance of the two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.”
“I cannot comment today on quasi-judicial decisions, but we will take a pragmatic approach to oil and gas, as I have said before at the Dispatch Box. Let us get to the heart of this question, as the right hon. Lady invites me to do. What is the right way to fund defence and, yes, bring the welfare budget down?”
“I do not think the right hon. Lady is on strong ground when it comes to defence spending. It was 2.5% of GDP when the last Labour Government left office. It was 2.3% of GDP when the Government she was in left office. It is now set to be 2.7% in the next year.”
“This Chancellor, of all Chancellors, will be willing to provide that funding to our armed forces and back our defence investment plan. This Government’s commitment to the defence of this country is absolute. We have taken the strongest possible stance in supporting President Zelensky and Ukraine.”
“I think there are many people watching Prime Minister’s questions across the south of England who would now like Mr Speaker to be demoted in the way that my hon. Friend suggests. [Interruption.] This is very thin ice for a Leigh Leopards supporter to be on.”
“I remember well my visit to Stourbridge; it will not leave me, actually, because of the devastation, and the loss of everything in a moment for so many families. My hon. Friend’s support for them was really visible on the day, and the community is clearly very strong; that was evident.”
The complete record
Every one of 2,246 lines we hold for Andy Burnham, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 27 of 45.
“They are keeping the NHS going right now, and they deserve a bit better than they have had off this Secretary of State.”
“The Secretary of State’s decision to reject the independent advice of the pay review body about what was fair and affordable, and to single out NHS staff for exclusion from the promise that the Chancellor had made that the public sector, as part of his restraint policy, would get 1%—to say that NHS staff would get less than that—was a kick in the teeth, and was to risk staff morale just at the moment that the NHS needed to be recognising and rewarding those staff, who are working so hard to keep things going. To make inflammatory comments such as those that the Secretary of State has made in the newspapers today is the wrong response. He should be getting back round the negotiating table with those staff. He should be working with them to find solutions.”
“I am afraid, as so often is the case at Prime Minister’s questions, that claim is simply not true. The last census of the GP work force conducted under the previous Government, in September 2009, found that there were 35,917 GPs working in England. The latest census for which figures are available, September 2013, finds 35,561 GPs working in England. When will Ministers start giving out facts from that Dispatch Box, rather than the spin we get week after week?”
“However, despite strong evidence to support them, a review by Monitor has found that almost one in four walk-in centres have closed under the coalition Government. Many more are under threat today. Monitor’s review surveyed people who used walk-in centres, and one in five said they would have gone to A and E if that alternative had not been available. Here is my next question for the Secretary of State: will he now concede that, in the areas where those centres have closed, there will have been extra attendances at A and E, and that was it a mistake to close those centres? Thirdly, I will mention GP services, but let me start by clearing something up. The Prime Minister claimed today at Prime Minister’s questions that there are more GPs now than when he took office.”
“The second policy decision that I shall discuss is the closure of NHS walk-in centres. Colleagues who have been in the House for some time will recall that there was a winter crisis in A and E in most, if not all, winters in the 1990s. Then, in the late ’90s, NHS Direct was launched and NHS walk-in centres were opened, with the specific intention of giving people alternatives to attending A and E, which were then under major pressure. The locations of the first wave of walk-in centres were carefully chosen, often where an A and E had recently closed, including at Leigh infirmary in my constituency. In the decade from 2000 to 2010, around 230 walk-in centres were opened across England. Many of those centres became an established and understood alternative to A and E.”
“My hon. Friend calls it just right. One thing the Government could do right now would be to get more nurses on the end of those phones, to provide that experienced voice, that reassurance, that people with young children need before they decide to get in the car and go to A and E. I remember using NHS Direct in such circumstances myself. That reassuring voice has gone, and that is why NHS 111 is placing additional pressure on our A and E. The Secretary of State would not recognise it, with the reasons that he gave, but it is. Staff know it is. The ambulance service know it is. It is time we had a Government who faced up to that reality. My question for the Secretary of State today is: will he now concede that that flawed 111 service has contributed to the 600,000 annual increase in A and E attendances?”
“The constituents of all the Members present say, “I am ringing the surgery at 8 or 9 every morning and being told that nothing is available for days.” In 2010, the vast majority—80%–of people said they could get an appointment within 48 hours; now, according to the GP survey, one in four people say they must wait a week or more to see a GP.”
“My hon. Friend makes his point very well. This is what we must challenge as we move forward. Before the general election, people need the facts about what is happening to the NHS. There has been a big drop in the number of nurses working in the community, as my hon. Friend mentioned, and these are the facts that we need to bring home to people. It is not just the fact that the GP headcount has gone down. One of the present Government’s first acts was to scrap the guarantee of an appointment within 48 hours and incentives to open GP surgeries in the evenings and at weekends. That, combined with cuts to the GP budget, means that it has got harder and harder to get a GP appointment in recent years.”
“That is an absolutely vital point. It is not just about GP locums; there are also A and E locums. The Government have, throughout, cut training places, which were another victim of the reorganisation. Ever since then, the number of places commissioned for doctors—and nurses, I might say—has gone down. That leaves us with a bill for agency staff that is literally out of control—it has gone through the roof—and that means that money is now being siphoned out of the NHS at an alarming rate. That is mismanagement; that is what has happened. How must staff working in the NHS feel when they see the bill for agency staff spiralling in this way and know that they will not even get a 1% increase from this Government? They will draw their own conclusions about how this Government value them.”
“Government Members should be familiar with the quote because the PM quotes it every week at Prime Minister’s questions. To be more accurate, they will be familiar with half the quote, because that is all he uses, so let me give the House the full version. I said that it would be irresponsible for the Government to increase NHS spending if the way they did it was by raiding the social care budget. I said further that if that goes ahead, they will hollow out social care to such a degree that the NHS will not be able to function, because a collapse in social care support would end up dragging down the rest of the NHS with it. That is precisely what is unfolding before our eyes right now in the NHS. A report today from Age UK shows how “hundreds of thousands of older people who need social care are being left high and dry.””
“An extra 290,000 patients say that they have turned to A and E when they cannot get a timely GP appointment. That includes the Secretary of State, who admitted in this House that he had done exactly the same. So will he today accept that the growing problem of people being unable to get GP appointments has played a significant part in contributing to the increase of 600,000 in the number of visits to A and E? Fourthly, I turn to social care. In my analysis, this is the root cause of the problems we are now seeing. At the start of this Parliament, I warned the Government about their public spending plans and, in particular, warned them against raiding social care to stack up a claim that they were protecting the NHS budget.”
“I am prepared to look at it, but I think that the future of the ambulance service should be in integrating better with the rest of the NHS—with GP out-of-hours services and NHS 111. Greater Manchester’s health service is piloting a critical response service to support the ambulance service, and I do not have any objection to that. However, this Government have not got it right when they say that the future of the ambulance service is to merge with the police and fire services as a single 999 service. For me, the ambulance service is a clinical service that should integrate better with the rest of the NHS, and I would prefer to go in that direction. I said a moment ago that people could not get a GP appointment, and that is also what the GP survey tells us.”
“I am talking about creating a single budget. There is a big difference between that and what the hon. Gentleman says. I am saying that the time has come to merge the adult social care budget and the NHS budget. More than that, we are going to put an extra £2.5 billion into that integrated system. He should not come here today telling me what I need to do: where is his plan to put more money into the national health service?”
“My right hon. Friend has absolutely nailed it. Those Ministers on the Front Bench decided—it was a political decision—to cut councils to the bone, and in doing so cut social care to the bone. That was precisely the warning that I gave back in 2010, having just left the Department of Health, where I remember being told that allowing social care to be cut would be a false economy of massive proportions because it would lead to huge inefficiency in the NHS. Hospitals would be unable to function because they could not get people home, and therefore the NHS would back up and the pressure would become impossible. That is what is happening. Those Ministers have done it, and they must be held to account for it.”
“To find common ground, one has to tell it straight and put on the table the real reasons why there is pressure in A and E. I bet the hon. Gentleman would not disagree with a single reason I have given: NHS 111, closure of walk-in centres, difficulty in getting GP appointments, the collapse of social care— [ Interruption. ] Yes, he says he does not disagree with any of those things. If we have a shared analysis, then he and I will have a basis on which to devise solutions. I will come to those solutions later.”
“I said that I am going to make progress. Today’s Age UK survey finds that the number of over-65s receiving care has fallen by 380,000 under this Government. Half of the 1 million people who struggle to wash or bathe now get no help at all. Two thirds of the 250,000 people who struggle to feed themselves every day are now left to fend for themselves. There are over 100,000 fewer day care places and over 50,000 fewer people getting meals on wheels. Age UK says: “Our state-funded social care system is in calamitous, quite rapid decline.” But worse, it is dragging down the NHS.”
“In a moment. I said that I had given way for the last time, but I will do so once more for the hon. Lady. Record numbers of very frail, elderly people are arriving at A and E due to a lack of support in their own homes. Between 2009-10 and 2012-13, there was a 48.1% increase in the number of people aged over 90 being admitted to A and E via blue-light ambulance—in other words, 100,000 very frail, very frightened people in the backs of ambulances going round our towns and cities to be dropped off at a busy A and E. That is what is happening on this Government’s watch.”
“On GP services, has he considered putting a GP in every A and E?”
“Will the Secretary of State intervene to stop those contracts being signed until there has been a proper review? Will the Secretary of State review the plan to relax ambulance response times in the pilot? That is surely the wrong response during this very difficult winter. Is he absolutely convinced that now is the right time to experiment with relaxing established standards? Does it not make sense to delay it until a quieter time of the year, and not to do it in the most troubled ambulance service in the country? On walk-in centres, would not one of the simplest things the Secretary of State could do to stop the A and E situation getting worse be to commit to halt any further closures? We know that walk-in centres in Jarrow, Nuneaton and Chelmsford are under threat. Would it not help everybody if he just removed that threat today?”
“The evidence is clear: on NHS 111, on walk-in centres, on GP services, on social care—this is a mess of the Government’s making. I am sure that the text of the Secretary of State’s speech is full of the usual spin and self-serving excuses, but he must not sit down until he answers directly the four questions I have put to him, not for my benefit, but so that he does not insult the intelligence of the people watching. He is in charge, not me. People are looking to him for answers and solutions, so let me give him some in the time I have left. As I have said, let us get nurses back on the end of the phones at NHS 111, and let us have a review of the 111 service. I hear that contracts are about to be signed—for instance, to take a contract off an ambulance service—and they will extend this flawed model of care.”
“That is simply wrong on every level, and it is unsustainable in human and financial terms. The collapse of social care is a root cause of the current A and E crisis because it has led to increased pressure at the entrance door of the hospital, and to the exit door becoming blocked. For those who still get some support, 15-minute visits are becoming the norm. Richard Hawkes, chairman of the Care and Support Alliance, has said that A and E “is forced to pick up the pieces when people become isolated, can’t live on their own and slip into crisis.” My last question to the Secretary of State is: does he agree with Richard Hawkes that cuts to social care have contributed to the extra 600,000 people who now attend A and E every year?”
“I have repeatedly praised Torbay council in the hon. Lady’s part of the world, which was the well regarded pioneer of integrated care. Yes, there are examples of councils around the country trying to do the right thing, but let me make two points: first, the Torbay model has been broken apart by the Health and Social Care Act; and, secondly, councils are trying, but they have been battered by the massive cuts to their budgets about which Age UK is warning today, and which are setting back the cause of integration. The reality is that elderly people are going into A and E and getting trapped there. As I have already mentioned, there is the sad case of an elderly women in Lincoln who spent an entire calendar year in hospital because a care home place could not be found.”
“Will the Secretary of State go back to the Chancellor, argue for a better deal for the NHS and social care, and match Labour’s pledge to prevent a permanent care crisis in the next Parliament? The NHS is now at the crossroads, and the coming election presents an enormous choice between Labour’s plan to lift the NHS out of its current crisis by investing £2.5 billion in the NHS of the future, and the coalition approach under which—with the Government unable to face up to the mess of their own making in A and E or to produce a plan to turn it around, and unwilling to find the extra money it needs—the NHS is dragged down by a toxic mix of cuts and privatisation. The stakes could not be higher. This crisis cannot go on: patients have suffered enough. They need an election, a change of direction and a Labour Government to secure the NHS.”
“By contrast, under the public spending plans the Government have set out for the next Parliament, it is clear not only that the A and E crisis will deepen every year, but that it will soon become a full-blown NHS crisis. The NHS used to be the Prime Minister’s priority; now it does not feature in his top six election themes. We know that there will be no money for it beyond what the Government have promised, because the priority is tax cuts for higher rate taxpayers, although they have not yet identified where the money for that will come from. If the outlook for the NHS is grim, it is utterly dire for local government and social care. Taking public spending back to 1930s levels will absolutely decimate what is left of our social care system, and if the system goes into freefall today’s problems in the NHS will become entrenched.”
“Although that model is not just about money, it is partly about money: if such a transformation is to happen, extra investment will be needed to stimulate it. The Secretary of State likes to hold up the better care fund, but I am afraid that councils and the NHS simply do not share his optimism. It robs Peter to pay Paul: the money transferred to councils is nowhere near enough to backfill the cuts to social care, and it leaves a deepening hole in NHS finances. [ Interruption. ] The Secretary of State asks where I would get the money from, and I will tell him. The Opposition have committed to provide extra money for an integrated NHS—£2.5 billion a year over and above what he has committed—with social care as part of a single service for the whole person.”
“I have said that I will not give way again. All those measures could help in the short term, but the truth is that all parties must recognise that there will not be a long-term solution to the A and E crisis until we face up to the crisis in social care, and rethink how we care for the most vulnerable older people. It is not just about money; we need radical changes in the way we use existing budgets for health and care. We need to merge them so that we can change the way in which we care for older people. We need a model of care that starts in the home and supports people there, so that we can drastically reduce the numbers unnecessarily ending up in hospital and becoming trapped there.”
“I have a direct question and I would appreciate a direct answer. If the agency bill in the NHS was the same as the one I left behind, would not the Secretary of State be able to afford the modest, below-inflation increase that the Chancellor promised to all NHS staff?”
“Given what the Secretary of State has just said, may I gently remind him that I was the Secretary of State who appointed Robert Francis QC to inquire into what happened at Mid Staffs, against the advice of the Department of Health, and that report was published before the last election. If he is being fair, he should bear that in mind at all times. The Secretary of State reeled off a list of things that are wonderful in the NHS today—everything has got better; everything is fine; and it is the best in the world. At the beginning of the debate, I reeled off cases of people waiting hours or even dying while waiting for ambulances, or being treated in cupboards. I hope that he will not conclude his remarks without addressing the very real suffering and poor care that is happening across England right now.”
“The right hon. Gentleman clearly was not listening to my speech. The central proposition is that what I described as the “root cause” of the A and E crisis was the imposition of devastating cuts in social care, which are leaving people unsupported in their own homes. Will the right hon. Gentleman now say—because he was there—that it was wrong of him and his colleagues to allow social care to be cut in that way, given that the cuts are now presenting the NHS with an enormous productivity and efficiency problem?”
“My answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question is that I want a single service: a single service for the whole person. I want a national health and care service. We should no longer have two budgets; we should have a single budget, and we should then use the money as best we can to support people, starting in their own homes—and we are going to invest an extra £2.5 billion. The right hon. Gentleman did not answer the question that I asked him. I asked him whether he and his Government colleagues, in those early days, made a mistake in allowing social care to be cut to the bone? Every week I am accused of saying that it is irresponsible to give real-terms increases. The right hon. Gentleman allowed social care to be raided. Should we not receive an apology for that today?”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have always to correct the record when these statements are made. I apologise for delaying the House, but I am going to carry on doing it. I did not put it out to tender; it was a process I inherited, and in the middle of that process I changed the policy from “any willing provider” to “NHS preferred provider”. Contrary to what the Secretary of State said at the Dispatch Box, NHS Peterborough and Stamford was still in the race.”
“I am listening carefully to what my hon. Friend says. His walk-in centre, like mine, was one of the first to open and is greatly valued by the community. I make this offer to him today: if he and his community can keep the campaign going and keep that centre open, and if I am the Secretary of State in May, it will stay open for good.”
“I am listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman. As he knows, I have huge respect and affection for him, but he is arguing that NHS privatisation is a myth and that our accusation is wrong. If he does not mind, I will quote what he said during the Committee stage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012: “As NHS providers develop and begin to compete actively with other NHS providers and with private and voluntary providers, UK and EU competition laws will increasingly become applicable.” — [ Official Report, Health and Social Care Public Bill Committee, 15 March 2011; c. 718.] Why, then, is it a myth that he and his Government have exposed the NHS to a greater risk of commercialisation, marketisation and, indeed, privatisation?”
“The Minister accuses us of bringing politics into the NHS, but did not he and his colleagues put politics at its heart when they signed up to a Tory agenda to put market forces at the heart of the national health service?”
“I have to say that in my experience the resistance is found in the civil service within Government. That is often the case in examples such as this; I found the same with Hillsborough too. It is very hard to move that machine to face up to historical injustice.”
“Paul asked me to look again at the issue, and I did. I want to bring a new perspective to this debate—that of a former Minister who tried to do something; indeed, a former Secretary of State, because that is what I was at the time. I do not say this to blame any individual in the Department of Health, but more in terms of speaking as I found as I tried to lift the shutters that had been pulled down on an issue that the Department wanted to go away. The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), who is no longer in his place, said that Governments of both parties have failed, and that is absolutely right— they have; there is no debate about that. But I do not detect the failure being caused by Members of Parliament or, indeed, Ministers; I have met many who want to resolve this in the right way.”
“There have been well-meaning attempts in all parts of the House down the years to put in place mechanisms to try to lessen the hardship and address the problems that people face in their daily lives. However, as many hon. Members have said, that has left a patchwork of support that is complex and bureaucratic—that, in the end, is about handing out bits and pieces, with people having to go cap in hand, not even given the dignity they should now have in having the problems that they were given rectified in a proper manner. As a result of that meeting with Paul and his then constituents in my office in 2010, I reopened the issue at the end of the previous Parliament. Many Members have mentioned the Archer report. A resolution was put in place after that report, but it was not good enough, and that was recognised in all parts of the House.”
“Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) whom he mentioned so movingly—in my constituency office in Leigh, and I did. I had no real understanding of what they had been through, and were going through, until I sat down with them, at Paul’s request, and listened to what they said. That campaign mattered hugely to Paul, whom I miss every day. I will continue to work in his memory to get justice not just for his former constituents but for everybody who has been mentioned in the debate. I want to signal the seriousness with which I will address this issue by speaking in this debate today. As people have said, it is not that nothing has been done. Plenty has been done.”
“Like many others who have spoken, I have constituents who have been victims, including somebody who does not want to be named who speaks of having lived for more than 30 years seeking justice and support, and who contracted HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood in the 1970s and ’80s; and my constituent Simon Carter, whose father died and left the family facing a whole range of financial problems—people whose lives have been for ever altered and devastated by the scandal. There is another reason I am here today. It goes back to a time towards the end of the previous Parliament, when somebody who has been mentioned by Members in all parts of the House, my good, late friend Paul Goggins, asked me to meet him and his constituents Fred and Eleanor Bates and Peter Mossman—now the constituents of my hon.”
“To add to that, Lord Winston has described it as “the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS.” We must resolve today, even if we cannot do it in the time that remains in this Parliament, to make sure that this injustice and this scandal is resolved early in the next Parliament, and that the people who have suffered finally have truth and justice. I want to explain why I am standing at this Dispatch Box today.”
“It is beholden on each and every one of us here today to remember that and to use the power that we have from the office that we hold to work together across the Floor of this House to find a resolution for the thousands of people whose lives have been ruined by this scandal. If we hold to the cross-party spirit that delivered the beginnings of justice in those other campaigns, then we will do so in this case too. The right hon. Gentleman described it as the 15th worst peacetime disaster—like Hillsborough, entirely man-made.”
“We have seen a range of ongoing inquiries related to historical child abuse. There was the action on the injustice that I know too well from my own personal background—the death of 96 innocent people at Hillsborough. The right hon. Gentleman was absolutely right to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), who put those names on the record. But we cannot put on record the names of the people in this case who have suffered such devastation—not just the people who have died but those whose lives have been ruined as a result of this scandal, and it is a scandal. What opened up those other injustices has not been the Government voluntarily moving to correct those wrongs, but Parliament. The resolution to those other injustices began here.”
“We have heard a series of fine speeches today—as has been said, Parliament truly at its best—but none more powerful and affecting than that of the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) in leading the debate. Many of the things he said will have affected people greatly, but the words that remain with me now are those that he quoted from a letter he had received: “Every day is like a day on death row for a crime I did not commit.” If that does not convey the sense of injustice we are dealing with, nothing else will, because it really is that appalling. When historians come to look back at the 2010-15 Parliament, it will be seen to be characterised by a welcome drive to correct historical injustice. First, we saw the apology in relation to the events of Bloody Sunday.”
“This tortured road has been too long for many of us. But for the rest of us, please let this be the final road to closure.” Everybody present needs to listen to those words and act on them. Sadly, many of those affected have died and are not able to listen to our proceedings, but they, those who remain and the families they have left behind deserve the dignity of a full and lasting settlement.”
“There may be other ways to do it, but people need disclosure: they need to understand how this was allowed to happen. In my view, all papers held by the Department of Health should be released so that people can begin to see the full truth of what went wrong. I do not believe there is any reason at all to prevent that from happening. The third element is, of course, a proper settlement for all those who have suffered—not just those who are still suffering, but families who suffered greatly as a result of the disruption caused to their lives. Fourthly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North has said, we must give the best treatment possible to those who are still suffering. The all-party group’s report quoted somebody infected with hepatitis C: “You can’t give us back our health. But you can give us back our dignity.”
“Member for North East Bedfordshire, “no debate about the issue should omit the need for a proper acknowledgement of what took place and why, and a profound and sincere apology for the suffering created by the disaster.” —[ Official Report, 29 October 2013; Vol. 569, c. 201WH.] The full and final settlement should have four components. First, there must be a national apology for the suffering down the years. Secondly, to echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) has said, there must be an inquiry. Whether it should be a public inquiry or not is a matter to be debated, but, having been involved in the campaign for justice for the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster, I know that other forms of inquiry can reach the truth and unlock a campaign for justice.”
“We hope the Health Secretary will listen to that request and take action as soon as he can. If the Minister, working with the Secretary of State, is able to find a solution, she will have the support of Labour Front Benchers and, I am sure, Members throughout the House. We will offer our good offices to ensure that a settlement can be reached. There needs to be a proper and fair resolution. None of us can predict what the make-up of the House or, indeed, the Government will be after the coming election, but I personally commit to working towards that full and final settlement for which people have waited long enough. I hope that Members on both sides of the House will make a similar commitment. As Paul Goggins said in the Westminster Hall debate mentioned by the right hon.”
“I will not go through all the problems raised by colleagues about the inadequacy of the current process of applying for support, but I will pay tribute to the all-party group on haemophilia and contaminated blood, which, under the leadership of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), produced an outstanding report yesterday. I believe it will further reinforce the case for truth and justice. I wish to draw the House’s attention to another development, which has not been mentioned today, namely the filing of a legal case by three unnamed victims. They have written to the Health Secretary, asking him to come forward with a settlement before full legal proceedings take place. Of course, it should not have to come to that, but, as colleagues have said, people are still waiting and they have waited long enough.”
“It led to a small improvement, which has been mentioned, but, by God, it was hard enough to get that, so I do not underestimate how difficult it will be to move things forward. Part of the problem is that the people dealing with the issue inside Government are insulated from the people we sit alongside in our constituencies and whose stories we listen to. Could there be a more heart-breaking story than that told by my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) about the damage that this scandal has caused down the years? People need to hear and listen to what is being said, to understand why it is immoral to allow the situation to persist and go uncorrected.”
“I believe that it is. The hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) made this point. Perhaps there is a resistance that comes from not wanting to point the finger or to show the culpability of people who perhaps did not do their jobs as well as they might, but that is unacceptable. That is not something that anybody elected to serve in this place should accept. On a personal level, I know how hard it is when faced with such resistance. The way to help a Minister in that position is by giving them the sort of support that has been expressed throughout this Chamber today. That is what gives a Minister the power to have the courage to make a change. The result of my efforts led to a review of the Skipton Fund, and I give credit to the current Government for continuing that work.”