Clive Efford
MP for Eltham and Chislehurst · Labour · United Kingdom
“Thank you for allowing me to take part in this statement, Madam Deputy Speaker, given that I was not here at the beginning—I was carrying out my duties elsewhere in the House. I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. What is she likely to do in my part of south-east London for technical and vocational places?”
“I rise to speak to amendment 97 in my name, which would remove clause 10 from the Bill. Clause 10 gives powers to the Secretary of State to vary the proportion of public and private provision of health services if they consider that to do so is in the interests of the health service.”
“Labour’s 2024 plan to make work pay set out a welcome desire to bring more essential services back into public control—something that is welcomed by health workers across the country, because so far the “biggest wave of insourcing in a generation”, as was promised, has felt more like a trickle when it comes to the NHS.”
“The explanatory notes for the Bill say that this new flexibility is necessary “where there may otherwise be a breakdown in provision of a health service.” Can we imagine a situation where the Secretary of State has concerns about a health service and that an approach to assist a local provider would be rebuffed?”
“There are ample powers to enable the Secretary of State to intervene and resolve breakdowns in the provision of a health service. On clause 10, we must balance what it adds in those situations against its potential misuse by an ideologically driven Government that are determined to privatise our NHS.”
“It was a pleasure to join my right hon. Friend at Greenwich council’s development of 435 council properties in my constituency for the launch of the social and affordable housing programme. Some 70,000 homes are planned, and that is welcome and overdue.”
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“It will take a great deal to change the culture. I have spoken to a senior hospital manager who would like to express his concern about the lack of qualified nurses, forcing him to advertise posts abroad. I have spoken to two A and E nurses who are concerned about the critical situations occurring at their unit every day. One of them has become an agency nurse so she can limit the number of hours she is forced to work. Then there is an ambulance worker who is concerned about the 12-hour shift and the lack of time he is given to clean his ambulance between dealing with patients. They would all like to come forward to express their concerns, but they do not feel that anyone above them would listen. What can the Secretary of State say today to reassure those people?”
“Q10. The Prime Minister, his Chancellor and the entire Conservative party like to talk about their “economic plan”. An independent report published yesterday by a group of academics— [Interruption.] I can wait. The report shows that welfare cuts contributed merely to cutting tax for higher earners and contributed nothing to reducing the deficit. It also shows that families with children under the age of five have been the hardest hit. What future is there for the country with an economic plan that steals from the poor and gives it to the rich?”
“Can the Secretary of State explain why in the incident response plan from NHS England there is an entire paragraph headed “Politics” under the principles for considering an escalation response? In the House on 7 January he said: “The decision to declare a major incident is taken locally—there is no national definition” —[ Official Report , 7 January 2015; Vol. 590, c. 273.] However, the guidance issued in the middle of January says that major incidents “should be agreed...with the Director on call for NHS England”. If it is not political, the Secretary of State owes the House an explanation of NHS England’s involvement and the meaning of that paragraph.”
“(Eltham) (Lab): Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Members have visited my constituency and have not told me they were coming, but I have never been petty enough to bring the matter to the Floor of the House.”
“This investment will enable us to provide better information to our passengers”— that is fine— “improve the interior and cleanliness of our trains”— that is excellent— “refresh the look of our stations and provide extra staff to deliver more face-to-face customer service.” That is all wonderful, but if passengers cannot get on the damn trains, what is the point? There is nothing in that statement about increased capacity, extra carriages or 12-car trains, which we have been promised by two successive Governments. The issue is capacity. Southeastern is not addressing the problem, so we want to hear from the Minister what she will do about it.”
“There should have been 12-car trains on our network from January last year, but Southeastern has failed to address the problem. I shall make what will be my final point, because I know my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) wants to speak. In response to this morning’s survey results, Mr Statham, the managing director of Southeastern, said: “Over the next three years we’re investing more than £70m in the things that our passengers tell us are important to them.”
“Southeastern seems to have taken the view that if it sits this out, passengers will be forced to find other forms of transport. My constituents have told me that they are getting off at Lewisham, which is becoming very overcrowded. British Transport police have to be at the station because the situation is becoming dangerous. Passengers are starting to use the docklands light railway as an alternative route. It is shocking that the approach seems to be to force passengers to go elsewhere. That is just not good enough. Southeastern has not planned for the capacity that is necessary to enable passengers to get to London Bridge and continue their journeys. What will be done in the short term? Like my hon. Friend, I want to find out what will happen about the Thameslink trains, because we know that we need them.”
“It shows that Southeastern has the worst customer satisfaction of the train operating companies, and that survey was carried out before the changes. My constituents who want to go to London Bridge, especially from Mottingham and New Eltham, are finding the Cannon Street trains to be dangerously overcrowded. It is clear that there was no plan for the extra demand for those trains. They are the only trains stopping at London Bridge, but there was no plan to make them longer to increase capacity. Will the Minister tell us what will be done in the short term to address the serious overcrowding on those trains? Overcrowding is also being experienced by those who are forced to go to Waterloo East and then try to travel back to London Bridge on the London underground.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) on securing this important debate and thank the Minister for organising Thursday’s meeting with Southeastern and Network Rail, which gave us an opportunity to get some answers to questions following the timetable changes. I met Network Rail on 10 December to talk about the arrangements. I was also in contact with Southeastern, and its representatives were due to attend that meeting, but unfortunately did not turn up. Some of the things I feared have come to the fore, but I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to the customer satisfaction survey that was published today.”
“The Minister will have heard at our meeting on Thursday that Southeastern said it had shifted around some of the carriages, taking them from some services and adding them to others. However, my constituents feel—I certainly feel the same as a user of the trains—that those carriages have gone to the longer-haul services, where people pay higher prices for their season tickets. Services from places such as Dartford through places such as Eltham and New Eltham are the ones that have suffered. Those services are not sufficient, and my constituents cannot get on them, particularly when they are going home in the evenings. We need extra carriages; we do not need Southeastern just to shuffle them around.”
“Is the Office for Budget Responsibility not right to say that stagnant wages have led to more borrowing? Is that not the key reason why the Government have missed their borrowing targets by more than £200 billion?”
“The hon. Gentleman seems to be talking about records. This Government came in with no mandate whatever and planned to close nine of the 31 accident and emergency departments across London. What state does he think the A and E service in London would be in if his Government had been successful in every case? They were prevented from achieving their aim by public campaigns, including the one in Lewisham, in my part of London.”
“I join the Minister in welcoming the Sport England “This Girl Can” campaign designed to encourage more women and girls to get active, but in order to have a lasting impact we must inspire the next generation, so she must feel shamed by the Youth Sport Trust survey figures published yesterday showing a fall in the time spent by children doing sport in schools since 2010. It is too late to put things right at the fag-end of this Parliament, but is it not clear that this Government squandered a golden legacy in sport and failed to inspire the next generation?”
“Does my right my hon. Friend accept, however, that there is a disagreement between many eminent lawyers as to whether TTIP will apply to the NHS, regardless of what the Government say? The other thing not in the Government’s favour when they argue about protecting the NHS is that the intent of many of the provisions in the Health and Social Care Act 2012 is to impose marketisation on our NHS, so the direction of travel is very much in favour of trade under TTIP. That undermines the Government’s case against it.”
“The information that the hon. Gentleman has just read out would surely be available at the point of sale, so if anyone wanted to use it in the way he is suggesting, they would merely need to go on the website originally offering the tickets or ring up the venue in order to get it. It is at the point of resale in the secondary ticketing market that we are asking for that same information to be made available. What can be wrong with that?”
“The cheapest child’s ticket is £7 and the most expensive ticket is £700, but I saw—I will not name the website, because there are lots of them and it is wrong to single out one of them—five tickets on sale for £8,000 each, with a £3,000 handling charge.”
“In the early stages, people complained about the fact that there were a lot of empty seats, but such tickets had to be recycled to ensure there was an atmosphere in the stadium. The process of making sure that the tickets went to family members or genuine fans successfully and memorably created a unique atmosphere within the Olympic stadium. That is remembered, particularly by the athletes who performed there, because we made sure that such tickets were made available at face value to genuine fans. The RFU wanted to do exactly the same with its tickets for this year’s rugby world cup, but even before the tickets were made available, they could be bought for several thousands of pounds on secondary ticketing websites.”
“He said that if tickets allocated within the rugby family were offered for resale on the secondary market, the rugby club found doing so would be banned from receiving any future allocation. The RFU went to court to obtain the information it needed in order to regulate the sale of tickets in exactly that way. I therefore agree that such rules should apply, but rugby needs such information to make its own regulations stick. In seemingly agreeing with his colleague, the hon. Member for Bury North, the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire is actually agreeing with us. The Olympics restricted the resale of tickets, which had to go back through the arrangements set up by London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games and be resold by Ticketmaster at face value.”
“Even if we applied the principles of the free market, we would not want to restrict information to consumers when they buy products. The hon. Member for Shipley used the example of selling houses, but we would not sell someone a house without letting them look around it or without giving them all its specifications. Similarly, we would not sell someone a car saying, “We’ll only let you look at its left side,” or “We won’t let you look inside”; we have to give people all the information. There cannot be any objection to ensuring that consumers are fully informed. The hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) intervened to ask about the resale of rugby tickets.”
“I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for her campaign on secondary ticketing and the need to protect consumers, and to the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) for his consistency on this issue and, as someone who comes from the entertainment industry, for his very well-informed speech. I must also pay tribute to Statler and Waldorf at the back of the Government Benches—if it was not unparliamentary, I would suggest that the hon. Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) were a couple of muppets. My question for them is: what kind of market would object to consumers being fully informed about a commodity at the time of purchase?”
“If they can afford £8,000 for a ticket, I do not think they need my sympathy. The point is that we put pressure on people such as the organisers of the rugby world cup to make tickets affordable through a progressive ticketing policy so that people who genuinely love the sport but might not have the funds to pay that price for the ticket can go to the games.”
“I am answering the hon. Gentleman’s point and he can come back to me on it in a minute, although I am going to shut up quite soon. Some of the people purchasing these tickets are clearly involved in criminal gangs, as shown in the report on Operation Podium from the Metropolitan police. That report was given to the Government and they were warned that it was not just a question of people making a few bob on the secondary ticketing market. The people who set up these botnets to swamp the market when tickets are first offered for sale are often involved in criminal gangs associated with drugs and firearms. The Metropolitan police have raised serious concerns about this and we ignore them at our peril. What kind of free market wants to perpetuate such activity? I am interested in that.”
“I am delighted that those tickets are on sale at very sensible prices, which is why I am in the Chamber to support the ECB, the RFU, the FA and others in asking for the sensible ticketing policies they apply to be protected. All they are asking is to have the information available when a ticket is offered for resale so that they can see whether that ticket is being sold according to the original terms and conditions for the sale. We should not be allowing organised gangs to exploit the consumer by hoovering up these tickets and forcing people to pay much higher prices on the secondary ticketing market.”
“The point is that the governing body of the sport wants that information so that it can police it. It went to court to try to get the information, so we should be saying that it is not unreasonable for the information available at the original time of purchase of the tickets to be made available when the tickets are being resold—”
“We have been debating the issue for a very long time and for the Minister to be writing on 8 January to find out this information is a little like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, but we still have time, because the Bill will obviously go back to the Lords where there will be an opportunity for common sense to prevail with the Government, even if they will not concede the point tonight. I hope that the Minister can tell us how she got on with her letter.”
“I am not going to give way again, because I want to end my remarks. I have one question for the Minister before I sit down. She wrote on 8 January to the Trading Standards Institute and to the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland. Our argument is clearly getting through, because she has raised concerns about consumer protection and has asked for the organisations’ advice. When she responds, will she say whether she has had that advice?”
“The Environmental Audit Committee says that our investment in renewable energy is growing at half the rate it needs to grow at to meet our future energy needs. What is the Secretary of State doing about that?”
“Will the Leader of the House provide an opportunity for the Secretary of State to put the record straight and let us have a debate on this very important issue?”
“Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Health was required to come here to answer an urgent question about the crisis in our accident and emergency services. Is it not right, given the widespread concern up and down the country about A and E services, that we should have a debate on this issue here, in Government time, so that we can examine the details? It would also give the Secretary of State a chance to put right his claim that I misled the House yesterday in stating that he proposed the closure of the Lewisham accident and emergency service, which he certainly did. Subsequently, in October 2013, he lost a judicial review on that same issue, so it is surprising that it seemed to slip his mind.”
“Is it not true that this Government set out with a plan to close nine out of 31 A and Es in London, including the one at Lewisham, as directed specifically from the Secretary of State’s office? Does he regret that? What state does he think the A and E services in south-east London would be in if he had been successful, in the face of public opposition, in closing that A and E?”
“Given that the Secretary of State accepted that recommendation and was then forced to rescind it after a judicial review in October 2013, can you give me some guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, on how I can get the record put straight and bring the Secretary of State back here to correct what he said because I was not misleading the House or my constituents?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. During the urgent question on A and E, I challenged the Secretary of State to say whether he regretted the Government’s recommendation to close the A and E at Lewisham hospital, and he accused me of misleading my constituents and therefore of misleading the House. I have in my hand the recommendation of the special administrator’s report, published on 7 January 2013, which recommends closure of Lewisham’s A and E and its replacement with an urgent care centre.”
“The Secretary of State should have had a warning about these problems from Network Rail’s performance in the run-up to Christmas. If he had been travelling on Southeastern Trains, he would have suffered a great deal of disruption on several days during that period. If he had been on top of his game, he would have asked Network Rail about its capacity to manage the engineering schemes, but he failed to do so. What sanctions will he put in place so that the management of Network Rail can be held to account for their failures over the Christmas period?”
“It is no good the Minister coming here saying that he is very concerned about PIP and wants to do something about it. This has been going on for too long. Patients that suffer a downturn in their condition are suffering an extra 28-day delay and the Multiple Sclerosis Society says that that could lead to their missing out on up to £3,500. It is about time the Minister sorted this out, so what is he going to do about it?”
“Two weeks ago, the Secretary of State could not muster enough Conservative MPs in this House to defend the Health and Social Care Act 2012, particularly those elements of it that have allowed competition regulators into the NHS to second-guess decisions of local commissioners. If he wants to save money in the NHS, he can do away with that element of the 2012 Act and stop money being diverted from patients to pay for lawyers and accountants to oversee a tendering process that is wasting money.”
“What is more worrying is that the Football Association, the England and Wales Cricket Board, the Rugby Football Union and the Lawn Tennis Association all wrote to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to warn him that unless the Government act they will be forced to put their prices up to secondary ticketing levels, so at least the money that is being made can be invested back into sport. That may be music to the Government’s free market ears but it is a disaster for sports fans on moderate and low incomes. When will the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport get a grip and act? He must do it quickly.”
“May I associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) regarding Phil Hughes and also mention Sean Abbott, the bowler involved in that tragic accident, who must be feeling terrible? The Secretary of State’s response is just not good enough. The Government have failed to act to protect rugby world cup fans and now the same is happening to cricket fans. Ashes tickets for the Lord’s test are on sale on the secondary ticketing market for £1,500, yet the ballot and the prices will not be available until next month.”
“I would like to associate myself with the comments of the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), which, as a Member of Parliament for a constituency in the borough of Greenwich, I very much appreciate. The privatisation of the NHS met its Waterloo last Friday in a vote on my private Member’s Bill, which seeks to take the market, and the regulatory authorities that introduced it into the NHS, out of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. The will of the House was heard when it voted overwhelmingly in favour of my Bill— 241 to 18—so may I urge the Leader of the House to bring forward a resolution as soon as possible to ensure that it goes into Committee?”
“The Secretary of State’s definition of “harm” is not the definition that Labour Members have. My Bill, which was passed overwhelmingly on Friday, would require the Secretary of State to bring the matter back to this House should TTIP apply to the NHS in any way whatsoever. Will he support my Bill going into Committee without delay, so that we can discuss the detail and answer the questions he has?”
“I associate myself with the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford). Greenwich borough has a long association with the garrison at Woolwich and the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby was felt particularly powerfully by our local community. May I press the Prime Minister a little more on internet companies? It seems extraordinary that we do not have the co-operation of the companies that are overseas. It seems to me that we need to negotiate and take action at Government level. What is taking place at that level to ensure that, where such companies do not co-operate, regulations are put in place to compel them to do so?”
“Some have expressed the fear that the Bill opens the door to further privatisation. It does not. I accept that the last Labour Government unlocked the door to competition, albeit in a modest and measured way. I voted against the creation of hospital foundation trusts, which introduced legally binding contracts with NHS commissioners; in retrospect it was a mistake, because it brought procurement law into parts of the NHS.”
“We will restore the powers of the Secretary of State to direct health commissioners. We will create a framework for national health service contracts that will put the interests of patients before competition. We will protect the NHS from the imposition of competition rules by the transatlantic trade and investment partnership, and give sovereignty to this House. Through this House, the Secretary of State will be accountable for promoting a comprehensive national health service. If any Government dare to impose competition on our national health service in the future, they will have to come before the House and repeal this Bill, if it becomes an Act. We, as Members of the House, will be accountable to our constituents for how we vote in that debate. There will be no hiding place.”
“I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. Today we begin to restore the sovereignty of this House over our national health service. We begin to put patients at the heart of decision making. We will restore the responsibility of the Secretary of State to promote a comprehensive national health service. We will tear the heart out of the hated Health and Social Care Act 2012. We will remove the health service commissioners’ obligation to put services out to tender. We will replace the 49% private patient cap, and allow the Secretary of State to set limits. We will prevent competition authorities from interfering in mergers that are in the interests of NHS patients. We will stop the sale of assets that are in the long-term interests of patients and our national health service.”
“It is not possible to compare what went on under the last Government with what has been introduced by the raw market mechanisms of the 2012 Act.”
“There are numerous examples of contracts that are going out to tender, and the cost to the national health service of lawyers and accountants is increasing. The Government have made so much of the issue of bureaucracy in the NHS, but when I asked the Secretary of State about the cost of those lawyers and accountants to oversee the tendering process, what was the response? It was, “We do not collect those figures centrally.” I wonder why that is.”
“It is just not realistic to compare what went on under the previous Labour Government with what is going on now. Yes, the contract in Cambridgeshire, at Peterborough, was won by an NHS bidder, but what was the cost? How much money was diverted from patient care into running that tendering process? That is an increasing cost to the NHS that we cannot allow to continue. By the way, I unreservedly withdraw my accusation that the hon. Gentleman voted in favour of the 2012 Act, because that is a calumny I would not use against my worst enemy. Through the House, the Secretary of State would be accountable—”
“There are a number of provisions relating to the Secretary of State which state that everything that is decided has to put patients first, rather than competition. That is the key difference in this Bill. The Secretary of State will have to be satisfied that every penny raised from private income serves the needs of patients. The Secretary of State will set the limit, which can be variable, but it will have to come down because this House will demand that.”
“When Labour left office, the NHS had the highest satisfaction ratings from its patients that it had ever had in its history. The NHS was in crisis in 1997, and Labour saved it. It is in crisis again now.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are too many examples of money being wasted on the tendering process. Those who suggest that what the Labour Government did can be compared in any measure with what this coalition has inflicted on our national health service are completely misguided. When the Labour Government were elected in 1997, we spent 5.2% of our GDP on our health services. In 2010, we had increased that to 8.6%. We increased the number of doctors by 48,000. We increased the number of GPs by 5,000. We increased the number of training places for doctors, which had been cut by the previous Tory Government. We increased the number of nurses by 70,000. We had the biggest hospital building programme in the history of the national health service. We rebuilt or refurbished every accident and emergency department in the country.”
“The hon. Gentleman was on the Bill Committee for the 2012 legislation, and I wonder how many amendments he tabled to put those issues right. And he has the cheek to come here and ask questions about my Bill, which seeks to put right what he did not attempt to put right when he was on that Committee.”