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Audrey Wise (Preston) : The Cystic Fibrosis Research Trust gave evidence to the Select Committee on Health about children with cystic fibrosis who need lung transplants, which is often a suitable treatment. It stated that it was unaware of any lung transplant centre that did not levy hotel charges for mothers who stayed with their children.

Mr. Maples: I think that what is under discussion now is whether the patient will have to pay hotel charges following the review.

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Those are all quotes from what the present Government said about us. It is staggering hypocrisy, in the light of what is now being considered. The truth is that not we but the Government have been considering a massive extension of charges. [Interruption.] Labour Members sigh. If they want to deny that any of those proposals is on the agenda, I shall be happy to give way to them, but until they do I think that we are entitled to assume that the proposals are on the agenda. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), nods and mutters a good deal, but yesterday he declined the opportunity to deny that sick children would be charged for hospital care.

The Government have another problem, and it is a particular problem for the Secretary of State. Ten years ago, a Labour Member of Parliament, a Frank Dobson--obviously he was nothing to do with the current Secretary of State, as they do not seem to agree on much--said in his 1987 election address:

"Labour will . . . get rid of prescription charges."

I know that 10 years is a long time, but to go from getting rid of prescription charges to extending them is quite a jump.

The same Frank Dobson was quoted in the Morning Star. That shows how far back we are going: I do not think that he would want to be quoted in the Morning Star now. On 26 May 1987, it reported:

"Forcing the sick to pay to see a doctor could become the shocking reality under a third . . . Tory term.


Charges to enter and stay in hospital . . . Frank Dobson revealed yesterday 'All Mrs. Thatcher's friends are absolutely mad on the idea.' "

It would be interesting to find out whether they are mad about the ideas that the right hon. Gentleman is now coming out with.

That was obviously based on a Department of Health press release issued a few days earlier, in which Frank Dobson said:

"The Tories know that the people of this country fear for the future of the NHS. That is why they have kept under wraps the far right ideas of charging for visiting the doctor or for staying in hospital."

There we have it.

There is one more report--in The Guardian, which is a bit more respectable than the Morning Star. It reported in April 1996:

"Labour's health spokesman, Mr. Frank Dobson, said: 'We will reduce prescription charges immediately with a view to abolition.'"

Can that be the same Frank Dobson who is now Secretary of State? Perhaps someone has been going around Holborn and St. Pancras impersonating the right hon. Gentleman, trying to make a fool of him. He was still there in 1992, however. His 1992 election address was one of those election addresses that quote constituents saying nice things, and a lady was quoted as saying:

"Frank Dobson really knows what he's on about when it comes to the NHS."

Well, that lady was right. Frank certainly knew what he was on about; he just did not tell the rest of us. I imagine that she would be very surprised to realise just how much he knew, and just how little he told her.

I suggest to the Secretary of State that that pile of words would make an awfully indigestible meal for him and his friends, but I say to him honestly that I hope that he does

25 Jun 1997 : Column 913

not have to eat it. All that he has to do is say now that there is no way in which the review will even consider those possibilities, and that he guarantees that the Government will never charge pensioners for their prescriptions, charge patients to stay in hospital or charge people to visit their general practitioners.

The right hon. Gentleman has missed all sorts of other opportunities; perhaps he will take this one. He could deny the whole story. He could still go home early. If he denies the whole story, and states categorically that he is not considering such action and that it will not happen, I promise him that we will forget the whole thing and not mention it again. I hope that he will do that, but I somehow doubt that he will. I expect that we are about to hear not an answer to our charges or an explanation of policy, but a diatribe against the last Government and their record. We have heard that a good many times.

The Labour party is now in charge, however. The Secretary of State is famous for his bluff bullying, but we shall see it--as, I suggest, will those sitting behind him--for the smokescreen that it is, designed solely to avoid living up to the responsibilities of his office. I say to him, why not make a change and rise to the occasion for once? He should speak for the Government. He should speak like a Secretary of State, and tell us and his Back Benchers that what we have said is not true.

7.44 pm

The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Frank Dobson): I beg to move, as amendment to the motion, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

"welcomes the commitment of Her Majesty's Government to the historic principle of the National Health Service that if someone is ill or injured there will be a national health service to help, with access to it based on need, not on ability to pay or on who their general practitioner happens to be or on where they live; notes the steps which are being taken to end the internal market, which is unfair both to patients and staff and which has resulted in massive sums being consumed by bureaucracy; welcomes the shift of funds into patient care, including cancer treatment, instead of paperwork; and looks forward to further changes which will ensure that once again the National Health Service provides the best health services for all and is ready to meet the challenges of the 21st century."

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) on his election, and on his new job as shadow Health Secretary. I hope that he will bring to the task the honesty that he displayed in his most famous contribution to modern politics--the Maples report, which spelled out what the people thought of the Tory Government, in the hon. Gentleman's opinion. He reported to the then Prime Minister that the British people believed that what the Tories were saying was

"completely at odds with their experience, which led them to conclude"

that the Tories were "stupid", "out of touch" and "lying", and "didn't care"; that they had "let voters down". They had been "in government too long", were "complacent" and had

"lost a sense of direction."

They had

"failed to fulfil their promises".

For good measure, the hon. Gentleman also reported that people perceived the health reforms as

"clumsy, and believe what doctors and nurses say about them".

25 Jun 1997 : Column 914

How right he was. He went on to suggest that the Tories should identify what he described as some killer facts about their record, and repeat them endlessly.

I have always been one to take good advice, wherever it comes from, so I have collected some killer facts about the Tory record on health. None of what I am going to say is fiction; it is all facts--the facts about the position that we have inherited from the Tories after 18 years of Tory government.

The facts are that 59 of the 100 health authorities in England ended last year in deficit, 128 of the 429 NHS trusts ended last year in deficit, 42 health authorities were judged by the Department to have serious financial problems and 55 trusts were judged to have serious financial problems. Hospital waiting lists are at an all-time record at 1,164,000. Hospital waiting lists have increased by more than 100,000 since March last year. Waiting times are rising again, and the number of people waiting for more than 12 months has increased sevenfold since last year.

Capital investment in the NHS is at its lowest for a decade. The number of emergency operations is growing faster than the number of operations for people on the waiting list. The debt that the NHS owes its suppliers is at its highest-ever level. Prescription fraud is losing the NHS more than £85 million a year. The number of complaints to the health service ombudsman is at its highest-ever level. The Government's programme to put private finance into the NHS failed to build a single hospital, but that private finance initiative programme has cost the NHS more than £30 million in fees paid to consultants--who, moreover, did not manage to produce a single hospital.

Prescription charges are now 10 times higher in real terms than they were before the last Government came to power. The maximum dental fee is now 11 times higher than it was under the last Labour Government, and in some areas it is very difficult, if not impossible, to receive dental treatment on the NHS. Those are the facts, and there is no point in the Tories' trying to deny them. It is no good their trying to avoid the truth.

As I have discovered recently, the truth is a dangerous commodity in politics. I was found out telling the truth: I was what the shadow Secretary of State called indiscreet. What a heinous crime--a politician telling the truth. The truth that I told was that, as promised in our general election manifesto, the Labour Government were conducting, in and across each Department, comprehensive reviews

"to assess how to use resources better, while rooting out waste and inefficiency".

We are organising a comprehensive review of spending by the Department of Health, the NHS and the social services departments of local authorities--and so we should when such huge sums are involved. The NHS spends £36 billion a year, about £100 million a day of taxpayers' money.

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