Business of the House

The Leader of the House said that he was not sure where the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) had got her details on the health service. I suggest that one possible source that might be the basis for a debate is the survey of NHS trust chief executives published today in the Health Service Journal. It corroborates the right hon. Lady’s points and goes on to reveal that 47 per cent. of trusts are making redundancies and that 69 per cent. of chiefs think that patient care will suffer as a result of short-term financial decisions. When asked about the Government’s handling of the national health service, the chief executives—the people running the health service—said decisions were ““knee-jerk”” and Ministers ““consistently dishonest and disingenuous””. One said:"““It is hard to imagine greater incompetence””." We need a debate on what is happening in the health service. While we are talking about incompetence, let us move on to the consultation on post office closures. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will actually answer the question about whether we are to have a statement. As the right hon. Member for Maidenhead said, consultation is to close on 8 March. Is it not extraordinary that neither the Government nor the Post Office thought it appropriate to send the consultation document to the people most affected—the men and women who run sub-post offices around this country, none of whom has received the consultation document unless they have applied for it themselves? If they have received the document, it will have come from a Member of Parliament such as me, who has sent them a copy. Is that not extraordinary incompetence on the part of the Government? May we have an urgent debate on water charges? I live in a village that is not on mains water, and sometimes has no water at all, but those who do have a water company will be alarmed to see that water bills are going up yet again, by up to 10 per cent. Indeed, South West Water bills will soar by an average of £44, to £483, the highest in the country. Is it acceptable that we can have hosepipe bans and leakage at the same time as rocketing water bills, on top of higher council tax bills and winter fuel payments? Lastly, may we have a debate on agricultural education? I do not know whether the Leader of the House saw the survey carried out by Dairy Farmers of Britain this week, which revealed that one in 10 eight-year-olds do not know that pork chops come from pigs. A similar number do not know where bacon comes from, and suspect that it may come from sheep. Astonishingly, 2 per cent. think that cows lay eggs. Is it not important that people understand where their food comes from, and the importance of the agriculture industry? Perhaps that is a lesson that would be well learned by Ministers as well.