Health and Social Care Bill

The benefits of memory are useful in politics, and perhaps my right hon. Friend's intervention will help the hon. Member for St Ives to decide how to vote in the Lobby tonight. Many people have asked why the Government are making these proposals at such breakneck speed. Surely it is not to solve a political problem on health. After all, the Conservative party spent the whole of the last Parliament doing everything possible to avoid any policy on health that might hint at radical change. That paid off, because in the last prime ministerial debates before the general election, not a single question on health was put to any of the party leaders. It would be massively in the interests of my party and all Labour Members if the next general election were dominated by debates on the health service. On that basis, we should be urging the Government to plough ahead and make the next general election a referendum on health. Frankly, however, the cost would be far too high, and the consequences would be far too great for the national health service. The truth is that a radical Secretary of State would do something that too few of his predecessors have been willing to do—namely, to say, ““On my watch, there will be no reorganisation of the national health service.”” Such a Secretary of State would dedicate himself to implementing the reforms that are working today. It is not the case that the only choice is between no reform at all and the reforms now being offered. According to health experts, there is more reform going on in the English health service now than in other health system in Europe. Our Scottish and Welsh friends might benefit from some of the changes that are taking place in England, because those changes have made the English health service a fast-improving one in Europe. There is always room for improvement in the national health service to strengthen commissioning, to link health authorities and local government, to get people out of hospitals and to align with social care. The Dilnot commission has just been appointed to review the funding of social care, but it will not report until July. At exactly the time when we are looking at the localisation of health provision, the Government have appointed someone to look at the nationalisation of social care provision and its funding. This is not a Health and Social Care Bill; it is a health without social care Bill."““The real choice is not between stability and change, but between reforms that are well executed and deliver results for patients and reforms that are poorly planned and risk undermining the NHS””." Those are not my words but those of the chief executive of the King's Fund. The Hippocratic oath says that we should ““Do no harm””. The Bill fails that test. It aims at irrevocable change and threatens real harm, and that is the reason to oppose it in the Lobby tonight.