I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I would like to begin by placing on
record my solidarity with the junior doctors who are set to stage three days of strike action over pay later this month, as well as with members of the ambulance service whose dispute is still ongoing.
The Royal College of Nursing has now suspended its planned strike action to allow for the commencement of pay negotiations with the Government. There can be no doubt that our nurses deserve a fair pay rise that truly reflects the extraordinary work they do, but I must warn the Health Secretary that the cost of living crisis is being felt in every profession in the NHS at the moment, and I hope he will give serious consideration to the warnings issued by other health unions regarding the dangers of entering into unilateral talks with a single union. He must understand that any deal he reaches with the RCN will have broader implications for the entire “Agenda for Change” pay band system and risks prolonging disputes with other parties even further. I urge him to act in the best interests of patients, health workers and the NHS itself by inviting all unions that are in dispute around the table and by working to find a resolution on an NHS-wide basis.
I have been proud to stand with striking health workers on their picket lines over the last few months and to learn more about what has driven them to take strike action, some for the first time in their lives. In every instance, pay has been the immediate catalyst for a dispute. Far too many people working in our NHS are struggling to make ends meet, and the scourge of low pay is deterring far too many bright and determined young people from seeking a career in the health service in the first place.
However, while the cost of living crisis was an issue for everyone I spoke to, most people seemed more concerned with the state of the NHS itself than with their own personal circumstances. They had got used to real-terms pay cuts under the past 13 years of Conservative misgovernment, but none had seen the NHS in such a state as it is today, crippled by gaping staff shortages, crumbling facilities and the highest backlog in its history.
Those discussions led me to reflect on how much has changed in the 13 years that the Conservative party has been in charge of our health service. Conservative Members may not want to admit it, but when Labour left power, our national health service was world leading by any metric. In fact, a 2010 Commonwealth Fund report singled out the NHS for its efficiency and shorter waiting times. That is a far cry from today when 7.2 million patients are being prevented from moving on with their lives because they are waiting for treatment, and delays in emergency care cause hundreds of deaths every week.
In 1997, it fell to the Labour party to save a health service that had been driven to its knees by the mismanagement, arrogance and carelessness of the
Conservative party—and so it proves again today. The plan that has been put to the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), the shadow Health and Social Care Secretary, will help to lay the solid foundations for the recovery and revival of the NHS. I hope that when the Chancellor comes before this House to deliver the Budget, he looks as favourably on it as he did when it was first announced, when he called for it to be adopted
“on the basis that smart governments always nick the best ideas of their opponents.”
In recent years, he has made great political capital out of his support for the NHS, even if that has often been at odds with his deeply questionable record as Health Secretary. On 15 March, he has the opportunity to show that he cares more for nurses than for the super-rich by backing Labour’s plans to end non-dom status.
It seems increasingly likely that soon enough, Labour will be responsible for the stewardship of our health service, so I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North not to let his ambitions falter. These plans are undoubtedly a step in the right direction, but it is also crucial to engage meaningfully with those on the NHS frontline about what more needs to be done to support the NHS workforce in the immediate term.
In that vein, I ask my hon. Friend and the Secretary of State to listen to the EveryDoctor campaign group about its practitioner-led plan to revive the NHS, which includes steps to strengthen mental health support for NHS staff; to remove the locum fee caps that restrict our ability to maintain safe staffing levels during periods of extreme crisis; and to cut red tape in the Home Office so that people can start the job that they came to this country to do. I also ask my hon. Friend to guarantee that confronting the immediate pressures facing the NHS workforce will not prevent our party in government from making the bold, structural reforms that we promised in our last manifesto, including ending privatisation in the NHS.