HC Deb 17 February 1992 vol 204 cc3-4
2. Mr. Alan W. Williams

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the consideration he gives expressions of public opinion in assessing whether an application for NHS hospital trust status should beapproved.

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. David Hunt)

I take full account of all relevant representations.

Mr. Williams

Does the Minister accept that every opinion poll on the subject shows that the overwhelming majority of the public oppose NHS trusts and see them as a stepping stone to privatisation? If the Government—who privatised the gas, electricity and water industries—are returned at the next general election, they will privatise the NHS. Why do not the Government abandon that creeping privatisation and listen to the public, who want the NHS to be modernised, not privatised?

Mr. Hunt

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is, for instance, referring to the Wales Trades Union Congress opinion poll, but I shall quote from one of the instructions to those who conducted it: Street ballots are to be held as a means of offering the public the opportunity to show their opposition to optingout. I hardly think that that was a fair poll.

In 1979, Labour said that the Conservative Government would privatise the health service. Nothing has been further from the truth, and the position is still the same. We have no plans to privatise the health service. The latest opinion poll on the health service in Wales showed that nine out of 10 of the people who received hospital treatment in the past two years were very or fairly satisfied with it. Approval of the Government's conduct of the health service is at record levels.

Mr. Grist

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the success that national health service trusts in England are enjoying should reassure anybody in Wales about any application that might come before him?

Mr. Hunt

I agree with my hon. Friend. Approval has been widespread and distinct improvements have been made. I remind the House of the figures and statistics. When we took office in 1979, an average of £170 per man, woman and child was spent on the health service in Wales. My recent announcement took the figure to £651. There is no question of underfunding—rather, there has been a generous allocation of resources.

Mr. Livsey

Parents are allowed a vote when schools opt for grant-maintained status, yet no such vote is allowed when an NHS hospital applies to become a trust. Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that that is very unfair?

Mr. Hunt

The two examples are not comparable. There is no question of any national health service trust leaving the NHS. Parents have a vote on the governorship of schools, but health service trusts must show the Secretary of State for Wales that the quality of service will improve and that they will remain within the national health service.

Mr. Gwilym Jones

I put it to my right hon. Friend that trust status is the finest form of devolution within the national health service, taking decision making down to the most local level. By increasing NHS spending by approximately 60 per cent. in real terms, the Government are showing the finest and best commitment to the NHS in Wales.

Mr. Hunt

I agree with my hon. Friend. National health service trusts mean local management of locally based health services to meet local need. The previous Labour Government took all their time in office to reach a 9 per cent. increase in real terms. Under this Government, NHS resources have increased in real terms by more than 60 per cent.

Mr. Barry Jones

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that opt-out hospitals and the Tory commercialised internal market in patients are yet further examples of the Conservatives imposing policies from Whitehall that ignore the special needs and culture of Wales and have no support among our people? There is no support in Wales for those proposals, but there is anger that the Secretary of State will tamper with the national health service in the way that he proposes. When the election is held, his party will pay a heavy price.

Mr. Hunt

We have had expressions of interest from parts of the national health service that would mean that trusts would be responsible for more than 65 per cent. of all acute services in Wales. The hon. Gentleman was a Welsh Office Minister in the previous Labour Government, when resources for the national health service increased by 9 per cent. Under this Government, resources have increased by more than 60 per cent. in real terms.