Engagements (Hansard, 7 July 1994)

§ Q2. Mr. Fatchett
To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 7 July.

§ The Prime Minister
This morning, I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

§ Mr. Fatchett
Is the Prime Minister aware that Railtrack board members have introduced a new working practice whereby they are paid £500 additional bonus—three times the basic wage of signal staff—simply to attend Railtrack meetings? Will the Prime Minister join me in 447 agreeing that those additional payments are obscene? Will he take this opportunity to condemn Railtrack's board for making those additional payments?

§ The Prime Minister
I will certainly make inquiries about what the hon. Gentleman has alleged, and check whether it is true. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will also take the interests of the travelling public into account and condemn a strike for an 11 per cent. pay award, which far exceeds what is being paid to anyone else in the public sector. There is no justification for an award of that size at this time. I hope that negotiations will continue and that the strike will be swiftly settled.

§ Mr. John Greenway
Does my right hon. Friend agree that a new offence of racial harassment—as recommended by the Select Committee on Home Affairs—together with new measures to tackle the publication of racist material, will be major steps forward in the fight against racial attacks?

§ The Prime Minister
We abhor any crime in which any element of racial motivation is present. That is precisely why we have added to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill a new offence to tackle that particular mischief. I believe that that is desirable, and will achieve widespread support among all shades of opinion.

§ Mrs. Beckett
On Tuesday, the Leader of the House rejected doctors' criticisms of the Government's health service changes; today, the health service ombudsman has published strong criticism from patients. Are they wrong, too?

§ The Prime Minister
Like the right hon. Lady, I have not yet had a chance to read the whole of the ombudsman's report. The ombudsman examines a minority of the cases referred to him, and does not comment on the generality of health service treatment. I understand that some of the reports that have been evident earlier today have been repudiated by the commissioner, but, as I said, like the right hon. Lady, I have not yet had a chance to read the full report.

§ Mrs. Beckett
But the Prime Minister must know, as I do, that it reveals a record number of complaints. Does he not recognise that the ombudsman, doctors, nurses, patients and Opposition Members are all saying the same thing—that the Government's health service changes are making matters worse? When will the Prime Minister drop them?

§ The Prime Minister
I think that the whole House will have noted that the right hon. Lady did not say that she had read the report about which she claims to be speaking so authoritatively. Of course we will take the Health Service Commissioner's report seriously: we are anxious to ensure that the health service continues to improve, and, according to the test set out by the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), it is. He said that the test of the reforms was whether more patients were treated. They are—1 million more every year.

§ Mrs. Beckett
Is the Prime Minister denying that the report shows a record number of complaints this year? Is he denying that? I doubt it very much. Only under the present Government would a record number of complaints be regarded as evidence of success. Does the Prime Minister recognise that the health service changes are 448 hurting but certainly not working, and that, while he may sack the present Secretary of State for Health, he also needs to scrap the policies and start putting patients first?

§ The Prime Minister
The reforms are precisely about putting patients first. That is why the number of patients treated in hospital has grown by record amounts, the quality of care has improved immeasurably and the number of patients waiting, and almost all waiting times, have fallen. That is an improvement in care.
As for complaints, it was precisely with the aim of addressing the issues highlighted by the Health Service Commissioner that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State established a committee, under Professor Wilson, to carry out a thorough review of complaints procedure. That report was published for consultation in May. We anticipated concern about the matter, and have already put in hand measures to deal with it.

§ Miss Emma Nicholson
Does my right hon. Friend agree that bed space is no longer the determinant of a nation's health care policy, and that when a nation has many beds that is likely to be because epidemiology is not the advanced science that it is in the United Kingdom today?

§ The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is entirely right. The proper judgment of how well the health service is performing is based, first, on the number of people who are treated and, secondly, on how satisfactorily they are treated. On both those measures, the health service continues to improve.