§ Ql. [103517] Mr. David Crausby (Bolton, North-East)If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 19 January.
§ The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair)This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further such meetings later today.
§ Mr. CrausbyI thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Is it not the case that nurses, midwives and national health service staff thoroughly deserve their pay rise for the way in which they have kept the NHS going, not only in the face of the flu epidemic, but in the face of a generation of Tory neglect? On future health funding, can my right hon. Friend confirm that private medical insurance for a pensioner couple costs up to £87 a week? Does that not show that Tory policy on privatisation is totally out of touch with the needs of the majority of the British people?
§ The Prime MinisterThe additional pay award will help recruit and retain nurses in the health service. Indeed, 836 there has been a 24 per cent. increase in the number of nurses starting training as a result of the increase last year. There is a very clear choice. Conservative policy is to ensure that there is tax relief for private medical insurance. The cost of providing such tax relief for those who already have private medical insurance would be enough to wipe out the entire nurses' pay award for this year, plus cancelling every refurbishment of every accident and emergency department in this country. The Conservatives are doing that because of their so-called tax guarantee. The former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), said this of it:
to say that you are going to reduce the proportion of taxes to GDP in all circumstances is mad … You simply don't unless you make … swingeing cuts in the health service".That is the Conservative policy.
§ Mr. William Hague (Richmond, Yorks)With crime rising for the first time in six years—violent crime is up 6 per cent., robbery by 19 per cent., and total crime by more than 110,000 offences—has not the Prime Minister's failure to be tough on crime now become one of the causes of crime? Is it not the case that thousands of victims of crime have discovered that the right hon. Gentleman's pledge to be tough on crime was empty, worthless and fraudulent?
§ The Prime MinisterIt did not take the right hon. Gentleman long to move off the subject of the health service.
Since the election, recorded crime has fallen by 7 per cent. It is correct, particularly in respect of the rise in the West Midlands and Metropolitan police force figures, that the recent figures show a 2 per cent. increase. But I remind the right hon. Gentleman that under the Government of whom he was a Member, crime doubled.
§ Mr. HagueWhen the right hon. Gentleman took office, crime had fallen—was falling—and the number of police officers was up by 16,000. Now police numbers have fallen by more than 1,000 under the Home Secretary, stop-and-search powers have not been used, honesty in sentencing has been dropped, police morale has plummeted and crime is rising after six years of falling. Who does the right hon. Gentleman think is responsible for the rise in crime, the fall in police numbers and low police morale in the past year?
§ The Prime MinisterLet me correct the right hon. Gentleman. Crime did not fall under the Conservatives—it doubled. As a matter of fact, domestic burglaries have fallen by 20 per cent. and the theft of vehicles has fallen by 17 per cent. The right hon. Gentleman says that we are not introducing any tougher measures on crime. It is this Government who have introduced tougher measures for drug dealers; it is this Government who are halving the time that it takes to get juvenile offenders to court; and it is this Government who have introduced the policy of "three strikes and you're out" for burglary.
§ Mr. HagueYesterday, the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation said that the Home Secretary
has presided over the largest fall in police numbers for years, a huge rise in crime and the most demoralised force".837 The police know who to blame, and they know that the Prime Minister's pledge to be tough on crime has turned out to be a worthless aspiration.As the right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about pledges, will he tell us whether, when he said that he would increase health spending by 5 per cent. in real terms for five years, that was an absolute pledge or an aspiration?
§ The Prime MinisterLet me respond to the right hon. Gentleman on crime. As I admitted a couple of Question Times ago, it is correct that police numbers continued to fall during our first two years, because we had inherited proposals that were made by the Conservatives. It is also correct that police numbers fell during the last few years of the Conservative Government by more than during our first two years. However, as a result of the fund introduced by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, we can now recruit more police officers and turn that around.
In relation to health, I stand entirely by what I said on "Breakfast with Frost".
§ Mr. HagueYesterday, the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson), who is on the Front Bench next to the Prime Minister, said:
We shall ensure that, over five years, there is a 5 per cent. real-terms funding growth in the national health service."—[Official Report, 18 January 2000; Vol. 342, c. 744.]That is a clear pledge.Yesterday, the Prime Minister's spokesman said:
I can't say there will be a 5 per cent. increase this year, next year, and so on.Those are utterly incompatible statements. Which one represents Government policy?
§ The Prime MinisterLet me read what I said on the Sunday programme:
If we run the economy properly over the next few years"—
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. I am not deaf; I can hear what is being said.
§ The Prime MinisterI said:
we've got the first year … of substantial extra resources for the Health Service going in. Next year is the same, the year after that it's the same. If this July when we work out the next three year period after that three year period we can carry on getting real-term rises in the Health Servicewe will come up to the European Union average.I am entirely confident that we will get those 5 per cent. real-terms rises, because that is what we have achieved in this comprehensive spending review. The choice, therefore, is between the Labour Government, with our 5 per cent. real-terms rises, and a Conservative party, which, because of its tax guarantee, will not commit itself to spending any extra money on the health service. That, of course, is why the Conservatives go for the ludicrous notion that the problems in the health service can be solved by private medical insurance. When the right hon. 838 Gentleman gets to his feet, perhaps he will say whether it is indeed his policy to make that private medical insurance compulsory.
§ Mr. HagueLet us have an answer from the Prime Minister, instead of that waffle about what he said. So far, we have had Frost on Sunday, panic on Monday, U-turn on Tuesday and waffle on Wednesday. If there was a pledge, why, yesterday, did the Prime Minister's spokesman say that he could not say that there would be a 5 per cent. increase year on year? That was the Prime Minister's spokesman—he is responsible for his spokesman. [HON. MEMBERS: "No he isn't."] Oh, the right hon. Gentleman is not responsible for his spokesman. Not only does he deny responsibility for most things that are happening in the country, he now denies responsibility for his own press spokesman. Is the right hon. Gentleman happy to repeat the statement made in the House last night by his junior Health Minister, who said:
We shall ensure that, over five years, there is a 5 per cent. real-terms funding growth in the national health service.
§ The Prime MinisterWe are putting in a 5 per cent. real-terms growth. We are doing that. As I have said—not only on "Breakfast with Frost", but in the House in December—if we carry on running the economy properly, we can get these real terms rises in. [HON. MEMBERS: "If!"] If the Opposition think that the public will be disappointed, come July and the comprehensive spending review, they will find that they are the ones to be disappointed.
One of the reasons that we can bring in the real-terms rises is the way in which we have run the economy. There are 700,000 extra jobs. Social security spending on the costs of economic and social failure are falling. The choice is between our pledge to put in those extra resources, which we are doing, and the right hon. Gentleman's pledge that he will force people to go to private medical care for non-urgent operations.
In The Sunday Times this Sunday, the Conservative health spokesman said that
the Conservatives are no longer concerned with the maintenance of the NHS as the primary provider … 'Philosophically, we have moved on … Insurance companies could cover conditions that are not high tech or expensive, like hip or knee replacements, hernia and cataract operations. We could then leave expensive treatments like cancer therapy to the NHS'".If that happened, it would cost people over 60—many of whom are watching our proceedings—£60 to £80 a week to take out private medical insurance.The reason why the right hon. Gentleman cannot commit himself to match our resources in the health service is the tax guarantee. Perhaps he will finally explain what his policy is. I believe that this is a classic Hagueism—a misjudgment—because he gave the tax guarantee, and now he wants to give a spending guarantee, but the two do not add up.
§ Mr. HagueOne might think that the right hon. Gentleman had enough to do misrepresenting his own policies without misrepresenting ours. He knows that we are committed to improve and expand the national health service, but he also knows that every informed commentator and every other Government in Europe 839 believes in also improving health care from other sources—except him, with his blinkered ideology and his hostility to the private sector.
Today, we have seen that what the right hon. Gentleman said on Sunday was not an announcement of money to get the health service through the next five years but a piece of rhetoric to get him through the next five days. Fraud in this country has gone up by 29 per cent. but in his answers it has gone up 129 per cent.
We now have a country where crime is up, waiting lists are up, the NHS is in crisis and police numbers have fallen. Things are getting worse under Labour. Does not Britain deserve better than that?
§ The Prime MinisterLet us just deal with two of the points that the right hon. Gentleman makes. The first is that we are not prepared to look at other health care systems. Perhaps, in light of what has been in the media in the past few days, I should explain what happens, for example, under the German or the French system. German employers have to pay about 7 per cent. on top of each worker' s salary for health cover. Each worker has to take about £1,300 out of their pay to fund health insurance. In France, employers pay about 12 per cent. on top of each worker's gross wage. There is no way whatever that private medical insurance could solve the problem in the health service—none.
The right hon. Gentleman says that we are refusing to co-operate with the private sector. We shall of course co-operate where it is sensible. The private finance initiative in hospital buildings is co-operation with the private sector. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman today that half of NHS residential care—worth £730 million a year—is provided with the private sector. What is a con trick, though, is to tell people, when we need more nurses, doctors and facilities in the national health service, that forcing people who will not be able to afford it to go private will solve the problems of the national health service. It will not.
Finally, let me deal with how the right hon. Gentleman tries to get out of this, because he has his tax guarantee and his waiting list guarantee or his patient guarantee. A short time ago, he said in the House that he would fund his way out of this problem by making savings because—people will remember this—the costs of Government had risen by more than £1 billion since we came to power. We have had that figure checked. The right hon. Gentleman gets to it in this way.
First, the right hon. Gentleman deals in cash terms, not real terms. [Interruption.] Well, most people deal in real terms. Secondly, he takes as his starting point the end of the financial year 1997–98. Forgive me, but I thought that we were in power between 1997 and 1998. Taking the true figures, under the present Government the cost of central Government has actually fallen, not risen. So the way the right hon. Gentleman funds his pledges is rubbish. The truth is that, every time he turns his mind to policy, he has zero judgment. His policies are a joke and his party is divided; and that is one reason why this country will never trust the Tories with the health service again.
§ Mr. Jimmy Hood (Clydesdale)Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that the Government have no intention to legislate to allow the promotion of homosexuality in our schools?
§ The Prime MinisterWe believe, as we have said already, in getting rid of section 28. That is not because we believe it right to promote homosexuality but because we believe it is right for school teachers and others to be able to explain to children properly the facts of life. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] Some people may make political capital out of the issue, but I think that it is a sensible change and that it is the right change. I hope that we can get a more mature debate on it than we have had in certain quarters.
§ Mr. Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Inverness, West)Assuming that the Prime Minister and the Government intend to go ahead with the proposed 1 per cent. reduction in income tax in April this year, could the right hon. Gentleman tell us how much that will cost the Exchequer?
§ The Prime MinisterI also said in the interview that I gave on Sunday that the measure is in part compensation for the other tax changes that are being made. I believe that it is the right thing to do. Yes, we can always put up taxes and spend more, but, as a result of the changes that we have made, we will put this year into the national health service—
§ Mr. KennedyHow much will it cost the Exchequer?
§ The Prime MinisterThe right hon. Gentleman asks, "How much?" We will put in a real-terms increase of 6 per cent. That works out both in real and in cash terms as several times the amount that he pledged at the last election.
§ Mr. KennedyI simply asked the Prime Minister how much it would cost, and answer came there none. It will cost more than £2 billion in April of this year. How many people out there in the country would rather see that money going on local hospitals, solving the problems of the health service, dealing with the operations that have been cancelled and so on and so forth? That is our priority; that is where the money should go. Why is it not the Prime Minister's priority? He should be putting the money towards health and not towards tax cuts.
§ The Prime MinisterFirst, let us deal with the Liberal Democrats' economic policy. As a matter of fact, on the Finance Bill, they have tabled deletions of rises and tax cuts that amount to more than 1p on the standard rate of income tax. If they are going to be consistent, there is no way that their sums add up at all.
Secondly, the important thing is that we are now able to get into the national health service really big real-terms rises. Why? Because we have run the economy effectively. I make no apologies whatever for allowing people to keep more of their income tax, but I tell the right hon. Gentleman, as I said to him last week, that what the Liberal Democrats cannot do is launch attacks on us because they say that we have raised the tax burden one week, then tell us the next week that we should put it up even further.
§ Caroline Flint (Don Valley)I am sure that my right hon. Friend is aware of the great steps forward that the Government have made in addressing the issues of child care and family friendly policies. Is he also aware that the 841 House is failing to meet the needs of its staff, who desperately need access to child care? As a parliamentarian, will he join me in supporting, in this new century, a chance to modernise this place to ensure that staff have access to child-care facilities for their children?
§ The Prime MinisterObviously, I have more than a passing interest in child care. However, I say to my hon. Friend that this is a matter for the House authorities and it would be wrong for me to say more than that.