The Welfare State: CPRS Report (Hansard, 14 October 1982)

§ Lord Wells-Pestell
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Young)
My Lords, I assume that the noble Lord is referring to an analysis undertaken by the Central Policy Review Staff of ways in which it might be possible, if the Government so decided, to limit the growth of public expenditure in the longer term. This was a confidential analysis prepared for Ministers and will not be published.

§ Lord Wells-Pestell
My Lords, may I thank the Leader of the House for her Answer. Her assumption is perfectly correct. May I ask her to be good enough to inform her right honourable friend the Prime Minister that we in the Labour movement regard the National Health Service as an integral and sacrosanct part of the welfare state—and inviolate? May I also ask the noble Baroness to add that a serious and long 912 conflict would arise if steps were taken fundamentally to change the basis of the National Health Service and the thinking that lay originally behind it.

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, I am glad to confirm both to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and to the House what my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services said last week; that the Government have no plans to change the present system of financing the National Health Service, that it remains as it is, that it is safe in our hands and that it will be financed, as now, largely from taxation.

§ Lord Harris of High Cross
My Lords, in view of the vehement opposition expressed by Labour spokesmen and also by spokesmen for trade unions about varying the arrangements of the National Health Service, may I ask the Leader of the House whether she and the Government are aware that in the latest national opinion poll conducted in May for BUPA the results confirmed an overwhelming majority, even as high as 69 per cent. among the members of trade unions, in favour of private health treatment—not the abolition of the National Health Service but in favour of the option of private health treatment?

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, I have of course seen the opinion poll to which the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, refers and I should like to confirm that we as a Government welcome the growth in private health insurance. But there is no contradictiion between that statement and our support of the National Health Service.

§ Baroness Jeger
My Lords, does not the noble Baroness agree that this document can no longer be regarded as confidential? Is it not a nonsense to refer to it as a confidential document? Would it not be preferable for the Government to publish it so that we know whether or not what we have read in the press is correct? Secondly, I thank the noble Baroness for referring to the National Health Service, but this document purported to deal with social security, too. Therefore, may I ask the noble Baroness whether the 5 per cent. shortfall in unemployment benefit is likely to be restored in the near future and what other proposals the Government have in mind relating to the social security suggestions in the report? I understand that the report is supposed to have so reported.

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, I am sure that it is not necessary for me to refer the noble Baroness to the words of her right honourable friend in another place, the then Prime Minister, who said on 22nd January 1976: The advice of the CPRS, like other official advice to Ministers, is normally treated as confidential. While a number of reports by the CPRS have been published under this Government, a decision by Ministers to publish a particular report can only he taken in the light of the individual circumstances". The Government agree with that statement. On the question of the 5 per cent. abatement of unemployment benefit, I have nothing further to add to the Statement which was made last July in another place.

Lord Wallace of Coslany
My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that, although we would accept that the report was confidential, it seems very significant indeed that there have been considerable leaks to the press of the contents of the report? Can the noble Baroness give an assurance to the House that there was no inspired leakage? The publication of details has given rise to a great deal of public anxiety. May I further assure the noble Baroness that the bland assurance given by the Prime Minister at the Conservative Party Conference has not eased public anxiety over the issue?

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, that no Government like to see confidential documents leaked. On the noble Lord's second point, I should like him to accept my word and that of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and, as I have said, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, that the National Health Service will continue, as now, to be largely financed out of taxation.

§ Lord Ardwick
My Lords, if the noble Baroness says that the National Health Service will continue as now, does she mean at its present real level or at its present level in terms of pounds? Or is it to be left open for the National Health Service to be a reduced health service? All those things are consonant with the preservation of the service. The question is, at what level?

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, the record of this Government speaks for itself. Spending on the National Health Service has grown each year in real terms under this Government. We now employ thousands more doctors and nurses in the National Health Service than under the former Government, and there is no suggestion that we will do other than stand by the statements we have already made about the future of the National Health Service.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, is the noble Baroness, Lady Young, aware that those of us who believe in the preservation and indeed the enhancement of the National Health Service are not afraid of the arguments of the wreckers but would welcome the exposure of their arguments to the light of day so that we can contradict them? Is the noble Baroness further aware that it diminishes the standing of the Government when documents submitted to them in confidence are leaked partially to the press in such a manner as to distort their meaning; and that the best way the noble Baroness and her colleagues have of convincing the public that they mean what they say in declaring that they wish to preserve the Health Service is to publish the report in its entirety and then argue against its findings?

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, the Government certainly do not accept that leaks are to the advantage of good government at all. At the same time, I would like to make quite clear that our policy on open government has been to make publicly available as much as possible. Indeed, the whole development of the Select Committee system in another place has been proof of this, and we have taken the opportunity to publish a great deal of information not previously 914 published. I would like to make it quite clear that every Government have recognised that they cannot do their job properly without the privacy of confidential exchanges between Ministers and advice from officials to Ministers. Countries which have freedom of information legislation recognise this.

§ Lord Annan
My Lords, is it not a fact that this CPRS was set up precisely to look into long-term plans? Was it not also set up to think the unthinkable about many subjects, and that on certain occasions it has done precisely that'? Would the noble Baroness not agree that it is reasonable for a body of that kind to come forward with propositions which the Government may consider in the end not to be appropriate, or, equally, that it may come forward with propositions which the Government could never have had before if they had left it simply to the normal workings of the Civil Service departments involved?

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, I would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Annan, for that question which I consider to be a very constructive contribution to this discussion; and it does represent the Government's thinking on this matter.

§ Lord Kaldor
My Lords, as to the very alarming statements published in the press concerning the conclusions of this report—that it will imply some time in the future a basic tax rate of 45 per cent. instead of 30 per cent. and a value added tax rate of 30 per cent. instead of 15 per cent. if the present scale of social services is to be maintained—surely these conclusions could have been reached only on the basis of very pessimistic estimates concerning the future of the national income in this country, and would it not be a good thing for the Government to disclose what were the assumptions concerning income which led to these extraordinary conclusions?

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Kaldor, knows well, discussions of economic problems facing this country have continued for a very long time and no doubt will continue long into the future. This discussion proceeds in a great many ways. For example, my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer discusssed these problems in his "Weekend World" interview last Sunday. But no decision has been taken about the publication of any further documents.