Department of Health and Social Care and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government — House of Commons, 2018-07-02
Topic: Health
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth). In fact, all the speakers so far this evening command the respect of both sides of the Chamber for obvious reasons given what they have said. I, too, agree with a large amount of what has been said. It is also a pleasure to speak in this very week of the 70th anniversary of the NHS We are talking this evening—it is in the Order Paper—about NHS expenditure summing to greater than £120 billion. That is a staggering sum and it just shows how important the NHS is not only to the Treasury and the Government, but, perhaps most importantly, to the public. Certainly, this is the top topic of interaction for my constituents. It is very, very important to them. The NHS is right up there with the royal family and the armed forces in making the Brits proud to be British, and for understandable reasons. I therefore very much welcome the £20.5 billion increase in real terms spending on the NHS. It is not only obviously needed because the population is ageing and the cost of healthcare is growing, but also desired by the British public. Some 86% of the British public say that they feel the NHS needs more spending. They are also willing to pay for it. It is very important that we listen to the public very carefully when they say that they need more spending on the NHS and that they are willing to pay for it. We will come in a moment to how they should pay for it. The British public are not stupid. They are fully and well aware that Government expenditure all comes from taxation, either now, immediately, or in the future in terms of debt. That is important, as they recognise that we cannot magic money out of thin air. We must also be very responsible and careful as politicians that we respect the fact that, whenever we decide that we wish to increase Government expenditure, what we are effectively doing is reaching into the pockets of hard-working people in this country and saying, "We’ll take some of that out, thank you very much." We have to be really respectful of that and explain why we are doing it and what we are doing it for. The laziest thing to do in politics is pretend that other people are going to pay for all this and to promise the world to everybody. It is a dangerous route to go down and the British public will eventually see through that approach If we are going to be straight with the British public, how will we achieve this increased expenditure? I am sceptical, but not as sceptical as my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), about the Brexit dividend. I do, however, like to talk about a deficit dividend; as we reduce the massive amounts of interest that we are paying over time, there will be a benefit to the UK population. We have to be honest about where the money could come from, and hon. Members have mentioned other ideas about how it could be generated, including by looking at council tax, tax-free allowances and the pension age We do need to look at the pension age very carefully again. We have already increased the pension age to 67 and 68, but as the population ages and we all live longer, it is not unreasonable to expect us all to work longer. As we work longer, we generate more taxes during our lifetime, and that is pretty important. We have to consider whether it is reasonable that we should all be living 15 or more years after we have retired without paying more tax.