NHS Funding Bill — House of Commons, 2020-02-04
Topic: Health
Edward John Comport Argar (Conservative, Centre-right): I will not, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, as I only have 10 minutes or so left There are sometimes very good and logical reasons why adjustments between capital and revenue are needed. As the former Secretary of State highlighted, in some cases, for perfectly good reasons a capital pot may not be spent fully within a year and there is an opportunity to achieve patient good from transferring it. While I take his point and believe it is right that we should continue to move away from such transfers, I would not wish to see that rigidly set in legislation. Amendments 2 and 1, and new clauses 1, 2, 3 and 9, relate to mental health services both for children and adults, and accountability to Parliament and reporting mechanisms. We have rightly seen considerable interest in mental health in this debate, so I will seek to address both those points together. I begin by paying tribute to Paul Farmer of Mind, Sir Simon Wessely, Professor Louis Appleby, the Mental Health Foundation, Rethink Mental Illness, YoungMinds, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and a host of other individuals and organisations up and down the country, for their fantastic work in making mental health such a feature in our debates and in the public consciousness. It is absolutely right that they have done so I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), and her predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), who brought to the role of mental health Minister passion, dedication and a determination to make a difference. I should also reference some former Members of this House: Norman Lamb, who did so much in this area; the former Prime Minister, David Cameron; and of course my right hon. Friends the Members for South West Surrey and for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who ensured that it was front and centre of this Government’s commitment I want to be totally clear that the Government are fully committed to transforming mental health services. That is why we enshrined in law our commitment to achieving parity of esteem for mental health in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey said, that is driving real change on the ground. We have also committed to reforming the Mental Health Act 1983 to provide modernised legislation. I would also highlight that at £12.5 billion in 2018-19, spending on mental health services is at its highest ever level We have made huge strides in moving towards parity, but there is still so much more to do. We are ensuring, through the NHS long-term plan, that spending on mental health services will increase by an additional £2.3 billion by 2023-24. This historic level of investment in mental health is ensuring that we can drive forward one of the most ambitious reform programmes in Europe. It will ensure that hundreds of thousands of additional people get access to the services they need in the lifetime of the plan. I flag that up because we can and will always strive to do more, and it is right that we are always pressed by this House to do so. While proposals for a ring fence in mental health spending are understandable, the approach that this Government have already set out, with long-term commitments to funding, is already driving the results we wish to see I now turn to new clause 9, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris). If I may, I will also address new clause 2 in this context because there is a degree of overlap. I welcome my hon. Friend’s new clause. Although I hope that, as she indicated, she will not press it to a vote—and I heard what the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) said in respect of hers—the sentiment behind it is a good one, particularly the focus on outcomes and outputs rather than simply inputs and the amount of money going in, and on adopting a holistic approach. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot recently met the Secretary of State to discuss the matter, and I am happy to meet both her and the hon. Member for Twickenham. While we do not believe it is the right approach to set additional reporting mechanisms in legislation over and above the different reports that NHS England and the Secretary of State already make to Parliament, which offer opportunities for debate, we are happy to consider whether, within the existing reporting mechanisms, there is a way to better convey to the House and the public more widely the progress we are making against those targets The NHS long-term plan represents the largest expansion of mental health services in a generation, renewing our commitment to increase investment faster than the overall NHS budget in each of the next five years. Not only will spending on mental health services increase faster than the overall NHS budget as a proportion, but spending on CAMHS will increase at an even faster rate. The hon. Member for Twickenham was right to highlight the importance of CAMHS. In our surgeries, we have all had constituents come to see us who are deeply worried and concerned about the mental health and welfare of their children, be that in relation to eating disorders, which I focused on when I came to this place, or a range of other factors. We are committed to delivering the NHS long-term plan to transform children and young people’s mental health services, with an additional 345,000 children and young people being able to access those services While we are deeply sympathetic to the spirit behind the amendments on mental health spending, we do not believe that putting a ring fence into the Bill is the appropriate way forward, given the work already being done, the money already being spent and the outcomes already being delivered. We believe that the reporting requirements are already extensive and varied. They already give the public and Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise the work of the Department and NHS England. We are happy to look at ways in which those reports might be more accessible and include different metrics, but we believe it would be wrong to legislate on them at this point As I said on Second Reading, this is a simple Bill. It has two clauses, of which one is substantive. It has a single, simple aim: to enshrine the funding settlement behind the NHS long-term plan in law. It delivers the funding that the NHS said it needed and wanted, and it delivers on this Government’s pledge to do so within three months of the election. In the light of that, while the amendments are clearly well intentioned and we appreciate the spirit behind them, they are unnecessary additions to the Bill, and I urge their proposers not to press them to a vote. I appreciate that Members have indicated their intention to press some amendments to a vote, I urge them, in the short period remaining before Committee ends, to reflect a little longer on whether they might reconsider and not move their amendments to a vote.