Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Health
Mark Peter Fletcher (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ilford South (Sam Tarry), if only because he asked what we would say to the people in his constituency who have been struggling. It seems a strange time to ask that question when the Government have just spent £400 billion helping individuals and businesses through a tremendous crisis, keeping the show on the road and making sure that our economy can recover, that jobs grow and that we have a way of life we can continue with. I feel that the timing of his points was somewhat ill-judged It has been interesting to be in the Chamber today, because we seem to have covered all the reasons that we should not do something. It seems that all the ways in which we are doing something are imperfect. I feel we have captured the political paralysis that has surrounded social care over the past couple of decades. It is incredibly difficult to do anything in this area, because it requires tough choices and a punt into the dark that may or may not work—we can never be sure We often speak in this Chamber as if we are certain, as if we are positive and as if we know where things will go, but sometimes we have to say, "We think this is the best way forward and we hope it works." To acknowledge that the Prime Minister and the Government are doing something today on the NHS backlog and on social care is to admire their bravery. To govern is to choose, and that is what the Prime Minister is doing. We have heard some tremendous speeches about the alternatives to taxation or to systems, but we have been having this debate for so long. When I look my suffering constituents in the eye or when they come to our surgeries and say that the system does not work, we cannot sit there and say, "Okay, but I’m going to engage in an academic exercise for another decade until we find perfection." Sometimes we have to acknowledge that the best way forward is to take a chance Today is a massive step in the right direction. We are investing £12 billion per year over the next three years to try to ensure that any damage done by the global pandemic to our NHS is no longer a problem and that we can reach 110% capacity. We are also grasping the nettle of social care reform. However, there is an intriguing paragraph in the health and social care plan: paragraph 9, which states that "the Government will ensure this money is well spent and goes to frontline care in England, increasing efficiencies and using reforms to drive up productivity." I think that there is an acknowledgment, particularly among Conservative Members, that NHS funding cannot go on becoming a black hole. There is a need to ensure that outcomes and productivity are improved. Look at the lessons of the pandemic, particularly from the Nightingale hospitals, which went up in 10 days through the combination of logistical support from the Ministry of Defence and the NHS—it was unprecedented We saw in the vaccine roll-out that when we bring additional expertise into the NHS, we can achieve amazing things My "nudge" today is that I do not think we can continue to assume that more and more money will solve the problems that we have. Equally, however, I will not look my constituents in the eye and say, "I did not try." However tough some of the decisions are that we have to take, I will back our Prime Minister and I will back our Government, because our constituents need to see our country get better, and that is what we are trying to achieve.