Wes Streeting MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. I thank the hon. Member for the way she put her question. I send my deepest condolences to Sophie’s family on what will inevitably be a difficult day—I suspect just the latest of many difficult days—on the imaginable pain, grief and loss that they have suffered. I thank the hon. Member for her work over many years campaigning on children’s cancer in this House on behalf of her constituents and so many other families affected by young cancer. The pause is because we are looking at the breadth of the work of the Department to make sure that we have the right vehicles to deliver the outcomes that we want. That is why we have paused rather than cancelled, slammed or criticised the work that she was doing. I would be delighted to meet her to talk about the genesis of the taskforce and how we can take forward the outcomes that she wants to see. What we are trying to avoid is a plethora of taskforces, and the risk that there has sometimes been—this is not a party political point, because this spans successive Governments—of taskforces being an alternative for action. I know that she wants action, so let us meet and see what we can do together.

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right that our country has stark health inequalities. It is not right that people who live in different parts of the country have such different chances of living well. A girl born in Blackpool can expect to live healthily until she is 54, whereas a girl born in Winchester can expect to live healthily until she is 66. That is why, with the Prime Minister’s mission-driven approach, we will not just get our NHS back on its feet and make sure it is fit for the future; we will also reduce the cost and burden of demand on our national health service by attacking the social determinants of ill health.

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  Absolutely.

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right, and at some point the Conservatives will have to take responsibility for it. We learned through bitter experience that if we did not change as a party, the country would not choose to change the Government. Long may the Conservatives continue, therefore, with their head in the sand, and long may we continue to get on with the job of clearing up their mess and building an NHS that is fit for the future. The relationship between the NHS and local government, and between my Department and local government, is of particular importance in relation to social care, which is why I was especially delighted that the Prime Minister chose this week to appoint Tom Riordan, the chief executive of Leeds city council, as second permanent secretary. He is an outstanding public servant with a demonstrable record on health and care integration, public health and prevention. I look forward to having that local government perspective, and local community delivery perspective, at the heart of our Department.

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to see my hon. Friend in her place, standing up for her communities in Penistone and Stocksbridge. In opposition, it was very frustrating watching successive Ministers promise better hold music for people trying to get through to their GP, rather than solving the problems of access. Fixing general practice, and building general practice so that it can meet the needs of this century, will be a vital part of our 10-year plan process.

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend has done a lot of work in this area and I would be delighted to meet her. Let me give the Conservative party a lesson in humility. However proud I am of the last Labour Government—and I am incredibly proud of what they did to our health estate, the investment they brought in, through a range of different types of private financing, and the impact that had; I can see the benefits in my own constituency— I have never shied away from what we did not get right. At the same time as celebrating what we got right in government, we must reflect on what we did not get right and genuinely learn those lessons, which is what we did in opposition. It took us too long to get back into government—we will learn from that for the future—but it has been really interesting to listen to Conservative Members over the past nine weeks. They have not learned anything, they have not got the message and they are not going to change.

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to see my hon. Friend in her place. She is absolutely right. I feel really sorry for NHS staff for what they have been put through over more than a decade of mismanagement and political incompetence, and we will work with them to clean up the mess. She establishes exactly the right test, which is whether we would want our loved ones to be treated in our local health and care services, and whether we would have confidence that, in every case, on every occasion and in every interaction, they would have access to the best-quality care. The truth is that we do not have that certainty, and too often it feels like chance. That is why we will always put the patient voice, the patient interest and the patient experience at the heart of our reform and modernisation programme.

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to see my hon. Friend in her place. She is absolutely right. We will take Lord Darzi’s diagnosis to write the prescription and ensure that our reform agenda benefits every part of the country—not just big cities and the wealthiest communities—so that every person, wherever they are from, grow up and live, has access to the very best health and care services.

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to see my hon. Friend representing Calder Valley. He has captured the fear and anxiety about the length of the wait experienced by far too many parents when they access A&E departments. It is a terrifying experience, particularly for parents with small children, to be in that situation. Frankly, the lack of focus on paediatric waiting lists and waiting times, whether in A&E or for electives, really is shameful. We have got to put children first and that is exactly what this Government will do.

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  I am so grateful for that question, not least because it gives me the chance as a constituency MP to say a huge thank you to St Francis hospice and Haven House children’s hospice for the care they provide to constituents, like so many other hospices around the country. I know that the sector is under real pressure. We look forward to working with the sector throughout the period of the spending review and the 10-year plan, not only to support our hospices but to improve end-of-life care, which is pertinent to debates that I know this House and the other place will have about how we ensure a good death for everyone, in every part of the country.

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to see my hon. Friend from Dudley. I agree wholeheartedly, 100%, unequivocally.

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the work she does championing Milton Keynes. Therein lies the challenge: it cannot be right that delays in diagnosis lead to the difference between life and death. I am very lucky that my cancer was caught early. It was diagnosed quickly and treated quickly. Not everyone is fortunate, and I am so sorry that my hon. Friend’s family is bearing the consequences of what happens when things go wrong.

• 9 Sept 2024 · Government Policy on Health · Hansard source

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  It is entirely legitimate to ask questions, and it is also entirely legitimate for Government Departments to invite people with a wide range of experience and insight to advise on policy debates and discussions. That happens all the time. Where do we draw the line? Do we have to send compliance forms to Cancer Research UK before it comes in to talk about how we tackle cancer? Do we have to send declaration of interest forms to patients who want to discuss awful cases they have experienced? Frankly, I find this pantomime astonishing. I am surprised that the shadow Secretary of State thinks this is such a priority that she should raise it on the Floor of the House rather than NHS waiting lists, ambulance response times, GP access or the state of social care. It is clear that the Conservatives have not learned why they are in opposition.

• 9 Sept 2024 · Government Policy on Health · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is because of the way that she champions her constituency and her community that she was sent to this place to stand up for their interests. It will not be lost on her constituents or anyone else in the country that, with our national health service in the state that it is in and with the appalling headlines that we have been reading in recent days, the Opposition have absolutely nothing to say about the responsibility that they bear for the crisis or what they would do to fix it. They have the wrong priorities, but, fortunately, the country has the right Government.

• 9 Sept 2024 · Government Policy on Health · Hansard source

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  And I am committed to making sure that the right hon. Lady is there, asking the questions, for a very, very long time. Unlike our predecessors, this Government cannot get enough of experts. We work with a wide range of stakeholders in developing policy, because that goes to the heart of our approach to mission-driven government. But I think the shadow Secretary of State was referring specifically to the right honourable Alan Milburn, so let me address him specifically. I walked into the Department of Health and Social Care on 5 July to be confronted with the worst crisis in the history of the national health service: waiting lists at 7.6 million, more than a million patients a month waiting four weeks for a GP appointment —if they could get one at all—the junior doctors still in dispute and on strike, and dental deserts across huge parts of our country, where people cannot get an NHS dentist for love nor money. This Government are honest about the scale of the crisis and serious about fixing it, which means that we need the best available advice—it is all hands on deck to fix the mess that the previous Government left. If a single patient waited longer for treatment than they needed because I had failed to ask for the most expert advice around, I would consider that a betrayal of patients’ interests. I decide whom I hear from in meetings, I decide whose advice I seek, and I decide what to share with them. I also welcome challenge, alternative perspectives and experience. The right honourable Alan Milburn is a former Member of this House, a member of the Privy Council and a former Health Secretary. He does not have a pass to the Department and, at every departmental meeting he has attended, he has been present at the request of Ministers. During Alan’s time in office, he gave patients the choice over where they are treated and who treats them, as well as making sure that the NHS was properly transparent, so that all patients were able to make an informed choice—a basic right that we expect in all other walks of life, but which only the wealthy and well connected were able to exercise in healthcare until Alan changed it. He gave patients access to the fastest, most effective treatment available on NHS terms, so that faster treatment was no longer just for those who could afford private healthcare. He made the tough reforms that drove better performance across the NHS and, along with every other Labour Health Secretary, delivered the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in the history of the NHS. That is his record and Labour’s record, and it is the kind of experience that I want around the table as we write the reform agenda that will lift the NHS out of the worst crisis in its history, get it back on its feet, and make it fit for the future once again.

• 9 Sept 2024 · Government Policy on Health · Hansard source

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  It is not for me, thankfully, to answer for the shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care; it is just my responsibility to clean up her mess.

• 9 Sept 2024 · Government Policy on Health · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to see my hon. Friend here representing Bishop Auckland. The people of his constituency will be struck by the fact that this afternoon the Conservative party has chosen to create a mountain out of a molehill about a former Health Secretary coming in to lend his advice and experience to a Labour Government. On covid corruption, my hon. Friend is absolutely right to be angry, as indeed the country is, too. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been very clear that, when it comes to cronyism and corruption in covid contracts, we want our money back and the covid corruption commissioner is coming to get it.

• 9 Sept 2024 · Government Policy on Health · Hansard source

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  Yes.

• 9 Sept 2024 · Government Policy on Health · Hansard source

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  This is the extraordinary thing: notwithstanding the public job application of a former Conservative Secretary of State, which did not meet the bar, I have been approached by former Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Care who served in the Conservative Government who, in a spirit of public service, have wanted either to do work for the Labour Government on issues that they care about, or have sought to share their experiences—the highs or, indeed, the many lows—of being in government. That is a totally legitimate thing to do. I suspect that, if I rang round all my Labour predecessors, I would find that the Conservative Government tried desperately hard to get them to work for them, because, as I say, the challenge for Conservative Health Secretaries was that they did not have any successful Conservative predecessors to turn to.

• 9 Sept 2024 · Government Policy on Health · Hansard source

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  First, my right honourable friend, Alan Milburn, does not have a role in the Department. Secondly, of course we will publish, in the routine way that we do, details of meetings held in the Department and who attended them. I gently suggest that if the hon. Member has not made his way there already, there are plenty more interesting things to read in the House of Commons Library.

• 9 Sept 2024 · Government Policy on Health · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. How fortunate we are to be able to turn to every living former Labour Health Secretary, from Alan Milburn to Andy Burnham, and in every single one of those cases be able to draw on people whose record of delivery led to the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history. I can confirm to my hon. Friend that, both in opposition and in government, I have been talking to the Mayor of Greater Manchester. He is doing some brilliant work on prevention. I am really looking forward to working with all our metro mayors to tackle health inequalities across the country and to improve the integration of health and care services across the land.

• 9 Sept 2024 · Government Policy on Health · Hansard source

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  My right honourable friend, Alan Milburn, does not have a role in the Department. He does not have a pass to the Department. I am asked whether he has accessed the ministerial floor. I do not know where the Conservatives held their meetings, but I tend to hold them in my office on the ministerial floor.

• 9 Sept 2024 · Government Policy on Health · Hansard source

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  In the meetings that I asked my right honourable friend to attend—I need to make sure that I get this absolutely right—I tend to think that I saw him on the other side of the table in the corner. I cannot guarantee that he sat at that point in every single one of the meetings, but he certainly was not sitting next to me. With regard to the papers for the meetings that he attended, they were discussion papers about the challenges facing health and social care. They were not Government decision papers or recommendations for Ministers. There is a distinction between those two things. I decide who attends meetings in the Department, and, when it comes to wide-ranging policy discussions, I decide what reading material people receive.

• 9 Sept 2024 · Government Policy on Health · Hansard source

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  Given the state of the Opposition, I bet they would love to see what policy discussion papers we are putting forward in the Department of Health and Social Care. The hon. Gentleman is right: papers have been shared with my right honourable friend on Privy Council terms. The Opposition will, in time, be able to judge the fruits of the labour, in terms of my decisions and the decisions of this Government when it comes to fixing the mess that they created.

• 9 Sept 2024 · Government Policy on Health · Hansard source

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  I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. Let the record reflect that, when he was raising the crisis that is leaving people in Hartlepool without access to NHS dentistry, Conservative Members were shouting, “What about Alan Milburn?” That says everything about their priorities, everything about their lack of remorse and contrition, and everything about why they should stay in opposition for a very long time while we sort out the state of NHS dentistry in Hartlepool and across the country.