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Health and Education

Absolutely. One gets from local authorities the clear impression that they have a crisis in the funding of services for older people. Let me turn to the Conservative position. The Conservatives say that the NHS is their No. 1 priority—that is what we heard at their conference—but they offer a tax cut of nearly £300,000 for estates worth over £1 million, yet would do nothing at all for people who lose everything as a result of getting dementia or Alzheimer's and end up having to sell their home because they cannot afford to pay for care. Their priority is to give tax cuts to millionaires and their families; our priority is to help those who miss out on means-tested benefits but have worked hard all their lives to gather together a small nest egg only to see everything go because of a pernicious system of means-testing. That brings me to the rest of the Conservatives' vision for the future of the health service; it will not take me too long. On the radio this morning, the Conservative leader talked about the Conservative party being the party of localism. I nearly choked on my muesli—being a good Liberal Democrat—because that is a contradiction in terms. The Conservative plan is for a national quango with no local democratic accountability. Having read through their paper—it was rather turgid, but I got through it—I asked myself, ““What would happen under the Conservative paradigm when a hospital is threatened with closure?”” The answer is that an unelected national quango would make the ultimate decision about whether to close a hospital in, say, Sidcup. That is their localism—it is utterly meaningless—and once people realised that their hospital was to be closed by an unelected quango in London, they would lose any enthusiasm that they might have had for it. I want to say a few words about professionals working in the health service. One is often left with the impression that they do such good work despite what happens in Whitehall rather than because of any direction from there. In the past week, I have been overwhelmed by watching the work of a consultant professor at University College hospital in London who is developing pioneering photodynamic therapy to cure people of cancer without the need for an operation. I talked to a consultant who is developing a cure for multiple sclerosis. When one hears from these people about the remarkable work that they are doing, one is left humbled by the quality of people within the health service. That is just the specialists, but it goes the whole way through the system, from the lowliest cleaner to the most specialist consultant. The dedication and quality of care is immense. However, as the Secretary of State wonderfully declared recently, those working in the NHS are ““not happy bunnies””. That is because they are utterly sick of the endless incompetence, contradictory reform and reorganisation from Whitehall. The psychologist from Sheffield who I mentioned earlier told me that morale in her section is being undermined because she and her colleagues face a change of employer. They are going to carry on doing exactly the same job, but once again their employer will change. I talked to health visitor in Sedgefield who was on her fifth employer and had been doing exactly the same job since 1987. There are ludicrous changes and reorganisations from the centre, as we saw with the junior hospital doctors debacle. Then there are payments to administrators. In Health questions, the Secretary of State was very honest in response to a question about what is happening with pay-offs to administrators who leave the health service. I want to refer to the case of a guy called Peter Reading, who was chief executive of a hospital trust in Leicester. He was earning £180,000 a year. There was a pathway project to build new hospitals in Leicester, which collapsed. This guy was widely respected, but it appears that he was forced out of his job with no notice, probably by the strategic health authority. He got a £700,000 pay-off. The new temporary chief executive will earn £100,000 in three months—that is, on my reckoning, £400,000 a year. What is going on in Labour's health service? This is ridiculous, is it not? How can one possibly justify such pay-offs to people who are often in their early 50s and doing very good work but for one reason or another, following a decision by the powers above—usually the SHA doing the Secretary of State's bidding in the region—have to go, so there is another change and another enormous pay-off? I end by referring briefly to the Bills in the Queen's Speech. The health and social care Bill will be welcomed by the Liberal Democrats. It is positive and will break the regulatory divide between health and social care, which is a good thing. while bringing in mental health care as well. I am struck by the fact that the organisational divide between health and social care will remain in place. That divide is damaging patient care, and we must integrate those services much better than we do at the moment. The new service must be properly and adequately resourced, and we have to ensure that mental health is prioritised—it must not be allowed to sink as part of a larger service—and that it has real powers to drive up health and social care standards. The regulation of human embryology was also a welcome inclusion in the Bill. That will be the subject of joyous debate because it involves many controversial issues, many of which are conscience issues that will divide the House on the basis of a free vote. We will support the Conservatives' amendment, but on the basis that our vision of a reformed legislative structure for the NHS is very different from what the Conservatives have in mind. Our vision is of local democratic accountability and local control, which this Government have so far failed to provide, and which is certainly not on offer from the Conservative party.