Health and Social Care Bill (Programme) (No. 3)

I would like to speak to amendment 1165, which stands in my name and those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), my hon. Friends the Members for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), for Halton (Derek Twigg) and for Pontypridd (Owen Smith), and the hon. Members for St Ives (Andrew George), for Southport (John Pugh) and for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland). It would delete clause 168, which abolishes the cap on the number of private patients who can be treated in foundation trust hospitals. There has been much interest in this issue, and we will seek a vote on the matter if possible. Earlier, the Secretary of State assured us that the legislation would not result in a market free-for-all. ““That will not happen if this Bill is passed,”” he said. But close examination of the clause shows that we will certainly be getting a step closer. It will mean that our national health service, where people are tended by our NHS-trained doctors using our NHS equipment, will be full of private patients, who are able to pay more. Hard-pressed hospitals facing increasingly large shortfalls, desperately trying to balance their books, are bound to take in increasing numbers of private patients. We have been here before. Many of us remember the last time the Conservatives were in power, when there was a two-tier health service: those who could pay got faster treatment and could skip the queue, while those who could not afford to go private had to wait, and many of them had to die. I am pleased that the Secretary of State has seen the letter in The Times today. It is often concerning to see how he assimilates data, because he seems to listen only to some things and not to others; he listens to what he wants to hear. I hope that he has realised that in The Times today the doctors, nurses, midwives, psychiatrists, physiotherapists and occupational therapists have said that the Bill will destabilise the national health service. They are particularly concerned about the removal of the private patient cap. Why is that? The Government's own impact assessment, at B156, acknowledges that"““there is a risk that private patients may be prioritised above NHS patients resulting in a growth in waiting lists and waiting times for NHS patients.””" We could not have put that better ourselves, and it is in the Government's own impact assessment of the Bill. If we lift the cap on the number of private patients in the time of crisis that the national health service is about to go into, as night follows day the number of private patients in hospitals will increase, forcing out national health service patients. As a result, waiting lists will go up, and what will the public make of that?