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

I support amendment 1165. Although I have a great deal of respect for the Minister, his comments did not persuade me. The proposal to remove the cap is an example of the shambolic way in which the Bill has been presented. There seems to me to be very little evidence to back up what the Minister thinks might happen. He thinks that everything will be OK, but the NHS has never been in the position of having to make £20 billion-worth of efficiency savings—or cuts, which is what they really are. I believe that when the cap is removed, trusts will want to increase the income that they can obtain from private patients. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) made the good point that when waiting lists lengthen—which we know they are already beginning to do—those who pay will do so in order to receive the medical treatment that they want. After 1997, NHS waiting lists in Hull fell to their lowest ever level. A private hospital that sat in the middle of an NHS trust—it was then the Hull and East Riding acute trust—was sold to the NHS. It had not been getting enough business, because the NHS was doing so well. We have heard in today's debate about the high level of support for the NHS and about the current high levels of satisfaction, and I do not think that we should take this step. Earlier, I spoke of the lack of principles that the Liberal Democrats were exhibiting yet again in respect of the NHS. It was interesting to hear the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) say that he was not doctrinaire on the issue. So the hon. Gentleman has no principles, and is not doctrinaire either. I recall that, in 2010, the Liberal Democrats campaigned in my constituency on a platform of saving the NHS, not increasing the number of private patients. I think that when this measure reaches the House of Lords, Liberal Democrat peers must stand up and be counted, because it is a disgrace that Liberal Democrat Members should support it today. My main concern relates to evidence. Where is the evidence that removing the cap will work? I do not think that the safeguards exist to ensure that NHS patients will be protected, and I know that waiting lists are rising, which means that people in my constituency, and in poorer parts of the country, will not be able to gain the access to health care that they deserve. I believe that removing the cap is entirely wrong.