As someone with naturally Conservative instincts, I am inclined to say no to tax increases, and to greatly prefer the options that allow the Government to create the economic conditions for growth in order to fund our public services. We have to recognise, however, that the expectations of the public are much greater now than they were a relatively short time ago. Whether we approve or not, the Government are now expected to provide more and more services, and the public do recognise that there is a cost to that.
I am a child of the 1950s. At that time, it was expected that the family would look after children—not necessarily just the parents, but the wider family, and the next-door neighbour might be involved as well. Now, however, there is an expectation that the Government must fund facilities for childcare. The same applies to adult care: that, too, was something that families took on. It was a burden, there is no denying that, but one that was expected, and, in the family context, accepted. It was not ideal then, and what the Government are proposing now, I suspect, will also not be ideal. It will have imperfections. Our surgeries will be full of people saying, “My neighbour is getting this and I am not.” We all hear of such anomalies from constituents. There will be the issue of differences in property prices, for example. My part of the world has low property values: for £350,000, one can buy a nice four-bedroom executive property; that is not the case here in the south. There will be anomalies that need further consideration.
Then we need to ask, “How are we going to do this?” The Government need money now. That is the expectation of the general public. Yes, there is a danger that the money could fall into a black hole, but we all have the ability to challenge our local health trusts. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici) and I have regular meetings with our hospital trust. We must expect the Government to challenge the NHS senior
management at national level, but we all have a role to play. Our local authorities have scrutiny panels that can ask questions, but we as individual Members of Parliament can take part in detailed scrutiny. We want to know what has been done to improve dementia care in, for instance, Grimsby and Cleethorpes. We want to know what has been done to improve cancer care. Is the stroke unit better located at Scunthorpe General Hospital, which is the case in our district? There is much that we can all do to aid the Government, and, more important, to aid and help our constituents.
This is a massive challenge for Governments. Governments have to accept the world as it is, and not as they would like it to be. I urge my colleagues who have expressed perfectly legitimate reservations about supporting the Bill to have a rethink. The Government are delivering on what the public expect. The public know that massive amounts of money have gone into dealing with the pandemic, and they recognise that if they want a better health service—which they all do—and better social care, there is a cost. It is not a cost that I like, but it is the best way forward at the moment.
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