UK Parliament / Open data

Health and Care Bill

Proceeding contribution from Matt Hancock (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Monday, 22 November 2021. It occurred during Debate on bills on Health and Care Bill.

I will happily comment on that. In the debate over the past few days, many people have been comparing the package put forward by the Government with the proposals from Sir Andrew Dilnot in 2014-15, but there is a reason those proposals were never enacted and never came into force. It is because they had a huge price tag, and there was no successful debate on how to pay for them. It has been easy to ask for social care reform for the past three decades, but until this Government did it, nobody had come forward with a plan for how to pay for it. We simply cannot magic things out of thin air. If we are a grown-up Government, we have to come forward with a grown-up package, which includes saying how it will be paid for. That is what has happened, and that is why this package hangs together. We should support this new clause, because it is part of that overall funded package.

I want to turn briefly to the measures on integrated care systems. The purpose of the ICSs is to have a more preventive, more flexible and less siloed approach than we have under the current clinical commissioning groups, without removing the grit in the oyster that is the purchaser-provider split and without upsetting the 1948 settlement involving local authorities doing social care and having a national NHS. Amendment 76 in particular contains a lot of suggestions that might seem tempting. There are people who have an important voice in the debate. The problem, as we have seen with existing legislation, is that if we put too much into statute, it is far harder to deliver high-quality services that are integrated on the ground. That is why the Government are right to resist putting too much detail into legislation. However, I do support the change proposed by the Government, which makes it clear that the purpose of ICSs is not to have private providers on the board. I can confirm that, as the Minister said, it never was. Mischievous rumours were put about, some of which have been repeated today, that that was the intention, and I am glad that the Government’s amendment puts that matter beyond doubt.

I am attracted to amendments 89 and 90 and, in another group, amendments 91 to 98 and amendment 23, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker). I was going to say this before I knew that I would be sitting next to him in the debate today, and I hope that the Government will look on these amendments kindly. The parity of esteem between mental and physical health is incredibly important, and I commend the amendments to the House.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

704 c136 

Session

2021-22

Chamber / Committee

House of Commons chamber
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