My right hon. Friend is right that there are problems with the GP contract. I do not want to get into too many discussions about doctors’ contracts in this very consensual debate, but Conservative Members have to take responsibility for not having remedied the
pensions anomaly, which gives people an incentive to retire much earlier than we would want. We have to address that issue.
Lots of people might reasonably ask whether I did enough to address the issues in the nearly six years that I was Health Secretary. The answer is that I set up five new medical schools and increased by 25% the number of doctors, nurses and midwives we train. However, that decision was taken five years ago and it takes seven years to train a doctor, so not a single extra doctor has yet joined the workforce as a result.
That is the nub of the problem: the number of doctors, nurses and other professionals we train depends on the priorities of the current Secretary of State and Chancellor. As a result, we have ended up with a very haphazard system that means that although we spend about the average in western Europe on health, as a proportion of GDP, we have one of the lowest numbers of doctors per head—lower than any European country except Sweden.