It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) for leading this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. I am pleased we were able to find time to hear from the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald); I offered to take an intervention from him, which I suspect was a brave offer on my part given the intervention that might have come my way. I am pleased he got to give his speech.
I am grateful to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne). I think this is the first time we have properly been opposite one
another since his appointment to this role on the Opposition Front Bench. Although I did not agree with everything he said, he made a typically well-informed and well-argued speech. He is right to pay tribute to all hon. Members who have spoken today, regardless of whether one agrees with the positions advanced. This has been a passionate debate. At its heart is, perhaps, the most precious of our country’s institutions; understandably, right hon. and hon. Members and our constituents have very strong views on the subject.
Before turning to the substance of the debate, and although I may not agree with their position, I pay tribute in a broader context to the work of Unite, Unison and other trade unions. I do not always agree with the stance they adopt, but they play a hugely important role in our democracy and society. It is right to put that on the record. As always in these debates, and as the shadow Minister has done very clearly, I also put on the record our gratitude—from both sides of the Chamber equally—to all NHS staff and those working in social care, local government and other key workers across the country for what they have done across the past two years and, indeed, what they do every year, day in, day out.
As I have said before, the Health and Care Bill reflects evolution, not revolution. It supports improvements already under way in the NHS and, crucially, builds on what the NHS recommended and consulted on back in 2019.