Clause 12 - Prudential borrowing code
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill
3:45 pm
Dr Evan Harris (Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell for making my points for me. I do
not know if that is the start of a new trend. If it is, I do not mind, because he did it very well. I have nothing to add on the basis for the amendment—[Interruption.] Hon. Members should wait. If the Minister will be generous in allowing me to intervene to seek clarification of his answers, I will not repeat the points made by the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell.
Some may feel that in proposing the amendment, we wish to limit the access of new providers in the market to private capital because of a fear that that would limit the ability of the rest of the NHS to borrow. That is not the case. We believe that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should not have been allowed to prevail, and that the loans should not count against departmental borrowing limits. If the Government had faith in prudential borrowing, there was no need for that to be the case. The consequence of the Chancellor's winning that battle with the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health is that we are in what the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell described as a zero-sum game. If that is the position, it should say so on the face of the Bill.
This is the point where we and the Conservatives may part company. I argue—as they do—that there is a restraint on the ability to borrow. However, I also argue that that is unfair. The Minister has said that the Government will honour capital allocations for the next three years, and that all trusts will be foundation trusts by the end of that period. If that is the entire allocation—and if there is not another allocation that will be diminished by borrowing in the meantime—the unfairness may not arise. However, if he cannot guarantee either that the honoured capital allocation is the maximum that could have been allocated against the Department of Health's limit, or that all trusts will have the same freedoms—and that they will all be restricted by the limit—there is unfairness between those that can take advantage of the limited freedoms, and those that cannot take advantage of those freedoms and will have their allocation restricted by virtue of the freedom given to new providers. That is the purpose of the amendment. I hope that the Minister will point out where I am wrong if there is not a problem or, if there is, explain how it can be addressed.