Clause 17 - Financial powers
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill
12:45 pm
Mr Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
You will not be surprised to learn, Mr. Griffiths, that I do not wish to speak to the first two amendments in that group, but to amendments Nos. 18, 161, 19, 146 and 21.
Amendments Nos. 18 and 19 need to be read together. They attempt to introduce a ceiling on borrowing limits to NHS foundation trusts, at a level that is generally accepted as prudent in the commercial world. A gearing level of debt to income of 100 per
cent. is a fairly standard measure of affordability for a private corporation. It establishes a much more prudent and sensible limit on borrowing than the restrictions that the Bill puts forward otherwise.
Frankly, we are concerned that the level of restriction on foundation trusts' ability to borrow cuts away and undermines many of the benefits that foundation hospitals experience in other countries, where they have much greater control over their own financial affairs and are not subject to centralised prescription over what they can and cannot do financially. It is our view that the Government's approach—that hospitals can have freedom, but freedom in a straitjacket—which is applied to many sections of the Bill, is wrong and flawed. That is ironic, because the Government have had a difficult time with the Bill. There has been a Back-Bench rebellion, although not, sadly, in the Committee. However, we know that those Labour Members who sought to express themselves in the Chamber about the principles of the Bill were not given the opportunity to bring those arguments to the Committee.