Clause 24
Greater London Authority Bill
2:30 pm
Michael Gove (Shadow Minister (Housing), Communities and Local Government; Surrey Heath, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 15, in page 26, line 7, at end insert—
‘(3A) After subsection (5) insert—
“(5A) Any strategy or revision to any strategy to which this section applies shall subject to the approval of the Assembly.”.’.
As is clear from our debate earlier, there is substantial consensus among Committee members that the Mayor should enjoy powers to address health inequality. It is important to ensure that such powers are exercised as effectively as possible. The amendment would ensure that the democratic deficit alluded to by the hon. Member for Battersea is addressed even more comprehensively. It would ensure that, although the Mayor has the power to develop a strategy, the assembly will have the power to amend it. On the principle that two heads are better than one, 26 are surely better than one.
When we talk about inequality with regard to the NHS, some people might be tempted to ask whether that is the most important factor. Would reducing inequalities in the NHS mean aiming at one target rather than concentrating on others? Dealing with inequalities in health outcomes is a vital measure of how successful the NHS is.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) recently attracted a degree of controversy by mentioning that, on poverty, Polly Toynbee might have a better way with a metaphor than Winston Churchill. He was correct, because Polly Toynbee’s metaphor of the caravan moving through the desert applies to the NHS as powerfully as it does to any other collective organisation seeking to deal with inequalities in our society. Her arresting metaphor was intended to demonstrate or underline that it is important that, as a society makes progress, it does so in such a way that the gap between those at the top and those at the bottom does not become too great, because if it does there are problems.
In the past, some Conservatives have argued, when asked about their commitment to social justice, that all that matters is that a rising tide lifts all boats and the difference between people does not or need not matter so much. This Committee sitting gives me the opportunity to stress something that I am anxious to get across, which is that we Conservatives believe that poverty can be measured in both relative and absolute terms and that, on the NHS and its founding principles, the way in which the NHS provides a guarantee of a base level of treatment to all, regardless of income, is a vital way of ensuring social cohesion and social justice. In that respect, the Mayor’s health strategy is right, since he has a specific responsibility to address inequality.
As I said, the hon. Members for Battersea and for Mitcham and Morden talked about the need to give people a voice in shaping the future of the NHS. Our amendment would give those who serve on the GLA an opportunity to influence the Mayor’s strategy. I suspect that the Mayor himself would welcome this change. It is certainly a change that the assembly seeks.