Health and Education

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 1:59 pm on 30 November 2004.

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Photo of John Reid John Reid Secretary of State, Department of Health, The Secretary of State for Health 1:59, 30 November 2004

The right hon. Gentleman may have missed it, but I did not once claim—I repeated the point three times—that the achievement was down to the Government; I claimed that it was down to NHS staff. I ask Conservative Members to do what the right hon. Gentleman did in 30 seconds and what Conservative Front Benchers were unable to do in 38 minutes—pay credit to the NHS. That is what I object to.

I celebrate when lives are saved through the NHS. All Labour Members celebrate the fact that, 60 years after the formation of the NHS, a young child born in this country will live nine years longer than they would have done before the NHS was founded. Although the right hon. Gentleman is never churlish—he has led that vast organisation, with all its faults and virtues—I cannot hear roars of celebration from Conservative Front Benchers,

Conservative Front Benchers do not celebrate the fact that, compared with the peak, 456,000 fewer people are on waiting lists. Waits of more than nine months for hospital admission have reduced from more than 118,000, which was the last Government's legacy, to virtually nil today. Nineteen out 20 people are seen, diagnosed and treated by our NHS staff within four hours—a world record. I cannot hear roars of applause from Conservative Members.

None of those achievements is reflected in the efficiency gains. If one waits three months, three weeks, three days or three years, it makes no difference to the present method of calculating efficiency, which is why I have said that the current method is absurd. Rather than using those calculations to beat NHS staff over the head, let us point out that the practical improvements carried out by NHS staff are not currently represented in those statistics.

Managers are the bête noire of the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire. The NHS has about 38,000 senior managers, which is a ratio of about 3 per cent. to other staff and about one quarter of the figure in private health care. The 38,000 senior managers compares with about 400,000 nurses and about 130,000 doctors. Let us not use the weasel words that the number of managers has increased at three times the rate for doctors, because, although that might be statistically accurate, like damned lies, statistics can be misleading. It would be better to say, "However, that means an increase from 25,000 to 38,000 senior managers out of 1.3 million staff. The 38,000 figure compares with about 500,000 doctors and nurses and another 500,000 people who work in the other 71 professions in the NHS, 84 per cent. of whom provide front-line care." That is a balanced summary of what the NHS has achieved on manpower.

The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire did not mention the huge improvements in health or, indeed, the huge improvements carried out under my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills. Spending is up: since 1997–98, schools' recurrent funding has risen in real terms by £870, which represents a 30 per cent. increase per pupil to £3,740 in 2004–05. Class sizes are down: the overall pupil-teacher ratio in nursery, primary and secondary schools has fallen from 18.6:1 in January 1998 to 17.7:1 in January 2004, and hundreds of thousands of children are now in smaller classes. Teaching numbers are up: there are 28,500 more teachers since 1997. Teacher vacancies are down: they have been cut to 0.7 per cent. Most importantly for parents, standards are up. This year, the best ever primary results were achieved, with 53.4 per cent. of pupils achieving five or more GCSEs or GNVQs, and the highest ever number of students has been accepted at university.

Lives have been saved and improved. Yesterday's generation is living longer, today's generation is learning better and tomorrow's generation has a brighter future. That is not perfection, but, by any standards, it is substantial progress.