Speeches by Johnson.

“I beg to move amendment 58, clause 6, page 4, line 10, leave out from “promote” to end of line 11 and insert— “(a) innovation in the provision of health services and in the arrangements made for their provision; (b) take steps to ensure the timely adoption and spread of clinically effective innovations across the healt…”

“In healthcare, as in many parts of life, innovation is the way in which new ideas, products and services are developed to solve problems and improve patient outcomes. Here, the entire country has a record to be proud of that goes back a long time. Dr John Preece, a GP and research fellow at the University of Exeter, wa…”

“The hon. Gentleman is right, but there are pressures and challenges for clinical academics, which he will be aware of. I am sure the Minister, in summing up, will tell us what she is doing about those. We need to support innovation in all parts of the health service, not just in university hospitals. One of my concerns…”

“The hon. Lady is absolutely right. When I was a very junior doctor, whether one wanted to work in a small hospital in the countryside or a large teaching hospital in a big city mostly related to whether one wanted to study a specialist, narrow field of medicine or a wider, broader field of medicine with a variety of di…”

“My hon. Friend, as ever, puts things very succinctly. Much of what is said about the Bill is different from what it seems to mean in practice. We have heard the Government talk about the decentralisation of power so decisions are made locally, but in the oral evidence session, even the union rep said that the Bill is m…”

“My hon. Friend is describing something a little like “Dragons’ Den”, which is a very good TV programme—perhaps it will be televised or livestreamed. How will the Government ensure that there is no conflict of interest?”

“The Minister talked about the flexibility of the committee, and my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon explained why it is helpful to have some direction. Could the Minister explain why there is no stipulation for the chief medical officer or the chief scientific officer to be part of the committee?”

“I declare an interest as a member of the NHS workforce and an NHS consultant paediatrician. In England, around one in every 17 working people is employed by the national health service. That is quite a shocking statistic. It is the largest employer in the country and, indeed, in Europe. It has grown significantly over …”

“Before the lunch break I was saying that, in essence, clause 7 states what the Secretary of State’s job is. It moves the function of planning the workforce from NHS England to the Secretary of State, which is a reasonable thing to do. I talked about the previous Government’s record on opening new medical schools and ho…”

“The hon. Gentleman is right. When all the new doctors that the Government have promised have been trained, they will need jobs and postgraduate medical training, and there are issues with that. Nevertheless, the Government asked the public to vote for them on the basis that they would double the number of medical schoo…”

“I am talking predominantly about clinicians working in trusts who are trained and very experienced, but then move to work in the same trust but in a more managerial role that does not involve clinical care. I am not saying that every single person needs to be delivering clinical care—there may be exceptions, of course;…”

“Clause 8 is essentially about the control that the Secretary of State has over ICBs. When we discussed the clause abolishing NHS England, we talked a lot about the balance between democratic accountability on the one hand and independence from political interference on the other. The Government suggest that the Bill is…”

“The Minister is talking about flexibility. I understand that if a Minister is responding to an unforeseen circumstance, he or she may be very busy, but where a direction has been made, it should not take very long for a member of staff to publish it, because it will already have been written and sent. I understand that…”

“Will the Minister give way on that point?”

“In a system as large as the NHS, covering an area as diverse as England, it is necessary that the Government be able to deal with unexpected situations. The pandemic may be half a decade behind us already, but the Committee will remember that the previous Government had to act quickly and part with a lot of money in a …”

“I beg to move amendment 53, in clause 10, page 6, line 21, leave out from “interests” to end of line and insert “of patients”. This amendment would only allow the Secretary of State to vary the balance between the public and private sectors in the NHS where it is in the interests of patients to do so.”

“This is perhaps the oddest provision in the Bill. Since time immemorial, the Labour party has accused its political rivals of wanting to privatise the health service. In the early 2010s, the then shadow Ministers indulged the idea that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 was a Trojan horse for privatisation. Several ye…”

“It does raise questions about the point of new section 12E. That provision was not there before; there must be a reason for adding it. Either the Government want ideologically to reduce the amount of private provision in the NHS, or they want to increase it. The clause gives them the power to do both. Labour politician…”

“Will the Minister give way on that point?”

“If I heard the Minister right, she said that the clause did not provide for changes on the basis of ideology. However, it says that changes are not to be made “unless the Secretary of State considers that to do so is in the interests of the health service.” A Secretary of State whose ideology is that the private sector…”