DAVID Cameron’s pledges in the wake of the recent devastating floods had the hollow sound of a burglar promising to buy a black and white portable telly to replace the 50-inch plasma he stole last week.
I’m afraid for the residents hit by the floods which have ravaged parts of England and Wales, the horse had well and truly bolted long before Mr Cameron made his shallow commitment to firmly close the stable door.
For it was his Government’s reckless austerity measures which had stolen millions of pounds of flood protection funding from those very same areas in which he stood and declared his determination to help residents now and in the future.
Programmes to protect against the risk of flooding right across the Thames Valley have been delayed, stripped back or downgraded since the day Mr Cameron came to Government in 2010 and set about cutting left, right and centre in double-quick time.
Far from being supportive, Mr Cameron’s display as he pledged to repair the damage was a master class in the art of being deceitful and disingenuous.
And we know all about this particular issue in Derby. Our £80m scheme to protect residents, largely in Chester Green and Darley Abbey, is now reliant on public and private sector funding to bridge a vast gap created by yet another Government cutback.
I was as pleased as anyone when the £33.5m grant was confirmed, but the sting in the tail was the news that it was dependent on someone else raising the rest.
How long will it take this Government to get the message that it almost always makes economic sense to invest a little and save a lot?
Does Mr Cameron really believe for a moment that the savings he made by cutting back the schemes in the Thames Valley outweighed the vast expense now being faced by home owners and insurance companies in those areas as they try to repair the damage?
Of course it isn’t. And not just that, but the flood protection measures don’t just shield homes and livelihoods from one instance, but repeated instances. The savings from investing in such infrastructure improvements will be realised time and again with every flood that is avoided.
That’s why it is vitally important that the Government is held to account for Mr Cameron’s promise that he will spend whatever money is necessary to right this wrong.
I don’t doubt for a moment that those words were about as meaningful as they left his lips as the average a Lib Dem pledge to protect students or low earners.
But it is up to the rest of us to give them meaning by reminding Mr Cameron of his duty to learn from his Government’s repeated mistakes and protect our flood risk areas now and going forwards, and remind him we shall.
We should not kid ourselves that the bad fortune bestowed upon those whose lives have been left in turmoil by the floods is matched only by the luck of the draw for those who have avoided it.
There are many residents in my Derby North constituency who live in flood risk areas, and they know only too well that, on another occasion, it could have been them.
No Government can be expected to predict the weather but it is perfectly reasonable to expect that they take reasonable precautions to protect against it.
And it is on that front that David Cameron and his Government have badly let down the nation.
Friday 21 February 2014
Saturday 15 February 2014
DERBY’S AT ITS BEST WHEN IT STANDS UNITED
DERBY’S schools will rally in the coming weeks and months to support those children badly let down by Michael Gove’s disastrous free school experiment.
Those schools could be forgiven for turning their backs on the episode, such is the disgraceful manner in which the Education Secretary has repeatedly belittled their profession.
You could understand if they told Mr Gove to sort out his own mess, after his frequent attempts to tarnish the reputations of Derby’s schools with lies and falsehoods about standards in Derby.
But instead they will extend a welcome to every former Al-Madinah School pupil they accommodate. They will work tirelessly to integrate those children and help them catch up.
They will do this not because they have to, nor because mopping up Michael Gove’s mess saves him a whole heap of embarrassment.
They will do it because, unlike him, they put the education and wellbeing of our city’s children first, second and third. It is a concept Michael Gove would not grasp.
Education standards in Derby are improving faster than in virtually any other part of the country.
Mr Gove simply cannot bear that fact, and he cannot bear Derby.
It sometimes feels like he and his Government have held a grudge against our city since we stood united against the disgraceful decision to build the Thameslink trains in Germany instead of Derby’s Bombardier.
How satisfying it was to see the train maker awarded the £1bn Crossrail deal last week after our tireless campaigning.
The Government has seen our city as a nuisance since thousands of residents came together to demand a Fair Deal for Derby, after it was shown that Government cuts were punishing cities like ours worst.
Perhaps they saw Derby as an irrelevance. Perhaps they thought we would accept our lot lying down. They were mistaken.
In 30 years in politics, I can rarely remember the city pulling together with such unity on so many occasions in the face of unfair treatment.
And so Derby will dust itself down and pull together once more after the Al-Madinah shambles.
Mr Gove’s free school programme was bound for failure from the outset. While professionals were unfairly pilloried and ridiculed by the minister, free schools were granted untold freedoms and allowed to recruit untrained teachers.
The lesson he should learn from this sorry affair is the necessity to involve local authorities. Derby City Council would have intervened and rescued the Al-Madinah School long before now, if only it had been allowed.
Whether he learns that lesson remains to be seen.
But even Mr Gove must surely have learned by now that our city will not tolerate being treated with contempt by him or his Government colleagues.
Those schools could be forgiven for turning their backs on the episode, such is the disgraceful manner in which the Education Secretary has repeatedly belittled their profession.
You could understand if they told Mr Gove to sort out his own mess, after his frequent attempts to tarnish the reputations of Derby’s schools with lies and falsehoods about standards in Derby.
But instead they will extend a welcome to every former Al-Madinah School pupil they accommodate. They will work tirelessly to integrate those children and help them catch up.
They will do this not because they have to, nor because mopping up Michael Gove’s mess saves him a whole heap of embarrassment.
They will do it because, unlike him, they put the education and wellbeing of our city’s children first, second and third. It is a concept Michael Gove would not grasp.
Education standards in Derby are improving faster than in virtually any other part of the country.
Mr Gove simply cannot bear that fact, and he cannot bear Derby.
It sometimes feels like he and his Government have held a grudge against our city since we stood united against the disgraceful decision to build the Thameslink trains in Germany instead of Derby’s Bombardier.
How satisfying it was to see the train maker awarded the £1bn Crossrail deal last week after our tireless campaigning.
The Government has seen our city as a nuisance since thousands of residents came together to demand a Fair Deal for Derby, after it was shown that Government cuts were punishing cities like ours worst.
Perhaps they saw Derby as an irrelevance. Perhaps they thought we would accept our lot lying down. They were mistaken.
In 30 years in politics, I can rarely remember the city pulling together with such unity on so many occasions in the face of unfair treatment.
And so Derby will dust itself down and pull together once more after the Al-Madinah shambles.
Mr Gove’s free school programme was bound for failure from the outset. While professionals were unfairly pilloried and ridiculed by the minister, free schools were granted untold freedoms and allowed to recruit untrained teachers.
The lesson he should learn from this sorry affair is the necessity to involve local authorities. Derby City Council would have intervened and rescued the Al-Madinah School long before now, if only it had been allowed.
Whether he learns that lesson remains to be seen.
But even Mr Gove must surely have learned by now that our city will not tolerate being treated with contempt by him or his Government colleagues.
Wednesday 12 February 2014
TACKLING COLD HOMES WOULD CREATE JOBS & GROWTH
The Energy Bill Revolution is calling on the Government to use the money it gets from carbon taxes to make our homes super-energy efficient. This is the only permanent way to end fuel poverty and drive down household energy bills.
Research has already demonstrated the social and environmental benefits of the programme. It shows that nine out of ten living in cold homes would be removed from fuel poverty. It also shows that the reduction in carbon emissions would be four times greater than the Government’s current policies.
A new report for Consumer Focus shows that:
• Compared to alternatives the Government is considering to boost the economy, like cutting VAT, reducing fuel duty or investing in capital infrastructure projects such as building roads, an energy efficiency programme is a more effective way to stimulate the economy.
• Such a programme would create 71,000 jobs by 2015 and up to 130,000 jobs by 2027.
• The resulting reduction in gas and oil imports would boost economic growth as well as improve the country’s energy security.
• By reducing the amount of money consumers have to spend on energy they would have more money in the wallet to spend on UK products and services.
• The energy efficiency programme is ‘shovel ready’ – fast to mobilise.
• And it would stimulate economic activity and jobs in ALL regions of the UK.
• It employs workers in construction and allied sectors where there is surplus capacity – so investment is less likely to ‘crowd out’ alternate economic activity.
• It would also reduce NHS expenditure on treating cold-related illnesses such as respiratory and coronary diseases.
These research findings have important implications. They show that recycling carbon tax revenue to make homes super-energy efficient is a major opportunity for the Government to re-build the UK economy.
The economy would benefit from increased economic activity, job creation and reduced imports of gas and oil. And, millions of British families would obtain ongoing benefits from warmer homes, reduced energy bills and better health.
Research has already demonstrated the social and environmental benefits of the programme. It shows that nine out of ten living in cold homes would be removed from fuel poverty. It also shows that the reduction in carbon emissions would be four times greater than the Government’s current policies.
A new report for Consumer Focus shows that:
• Compared to alternatives the Government is considering to boost the economy, like cutting VAT, reducing fuel duty or investing in capital infrastructure projects such as building roads, an energy efficiency programme is a more effective way to stimulate the economy.
• Such a programme would create 71,000 jobs by 2015 and up to 130,000 jobs by 2027.
• The resulting reduction in gas and oil imports would boost economic growth as well as improve the country’s energy security.
• By reducing the amount of money consumers have to spend on energy they would have more money in the wallet to spend on UK products and services.
• The energy efficiency programme is ‘shovel ready’ – fast to mobilise.
• And it would stimulate economic activity and jobs in ALL regions of the UK.
• It employs workers in construction and allied sectors where there is surplus capacity – so investment is less likely to ‘crowd out’ alternate economic activity.
• It would also reduce NHS expenditure on treating cold-related illnesses such as respiratory and coronary diseases.
These research findings have important implications. They show that recycling carbon tax revenue to make homes super-energy efficient is a major opportunity for the Government to re-build the UK economy.
The economy would benefit from increased economic activity, job creation and reduced imports of gas and oil. And, millions of British families would obtain ongoing benefits from warmer homes, reduced energy bills and better health.
Sunday 9 February 2014
ECUADOR’S CITIZENS REVOLUTION
ECUADOR is today being transformed by progressive social and economic reforms known as the Citizen’s Revolution. Led by President Rafael Correa, this is tackling the deep crisis caused by years of extreme and devastating free-market policies that were forced on Ecuador and the rest of Latin America.
President Correa was first elected to office in 2007 in the aftermath of huge turbulence in Ecuador. Seven different presidents had been replaced in a decade. A massive banking crisis caused economic collapse. Unemployment rocketed and one in ten Ecuadorians left their country to escape the crisis.
In contrast, seven years of the Citizen’s Revolution has delivered some major achievements:
1. An expanding economy: even though President Correa came to office on the eve of the global economic crisis, Ecuador has grown by an average 4.2% over the past seven years.
2. Eradicating poverty is a priority: over 1.1m have been taken out of poverty since 2007 with poverty down one third, from 37% to 26%.
3. Tackling inequality: economic growth now works for the majority with Ecuador having reduced economic inequality faster than any other Latin America country in recent years.
4. Free education for all: All children now get to go to school for free. University student numbers have also soared thanks to free university education being guaranteed in the Constitution. Ecuador now has the second highest levels of public investment in higher education in the world.
5. Healthcare for all: free healthcare is now guaranteed and three times as many medical consultations now take place than in 2006. Under President Correa, public health investment has totalled $9bn - three times more than spent by the previous four governments combined.
6. Tackling hunger: the proportion of underweight children has been halved and 40% fewer children now suffer from stunted growth caused by malnutrition.
7. Decent work and a living wage: Ecuador now has the lowest unemployment rate in its history at 4.9% and the lowest in Latin America. For the very first time, the minimum wage now covers the value of a basic basket of goods, whereas it only covered 68% of this in 2006.
8. Greater social protection: over 1.2m more families are now protected by social security than in 2006.
9. Huge public investment: Ecuador’s economic growth and greater social inclusion has been led by a programme of public investment works that are modernising the country. Public investment is up three fold to 15% of GDP.
10. Clamping down on tax evasion: Ecuador now raises three times more in taxes than in 2006. It has done this by clamping down on tax avoidance so that the wealthiest now pay their share.
All these changes have been endorsed regularly at the ballot box. President Correa and his coalition of supporters have won nine elections since 2007 including a landslide 57% in the 2013 presidential election.
President Correa was first elected to office in 2007 in the aftermath of huge turbulence in Ecuador. Seven different presidents had been replaced in a decade. A massive banking crisis caused economic collapse. Unemployment rocketed and one in ten Ecuadorians left their country to escape the crisis.
In contrast, seven years of the Citizen’s Revolution has delivered some major achievements:
1. An expanding economy: even though President Correa came to office on the eve of the global economic crisis, Ecuador has grown by an average 4.2% over the past seven years.
2. Eradicating poverty is a priority: over 1.1m have been taken out of poverty since 2007 with poverty down one third, from 37% to 26%.
3. Tackling inequality: economic growth now works for the majority with Ecuador having reduced economic inequality faster than any other Latin America country in recent years.
4. Free education for all: All children now get to go to school for free. University student numbers have also soared thanks to free university education being guaranteed in the Constitution. Ecuador now has the second highest levels of public investment in higher education in the world.
5. Healthcare for all: free healthcare is now guaranteed and three times as many medical consultations now take place than in 2006. Under President Correa, public health investment has totalled $9bn - three times more than spent by the previous four governments combined.
6. Tackling hunger: the proportion of underweight children has been halved and 40% fewer children now suffer from stunted growth caused by malnutrition.
7. Decent work and a living wage: Ecuador now has the lowest unemployment rate in its history at 4.9% and the lowest in Latin America. For the very first time, the minimum wage now covers the value of a basic basket of goods, whereas it only covered 68% of this in 2006.
8. Greater social protection: over 1.2m more families are now protected by social security than in 2006.
9. Huge public investment: Ecuador’s economic growth and greater social inclusion has been led by a programme of public investment works that are modernising the country. Public investment is up three fold to 15% of GDP.
10. Clamping down on tax evasion: Ecuador now raises three times more in taxes than in 2006. It has done this by clamping down on tax avoidance so that the wealthiest now pay their share.
All these changes have been endorsed regularly at the ballot box. President Correa and his coalition of supporters have won nine elections since 2007 including a landslide 57% in the 2013 presidential election.
Thursday 6 February 2014
IMPACT OF TUBE CUTS REVEALED
AS the tube action enters its third day, with continuing rock solid support, RMT has revealed that London Underground's own assessment of the impact of its proposals on passengers raises concerns that the cuts will have a seriously adverse impact on women, older and disabled people and the BAME community.
The assessment admits that there is a "Perception that there will be fewer staff and therefore more crime and antisocial behaviour at stations" and that "concerns about crime and antisocial behaviour tend to affect the travel patterns of women, BAME Londoners, younger people and/or those on lower incomes more so than other groups"
The document warns that in respect of women there are "concerns about crime and anti-social behaviour affect their travel patterns, particularly after dark."
The assessment also says "disabled customers are more likely to experience difficulties relating to physical accessibility, which might be impacted if station staff numbers were reduced" while. "older people can develop a range of disabilities and are more likely to experience difficulties relating to physical accessibility. Older people may need help with using the potentially complex technology used at the POMs."
In respect of the BAME community London Underground highlight that "concerns about crime and anti-social behaviour affect the travel patterns of BAME Londoners in particular. Some BAME communities contain a significant number of people who have English as their second language and in some cases a very limited command of the English language. This can impact on these customers' ability to ask for help."
RMT leader, Bob Crow said: "When we said this dispute was about both jobs and services we meant it and this analysis shows just how hard the cuts will hammer key sections of the London community. None of this has been factored in before the cuts bulldozer was unleashed and reinforces RMT's call for the proposals to be suspended to allow a proper and open evaluation at a conference involving unions, management and tube users."
The assessment admits that there is a "Perception that there will be fewer staff and therefore more crime and antisocial behaviour at stations" and that "concerns about crime and antisocial behaviour tend to affect the travel patterns of women, BAME Londoners, younger people and/or those on lower incomes more so than other groups"
The document warns that in respect of women there are "concerns about crime and anti-social behaviour affect their travel patterns, particularly after dark."
The assessment also says "disabled customers are more likely to experience difficulties relating to physical accessibility, which might be impacted if station staff numbers were reduced" while. "older people can develop a range of disabilities and are more likely to experience difficulties relating to physical accessibility. Older people may need help with using the potentially complex technology used at the POMs."
In respect of the BAME community London Underground highlight that "concerns about crime and anti-social behaviour affect the travel patterns of BAME Londoners in particular. Some BAME communities contain a significant number of people who have English as their second language and in some cases a very limited command of the English language. This can impact on these customers' ability to ask for help."
RMT leader, Bob Crow said: "When we said this dispute was about both jobs and services we meant it and this analysis shows just how hard the cuts will hammer key sections of the London community. None of this has been factored in before the cuts bulldozer was unleashed and reinforces RMT's call for the proposals to be suspended to allow a proper and open evaluation at a conference involving unions, management and tube users."
Tuesday 4 February 2014
THE STATE OF THE NHS
The NHS has never been in a more dangerous position than it is today following the reforms that were pushed through parliament by the Tories AND Liberal Democrats in 2012.
Yesterday, Andy Burnham delivered a keynote speech in Birmingham on the state of the NHS two after the Government's reforms made it onto the statute book. I have reproduced the text of his speech below:
Thank you all for coming today.
It’s a sign of how much we value the NHS that you have taken time to come along this morning.
In February 2012, the battle over the Government's proposed reorganisation was reaching its peak.
There were claims and counter-claims about what it would all mean.
Now, two years on, it's time to assess what has happened in the two years since and the overall state of the NHS today as we head towards a General Election which will determine its future.
My conclusion is this: the NHS has never been in a more dangerous position than it is right now, and the evidence for that is the relentless pressure in A&E.
The last 12 months have been the worst year in at least a decade in A&E with almost a million people waiting more than four hours.
A&E is the barometer of the whole health and care system and it is telling us that this is a system in distress with severe storms ahead.
A reorganisation which knocked the NHS to the floor, depleted its reserves, has been followed by a brutal campaign of running it down.
It looks to many that the NHS is being softened up for privatisation which, all along, was the real purpose of the reorganisation.
Things can’t go on like this. It’s time to raise the alarm about what is happening to the NHS and build a campaign for change.
The tragedy is that the Government can’t say they weren’t warned.
Even at the eleventh hour, doctors, nurses, midwives and health workers from across the NHS were lining up in their thousands and pleading with the Prime Minister to call off his reorganisation.
Why?
Because they could see the danger of throwing everything up in the air in the midst of the biggest financial challenge in the history of the NHS.
But David Cameron would not listen. He ploughed on regardless.
It was a cavalier act of supreme arrogance.
As the dust settles on this biggest-ever reorganisation, the damage it has done is becoming clear.
The NHS in 2014 is demoralised, degraded and confused.
The last two years have been two lost years of drift.
Even now, people are unsure who is responsible for what.
Two years of drift when the NHS needed clarity.
And what was it all for?
The Government hasn't even achieved its supposed main goal of putting doctors in charge.
CCGs are not the powerhouse we were promised.
Instead, the NHS is even more ‘top-down’ than it was before, with an all-powerful NHS England calling the shots.
Just look at Lewisham.
When local GPs opposed plans to downgrade their hospital, the Secretary of State fought them all the way to the High Court.
So much for letting GPs decide.
Now the Secretary of State wants sweeping powers to close any hospital in the land without local support. Labour will oppose him all the way.
And the specific warnings Labour made ahead of the reorganisation have come to pass.
First, we said it would lead to a loss of focus on finance and a waste of NHS resources.
An outrageous £3 billion and counting has been siphoned out of the front-line to pay for back-office restructuring - £1.4 billion of it on redundancies alone.
Just as we warned, thousands of people have been sacked and rehired – 3,200 to be precise.
One manager given a pay-off of £370,000 - and last week we learn he never actually left the health service.
It is a scandalous waste of money and simply not justifiable when almost one in three NHS trusts in England are predicting an end-of-year deficit.
Cameron promised he would not cut the NHS but that is precisely what is happening across the country as trusts now struggle to balance the books.
2,300 six-figure pay outs for managers; P45s for thousands of nurses – that's the NHS under Cameron.
What clearer sign could there be of a Government with its NHS priorities all wrong?
Second, Labour warned that the reorganisation would result in a postcode lottery.
Last week, a poll of GPs found that seven out of 10 believe rationing of care has increased since the reorganisation.
NICE has warned that patients are no longer receiving the drugs they are entitled to and has even taken the unusual step of urging them to speak up.
New arbitrary, cost-based restrictions have been introduced on essential treatments such as knee, hip and cataract operations - leaving thousands of older people struggling to cope.
Some are having to pay for treatments that are free elsewhere to people with the same need.
Cameron's reorganisation has corroded the N in NHS – again, just as we warned.
Third, we warned that rhetoric about putting GPs in charge was a smokescreen and the Act was a Trojan horse for competition and privatisation.
Can anyone now seriously dispute that?
Last year, for the first time ever, the Competition Commission intervened in the NHS to block collaboration between two hospitals looking to improve services.
How did it come to this, when competition lawyers, not GPs, are the real decision-makers?
The NHS Chief Executive has complained that the NHS is now “bogged down in a morass of competition law”.
Since April, CCGs have spent £5 million on external competition lawyers as services are forced out to tender.
And it will come as no surprise that, since April, seven out of 10 NHS contracts have gone to the private sector.
Who gave this Prime Minister permission to put our NHS up for sale, something which Margaret Thatcher never dared?
The truth is that this competition regime is a barrier to the service changes that the NHS needs to make to meet the financial challenge.
It is sheer madness to say to hospitals that they can't collaborate or work with GPs and social care to improve care for older people because it’s “anti-competitive”.
If we are to relieve the intense pressure on A&E, and rise to the financial challenge, it is precisely this kind of collaboration that the NHS needs.
So the summary is this – the NHS has been laid low by the debilitating effects of reorganisation, has been distracted from front-line challenges and is now unable to make the changes it needs to make. It is a service on the wrong path, a fast-track to fragmentation and marketisation.
It lost focus at a crucial moment – and is now struggling to catch up.
The evidence of all this can been seen in the sustained pressure in A&E – the barometer of the NHS.
The price we are all paying for the Prime Minister’s folly is a seemingly permanent A&E crisis.
Hospital A&Es have now missed the Government's own A&E target in 44 out of the last 52 weeks.
This is unprecedented in living NHS memory – a winter and spring A&E crisis was followed by a summer and autumn crisis. The pressure has never abated.
The reorganisation has contributed very directly to this A&E crisis.
Three years ago, the College of Emergency Medicine were warning about a growing recruitment crisis in A&E but felt like “John the Baptist crying in the wilderness” as Ministers were obsessing on their structural reform.
The very organisations that could have done something about it - strategic health authorities - were being disbanded. Just when forward planning was needed, we saw cuts to training posts.
All this leaves us with an A&E crisis which gets worse and worse.
Of the one million people who went to a hospital A&E this January, 75,000 waited longer than 4 hours to be seen.
Of the 300,000 people admitted to hospital after going to A&E, 17,500 had to wait between 4 and 12 hours on a trolley before they were admitted.
On one day in January, 20 patients were left on trolleys for over 12 hours.
In the last year, ambulances have been stuck in queues outside A&E 16,000 times – leading to longer ambulance response times.
On 92 occasions, A&E departments had to divert ambulances to neighbouring hospitals because they were so busy.
And now the pressure from the A&E crisis is rippling through the system.
In January, over 4,500 planned operations were cancelled – causing huge anxiety for the people affected.
The waiting list for operations was the highest for a November in six years.
The truth is that the Government have failed to get the A&E crisis under control and it is threatening to drag down the rest of the NHS.
They have desperately tried to blame the last Government's GP contract - it's never their fault, of course - but the facts shows an exponential increase in A&E attendance since 2010.
In the last three years of the Labour Government, attendances at A&E increased by 16,000.
In the first three years of this Government, attendances increased by 633,000. No wonder we have an A&E crisis.
The question we need to ask is: why, behind the destabilising effect of reorganisation, has there been such an increase?
I see three reasons - all policy decisions taken by David Cameron.
First, David Cameron has made it harder to see your GP.
He scrapped Labour’s guarantee of an appointment within 48 hours.
Now, the story I hear up and down the country is of people phoning the surgery at 9am only to be told there is nothing available for days.
The Patients Association say that it will soon be the norm to wait a week or longer to see your GP.
What will they do? Go to where the lights are on – A&E.
We have called on the Government to reverse their scrapping of the 48-hr target this winter.
The problem is made worse by the scrapping of Labour’s extended opening hours scheme.
Now hundreds fewer GP surgeries stay open in the evening and at weekends – taking us backwards from the seven day NHS we need.
To make matters worse, a quarter of Walk-In Centres have closed and NHS Direct has been dismantled.
A terrible act of vandalism even by this Government's standards – nurses replaced by call-handlers and computers that say 'go to A&E'.
The second reason for the sudden increase in people attending A&E is cuts to social care and mental health.
Under this Government, almost £2 billion has been taken out of budgets for adult social care.
Compared to a decade ago, half a million fewer older people are getting support to help them cope.
We have an appalling race to the bottom on standards with 15-minute slots, minimum wage pay, zero hours contracts.
Over-stretched care workers, often not paid for the travel time between 15 minute visits, having to decide between feeding people or helping them wash.
Social care in England is on the verge of collapse - and yet last year Jeremy Hunt handed back a £2.2bn under-spend to the Treasury.
That's unforgiveable when care is being taken away from vulnerable people.
If Labour were in Government now, we would be using the NHS underspend to tackle the care crisis this year.
Instead, older people are being allowed to drift towards A&E in record numbers - often the worst possible place for them.
A recent Care Quality Commission report found avoidable emergency admissions for pensioners topping half a million for the first time – and rising faster than the increase in the ageing population.
Terrible for older people, putting huge pressure on A&Es and costing around a billion pounds a year.
But other vulnerable people are suffering too.
The Government is cutting mental health more deeply than the rest of the NHS.
Some mental health trusts are now reporting bed occupancy levels of over 100%.
That means more than one patient being allocated to the same bed.
It’s no wonder we’ve heard growing evidence of highly vulnerable people being held in police cells or ending up in A&E because no crisis beds are available.
Under this Government, A&E has become the last resort for vulnerable people
And this brings me to the third reason for the pressure on A&E - the cost-of-living crisis.
As Michael Marmot set out in his seminal public health report, our health isn’t just about our health services, but the kind of society in which we choose to live.
No phenomenon more clearly symbolises the true impact of this Government than the rise of food banks, teachers having to feed hungry children at school or GPs having to ask their patients if they can afford to eat.
And all this while millionaires get a tax cut.
We have seen diseases of malnutrition like scurvy and rickets on the rise – diseases we once thought had gone for good.
Today we are exposing another scandal that goes right to the heart of whose side this Government is on.
People are struggling to keep warm in their homes.
The average energy bill has risen by more than £300 since 2010 - while the support for people in fuel poverty has been cut considerably.
The Government replaced 3 successful Labour schemes- warm front, community energy saving programme and carbon emissions reduction target with their ECO scheme.
And the consequence is that just a fraction of households have received help in the past year, just when the support is most needed.
I don't see how it can be right that money from all of our energy bills should subsidise people who can afford to improve their properties, over those people in dire fuel poverty.
We've seen record levels of hypothermia reported this year.
Since the election there has been a dramatic increase in the number of older people admitted to hospital for cold-related illnesses.
There have been 145,000 more occasions when over-75s had to be treated in hospital for respiratory or circulatory diseases than in 09/10.
This is the human cost of this Government’s cost-of-living crisis and their failure to stand up to the energy companies.
And why Labour’s energy bill freeze cannot come a moment too soon.
In conclusion, this is the fragile state of the NHS and the country after almost four years of Tory-led Coalition.
The country can't go on like this - the NHS needs a different Government.
Cameron's Government has delivered it a brutal double whammy.
First they knocked it down the NHS down with a reorganisation no-one wanted. Then they have spent the last year running it down at every opportunity.
They are guilty of the gross mismanagement of the NHS.
But it is not just incompetence. They are running it down for a purpose.
Only yesterday, the head of the independent regulator attacked the NHS and called for more privatisation.
This was an astonishing intervention at a time when politicisation of regulators is so high in the news.
To have the independent regulator making such a political statement means there can no longer be any doubt - more privatisation is the explicit aim of this Government's NHS policy.
Labour believes this will break up the NHS and bring fragmentation when what the NHS desperately needs is permission to integrate and collaborate.
That is why this Wednesday we will force a debate in the Commons on the A&E crisis and repealing the Government's competition regime.
This is the choice the country faces - a public, integrated NHS under Labour or a health market under David Cameron.
That's the ground on which we will fight in 2015 and, for our NHS, it's crucial that we win.
Yesterday, Andy Burnham delivered a keynote speech in Birmingham on the state of the NHS two after the Government's reforms made it onto the statute book. I have reproduced the text of his speech below:
Thank you all for coming today.
It’s a sign of how much we value the NHS that you have taken time to come along this morning.
In February 2012, the battle over the Government's proposed reorganisation was reaching its peak.
There were claims and counter-claims about what it would all mean.
Now, two years on, it's time to assess what has happened in the two years since and the overall state of the NHS today as we head towards a General Election which will determine its future.
My conclusion is this: the NHS has never been in a more dangerous position than it is right now, and the evidence for that is the relentless pressure in A&E.
The last 12 months have been the worst year in at least a decade in A&E with almost a million people waiting more than four hours.
A&E is the barometer of the whole health and care system and it is telling us that this is a system in distress with severe storms ahead.
A reorganisation which knocked the NHS to the floor, depleted its reserves, has been followed by a brutal campaign of running it down.
It looks to many that the NHS is being softened up for privatisation which, all along, was the real purpose of the reorganisation.
Things can’t go on like this. It’s time to raise the alarm about what is happening to the NHS and build a campaign for change.
The tragedy is that the Government can’t say they weren’t warned.
Even at the eleventh hour, doctors, nurses, midwives and health workers from across the NHS were lining up in their thousands and pleading with the Prime Minister to call off his reorganisation.
Why?
Because they could see the danger of throwing everything up in the air in the midst of the biggest financial challenge in the history of the NHS.
But David Cameron would not listen. He ploughed on regardless.
It was a cavalier act of supreme arrogance.
As the dust settles on this biggest-ever reorganisation, the damage it has done is becoming clear.
The NHS in 2014 is demoralised, degraded and confused.
The last two years have been two lost years of drift.
Even now, people are unsure who is responsible for what.
Two years of drift when the NHS needed clarity.
And what was it all for?
The Government hasn't even achieved its supposed main goal of putting doctors in charge.
CCGs are not the powerhouse we were promised.
Instead, the NHS is even more ‘top-down’ than it was before, with an all-powerful NHS England calling the shots.
Just look at Lewisham.
When local GPs opposed plans to downgrade their hospital, the Secretary of State fought them all the way to the High Court.
So much for letting GPs decide.
Now the Secretary of State wants sweeping powers to close any hospital in the land without local support. Labour will oppose him all the way.
And the specific warnings Labour made ahead of the reorganisation have come to pass.
First, we said it would lead to a loss of focus on finance and a waste of NHS resources.
An outrageous £3 billion and counting has been siphoned out of the front-line to pay for back-office restructuring - £1.4 billion of it on redundancies alone.
Just as we warned, thousands of people have been sacked and rehired – 3,200 to be precise.
One manager given a pay-off of £370,000 - and last week we learn he never actually left the health service.
It is a scandalous waste of money and simply not justifiable when almost one in three NHS trusts in England are predicting an end-of-year deficit.
Cameron promised he would not cut the NHS but that is precisely what is happening across the country as trusts now struggle to balance the books.
2,300 six-figure pay outs for managers; P45s for thousands of nurses – that's the NHS under Cameron.
What clearer sign could there be of a Government with its NHS priorities all wrong?
Second, Labour warned that the reorganisation would result in a postcode lottery.
Last week, a poll of GPs found that seven out of 10 believe rationing of care has increased since the reorganisation.
NICE has warned that patients are no longer receiving the drugs they are entitled to and has even taken the unusual step of urging them to speak up.
New arbitrary, cost-based restrictions have been introduced on essential treatments such as knee, hip and cataract operations - leaving thousands of older people struggling to cope.
Some are having to pay for treatments that are free elsewhere to people with the same need.
Cameron's reorganisation has corroded the N in NHS – again, just as we warned.
Third, we warned that rhetoric about putting GPs in charge was a smokescreen and the Act was a Trojan horse for competition and privatisation.
Can anyone now seriously dispute that?
Last year, for the first time ever, the Competition Commission intervened in the NHS to block collaboration between two hospitals looking to improve services.
How did it come to this, when competition lawyers, not GPs, are the real decision-makers?
The NHS Chief Executive has complained that the NHS is now “bogged down in a morass of competition law”.
Since April, CCGs have spent £5 million on external competition lawyers as services are forced out to tender.
And it will come as no surprise that, since April, seven out of 10 NHS contracts have gone to the private sector.
Who gave this Prime Minister permission to put our NHS up for sale, something which Margaret Thatcher never dared?
The truth is that this competition regime is a barrier to the service changes that the NHS needs to make to meet the financial challenge.
It is sheer madness to say to hospitals that they can't collaborate or work with GPs and social care to improve care for older people because it’s “anti-competitive”.
If we are to relieve the intense pressure on A&E, and rise to the financial challenge, it is precisely this kind of collaboration that the NHS needs.
So the summary is this – the NHS has been laid low by the debilitating effects of reorganisation, has been distracted from front-line challenges and is now unable to make the changes it needs to make. It is a service on the wrong path, a fast-track to fragmentation and marketisation.
It lost focus at a crucial moment – and is now struggling to catch up.
The evidence of all this can been seen in the sustained pressure in A&E – the barometer of the NHS.
The price we are all paying for the Prime Minister’s folly is a seemingly permanent A&E crisis.
Hospital A&Es have now missed the Government's own A&E target in 44 out of the last 52 weeks.
This is unprecedented in living NHS memory – a winter and spring A&E crisis was followed by a summer and autumn crisis. The pressure has never abated.
The reorganisation has contributed very directly to this A&E crisis.
Three years ago, the College of Emergency Medicine were warning about a growing recruitment crisis in A&E but felt like “John the Baptist crying in the wilderness” as Ministers were obsessing on their structural reform.
The very organisations that could have done something about it - strategic health authorities - were being disbanded. Just when forward planning was needed, we saw cuts to training posts.
All this leaves us with an A&E crisis which gets worse and worse.
Of the one million people who went to a hospital A&E this January, 75,000 waited longer than 4 hours to be seen.
Of the 300,000 people admitted to hospital after going to A&E, 17,500 had to wait between 4 and 12 hours on a trolley before they were admitted.
On one day in January, 20 patients were left on trolleys for over 12 hours.
In the last year, ambulances have been stuck in queues outside A&E 16,000 times – leading to longer ambulance response times.
On 92 occasions, A&E departments had to divert ambulances to neighbouring hospitals because they were so busy.
And now the pressure from the A&E crisis is rippling through the system.
In January, over 4,500 planned operations were cancelled – causing huge anxiety for the people affected.
The waiting list for operations was the highest for a November in six years.
The truth is that the Government have failed to get the A&E crisis under control and it is threatening to drag down the rest of the NHS.
They have desperately tried to blame the last Government's GP contract - it's never their fault, of course - but the facts shows an exponential increase in A&E attendance since 2010.
In the last three years of the Labour Government, attendances at A&E increased by 16,000.
In the first three years of this Government, attendances increased by 633,000. No wonder we have an A&E crisis.
The question we need to ask is: why, behind the destabilising effect of reorganisation, has there been such an increase?
I see three reasons - all policy decisions taken by David Cameron.
First, David Cameron has made it harder to see your GP.
He scrapped Labour’s guarantee of an appointment within 48 hours.
Now, the story I hear up and down the country is of people phoning the surgery at 9am only to be told there is nothing available for days.
The Patients Association say that it will soon be the norm to wait a week or longer to see your GP.
What will they do? Go to where the lights are on – A&E.
We have called on the Government to reverse their scrapping of the 48-hr target this winter.
The problem is made worse by the scrapping of Labour’s extended opening hours scheme.
Now hundreds fewer GP surgeries stay open in the evening and at weekends – taking us backwards from the seven day NHS we need.
To make matters worse, a quarter of Walk-In Centres have closed and NHS Direct has been dismantled.
A terrible act of vandalism even by this Government's standards – nurses replaced by call-handlers and computers that say 'go to A&E'.
The second reason for the sudden increase in people attending A&E is cuts to social care and mental health.
Under this Government, almost £2 billion has been taken out of budgets for adult social care.
Compared to a decade ago, half a million fewer older people are getting support to help them cope.
We have an appalling race to the bottom on standards with 15-minute slots, minimum wage pay, zero hours contracts.
Over-stretched care workers, often not paid for the travel time between 15 minute visits, having to decide between feeding people or helping them wash.
Social care in England is on the verge of collapse - and yet last year Jeremy Hunt handed back a £2.2bn under-spend to the Treasury.
That's unforgiveable when care is being taken away from vulnerable people.
If Labour were in Government now, we would be using the NHS underspend to tackle the care crisis this year.
Instead, older people are being allowed to drift towards A&E in record numbers - often the worst possible place for them.
A recent Care Quality Commission report found avoidable emergency admissions for pensioners topping half a million for the first time – and rising faster than the increase in the ageing population.
Terrible for older people, putting huge pressure on A&Es and costing around a billion pounds a year.
But other vulnerable people are suffering too.
The Government is cutting mental health more deeply than the rest of the NHS.
Some mental health trusts are now reporting bed occupancy levels of over 100%.
That means more than one patient being allocated to the same bed.
It’s no wonder we’ve heard growing evidence of highly vulnerable people being held in police cells or ending up in A&E because no crisis beds are available.
Under this Government, A&E has become the last resort for vulnerable people
And this brings me to the third reason for the pressure on A&E - the cost-of-living crisis.
As Michael Marmot set out in his seminal public health report, our health isn’t just about our health services, but the kind of society in which we choose to live.
No phenomenon more clearly symbolises the true impact of this Government than the rise of food banks, teachers having to feed hungry children at school or GPs having to ask their patients if they can afford to eat.
And all this while millionaires get a tax cut.
We have seen diseases of malnutrition like scurvy and rickets on the rise – diseases we once thought had gone for good.
Today we are exposing another scandal that goes right to the heart of whose side this Government is on.
People are struggling to keep warm in their homes.
The average energy bill has risen by more than £300 since 2010 - while the support for people in fuel poverty has been cut considerably.
The Government replaced 3 successful Labour schemes- warm front, community energy saving programme and carbon emissions reduction target with their ECO scheme.
And the consequence is that just a fraction of households have received help in the past year, just when the support is most needed.
I don't see how it can be right that money from all of our energy bills should subsidise people who can afford to improve their properties, over those people in dire fuel poverty.
We've seen record levels of hypothermia reported this year.
Since the election there has been a dramatic increase in the number of older people admitted to hospital for cold-related illnesses.
There have been 145,000 more occasions when over-75s had to be treated in hospital for respiratory or circulatory diseases than in 09/10.
This is the human cost of this Government’s cost-of-living crisis and their failure to stand up to the energy companies.
And why Labour’s energy bill freeze cannot come a moment too soon.
In conclusion, this is the fragile state of the NHS and the country after almost four years of Tory-led Coalition.
The country can't go on like this - the NHS needs a different Government.
Cameron's Government has delivered it a brutal double whammy.
First they knocked it down the NHS down with a reorganisation no-one wanted. Then they have spent the last year running it down at every opportunity.
They are guilty of the gross mismanagement of the NHS.
But it is not just incompetence. They are running it down for a purpose.
Only yesterday, the head of the independent regulator attacked the NHS and called for more privatisation.
This was an astonishing intervention at a time when politicisation of regulators is so high in the news.
To have the independent regulator making such a political statement means there can no longer be any doubt - more privatisation is the explicit aim of this Government's NHS policy.
Labour believes this will break up the NHS and bring fragmentation when what the NHS desperately needs is permission to integrate and collaborate.
That is why this Wednesday we will force a debate in the Commons on the A&E crisis and repealing the Government's competition regime.
This is the choice the country faces - a public, integrated NHS under Labour or a health market under David Cameron.
That's the ground on which we will fight in 2015 and, for our NHS, it's crucial that we win.
Sunday 2 February 2014
LABOURS AIMS TO CREATE A MASS PARTY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
UNLIKE the Conservative Party, which is in hock to millionaire hedge fund managers and City financiers, Labour is in the process of creating a 21st century mass party.
There will be a special conference next month to decide on these changes that are designed to give a voice to millions of ordinary British citizens. The changes will also strengthen Labour’s historic links with the trade union movement.
The need for a strong trade union movement and a Labour Government in Britain is as essential today as it was in 1945. We need to capture that spirit of 1945 to shift the balance of power away from the rich and powerful into the hands of ordinary people.
QEUSTIONS & ANSWERS
Q: What is the proposal on the Labour-union link?
A: The federal structure of the party should be retained and Labour’s link with the trade unions also retained. Trade unions and other affiliates should continue to have a collective constitutional role inside party structures, but on a more transparent basis. After a transitional period of five years affiliation fees shall only be accepted on behalf of levy payers who have consented to the payment of such fees. At that point, the scale of a trade union’s collective affiliation shall be governed by the number of levy payers who have consented to the payment of affiliation fees.
Q: What does this mean for our relationship with trade unionists?
A: Levy paying trade unionists should have the ability to become affiliated supporters and to receive certain individual rights, by signing up to Labour values and providing the party with verifiable personal details.
These individual rights should include the right to be attached to a CLP and to vote in leadership elections. This means for the first time CLPs and MPs will be to properly involve affiliated supporters in the trade unions because they will have their contact information.
Affiliated supporters will not be able to represent the Labour Party or to participate in the election of party representatives – with the exception of primaries and leadership ballots – unless they join as full members.
Party systems should be in place to enable a new category of affiliated supporters to be established before the end of 2014.
Q: What do the reform proposals mean for how we elect our leader and deputy leader?
A: The reforms mean that all levy payers, current and future, will make a positive individual choice over the payment of affiliation fees to the Labour Party; and that those levy paying trade unionists should have an opportunity to choose to formally support the party on a direct personal basis.
The Labour Party would be able to conduct the ballot of those affiliated individuals directly. That means it will be possible to end multiple voting and to end the weighting of votes in the Electoral College. Therefore for the first time, moving to One Member One Vote is possible.
It is proposed that the Electoral College for leadership elections should be abolished and replaced in party rules by a new system based on the principle of OMOV. Multiple voting in leadership elections should be ended. The eligible electorate should be composed of members, affiliated supporters and registered supporters.
Members of affiliated organisations who are not already party members may take part in the ballot if they register with the party as affiliated supporters. This will require them to declare their support for Labour values, provide the party with personal contact details and be on the electoral roll.
Individuals who are not already party members or members of an affiliated organisation may take part in leadership elections by registering with the party as a supporter. This will require them to declare their support for Labour values, provide the party with personal contact details, be on the electoral roll and pay the party a fee.
Q: Why are MPs losing their share of the Electoral College?
A: The Electoral College reserving votes for members of affiliated unions and MPs is being abolished because we want a system which reflects OMOV principles. In the 21st Century it is wrong for someone’s vote to be worth 1,000 times more than someone else’s.
MPs will retain their role in nominating candidates for the leadership to reflect their unique perspective and duties. MPs will determine the field of candidates who go forward to the ballot. It is proposed to strengthen the role of MPs in nominating for the leadership and deputy leadership, and Ed Miliband is consulting PLP colleagues on what that should mean.
Q: Does this mean a change to how trade unions affiliate?
A: Yes. This gives people who pay the levy a direct choice about whether some of it can be used to support their union’s affiliation to the party. This is the first time, outside of Unison, that union levy payers will have been given such a choice.
Q. Doesn’t that apply just to new members?
A: It will apply first to new members but over the course of a five year implementation period it will apply to all members of affiliated trade unions.
Q: Why does it take five years to implement?
A: This was the time frame recommended by Sir Hayden Phillips and Sir Christopher Kelly, when they proposed changes to the way unions affiliate to Labour as part of wider proposals for party funding reform.
Q: What happens if people don’t reply within that five year period?
A: Then they cannot be counted as having affiliated to the Labour Party. The union is affiliated, but on the basis of the individuals who consent to fees being paid on their behalf.
Q. If they agree, do they automatically get a vote in leadership elections?
A: No. If they agree they will then be asked - in a separate process - if they want an individual relationship with the Labour Party. This means saying they support Labour and no other party and that they want to be registered as an affiliated supporter attached to a CLP who will receive communications directly from the party.
Those will need to register directly with the Labour Party and provide the party with their contact details including postal address.
They will also be asked to take part in local campaigns, fundraising and meetings.
Only then will they get a vote in leadership elections.
Q: What about the transition period? Will all the 3 million union members currently affiliated be eligible to vote in a leadership election?
A: No. Only those who have both given positive consent to paying a fee and then signed up to being Affiliated Supporters with all the conditions set out above will be eligible to vote.
If agreed at the special conference, the change to the rules for the leadership and deputy leadership elections would take place with immediate effect.
Q: But there have been reports that millions of union members are going to enter leadership election. Is that right?
A: It's wrong and based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how this works for FOUR REASONS.
1. Only those who have first given positive consent to paying an affiliation fee and then signed up separately to become an affiliated supporter will be able to vote.
2. The relationship is with Labour not with any other organisation. Affiliated Supporters and Registered Supporters are people who have decided they want to become part of our party and work with us.
3. The lists of Affiliated Supporters and Registered Supporters will be controlled by Labour. It is Labour which will issue the ballot paper and it is Labour which will ensure fair access to those lists for all candidates
4. It is patronising to think that individual trade union members or anyone else will have their minds made up for them because someone who runs their union supports one candidate or another.
Q: Who else will get a vote?
A: Party members and Registered Supporters from all walks of life who pay a fee to help fund the party. Ed Miliband wants to open this up as widely as possible so that anyone who supports Labour and is ready to help fund our campaigns can have their say.
Q: How is this different to what happens now?
A: We are abolishing the Electoral College which allowed multiple voting and gave different weight to different votes so that we have a system based on the principle of One Member, One Vote.
One of the biggest differences is that Labour will have the details of each Affiliated Supporter and the election will be run by Labour, not affiliates. Labour, not the affiliates, will issue the ballot papers. It will be up to the party to ensure that all the candidates can contact Affiliated Supporters directly.
Q: But won’t unions still be able to tell their members what to do?
A: No. Affiliated Supporters will be individuals and can make up their own minds. Affiliates will be able to campaign as much as any other organisation within strict spending limits. But the Affiliated Supporters will have a direct relationship with the Labour Party because they will have made an active choice to be part of the party.
Q: What happens to other affiliated organisations like the Fabians?
A: Members of socialist societies, like all members of affiliates, will only get a vote if they are already members of the party or register as supporters.
Q: Won’t these new Affiliated Supporters and Registered Supporters be getting the same rights as Members for a fraction of the cost?
A: No. Party members will still have rights which no-one else gets including selecting MPs, council candidates, standing for office and being officers of the party, being delegates to GCs, at Conference or the Policy Forum. And it is important to remember that we have lots of different rates of membership – such as £1 for members of the armed forces, for young people and for students.
Q: What would the role be of registered supporters and affiliated supporters in Westminster and Council selections and reselections?
A: Only full Labour Party members will be able to participate and vote in selections or reselections.
Q: What about the party’s finances – will we have enough money?
A: There is a five year transition period as recommend by Hayden Phillips and Kelly reports during which we will continue to receive affiliation fees. Although we favour a cap on all big donations this has to be done in agreement with other parties like the Tories who are disproportionately reliant on donations from millionaire hedge fund managers and City financiers. We do believe, however, that the introduction of Affiliated Supporters and the growth of Registered Supporters gives us new opportunities to change our funding base in favour of many small donors rather than a few big ones. Already our members and small donors give us more money than anyone or any organisation including the unions.
Q: What happens to the block vote at Conference?
A: There are 50% of votes reserved for delegates from affiliated organisations at Conference. Over the last 30 years this has come down from a proportion of around 90%. What these changes mean is that at the end of the five-year transition period, the voting strength of each union’s delegation will reflect accurately the number of members who have given positive consent to paying an affiliation fee.
Q: How will the transition be overseen?
A: After special conference an implementation group would be established to oversee transition, agree best practice guidelines and address any issues that arise.
Q: Why are you limiting primaries to just London when you said there was a case for using them in moribund constituencies too?
A: London is the right place to begin because it has an electorate of many millions of people and a mayoral contest for the biggest directly-elected position in Britain. We already have an Electoral College system in London for mayoral selections and we think it’s right to introduce a closed primary for affiliated supporters, registered supporters and ordinary Londoners who back Labour.
Q: What are the checks and balances for the London primary?
A: It is proposed to agree a rule change to give the NEC a power to determine when closed primaries may be used in a mayoral selection.
Registered supporters will be unable to participate without paying a fee and providing full contact details. This will enable electoral register checks and other oversight by the NEC.
Q: What happens next?
Labour’s NEC will discuss the proposals for party reform this month. If agreed, rule changes will be put to a special conference on March 1st.
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