There is a range of views amongst Tory MPs about the future of the NHS; the phoney war during the election is likely to turn into something much more visceral.
Following our article earlier on the need for independent chairs of the select committees, Trevor Cheeseman takes a closer look at the candidates for chair of the health select committee
Nigel Lawson once called the NHS “the closest thing the English have to a religion”, and offering reassurance to voters about its future (and de facto Labour’s improvements) was a key part of David Cameron’s detoxification project.
Though successful, in so far as the NHS barely featured in the election campaign, high profile pledges have been made. Protected budgets, real terms funding increases and halting service reconfigurations now have to be matched with the reality of office, and a wider Coalition narrative of shrinking the state.
In this environment a potentially influential critic of government health policy is the health select committee. Hence the importance of this week’s election – by secret ballot for the first time from across all MPs – of Conservative chairs of 12 main select committees. Several candidates have emerged.
Stephen Dorrell was a health secretary under John Major for two years but more recently raised eyebrows with a barely concealed attack on the prime minister’s own choice of Andrew Lansley. At last October’s Tory conference Dorrell stressed the need for “a little sunlight” in the Tory health vision, and failed to mention Lansley once.
This reflects concerns that Lansley has spent as much energy opposing change in the NHS as he has advocating it, and for all his six years shadowing the brief has failed to develop ideas or build support for a coherent vision. Dorrell’s stint as health secretary saw an anonymous White Paper, as Labour attacks – such as the “24 hours to save the NHS” line – resonated with the public and NHS staff.
Peter Bone, MP for Wellingborough, like outgoing health committee chair Edward Leigh is from the socially conservative Cornerstone Group (motto of principles: ‘Faith, Flag, and Family’). In a 2007 Cornerstone paper, Bone stated the NHS “would not be out of place in Stalin’s Russia”, and that “we have gone from having one of the best health services in the Western world to arguably the worst”4.
Nadine Dorries, MP for Mid Bedfordshire, has 10 years’ nursing experience but also comes with a history of campaigning of the last Parliament to reduce the upper limit at which abortion takes place – though she has pledged to drop this if elected – while Sir Paul Beresford, MP for Mole Valley, is a dentist and ex-leader of Wandsworth Council, the Thatcherite flagship of the 1980s.
These highlight the range of views amongst Tory MPs about the future of the NHS, and why the phoney war during the election is likely to turn into something much more visceral, with universal standards diluted and services compromised as a necessary part of the age of austerity.
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