26/02/2012 Sunday Politics West Midlands

In the Midlands, NHS money worries as the government promises no U-

turn on their help proposals. Our region's NHS managers must save �2

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2028 seconds

billion because we are living Hello from the Midlands. Coming up,

two billion pounds. That is how much help bosses in our region are

being told to save. We are living longer, so patients need more

treatment. Can the government's health proposals deliver reforms

while saving money? Let meet our guests, Tristram Hunt, the Labour

MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, and Margot James, the Conservative MP

for Stourbridge. Tristram, a noted historian. How d'you think

politicians learn the lessons of history, or do they just repeat the

mistakes? We operate in an environment which

is suffused in history. And yet when politicians get into the

chamber, or that history floats away and we continually repeat

errors of the past. If it is almost like the definition of insanity,

where we repeat something without knowing the answer.

My sources tell me you and your future Prime Minister are getting

increasingly irritated that people mistake one for the other, and they

repeat -- mistake him for you. If there is a big difference can

pet -- between Zac Goldsmith Anthony! -- and me. His sister did

think that I was him once. You wore another very high profile

member of the intake of 2010, and as we move towards the mid-term

point, there is talk about a reshuffle coming up this year. It

is is the moment where you think your ministerial career finally get

under way? No, I think I still have got a lot

to learn in my present job. That is an honest answer. I think there

will be some movement, who knows? But I do not want to be distracted

by that kind of talk. Are you one of these people who

says it is all about your relationship with your

constituency? People say that. I would not say it is not at all

about office, I am very pleased to have a job helping the minister for

trade and investment. That is a lonely step on the latter, but I am

really enjoying my constituency work as well. To me, you work in

Westminster and your constituency, added complement each other.

Let's move on to our top storey, car clamping. Five members of a

Midlands clamping operation have been jailed for a total of almost

eight years for using motorists as a licence to print money.

Successive governments have talked tough about this, but we are still

waiting for the promised new law to protect drivers.

Milking the public out of five- under �1,000. So said a judge

centring -- sentencing five members of Midlands Parking Contracts. --

�500,000. They would wait for someone to park, clamp them and

then demand �125. Plus �175 to cancel later a truck. The result,

�300 to the clampers, misery to the victims.

They came at the same time, and I had to go to the cash machine and

get money out. They took money through menacing

techniques, intimidation, bullying. The firm operated right across our

region. A barrage of complaints resulted a air -- resulted in an

investigation, which said they used intimidating tactics.

We took statements from more than 120 people, so the investigation

was significant, and it gives us some indication as to how we took

so long to get to where we are today.

In spite of promises to tackle the issue, a former member of Labour's

home affairs team says firms like MPC are making money because of a

lack of political courage to clamp down on a problem.

My government hesitated for too long, and the current government is

doing the same. In a statement, the Home Office

says a new law should be in place later this year, to bring an end to

the abuses dished out by rogue clamping firms.

It is worth remembering that many firms are legitimate businesses on

the right side of the law. Margot James, in 2010, the then

transport secretary Philip Hammond got some populist headlines by

promising tough action against the Cowboys. Since then, absolutely

nothing has happened. You politicians get a bad reputation

for promising the earth and doing little.

The Rose Law doing -- coming in. Hopefully it will be in by the end

of the year, and it will ban clamping on private land. That is

my honest appreciation of the position, that there will be a ban

on clamping on private land, but it has not been a simple matter. You

want to outlaw the abuse we have just seen.

My point is that the bold promise should not be made up front if it

is not a simple matter. You have got to consider people's

rights over their own property to deter illegal parking. There was a

consultation, which was necessary. Philip Hammond was right, we would

take action, and we will. They should be a law by the end of the

year. So you're Party hesitated, and

lacked the political will. It is a bill which achieved Weller

cent in 20th April tenor, running right up to the general election. -

- Royal Assent. There were lots of Linnet in it, but it is not easy to

bring in, and I think it was both governments would have acted

swiftly. There are private property issues, but I understand the bill

is going through on the timetable spoken of earlier.

Is very way of hitting the Cowboys while protecting those businesses

that are being run properly? Clearly, these characters were

criminals, and the law has got them, so before you make new laws, and

politicians are being criticised about always making new laws, if

the current laws are able to get cowboys, all well and good. But I

agree it needs to be tightened up. Nobody can a -- nobody can accuse

you of hesitating in haste. -- legislating in haste.

It is really needed. I had a case of an elderly couple clamped

outside the local hospital when they had a disabled sticker. They

have to pay �400 in cash to get their car back.

It is intimidation and thuggery. I think it is absolutely clear that

they prey on vulnerable people. They are not going to pull over a

rugby club for their car, they are going to get a woman going shopping

with her kids, and that is much -- that is what must be stop.

Let's move on. We are living longer. It is costing more to treat us,

that is the problem. That is the great conundrum for our health

service. The Sunday Politics can reveal that in our part of the

world, health managers must save �2 billion over three years just to

stand still. Politically, the storm continues to intensify over

government proposals for more competition in the NHS and a bigger

say for doctors over how the money is spent.

Every day, 100,000 people across the West Midlands are treated by

the NHS. 60-year-old David Brookes is in for a hernia operation, and

it is not the first opera -- first time he has been under the knife.

I have been in quite a long time over the last eight years. I had it

for at work, and I had cancer. -- a fall at work. Now I am in to have

my stomach hernia repaired. The NHS, free at the point of need.

The problem is, because we are living longer, it is racking up the

huge bill. About a dozen staff work in this laboratory at the New Cross

Hospital in Wolverhampton. They are making up medication for cancer

patients, but like all public services, the money is running dry.

The rising price of drugs like these coupled with new technologies

means here in the West Midlands, we need to save almost �2 billion by

2015, at that is just to a standstill.

I have noticed in the last four or five years have technology and

advancement is increasing, and the cost is increasing. We have got to

be able to find ways of saving money to be able to keep meeting

that demand. Reform under successive governments

is nothing new, and neither is protest. Remember this?

You don't do anything to help anybody!

Tony Blair visiting Birmingham ahead of a second landslide. And

some things never change. I have had enough of your!

Andrew Lansley on his way to Number 10 last week for his summit with

the Prime Minister. He wants GPs to decide where the money are spent,

at the private sector to play a bigger part. But it is not going

smoothly. The Bill is designed to save money,

to the bottom up as opposed to top- down, to decrease bureaucracy. I

think it will do the opposite. It will increase bureaucracy, and

virtually the whole of the NHS will become strangled by red tape.

Amid huge savings and plenty of criticism, the government is still

battling to get it built through the House of Lords. -- its bill.

Downing Street insists it is the only prescription that poor work.

Also with us here today, Dr David Nicholl. He got in touch having

read my blog. He is a consultant neurologist at the Queen Elizabeth

and City Hospitals in Birmingham. He has triggered an extraordinary

general meeting of the Royal College of Physicians tomorrow.

They will consider whether to ballot their members over the

government's proposals. What do you hope to achieve?

I became very concerned with what was happening in my college. It is

not a union, we represent 15,000 fellows across the world. We look

at education and training, but also patient care. What troubled me was

a month ago, the Academy of royal colleges was about to issue a press

release which was going to be highly critical of the reforms, and

after some phone calls from Andrew Lansley and other ministers, they

changed it. I thought that was not Is there in Africa a risk that you

will be seen as a vested interest averse to change? Tony Blair talked

about the scars on his back when he talked about reforming public

services. I you being resistant and Conservative?

I absolutely disagree. When you look at the NHS, something that is

working well, something which has got a lot of quantity measures, you

do not Territt up. -- tear it up. That is what is happening with

these proposals. Yori signatory in a letter to the

Daily Telegraph which criticised the government. Is attending

summits are the best way to make government aware of your concerns?

No, it was simply a PR exercise. Only on Thursday, the President of

the Royal College of paediatricians have withdrawn support. I think it

is very interesting because he also sits on the body the government set

up to decide these things. Would he be allowed to attend meetings?

How can so many health professionals lining up against

your government's proposals, they cannot all be wrong?

A lot of the doctors who are already applying these reforms as

far as they are able to under the current laws are finding them

extremely beneficial. It is right that we start to make decisions

about people's care closer to the patient and their families, and

that is what these reforms are designed to do, to give more power

to local primary care groups, GPs and nurses, to work with patients

to make more of the decisions. That is really what it is all about.

What is Labour's problem with this? You are calling for the Bill to be

dropped altogether? Labour tried GP commissioning in certain areas, but

when the vested interests rattled their Sabres, you backtracked and

gave it away. We are in favour of reform. We have

just seen the ageing population and the growing cost of pharmaceuticals.

The NHS cannot stand still, and it is wrong to suggest it did under

Labour. Massive levels of investment, a new hospital in

Stokes, the first in 140 years. But also a fascinating paper in the

Lancet journal showing that productivity increased by up to 15%

under Labour in the NHS as a result of investment and reform. What we

think... Why do not support the coalition

taking it further? We regard this as an unnecessary

act of bureaucratic intervention, which will cost �1.4 billion when

the NHS has to save money. Yes, it will cost that, but it will

save �4.5 billion according to the independent projections. Most of

the proposal that we are bringing in were also in the Labour

manifesto. I find it incredible they are opposing them now.

This is a tricky argument, because I have got a lot of sympathy for

you. If this Bill goes through, I think it is electorally lethal.

I think the public will judge us not on this bill, but what we have

delivered. The early signs are promising. We are delivering

improvements, and that is what will count.

There is a real danger that we will end up with a more expensive health

care system was -- with worse outcomes. If you look in the US, it

costs twice as much and you do not live as long.

The reforms have nothing to do with the US. They could not be left

different. -- less different. That is beefier. The kind of

approach is we are seeing from America could get involved in the

NHS. -- that is beefier. We want brilliant doctors, and I think that

could be at risk. -- that is the fear or.

We are firm on the NHS remaining free at the point of need. That is

essential, and we are not introducing private health care at

random. Earlier this week, we had a Tory MP

who had to apologise to the house because he failed to declare that

he was being paid �50,000 by a private healthcare company. It is

obscene. That has got nothing to do with

this subject. We could go on afternoon. I think

the winner is the clock! Let's take the pulse of this

political week in the Midlands in our regular round-up in just 60

seconds. It is brought to us with a hint of espionage by BBC Stoke's

Shaken but never stirred. A so- called dirty that has been given

the go-ahead by the government to hack lawfully into computers. It

will find that how better to protect the public.

This field in Stafford has been earmarked for thousands of research

and technology jobs. Work on the �8 million development could start in

the autumn. There is a growing population and

they need places to work. We are interested in long-term,

sustainable jobs. There was that it is with the death

of Robin Corbett at the age of 78. He was Labour MP for Birmingham

Erdington for 18 years. Any p Nikki Sinclaire has been

arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud the European Parliament.

She denies the allegations. -- MEP. GPs want Stafford Hospital to be

massively downgraded. A leaked letter revealed they wanted to deal

with little more than births and broken barons. -- broken bones.

Nikki Sinclaire will be a guest on this programme in three weeks' time.

Margot James, Stafford Hospital. Talk about managing expectations!

You have invested so much in this, it worked for you, looking at it

politically, but it could be lethal. The look at previous experiences

with hospitals. It is a shocking situation. An

Enquirer or report next month, and I believe it will expose a huge

level of wrong doing. -- an inquiry will report. It is the GPs that

they are now in the driving seat, trying to improve the situation for

the patients, which they were not in a situation it to do so before.

In Stoke-on-Trent, it is a real worry. What we are seeing with the

closure of accident and emergency facilities is a huge increase in

body and took another hospital. We really need to sort out the

relationship between hospitals in Stoke and what is going on in

Stafford. There are great doctors there, and there have been failures

of management. Can you reassure the public, who

have been very concerned, briefly? Yes, I think we can. In Stoke-on-

Trent, our concern is that we are building a new, excellent hospital,