My pledge as a workers' MP for Chorley - Defend Our NHS

 Chorley voters have been writing to me to ask that I pledge support for issues that are of particular concern to them. So that they are on the record for all voters, I am posting my response on some of the key issues here, on my blog:

DEFEND OUR NHS 

My campaign will be highlighting the issues of NHS cuts and privatisation, including the threats to bed numbers and services from the New Hospitals Programme across Lancashire:

As a KONHP member, I have helped organise protest stalls highlighting the threats to our crumbling NHS, not least the plans by both parties to use the inevitable problems that come with underfunding and understaffing as an excuse to further widen NHS privatisation.

The points raised nationally by the "We Own It" campaign about the crisis facing the NHS and the disastrous effect of NHS privatisation speak for themselves and I certainly support their three key pledges - (1) To Reinstate the Health Secretary’s legal duty to provide healthcare to all; (2) To give the NHS £40 billion more per year to catch up with equivalent European countries; (3) To bring services outsourced to for-profit companies back into the NHS.

Personally, however, I think the issue is too urgent to wait to bring services outsourced to for-profit companies back into the NHS when their contracts end (as the third 'We Own It' pledge proposes). Instead, I think an incoming government should immediately introduce enabling legislation to end these contracts, without compensation to the big pharma and healthcare corporations who have already leeched quite enough vital money from our NHS already. (I have just had an article arguing a similar case for nationalisation of water companies too, published here: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/125697/05-06-2024/stop-the-sewage-nationalise-under-democratic-workers-control/)

As a very final note, my father worked with Nye Bevan in Tredegar on health and housing, so the demand to go 'Back to Bevan' is a very personal one for me too.

I hope that clarifies my position on the threats facing our crumbling NHS. As a workers' MP for Chorley I would hope to use my position as a platform to speak up about these threats, and not be held back by the conventions facing an 'impartial Speaker'.

[ See also my pledge on NHS Pay here: https://www.mpdnut.com/2024/06/my-pledges-as-workers-mp-for-chorley_28.html ]

Martin Powell-Davies

Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition Candidate for Chorley