Labour ‘held back report on NHS because it was too positive’

LABOUR has been accused of suppressing a major report because it did not support its claim that the NHS is under threat from privatisation.

The health select committee was due to publish its study of NHS funding before the election.

But, according to Conservative MPs on the all-party committee, it had heard little evidence of fundamental changes to the Health Service as a result of Coalition reforms.

The MPs were told that, on the contrary, the pace of privatisation had actually slowed since the election, and that there had been no extension of charges and top-ups – meaning that there was no reason to think the NHS would not remain free at the point of use. This dealt a blow to labour’s argument that David Cameron cannot be trusted with the NHS.

Rather than publish the report weeks before the election, the four labour committee members blocked it after reading a draft, claimed their Tory counterparts Charlotte leslie, Robert Jenrick and andrew Percy.

Mr Percy, the MP for Brigg and Goole, said: ‘This is despicable. We heard hours and hours of evidence, but because it does not support the national party line about the NHS being under threat, they block it.

‘labour were only interested if they could use it to weaponise the NHS.’

last night, the angry Tory MPs released a dossier of some of the report’s findings. It said: ‘The weight of evidence… showed there had not been an extension of charges, of topups during the current Parliament, and that these are not planned.

‘It showed very little increase in private- sector providers since 2010 [and] a general trend of declining administration costs in the NHS.’

It added that independent provider admissions had increased by just 0.6 per cent under the Coalition’s Health and Social Care act, while foundation trusts now receive a lower proportion of their income from private patients than during labour’s time in power.

The dossier also said expenditure on NHS administration had fallen from 5.1 per cent in 2009/10 to a planned 2.7 per cent in 2015/16.

and it found that nothing ‘suggests that continuing with a comprehensive tax-funded NHS is intrinsically undoable’. Mr Percy said: ‘They said the report was too pro-Government. But that’s ridiculous, because many of our reports have been very critical of the Government… On this occasion, the evidence simply didn’t support what labour wanted to hear.’

Valerie Vaz, a labour MP on the committee, told The Spectator: ‘This was a private meeting and I am disappointed a colleague has publicised their version of what was said.

‘The report … did not make full use of the evidence. at a different point in the parliamentary cycle… there would have been time to redraft the report as we have done previously.’

a labour source said: ‘The Tory MPs didn’t want to admit to what their Government has done.’

‘Not what they wanted to hear’