Huhne highlights local health crisis in maiden speech

2.28.23pm UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 18th May 2005

Chris Huhne, Eastleigh's new MP, highlighted the problems of the National Health Service in Hampshire in his maiden speech on Tuesday 17th May.

Mr Huhne, who had promised to take local concerns to the chamber as soon as he was elected, was the first Opposition MP to make a maiden speech on the first day of the debate on the Queen's speech.

In what is traditionally a speech devoted to local issues of the MP's constituency, Mr Huhne stressed the need for jobs to replace those going at Alstom and Manor Bakeries, and also the funding crisis in the NHS.

He said that he would seek proper justification for the Government's plans to spend a fifth less per head on health in the Eastleigh and Test Valley South primary care trust than the national average, and 40 per cent less than funding per head in the North East.

"We may be relatively affluent, but we also have higher costs" Mr Huhne said. "The business of government is not merely to provide redistribution to the least well-off, important though that is, but also to provide public goods for all those, rich and poor, who need them.

"We should no more run down the health service in the South than cut streetlighting in prosperous areas on the ground that their need is less than deprived ones".

Mr Huhne pointed out that the local health trusts are running a substantial cumulative deficit which had deferred a lot of pain until after the general election.

"Although there have been substantial increases in funding, for which the Government deserves credit, they have not kept up with the equally substantial increases in costs due, for example, to the junior doctors' new contract.

"As a result, both the finances and other stress indicators such as Accident and Emergency waiting times, ward closures and the need to fill nursing vacancies temporarily through agency nurses all suggest that there is pain to come" warned Mr Huhne.

Mr Huhne also cited the different villages and towns within the constituency, and argued that it was crucial to maintain their distinct identities as successful communities with so much to offer in terms of quality of life.

"That is why one important political issue will remain how to balance the need for affordable homes for young local people with the enormous development pressures in what the last housing minister called "Solent Gateway". Maintaining those communities and their identities is an important priority which suggests development should be limited to brownfield sites and existing urban areas" said Mr Huhne.