Bob Blackman

Bob Blackman

Conservative — Harrow East

Speaking in the House of Commons on 14 November 2024

Debate

National Insurance Contributions: Healthcare

Contribution

The Minister will understand that GPs are private contractors to the health service, as are pharmacists, hospices and many wonderful charities. The Government have decided to ensure that the public sector is protected from the national insurance increase. All that the Minister—or her Secretary of State—needs to do is agree that all the suppliers to the national health service are also protected, which would safeguard their position. Otherwise, care homes will close down, pharmacies will close down, and hospices will not be able to provide their services. My constituency has the wonderful St Luke’s hospice, which does brilliant work—I helped to found it back in the 1980s—and which has told me that it will have to reduce services drastically as a result of the changes. Whenever nurses and other medical practitioners get a pay rise, those suppliers have had to cope without being given the money to fund that pay rise. They need to be protected from that as well.

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