Labour intends to force a vote in the Lords to suspend considering the Health and Social Care / Destroy the NHS Bill until the secret report on its risks to the NHS is released by the Con-Dem scum government. The Information Commissioner has ruled that the suppressed report should be published.
I can exclusively reveal a brief summary of the suppressed report. It says “The Health and Social Care Bill is likely to destroy the NHS as a viable health care system. Having abolished the NHS, private healthcare and health insurance will develop on the American model. The plebs will be f****d but the ultra-rich who don’t use the NHS will be fine”.
The government suffered a minor defeat on the Health and Social Care / Destroy the NHS Bill in the House of Lords over the issue of charities having to pay VAT. There is symbolism to this defeat i.e. further aspects can be defeated.
Cathy Warwick, chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives has criticied the Health and Social Care / Destroy the NHS Bill as a ‘pointless waste’ and attacked the banks for causing the huge national debt.
Philip Green is a multi-billionaire businessman, who runs some of the biggest names on British high streets. His retail empire includes brands such as Topshop, Topman, Dorothy Perkins, Burton, Miss Selfridge and British Home Stores.
Philip Green is not a non-dom. He lives in the UK. He works in the UK. He pays tax on his salary in the UK. All seems to be in order. Until you realise that Philip Green does not actually own any of the Arcadia group that he spends every day running. Instead, it is in the name of his wife who has not done a single day’s work for the company. Mrs Green lives in Monaco, where she pays not a penny of income tax.
In 2005 Philip Green awarded himself £1.2bn, the biggest paycheck in British corporate history. But this dividend payout was channeled through a network of offshore accounts, via tax havens in Jersey and eventually to Green’s wife’s Monaco bank account. The dodge saved Green, and cost the tax payer, close to £300m. This tax arrangement remains in place. Any time it takes his fancy, Green can pay himself huge sums of money without having to pay any tax.
Before the election, the Lib Dems liked to talk tough on tax avoiders. But as soon as they entered the coalition, this pre-election bluster became just another inconvenient promise they quietly forgot. In August David Cameron appointed the country’s most notorious serial-tax avoider to advise the government on how best to slash public spending. Not a single Lib Dem minister uttered a word of complaint. A Guardian editorial denounced this as “shameful”.
Philip Green’s £285m tax dodge could pay for:
* The full, hiked up £9,000 fees for almost 32,000 students
* Pay the salaries of 20,000 NHS nurses
And if that’s not reason enough to take action against Sir Philip, it is worth noting that he has built his £5bn fortune on the back of sweatshop labour, using Mauritius sweatshops where Sri Lankans, Indians and Bangladeshis toil 12 hours a day, six days a week, for minimal pay.
In the press
* Philip Green is an odd choice for efficiency tsar
* Philip Green’s tax affairs should be investigated, Lib Dem MPs urge
* Sir Philip Green under attack over personal tax affairs
* Vince Cable’s dig at Sir Philip Green’s tax status
* Sir Philip Green tax avoider gets job on the side
- Conservative election poster 2010
A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat (Conservative) coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.
Labour to force early vote on secret NHS report – Burnham & Thornton | The Labour Party
Labour will force a vote in the House of Lords this Wednesday to put further pressure on the Government to release its assessment of the risks to the NHS posed by its re-organisation.
Last week, the Information Commissioner ordered the release of the Department’s risk register, following pressure by Labour. The Government has fought to keep it out of the public domain and has yet to respond to the ruling.
On Wednesday, Labour will ask the House of Lords to postpone further consideration of the Health & Social Care Bill until the register has been released.
Andy Burnham MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, has today written to Andrew Lansley requesting immediate release and said:
“Following this ruling, Andrew Lansley has nowhere left to hide. The information is vital to a full understanding of his Bill and the risks it poses to the NHS.
“I have always said that combining the biggest ever reorganisation and facing the financial challenge will expose the NHS to unacceptable risk.
“The ruling clearly said it’s in the public interest to have this information in the public domain. If he digs in and fights this, people will begin to ask what has the Health Secretary has to hide.”
Baroness Thornton, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, speaking at the start of proceedings this afternoon, described the document’s publication as “completely pertinent” to the passage of the Bill through the Lords. Glenys Thornton called on the Government to make the document readily available before Wednesday, or Labour will force a vote in the Lords to suspend the Bill’s reading until the register is released.
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The Government has suffered a defeat in the Lords over its controversial health care reforms.
The Government has suffered a defeat in the Lords over its controversial health care reforms.
Peers voted by 195 to 183, majority 12, to require the Health Secretary to report on the VAT treatment of supplies by charities providing health care services for the NHS.
It was the first defeat inflicted on ministers during the Health and Social Care Bill’s marathon 14-day report stage.
Moving the amendment to the Bill, Labour’s Lord Patel of Bradford warned of “major inequality” over irrecoverable VAT for charities providing health care services.
He said that while the NHS was able to recover VAT on certain supplies, charities were not.
And when services were transferred from the NHS to the charitable sector there was a “VAT gap” that had to be filled by charitable funds.
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NHS reforms are a ‘pointless waste’ top midwife warns – Telegraph
The NHS reforms are ‘yet another pointless reorganisation’ that will ‘waste’ several billion pounds, the head of the Royal College of Midwives has warned.
Cathy Warwick, chief executive of the College, said the reforms, which will see doctors-led groups handling most of the NHS budget, were ‘risky and ill-thought through’.
Speaking at the annual conference in Brighton, Prof Warwick also attacked the banks, saying irresponsible and reckless behaviour’ had caused the huge national debt and the pensions of public sector workers, including midwives, were being sacrificed to clear the black hole.
She warned that maternity services were being stretched and midwives’ pensions were being sacrificed in order to clear the national debt ’caused by the irresponsible and reckless behaviour of the banks’.
The proportion of NHS money spent on maternity care is at its lowest point since the 1990s, Prof Warwick said, despite the country facing a major baby boom.
She added: “There is a growing disparity between the increasing demands that are made on midwives and the dwindling resources that they have at their disposal.
“This is compounded by a widening gap between the rhetoric about how maternity services should be and the reality that midwives experience on a daily basis.
“When it comes to staffing, the rhetoric is that there are more midwives than ever before.
“The reality in England is that the midwifery shortage is becoming a crisis.
“Yes the number of midwives in England has increased but by nowhere near enough to keep pace with the growth in their workload.”
On funding, she said the rhetoric was that the NHS budget has been maintained and there are no cuts to front line services.
“The reality, as you will know all too well, is that budgets are being squeezed and services are being cut.”
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