When future generations look back on the achievements of this Labour government, success will be determined by the degree to which we improved public services, not least in education and health. That provision in 1997 was at best patchy and at worst deadly. Reform was and is needed.
The will to create a strong and vibrant economy, fair to all, will not sufficiently distinguish a good Labour government from – albeit currently unimaginable – a decent Tory administration. We must ensure a first-class and equitable provision of education and healthcare, from cradle to grave.
In my relatively brief parliamentary career, I have represented two constituencies. The first, Witney in Oxfordshire; the second, St Helens in the north-west. Little demonstrates the gross inequality in our nation more than the brutal fact that my constituents in Witney had an average life expectancy five years longer than those in St Helens.
Labour must govern for all the country, not a part of the nation. Its provision of healthcare must be excellent for everyone, not just a few. Our schools must be capable of achieving high standards for all children, not just a lucky few. Our purpose is not to preserve the institutions which deliver those services, but ensure that they deliver the highest levels of care and standards possible.
We must remember first the patients and the students. Of course, this should never be at the expense of those who work in these services; decent levels of pay, working conditions and proper training are essential; but good government requires us to work together first for those using the service.
In St Helens, my constituents are now witnessing the construction of a new quarter-of-a-billion pound NHS hospital. It replaces a repeatedly adapted workhouse. It is funded through a PFI. When finished, it will employ an additional 500 NHS staff and provide one of the finest hospitals in the whole country. It would be very unlikely to have remained more than a talking point without private investment and if it had been built only out of the public purse, would at best been at the end of a long wishlist of needy provision for the NHS, and at worst never have been built at all.
Schools in the constituency are seeing levels of capital investment unimaginable six years ago. New classrooms, fully equipped computer rooms and better-remunerated teaching staff are enabling a generation of children to receive an education that their parents never had.
To achieve these ends, to attract the investment and turn vision into action has required that, without abandoning principle, we adapt the means to these objectives. The vision of the NHS was universal healthcare free at the point of delivery. What matters are the principles of universality and that the provision is without charge. If foundation hospitals will allow us to cure more patients and treat them faster and more effectively, so long as the two vital principles remain essential, we have a duty to modernise.
Those who resist change may well offer intelligent critiques of the method, and they act as conscience. But, ultimately, if the conscience is wrestled and its criticisms adequately answered, the imperative of progress for everyone should not be impeded.
This Labour government is breaking the mould. It is a cast which has too long been sovereign of huge inequality between north and south, rich and poor, comfortable and needy. The barriers are beginning to come down. But given as long as the last Tory administration, the Labour party won’t just be the dominant party of government for the 21st century, but in its achievements in public services and for social justice, will create a considerably more fair and equitable Britain for us all.