The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 82. Wes Streeting: Labour, privatisation, and the NHS

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

Could privatising areas of the NHS save it? How easy is it to reconcile one's faith and sexuality? What is Labour's plan for health and social care? Rory and Alastair are joined by the Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, to discuss all this and more. TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. TRIP TOUR: To buy tickets for our October Tour, just head to www.therestispolitics.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [e-mail] Video Editor: Teo Ayodeji-Ansell Social Producer: Jess Kidson Assistant Producer: Fiona Douglas Producer: Nicole Maslen Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to the Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's the restispoletics.com. Welcome to the Restis Politics leading with me, Anast Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. Join by Wes Streeting, who, if the polls are right and Labor win the general election, will be Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. And a bit like some of our earlier Labour interviews, with a very interesting backstory, but probably the only one aged 41,

who has already written a memoir, title one boy, two bills and a fry-up about his rather extraordinary childhood. I think he will definitely be the only member of Parliament whose mother was born whilst her mother was chained to a hospital bed because she was on release from prison, where she shared a cell with none other than Christine Keeler, who will be well known to older listeners and viewers. The Star of the Profumo affair. Profumo scandal. Along with Mandy Rice Davis.

Yeah. It's amazing how those two women, their names, kind of resonates through the areas. And they will. And what was the great catchline they produced? He would say that, wouldn't he? He would say that. He would say that. He would say that.

Yeah. Let's say we don't have too many. He would say that, wouldn't he, moments. The thing about Wes that you have to understand is relentlessly political, very working class background, went to Cambridge University, became very politically active there, president of the National Union of Students, then a counsellor, a bit of work in the private sector, but pretty much has been a politician and political all his life. And Willby is one of the most important labour figures in the campaign and will be one of the most important figures in the

government if there is one. So Wes, thank you for being here. Thank you very, very much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Can I start then with your memoir on your book and do give us a bit of a sense of the different dimensions of your childhood. Father's family, mother's family, how you grew up, what those different traditions were, how they fed into who you are today. Yeah, I mean, it's captured in the title. So the one boy is obviously me. The two bills are my two granddad's, both of them called Bill, who I think epitomize two very stereotypical East End families, but wildly different stereotypes. And which part of the East End were you from? Stepney. So Stepney, Whitechapel, Stepney Green, that's my stomping ground. And on my dad's side of the family,

had Bill Streeting, served King and Country in the Second World War in the Royal Navy, as his father had in the First World War. He was very big on law and order, very much a monarchist, loved the queen, worked all of his life. And yep, he was what I would call sort of pull yourself up by your bootstraps, working class, Thatcherite Tory. In fact, the only time he ever voted something other than conservative was liberal in Tower Hamlets to keep Labour out. So he was a staunch Tory, an Anglican, and probably the most influential person in my life and the closest relationship. Would he have been a Brexit voter? Would that have been the way he probably would have gone? I bet he would have done, yeah. I think he probably would have voted to leave the European Union.

Interestingly, my dad, who's also been a lifelong conservative, he voted to remain narrowly on on economic grounds. Right. As my dad works in the car, he's a car salesman. But you said that was the most important relationship. Yeah. Your granddad, not your mother or your father? We were so close.

He was like my best friend growing up. And when there was a lot of turbulence and chaos and instability at home, you know, when I'd go to stay with my granddad, that would be those be the best moments of the week. And give us a sense of him. What was he like physically? What made him somebody that was he good at dealing with young people? Was he fun to be around?

He was, despite his politics, And politics and traditions, he was definitely a soft touch as a granddad. He was the one I'd go to if I wanted to borrow chocolate. My dad said no. He used to do these crazy things for me. Like on a Saturday morning, he'd ask what I'd want for breakfast and I'd say beef burgers and potato waffles and he'd make them. Like this is, I think this is kind of crazy by the way. Did he, did he enjoy playing with a child? I mean, read to me all the time. He would indulge any interest I had. He would pretend that sweets I made out of pure icing sugar were delicious. He would just, I was a granddad's boy. And, he would, I was a granddad's boy. And, But, you know, he's also very traditional. I don't think he ever owned a pair of jeans in his entire life. Whenever he picked me up from school on a Friday, he'd arrive early to join us at church and he'd be suited and booted. But he'd be suited and booted to go to the square market on Roman Road on a Saturday. He might not wear a tie on a Saturday, but he would be there with his big laundry bags

full of shopping, sort of carrying them down the road. He used to occasionally have a string vest on if he was at home casually. But other than that, he was very well turned out. He'd be horrified that I'd sometimes use one of those shiny sponges to shine my shoes rather than a proper navy boot polish. And given that he was in many ways quite a kind of old-fashioned conservative person, did you have a chance to discuss being gay with him? How did he deal with that? No, he sadly died when I was 11, which was without doubt the worst day of my life. So I always wonder how he would have reacted.

I think his reaction would have been the same as my dad's, which was taking a bit of time. to get used to it, but unconditional love. So I feel fairly confident about that. We'll talk about the other bill, the more colourful bill. If I can put it like that in a minute, the one who hung out with the craze and stuff. But so your grandfather was important to you, and clearly, I think I'm right. I've heard you say this, I think to me before, that he was very important, the development of your Christian faith, but doesn't seem to have influenced your politics in the same way.

To an extent he has, albeit, you know, when I was growing up, I used to talk to my granddad about politics, even at that young age, not least because there was very left-wing firebrand politics on my mum's side at the family. I've always had a strong commitment to social justice, and particularly given my childhood and upbringing, I might not have described it as that when I was growing up, but that basic fairness always kind of had ingrained. Where I've kind of got to over time is a frustration that when I talked to my dad or my granddad about why they were conservative, and it would be things like trusted with the economy, law and order, national security.

As I've grown up, and as I've looked back on Labor history, you know, I loved history growing up, read history at university, I don't think that those are, or at least should be, conservative issues, but the Labour Party's too often surrendered that ground to the conservatives. And I think we've under Kears leadership, and I promise I'm not going to do loads of lines to throughout this conversation, but I do think that one of the reasons for where we are today is when you look back at Lee Wilson Blair, they all answered the three questions that stop Labour winning power. We always have to answer those three questions and if we answer any of them with a no, we lose. So can we trust you of our money? Can we trust you on law and order? Can we

trust you on national security? And your grandfather and father would answer no to that for Labor? Yeah. Although my dad's vote is hanging in the air at this general election. Even this one? This could be the first time my dad votes Labor in general election. He doesn't live in my constituents. He's always voted for me. But my dad, when I stood for a council by-election in 2010 and I was still living with my dad, he said, I'm voting streeting. I'm not voting Labor.

But dad's moved. I mean, he voted Labor in the London elections for the first time ever without streeting being on the ballot paper. Okay, that's good. So he's leaning Labour for the general election. So let's just, just before we move on to. more politics. Give us the sense of your mother's side. Yeah, it's a completely different family. My granddad, granddad pops, Bill Crowley. He didn't serve King and Country, but he did serve at her majesty's pleasure. He was in and out of prison throughout his life. In fact, his early

experiences of the criminal justice system were in ball stalls, approved schools from a very young age. And he grew up in East End as well. Yeah. Well, South London originally, then they moved to the East End, and he had a string of convictions for armed robbery. Was that basically his job? Yeah. Apart from, I mean, he had a couple of other jobs, but he can never help himself. Even when he was doing kind of straight jobs, he would come home, that was a delivery driver, he'd come home with like huge pallets of fresh fish that would then fill the freezers of every house in the family. Some really thick, high quality door mats that then adorn the doors across the east end. The one job he, like thick high quality doorments. Absolutely, yeah, very posth for the east end. One of the stories I tell in the book was when he was doing work and as official receiver. And he couldn't believe his luck because as far as he was concerned, he was being paid to legitimately steal from people. And he would turn up to all these people are in debt.

And he didn't mind doing businesses. But it was when he was knocking on doors, looking into the eyes of, and it was usually women who answered the door and having to take what little they had, he would just sort of say, it's all right. you weren't in. I didn't see you and walk off and he would, and it's a bit like his work as an armed robber, you know, he wouldn't steal from his own as it were. And in the end, he gave, he quit that job because he said being an armed robber was more honest work than being a bailiff. To be a little serious for a moment. So, you know, he's your grandfather and you'll have a deep affection for him and he obviously had many virtues and, you know, you're just given examples of him being sort of generous and compassionate to people. But armed robbery is a,

a terrifying, violent, horrible imposition on the victims. And I guess your other grandfather, who believes in law and order, would be like you do not minimize what the hell it means to be an armed robber, however glamorous that sounds. Yeah, and actually, one of the issues I address in the book is this issue of the glamorization. And I enjoyed some of those kind of gangster films as much as anyone else. But when I sort of take a step back and you think, is this really right that we hold people up in this way and we sort of particularly glamorised the craze. And my granddad's often appeared in newspaper headlines as sort of an associate of the craze. Actually, he wasn't particularly, he knew them, but he wasn't associate.

He was in with the Richardson's and some, you know, one or two others sort of tell some colorful, not suitable for work jokes in the book about some of his gangster associates. But there was a serious point. I mean, there's one story my mum told me, which. he burst in one evening, crying with laughter, just saying, only a woman, only a woman, only a woman over again. And mum was saying, what's going on? And he'd gone into, I think it was a shop or a post office. He'd held a shotgun up in the face of the person, one behind the counter. And she'd gone to press the panic button. And he said, you press that button, I'll shoot you. And she just looked him deadpan in the eye,

pressed the button and said, go on then. And he burnt, because he was never going to shoot her, burst out laughing. laughing, ran off and said only a woman would have done that. And it's sort of, and me and my mum talked about it, saying, well, I think one thing I can be pretty sure of is that she didn't go home laughing that day. And who knows what impact that might have had on her for years to come. It's terrible. Did she even go back to her?

I mean, it sounds like she was hard as nails, but there's a, you know, there are no crimes without victims. The courage to look down the barrel of a gun. Gun and say, go on that. And I would also count my own family among his victims because, his relationship with my nan was a very abusive one. My nan herself was incredibly strong, but my mum grew up in an environment with violence

where my granddad was at home and not home. It was a very unstable childhood. It affected my mum's education and her life chances. You mentioned my nan giving birth in prison. She was only in prison because she got caught up with my granddad's work. And yet my nan was this warrior for social justice. She, very active in the Tenants Association in the East End, campaigned against Murdoch when he moved to News International. Sometimes after when I'm going into work to do an interview of the son, I sort of look up and say, I'm really sorry, Nan, but we've got to talk to everyone.

I think she could have been a great Labour counsellor or even a Labour MP. In fact, she was asked to be a Labour counsellor. And she said, no, because she was ashamed of her criminal record. And she didn't want to bring herself the family or the Labour Party into disrepute. So it had a big consequence for my mum, for her brothers and, you know, brother and sisters and for my nan and what she was able to do. Where do you think your kind of moral compass comes from then? Did your mum and your grandmother on that side of the family, on the labour criminal side of the family, did they sit you down and talk about right or wrong? Did the other bill sit you down and talk about right or wrong?

I mean, how have you got a kind of that sense of what's right and what's wrong and the moral compass that it gives you? I think from both sides of the family. I mean, my mum's never justified my granddad's criminality. I mean, in the book I explain it in that it was only not one before he died when he finally revealed to my mum and my aunt that he'd been both physically and sexually abused by his father growing up. And suddenly it all made sense. It doesn't excuse, but it does explain. And you can then see, well, despite having a really loving mum, and a brilliant relationship with his sisters,

you can understand why Ball Store approved school might feel like a safer place and why the institutions of prison and that routine felt like a safer place. And of course he had status in prison as an armed robber and as a getaway driver. He had friends and so he, you know, life was actually better for him in prison,

which I think is, you know, a huge tragedy. Did you know him well as a child? What was he like to deal with as a grandson? Well, that's the sadness for me is when I was very young, I remember him being in and out of prison. I went to visit him once in prison and I didn't want to go back. Which prison was that? I think that would have been Wandsworth.

I remember getting on a train down South London. And I didn't like seeing him there. And I said to my mum, I didn't want to go back afterwards, which upset my granddad. But I just didn't want to go back. When he eventually came out and came out for good, I found him to be loving, but also to be living quite a sad and solitary life. And I felt sorry for him. And when I spent time with him, and it goes back to him.

to the suddenly all makes sense point in terms of his childhood. But I used to sit there thinking, because we used to have fierce debates about politics, about religion. He was like a Dawkins-style atheist before Richard Dawkins became a big thing. And he had read all of the major religious texts, the Bible, the Quran, the Torah. And he was really well read. And I used to be incredibly funny.

He used to razor sharp wit. And he absolutely encouraged me to aim high. I mean, you know, he was so proud when I was so proud when I made it to Cambridge. And I used to sit there thinking, how is it that someone this smart, this funny, this world read could have led such a wasted life? You turn up in Cambridge. Were you confident when you were 18 sharing these stories with other people that you were

at university with? No. No. In fact, even when the book came out, it came as a surprise to lots of my friends at university. So how did you, as a, I guess like most of us at 18, we're a little bit self-conscious. How do you think you sort of presented yourself to people when you were 18? I've always had a, I've tried to find a better way to describe this, because I always describe myself having a bit of a working-class chip on my shoulder,

but I don't mean that in a resentful or aggravated way. What I mean is that I'd sort of been brought up with this idea, well, you know, anything you can do I can do. and I've always had this sort of sense of, well, I'm not going to let my background hold me back. So I arrived in Cambridge with a precocious. Actually, precocious is probably about, I had a positive ship. I had a precociousness, yeah. And I arrived. I remember having some arguments with some of my friends from independent schools. I never met anyone from private school, for rent to university, of trying to say, well, you've earned your place here. We've all earned our place here. But I've earned my place more because I've had to clear more hurdles. And the way I describe it now

talking to kids from backgrounds like mine across the east end when I go and talk in schools is, you know, actually often compare myself to Jacob Rees-Mogg after I was elected to Parliament, which is, which is, look, we are sat here in Parliament, we've got an equal vote, an equal voice, and we're sat around the Treasury Committee, like one of the most influential committees, and Jacob was at opposite me for a good few years. And I used to say, look, Jacob and I have do the same job, we've got the same weight, the same, or not quite the same voice, but notionally, we've got the right to speak. We've reached the same destination, but I've had to clear hurdles to get ahead.

And actually, that's made me the stronger athlete, and it's built resilience. And so I don't look back with it, and it's certainly not a misery memoir of written, I don't look back with a sense of pity. I mean, even the, so we mentioned the sort of one boy, the two bills, the grandparents, the fry-up. And this is probably where the, maybe the precociousness was born in the womb, because my mum was pregnant as a teenager. I think what's technically known as an accident. It was not a planned pregnancy. And everyone, including my dad, my granddad, my nan, my mum's mom, all agreed the best thing to do is my mum to have an abortion.

But she decided and run up that she wasn't going to go through with it. She knew that my formidable nan might well frog marcher to the hospital to go through of it. So on the morning of the appointment, she did the one thing that she was explicitly told she couldn't do or the procedure couldn't go ahead, which was to have breakfast. So the fry-up is literally the fry-up that saved my life. And I think that's where the precaution. was born in the womb, I think.

Listen, we talk, Rory and I talk a lot on this podcast about prisons, because we both go into prisons, and, you know, you rightly say they're pretty horrific, and you had that experience as a child. I think we both are a little bit disappointed that there's no sense of prison reform being on the political agenda right now. We're just going to live with these terrible prisons. Is that not something you think that a Labour Party ought to be focused on? I think we do have to look at the whole issue of kind of criminal justice in the round.

I would argue, for example, that my nan should never have been in prison, that her offences weren't serious enough as a pregnant woman to find herself giving birth with all of the consequences that would involve, because my mum was separated from my nan for a while at the beginning, and we now know so much about those first thousand days. That was a terrible thing to have done, and I think there are probably too many women in prison today for offences. But Wes, can I maybe push it one more stage, which is, you know, both Alastair and I would agree strongly that there are far too many women in prison and most of the women in prison shouldn't be in prison. But it's also true that our prisons are horrible. I mean, filthy, violent, drug-ridden, unsafe, horrible places. And none of these parties, I'm afraid, neither Labour and conservatives or Lib Dems, are really focusing on this campaign on the most vulnerable. I mean, I think that like to see a party say, if we get in, we're going to look after prisoners properly, we're

going to look after the homeless properly, we're going to look after the very poorest in society properly. People who don't vote in case prisons aren't even allowed to vote, but that a basic mark of our civilisation is to massively improve conditions. Look at Sweden, look at Netherlands, make humane conditions in prisons absolutely central to the manifesto. I don't think it's a surprise that when money is in short supply and when you're fighting a... an election on the issues that matter to voters and you're trying to kind of hit voters on the nose with the messages that speak to the issues that they care most about, that prison and prison reform is not going to be a centrepiece of the election campaign.

I didn't think it would cost you. I don't think it would cost you votes oddly. I mean, I was thinking about it yesterday. I mean, I agree with you. It's not maybe something that's going to excite the daily male voter, but it would be completely on brand for a compassionate Labour Party. It would be something that you could do where people could be like, okay, I get it. you've got a moral compass, all right, maybe it's not our priority, but this is showing your values.

I think it's something you could do that wouldn't cost you votes and might actually give people certain kind of admiration. Even as you say that, I can hear the Tory is going soft on crime, soft on crime, soft on crime, soft on crime. And also, like, you know, and then there's a question of the money and, you know, we've got a fierce competition for resources at the moment because they're in short supply and would you start here? I do think there's a more fundamental question, though, about why, how we got to this? state and why is it that criminal justice and prisons feature so low? I mean, you know, you were a prisons minister. What is most, what made your job the most difficult to make a change? I came into that job and my predecessor, Sam Jemas said, you've got to be hard on crime.

And I completely disagreed. I came in and I thought, this is a total disgrace. I said she inspired by Tessa Jal. Tessa Jal said to me that the big question she asked, herself whenever she went into a hospital is, would I put my mother in this hospital? And I thought, you know, would I put a relative in this prison? The answer is absolutely not. It's terrifying, disgusting, filthy place. And so everything I did was going out saying, these are complete disgusting disgraces, and we're going to try to make them safe for prisons, safe for prison officers, safe families. Paradoxically, I found that actually the public responded very favorably. The newspapers weren't that brutal to me, and all the conventional

wisdom, which was, you know, you'll be punished for it. It wasn't true. People do have a conscience in Britain and you can awake it. So I feel sad that people aren't leaning into this. I think we're being too cowardly about this. I don't think it's so much a conscience issue, but I do think it's a resources issue. I mean, the prison estate is an absolute mess. But then would you prioritize prisons over our schools and hospitals? I wouldn't. And I don't, I don't think that's her an immoral choice. Let me just try it. I think I probably would because they are so bad. I mean, so much work. worse than a school. A bad school is a very depressing thing. But 30,000 assaults a year in present.

I mean, there's people getting their heads chopped off in the exercise yards. They're getting, I mean, that's not happening in schools. I mean, this is something hidden from society, which is so much worse than you can imagine. Can I ask you something else about your earlier life? What did you learn, first of all, in student politics, and then as a counsellor that maybe you're trying to apply today as, in, I think, was your first election as a key campaigner, as they're called. Yeah. Well, that politics is fundamentally about change at any level.

And I had a rise smile this week because I think varsity, one of the student newspapers at Cambridge, they run a sort of feature looking back sort of 20 years. And 20 years ago was me. And this week they mentioned a certain West Streeting campaigning. successfully to save the university's architecture department from closure. And that wasn't just me, by the way. It was a huge team effort. The architecture society leadership at the time deserved the lion's share of the credit.

But that's what politics and political change is really about the saviour. If ever it's about the saviour. It is about a collective effort, a team effort to affect change. And we did. And I'm incredibly proud that that architecture department is still there today, still thriving. And I can say, hand on heart, that I was part of that achievement and legacy. And similarly, in local government, I mean, it's made me a committed devolver. I believe that power is better exercise when it's closer to the peoples and communities.

It's there to serve. And Andy Burnham has been a trailblazer for the mayoral model. And we're seeing others now follow using those levers of power. I mean, you know, I might not be happy with the result for lots of reasons. but Ben Houtrin up on Tyside, the fact that he is still there, despite the tsunami that swept away other conservatives, says something about the fact that people judged him as a mayor, not simply as the political brand. And so I'm very committed to devolution. And also, again, it's about how you affect fundamental change and sometimes really practical change. You know, I was in a rush the

other day. I was going from one thing to another, as you do during the election campaign. And I I got stopped at these traffic lights around the corner from where I live on Horn's Road in Barkingside. And I was in a rush and I said to the person driving the car, I was like, this is my fault. I've got these traffic lights installed because we've got the new development behind me and the school in front of me and we put the crossing in because we were worried about children's road safety. And we'd probably save some lives and prevented some injuries.

So even really practical things like getting in a pedestrian crossing, people might... It's quite bold to tell a voter that you've just made his life. more difficult. Well, you know, and it's good. And I mean, I love my time. And, you know, the one year I had as deputy leader of the London Borough of Redbridge for I was elected as, as the MP for Ilford North, I got so much done in that one year. And I can point things around my constituency and around my borough that I delivered as deputy leader of the council. In the last nine years, as a, as most, you know, a backbencher and then as a member of the shadow cabinet and a member of the front bench, I can point to things I achieve that are consequential. I saved King George Jackson in emergency department.

That was the A&E department that found my kidney cancer and saved my life. I can point to things I've done in Parliament to make a difference, albeit on issues like Islamophobia where I work with Saeeda Vasi. We made some impact, but not the fundamental change I really wanted to make. The point you're making is you've got to be in government. Yeah, and that's why this election for me is incredibly exciting, so we might pull it off. It's also, I mean, for listeners to the show, it's a kind of reminder of one of the weirdnesses of being a backbench MP. Because as you say, a lot of what I certainly felt as an MP, that a lot of what our voters want us to do are quite practical local issues.

And a lot of that is actually the job of the local council, not the MP. Local MP doesn't actually have a budget, doesn't have legal powers. So even when we say, and of course I did this like you, you know, I got the job. dueling of the A66, I got the lift in Penrith station and you're saying you saved the hospital. Well, yeah, up to a point. But obviously, you're an opposition backbench MP. So that thing wouldn't have been saved unless presumably some conservative minister signed off on it. So the most you're doing is back bench MP is having some sort of, you hope, some influence on the process. You're not actually in power. You're not doing it yourself. You're asking for something.

You're lobbying for something. You're pushing for something. Making the case for something. And I think that's one of the things that can make politics quite depressing. I mean, I felt a lot of my colleagues who'd come out of business or the military or even running local councils when they became backbenching peace, well, struggling to really feel that impact. And they never said it to voters. Because, of course, you've got to keep saying to voters to get them to vote for you. I'm delivering change. I'm delivering change. So you never say to them, listen, I'm pretty powerless.

And this is a bit embarrassing. And I'm not actually achieving very much every year. But there is a sense in which that is a bit true. And maybe that's one of the things that makes you commit to devolution. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of truth in what you say. A few things I'd say, though. Firstly, Parliament really matters, and our role as legislators really matters. And there are things that you can achieve, even as a backbencher.

I mean, that was certainly true in the Brexit parliaments where, I mean, we kind of seize control of the order paper in quite unprecedented ways. But what did you actually achieve? What you actually achieved. Not the outcome we wanted. No, what you achieved was Boris Johnson pushing through an even harder Brexit by destroying Theresa May's deal. Again, there's some truth in that. I think the role of Parliament, though, matters and holding the executive to account matters. Can I put up?

Push that words for a second, though, because given the way the whips work, given the way the majorities work, you're basically trooping through the lobbies day and day out, losing, losing, and, you know, it doesn't matter what you say in the debates. The other side isn't really listening. I mean, it's the thing I noticed when I became an MP. They're not really debates, are they, to be honest. I mean, you know, you stand up, you ask your question, you get some sort of stupid synthetic answer from dispatch box.

Half the people are looking at their phones. The people doing speeches are reading their speech. I mean, it's not really a debate in the sense that this is a debate where we're actually listening to each other and exchanging ideas. No, there are some exceptions. I mean, you know, on issues like assisted dying or if there are particular abortion reforms where I think the free vote debates, you do have more of a debate. But there's an awful lot of influencing guys.

going on behind the scenes and there are often groups of MPs who are able to affect change to shift their parties and that's a process. I think, and this speaks to a piece you've just written for the Guardian, Rory, about your experience and frustrations, some of which you've already mentioned. I think the one that worries me more is some of your reflections from government and the chopping and changing of ministers. I mean, in the last two and a half years, I've been shadow health and social care sector. I've been up against five secretaries of state for health and social care.

Now, that's just not serious. And it means even where you've got good people occupying those jobs, they can't actually make a difference before they're moved on. And the thing that I am optimistic about is one of the things about Keir's character as a political leader, which is underestimated. Because often his late arrival into politics is often debated as if it's some sort of weakness, whereas I think it's his superpower because I think he sees the pitfalls and show. shortcomings of the way our political system currently works that gives me some hope and confidence that he's going to change it. I mean, it's not just special pleading when I say to Keir, you really shouldn't shop and change your ministers every five minutes. And by the way, you know, it's going to take me at least a term to get NHS waiting standards to where we'd want them to

be. And this is going to be a decade of change in reform that's going to be needed to really get your NHS moating. The talking point was slippy and I could feel it. I thought you'd I thought you'd mock me if I said renewal. So I'm glad you're following the script, to identify the lines. But I think there's a real opportunity. And similarly, I mean, this is not really a retail offer for the voters, the sort of the mission-driven government that Keir's talking about, although I think it will speak to some highly engaged voters.

But this idea that government can't solve everything and that we have to work in partnership with business, with civil society, and all of us as citizens, I think is really powerful. And similarly, and I think this is the antidote to the sort of, of the laissez-faire, hands-off, small statism of the Conservative Party traditionally, there are lots of things we can't do without a good enabling government. So we've got to see this as a more mature dynamic partnership. And so beyond the specific pledges and how they're funded and the ground on which the election is for, I think there's something fundamental about

how Kirstama wants to reshape government, which if we pull it off would be really quite radical and transformational and make government look a lot different in the future than it has been in the past. Now, I want to come on to the National Health Service and Social Care, which is your brief, but just briefly to close off, as it were, on you personally, to tiny issues to discuss being gay and your faith. So first of all, tell us about the, you know, I've heard you've talked before about coming out and sort of dealing with that, your background and so forth. Tell us a little bit at that, but also whether your faith helped in that or whether there was a conflict that you felt within? Oh, the faith was the biggest hindrance. I really wrestled with my faith and sexuality for

years and years. And often I'm asked, you know, do you choose to be gay or were you born gay? Is it nature? Is it nurture? And I don't have a scientific answer to the question. When did you know the answer. When I came out of university and the best answer to the nature versus nurture debate is, well, I tried really hard not to be gay. And I think that did me an awful lot of damage. And I think it damages a lot of people who try to be someone they're not and then live with the consequences. Because you realize when you have this weight lifted off your shoulders and I felt this genuinely liberating experience when I came out, you realize how much time and emotional energy is consumed living a lion and trying to be someone else. And the highest complement, I can pay Cambridge, by the way, because I often get asked, you know, what was it like being a working class kid at Cambridge? Could you fit in? The highest compliment I can pay the university and sell in college, my college, is not only was I happy at Cambridge, it was the first place I felt was so comfortable that I was able to tell people I was gay, and I received a very good reaction, and that was 20 years ago. It's even better now, I think.

Much, much better experience of Cambridge than Alastair. Yeah, we had a miserable time. I'm so sorry. Don't worry about it. That was a long, long, long, long, long time ago. I think I'm 26 years old than you are. I shouldn't have said that before you move on to my brief and now you get the knives out. Yeah, as long as you deliver on mental health, we'll come on to that.

Yeah, we'll definitely come on to that. But no, and on the faith point, I mean, I had this conflict consumed me. And actually, in the end, I came out and accepted myself for being gay. And then there were, and then it really, I mean, it created a distance between me and the church that's never fully recovered in that, you know,

even though there was literally a chapel in the middle of my college at Selwyn that I could have just walked to 30 seconds every Sunday morning. I didn't attend chapel once during my time at Cambridge until all the end to my last service. You're an Anglican? Yep. And I feel much more at home in the Anglican church than I did. And just give us the sense of it. I mean, do you believe in the virgin birth? Do you believe in the resurrection?

Yeah. Yeah, those are the sort of the central tenets of our faith. and, you know, it's... And is that because you've had a sort of personal, intense, religious experience that helps you towards that? Yeah, I think going back to when I was baptising confirmed, which is when I was 10 years old, I had to fight my parents to be baptized and confirmed. What, you didn't want to. No, I wanted to be. And they didn't.

They were, I mean, my mum actually is now Christian, but my parents at the time were kind of a, atheist and they thought I was too young to make the decision. I begged and pleaded and begged because I used to go to church every Sunday. And what was going on when you were begging and pleading? What did you think you were begging and pleading for? What was the thing that was going, that was going to give you that you felt you needed? Well, it was, these are rights of passage in, in the faith. And I was already aware that I hadn't been baptized as a baby. And so I already felt I'd missed out on something. And also, the confirmation was about me making a commitment to my faith. And there was a bit of me that thought, you know, what the hell has it got to do with

you, my parents? I'm making, I've made this choice. This is my faith. This is my commitment. It's got bugger all to do with you. And so at that age already, you had a strong belief in God, which has wavered at times or just stayed with you constantly? My belief in God has not wavered. My connection with my faith has. And I've now managed to reconcile those two things and have reconciled that. But you retain a strong belief that there is a God. Yes, very, very strongly. And a belief that Jesus Christ not only lived and existed, but he's the son of God and was sent as our saviour. So those are the sort of central tenets of my faith. So I can't remember what age you were when I came out with, we don't do God.

But was that a tactical or strategic error I was making, do you think? No, I think there are definitely people out there. And this is for me, the great sadness. There are definitely people out there who, when you talk about your faith, they instinctively worry about, and actually, interestingly, I think this applies to an extent to politicians of other faiths, but there definitely seems to be a fear of Christians in politics. Because I think people think, well, if you're a legislator, does that mean,

and this is for me the sadness about how people view Christianity, is they think, well, that means you're going to take away my right to choose. That means you're not going to respect my right to marry. And it suddenly becomes this sort of, they associate Christianity with social conservatism, and they fear that if we're religious, that we're going to impinge on other people's rights. That's never been how I've cast my vote as a legislator. But you're right, that it is also a challenge for people of other faiths, too. So if you were sitting opposite me, I mean, we've interviewed a lot of Muslim peace who've talked proudly about the faith, the fact that they're Muslims. But they never quite go as far as you've done.

They never quite lean into the microphone and say, there is no God, but God and Muhammad is his proper. Yeah. So I would say that actually is a question, you're able to go a little bit further. You can put the tenets to your faith out there without pushing people back. At the moment there is a very ugly toxicity about Islam. I mean, we saw this this weekend with the demonstration on the streets of London where kids were chanting, you know, Allah, Allah, who the beep is Allah. And you just think, hang on a second, we would be up in arms if there were protests that was so, I mean,

I'm not one of these people who be protesting against the life of Brian. I just one of my favorite films actually come to think of it. I love the fact that when I went to see the Book of Mormon, which is outrageous in the program is an advert from the Mormon saying, you know, you've seen the show now read the book, which I just thought was wonderfully self-deprecating humor. I just think, hang on a second. One of the great things about this country is we are a Christian country, but we are a multi-faith democracy. And whatever disagreements I have with Rishi Sunak and his politics, I love the fact that this country has a Hindu prime minister. I love the fact we've got a Muslim mayor of London. I love the fact until recently we had a Muslim First Minister of Scotland.

And I look at the way sometimes people of faith are treated in politics and it makes me feel sad. And there are legitimate questions. It is entirely right to ask Kate Forbes, would you vote to protect my rights? Would you vote to roll them back? if there's a vote to extend my rights, how would you? It's totally legitimate, but I feel that at times, particularly in the case of Kate Forbes, and I think it's applied to other politicians, there's been a degree of ridicule that I wouldn't tolerate if that person were ridiculed for being gay or for being trans or for having an identity that is not considered to be the norm, the mainstream. So, Wes, this has been

great. We're coming to the halfway point. And we're going to move on after the break to do health, social care, mental health and some of the policy issues. But thank you very much. Take a break. Hi, everybody. It's Dominic Samarach here from The Rest is History. Now, some of you may have heard me on your show, The Rest is Politics, when Rory was away and I was filling in and enjoying Alastair Campbell's tremendous banter. And I'm back to tell you about our new series on The Rest is History, which is all about Britain in the 1970s, a period with a lot of uncanny resemblances to our own. So right now we're living through a moment where, oil shocks generated by war in the Middle East are rippling through the world economy,

when Britain feels like it's sunk in a bit of a malaise, people are arguing about Europe, the government has got a few issues with the trade unions, and we have a kind of, I suppose you'd say governing elite, a kind of political class that is really struggling to come to terms with all of these issues, and people are asking if Britain is governable at all. So there are a lot of parallels between that Britain that I'm described. which is our Britain and the Britain of the mid-1970s. So in this series that's coming out on the rest is history, we'll be looking at these and other issues.

We'll be talking about the rise of Margaret Thatcher, obviously a colossal figure in our political life even now, whether you love her or loathe her. We'll be talking about the very first Brexit referendum of 1975, a subject that I'm sure Rory and Alistair will have strong opinions about. We'll be talking about the fall of the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, and we'll be talking about one of the grimest moments in Britain's economic history, the moment in 1976 when we had to go cap in hand, as people said at the time,

to the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, for a then record bailout. Now, if that sounds good to you, how could it not sound good to you? Of course it sounds good to you. We have a clip for you to listen to at the end of this episode. And if you want to hear more, just search for The Rest is History, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the rest of the politics leading with me, Anastair Campbell. And me, Rory Stewart.

And Westreeting. So, Wes, we've talked about you a lot. Let's talk about the National Health Service. And let's again try and do it as you did admirably in the first part of the discussion without slipping into election talking points. And I'll spot them of eye off just toward you. We are just over a week into the general election campaign. This is a hard ask.

I accept as hard. I will try and deprogram my brain from the campaign trail. And I'm not going to start by say, the six first steps, because I know that got you into trouble on a other interview, but never mind. Can we start, actually? Can we start with mental health? Yeah. So you talk about, if I can give you one of the talking points, 10 years of national renewal. Let's say at the end of 10 years of national renewal, what do our mental health services look like? How different are they? How much better will they be, my hope, than they are now? Well, firstly, I'd hope that we're,

and this applies to physical health as well, but I'd hope that we were intervening a lot earlier and we are doing a lot more on the prevention side, getting people access to support services treatment far earlier. There's a reason why we use the cliche prevention is better than cure and it particularly applies in medicine and mental health is no different to physical health in that respect. We've got to make sure that at the acute end of the spectrum,

that services are high quality. That's a far cry from where we are today. We see far too many people detained and far too many people hitting crisis points we don't get there early enough. And it's one of the reasons why, and I'm really proud of the fact that actually some of our mental health policies

have been around for years. There were some of the earlier policies that Keir announced as leader of the Labour Party, which says a lot about where he is on this. But if we're able to put mental health support in every primary and secondary school, in the country. I think that gets to young people a lot earlier, both in terms of preventing mental ill health and promoting positive well-being and helping young people to cope with

this extraordinary range of pressures that didn't exist when I was growing up. Community mental health hubs in every community, eight and a half thousand extra mental health support workers. We've deliberately gone at the kind of the earlier end of making sure that people avoid hitting crisis point. And even on the crisis point, I'm really sad, actually genuinely sad that we reached the end of this Parliament without reform of the Mental Health Act, because there was a bill that went through scrutiny among both the Commons and the Lords. We were waiting for the government to introduce it formally, and they didn't. And I don't understand why. It's wildly out of date. So those will be the sort of the first steps we take on mental health, but ultimately, you know,

I want to make sure, and I've avoided actually on the campaign trial saying, we're going to deliver a parity of esteem, because I think, do you know what people have heard this all before? Let's just do it rather It's constitutional, practically. Yeah, but... Doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. Well, before we get on to the solutions in your policy, just to dig a little bit into the problem that we face.

And you wrote, I thought, quite a good piece, of all places, the Daily Telegraph on this, where you pointed out that four out of every 10 pounds of our normal current spending is now going to the NHS. We're spending on whatever is, 165 billion pounds a year. And that the costs of running a health service keep going up above inflation. I mean, if you just kept spending at an inflation level, you wouldn't keep up because we're getting old all the time, because the drugs are getting more expensive. And we're in an odd position where, oddly, Theresa May did put a bit more money into health.

Boris Johnson put a bit more money in. Then NHS transformation plan out of Rishi Sunak, it's promising more money in the future. So quite a lot of money going in, but still a real sense that the whole thing is creaking. And you know, you explain how long these waiting lists are in treatments, A&E, bust, morale very low, nurses, doctors, GPs. So just before you get on to what you're going to do to fix it, sketch where you see the problems. If you were going to be grim about the situation, give us the negative picture of what's wrong with the NHS. I'm so glad you enter the discussion through that kind of prism because I'm always asked, well, where's the extra money going to come from? And people always rush to talk about the spending. And as if the question is,

is it an extra 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 20 billion, rather than where's nearly 170 billion pounds of our money going and why are we getting such terrible outcomes compared to other OECD countries? And when you look across other leading economies and why their health outcomes are better, it's actually not to do with the model of funding and the fact the NHS is a single-payer system free at the point of use. It is to do with the fact that when it comes to spending on hospitals, we're pretty much top of the table. But then you look at primary care, community services, mental health, social care, diagnostics, where either near the bottom, at the bottom, or seriously lacking behind. And you think it's got nothing to do with the funding model? No. And I think in a nutshell, we've got an NHS that gets to people too late.

And therefore we do late diagnoses. It gets them in hospital rather than earlier before they get to hospital. Yeah. And too late in the later you get to people, it tends to be far more expensive to do the treatment. and you're less likely to be successful in terms of the outcome. Give us an example of a particular case or disease or something where you can illustrate this point about if you leave it too late to get hospitals,

I mean mental health is one obviously, but like cancer is also, you know, the obvious example where, you know, your outcomes at stage four, you're so much more likely to die with lung cancer than if you're caught at stage one or two. My own experience with kidney cancer, you know, caught at stage one, the one thing, and there are two things I didn't have to worry about. One was dying because I knew enough to know that I wasn't going to die and that was relief, put it mildly.

But secondly, not having to worry about the bill is important and that's important to me. And even before you get to like the worst fatal outcomes, if someone can't get a GP appointment, which would cost the NHS about 40 quid, they end up in A&E, which would cost 400. So you can see how inefficient resource allocation is across the system. Can I just, I mean, it's such a complicated system, isn't it? I mean, just give us a sense. If you, as I'm sure you will, become such a state for health in six weeks' time, how many people work in the National Health Service?

You know, roughly how many hospitals are there? How many GP clinics? How many patients are going through the system? You know, about one and a half million. And that's, you know, the NHS. You've got social care on top of that. So one and a half million people that you're sort of responsible for, a man. Yeah.

And look, part of my thinking about what kind of health secretary I would want to be and how we deal with this challenge is recognizing the role and responsibility you bring to bear and understanding the systemic change that you can help to drive. And it goes back to the earlier question you asked me, Alistair, about what have I learned in politics previously? I do not have a Messiah complex, and I'm under no illusion that just by changing one person behind one desk in DHSC, Department of Health and Zableness, social care, that we're going to fix everything. This has got to be a whole team effort,

and it would be my job, if we win the next election, to put in place the right system support to enable people at every level of the system to deliver the outcomes. And, you know, if we look at our hospital-centric system for a moment, and we look at the cues of ambulances outside the front, the busy A&E departments, the Chokka Awards, the best hospital leaders in the country have recognised that the solutions to the crisis in our hospitals are systemic and they lie beyond the hospital. So if we've got better primary care and community services, we're less likely to see people arriving in ambulances. We're less likely to see people walking through the front door of A&E. And social care, we're less likely to see delayed discharges. So the throughput of people

through hospitals work so much better if you deliver the right solutions, the right system changes outside the hospital. Just trying to put it in the simplest terms. So one thing this might mean is shifting a bit more money from the hospitals towards GPs, for example? Certainly I want to see thousands more GPs trained up, cutting through the red tape that holds them back, but also over time I want to see the primary care as a proportion of the NHS budget grow. Because I think that would be crucial. Explain what primary care is your GPs, your pharmacies,

you know, those sort of first points of access in the community. And alongside that, you know, if you've got the right community support, care in people's homes, That's where you can do, you know, in the jargon secondary prevention or what we might say, stopping people from ending up back in hospital. So a member of my family had a series of many strokes last year. Fortunately, she recovered well. She was discharged back home. And in an outcome that was surprised very few people who work in the NHS within days of being at home because there wasn't the right community nursing in place, the right care in the home. She fell, fractured her hip, was back in hospital and on a pretty pretty horrible orthopedic recovery pathway, as well as a stroke recovery pathway. That's where having the right support available to people in the community and people's homes can prevent people from needing the very expensive hospital care, which costs thousands in terms of bed occupancy. I was in hospital recently, and, you know, like you do, you talk to all the nurses and all the doctors and what have you.

And this very, very strong feeling I got was that they desperately ought to change the government, but also that they feel you will pay them more. Well, they can judge us on our record, and that's absolutely accurate. You know, in 1997, we had the same pressure on pay restoration. Will you restore pay to where it would have been if it had kept up in line with inflation? And in 1997, very much like now, we had a shadow chancellor and a leader who said, hang on a minute, the promises we make have got to be promises we can keep and the country can afford, so we're not going to promise to deliver full pay restoration

because we can't spell out exactly how we will pay for it and buy when. But that Labour government did deliver for pay restoration. And I'm very confident if we get the economy growing that we can improve people's not just pay, but they're working conditions too. I'm not going to say the obvious, which is that that's a big bet on growth. The recent Gordon Brown and Blair were able to do it is the economy grew and they inherited a growing economy and you're inheriting an economy that's in bits. And we did a bit of a

hypothesated taxation. A bit of a hypothetical taxation, yeah. So anyway, we won't get into that. We can talk about that later. Just, I think let's finish with, yeah, what sort of manager you think he'll be?

How are you going to think about? Alan Milburn's one of my great heroes in the world. He's a great believer in the fact that you can't run all the things from the centre. He said the problem with my former colleague, Steve Barclay, as he was trying to get into the details of what was happening on the walls. And his view is you needed to trust.

You do. Tell us a little bit about that. And that's then over to the whole. honest for his last question. Yeah, I actually, I don't really think of myself as a manager, but as a leader. And I think that's the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. It's not to micromanage. It's to make sure that at every tier of the system, you've got the right people with the right skills, delivering the right kind of change. And the thing that gives me great hope and confidence about what the future of the NHS could

look like are the incredible people who are showing us what that change looks like already, albeit in pockets. And if all I did was to take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS, we would see enormous productivity gains, vast improvements in patient outcomes and better use of taxpayers' money. Anna Milburn is one of my heroes too. And one of the advantages that I've got is I've got Alan and a whole bunch of successful former Labor Health Secretaries in my corner giving me advice. I work really closely with them to learn from both the things they got right and also the things they got wrong. And one of the things I loved about your conversation with Alan on this podcast and I'd encourage people to look back at it is for someone who I remember when he was in

government is like, you know, Alan was like just this huge character, very confident, very self-assured. He is so much more humble in person than I would ever have expected to be when he was in the cabinet. And maybe that's what kind of cabinet office does to you, but he is one of my, I think Alan, Alan's hugely impressive and I'm really glad that I can draw on his advice frequently. Well, listen, Wes, you're a busy man. You're on the campaign trail. You've got thousands of interviews to do.

So we will definitely have you back if you get back. But you don't look tired, which I'm surprised that. I'm running on caffeine and adrenaline. He's also only 12 years old. I was thinking that. I mean, just over the first week of this campaign has been one of the most fun weeks of my life. I'm enjoying this campaign. I'm absolutely loving it.

In fact, I did a mammoth 6am till 3 p.m. media around the other day and absolutely loved it. Thank you very much, Wes, for coming on. I've now doing the V sign at Ms. Kirsty O'Brien, who's trying to get you out of the studio. Listen, let me tell you, well, let me tell you, Wes, and let me tell Kirsty. as well, you'll have more people watching this than watching this daytime tell you think you go ahead. Wes, thanks. I really love the conversation.

Hopefully to come back. Cheers, thanks all. Well, Elsa, that was a slightly sort of odd interview because Wesz suddenly his people appeared at a glass screen behind us explaining that he needed to leave half an hour early than we were expecting. So we didn't actually get into the details the NHS much you wanted. I think we did some lovely stuff in his early life, but we're going to have to get him back to really get into the nut, the nitty-gritty of the policy stuff.

Yeah, I'm going away. I think that given he is one of their key campaigners, He's going to be talking an awful lot about the National Health Service. And I think people will enjoy listening to him to talk about his, not just his family background, but I was also quite, I was impressed by the way he came straight out on the God stuff. That was good. That was good. That was really interesting.

Normally when people talk about the faith, I'm afraid this is true of me as a sort of wobbling Anglican. Yeah. You know, he was pretty clear. These are the tenets of my faith. I believe in the virgin birth. I believe in the resurrection. I believe Jesus Christ, the son of God. And he's also right that, because I,

argue with my sister, who's pretty much, you know, she's a very committed Christian. And she's always saying to me, she thinks it's really bad the way that Christians feel that they cannot talk about their faith in politics. So he felt no compunction at all. And yet, and the other thing I did say to him before the interview is that, you know, no talking points, no electioneering, proper conversation. And it was definitely that. It was definitely that. Yeah. And it must be lovely for, you know, for you to know you've got a shared hero in Alan Milbert. Yeah, and absolutely.

And a shared hero in his grandfather, who's exactly my kind of person. They're not the armed robber. The soldier, the monarchist. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly my kind of. You like the right wig, Bill. I love the Vision Enlightenment, Bill, because he's also, I love the fact that he was a really kind, compassionate grandfather.

I thought that told me a lot about him. I think you can see why people do look at Wes and think he's got something a bit special. And joking aside, but I was expecting by now that he'd be looking a bit sort of baggy. I mean, I'm not even campaigning and I'm feeling exhausted by this campaign already. But I get the feeling that just as he enjoyed Cambridge and I didn't, I get the feeling he really enjoys election campaigns in which I found them. You hate them. I didn't hate them, but God, they're hard work.

And of course, it's even harder at his level. I mean, the ones that I enjoyed were when I wasn't that senior. So when I was running, because the elections were always in May and June. for me. And it's Cumbria, it's most beautiful. The gorse bush flowers there. I'm going through every village. I try to cover 100 villages in each campaign. And it was just beautiful. Really amazing. You get every excuse to be out in the fresh air. You're on the back of practice. Whereas if he goes to his constituency, you just has to look at traffic lights and step in north foot. Good. Well, we're getting back if and when, Labour and power. Thank you, Alistair.

Bye-bye. All best, bye.