WikiPortallus: Patricia Hewitt.html

Initially a Conservative - her first husband was the son of a Conservative MP^{citation needed} - she moved to the left, becoming a committed equality activist and feminist. In 1981, she married William (Bill) Jack Birtles, a lawyer, in Camden; they have a son (born February 1988) and a daughter (born September 1986).² In 1971, she became Age Concern's Press and Public Relations Officer, before joining the UK's National Council for Civil Liberties (now Liberty) initially as a women's rights officer in 1973, and for nine years from 1974 as the General Secretary. She endured long-term surveillance by MI5 because of this, branded a "Communist sympathiser" by MI5 because of her relationship with Birtles in the 1970s.³ In 1990 the Council of Europe ruled that this surveillance had breached the European Convention of Human Rights.⁴ She was a member of the advisory panel of the New Statesman magazine for ten years from 1980, and is a former school governor at the Kentish Town Primary School.

Pre-Parliamentary career

Hewitt joined the Labour Party in the 1970s, and was initially a follower of Tony Benn; she publicly condemned those left-wing MPs who abstained in the deputy leadership election of 1981, giving Denis Healey a narrow victory. She was selected as the Labour candidate in Leicester East constituency at the 1983 General Election following the defection of the sitting Labour MP Tom Bradley to the Social Democratic Party. Bradley stood for the SDP at the election, but it was the Conservative candidate Peter Bruinvels who beat Hewitt into second place by just 933 votes.

Following her defeat in Leicester, she became press secretary to the Leader of the Opposition Neil Kinnock. (She had sent a letter to Kinnock lobbying for the role, but also sent an identical letter to Kinnock's opponent in the Labour leadership election, Roy Hattersley⁵). In this role she was a key player in the first stages of the modernisation of the Labour Party, and along with Lord Hollick, helped set up the Institute for Public Policy Research and was its deputy director 1989–1994. She became head of research with Andersen Consulting 1994-1997.

Hewitt was elected to the House of Commons as the first female MP for Leicester West at the 1997 General Election following the retirement of the veteran Labour MP Greville Janner. She was elected with a majority of 12,864 and has remained the MP there since. She made her maiden speech on July 3, 1997.⁶ Patricia Hewitt's constituency of Leicester West is considered a safe Labour seat, with a majority of 9,070 votes in the 2005 General Election.

Parliamentary career

Hewitt was known as a reliable Blairite within the cabinet and voted loyally with the government in Parliament.⁷ However, she notably once broke ranks whilst live on the BBC's Question Time, expressing her concern about government plans to introduce ID cards.⁸ She ruled herself out of the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party, declaring her support for Harriet Harman, who was the successful candidate.

Secretary of State for Health

She became a member of the Privy Council in 2001 and was appointed Secretary of State for Health following the 2005 General Election. She was tipped for Work and Pensions department before this. She had a turbulent two years in office, during which several difficult issues arose, such as the controversy over the Medical Training Application Service computer system. However, she also achieved several things during her time in office, including persuading MPs to vote for a complete smoking ban in public places in England. On 27 June 2007 it was announced that Hewitt would not be Health Secretary in Gordon Brown's new cabinet, an announcement which had been widely expected.⁹

As Health Secretary, Hewitt lobbied hard for a complete ban on smoking in public places, which came into force on 1 July 2007. Her predecessor, John Reid had been in favour of limiting the Government's proposed smoking ban as much as possible, and Labour's 2005 election manifesto had included only a limited pledge, proposing to only ban smoking in places where food was served. Even though he had been moved to Secretary of State for Defence, Reid was the main opponent of her proposals, and a leading figure in the decision of the Cabinet to grant an exemption for private clubs and pubs that did not serve food.¹⁰ However, the exemption in the Cabinet proposals did not find favour with MPs and the Government gave them a free vote on the issue. Patricia Hewitt voted with the rebels to defeat the Cabinet's partial ban, which was replaced by the outright ban which she had always wanted.¹¹

In April 2006, Patricia Hewitt made a speech in which she said the NHS had had "its best year ever", citing a decrease in waiting times for hospital treatment. However, this claim came at a time when thousands of jobs were being cut across the country as a number of NHS trusts attempted to cope with budget deficits. This comment did not go down well, and at the Royal College of Nursing 2006 Congress in Bournemouth, Hewitt was heckled and booed by health workers. Delegates at the conference called for job cuts and bed closures, part of planned NHS reforms aimed at improving the effectiveness of the service, to be halted, predicting that the number of posts lost could reach 13,000, and said a work to rule was possible.¹² BMA chairman Mr. James Johnson claimed 2006 was actually one of the worst years on record and that "2006 has been full of bleak moments for the NHS - job losses, training budgets slashed, trusts delaying operations in order to save money and hospital closures announced at the same time as new PFI developments. Added to this the government’s fixation with introducing the private sector into primary care which risks destabilising the well-respected UK system of general practice."¹³

Sex Discrimination

In September 2005, a Judicial Review found Hewitt "guilty of unlawful sex discrimination" when she employed a female applicant for a DTI position ahead of a significantly stronger male candidate. The judge ruled that Malcolm Hanney had lost out to a candidate ranked third by the interview panel and that the failure to appoint him was "in breach of the code of practice for ministerial appointments to public bodies". Hewitt had quoted the Code of Practice on Public Appointments, which said: "Ministers will wish to balance boards in terms of diversity as well as skills and experience.", though the panel had clearly stated that Mr Hanney was "much the strongest candidate". The DTI apologised and Hanney was awarded £17,967.17 costs. ¹⁴ The appointment was not overturned however.

The case was particularly notable because Hewitt was Minister for Women and Equality at the time and had therefore breached the sex discrimination laws which she was herself responsible for. Additionally, she had often complained about the problem of career sexism,¹⁵ yet had now been found guilty of such discrimination herself.

Further evidence of sexism by Hewitt arose in publication she authored in 1995 titled Transforming Men, where she questioned the very notion of "whether we can trust men with children". She came to the conclusion that it may well be necessary to introduce the practice of "not leaving men on their own with groups of children" in environments such a schools in order to prevent abuse.¹⁶ Critics such as Geoff Dench condemned Hewitt's statements for discouraging male carers entering the profession by insinuating that they were on permanent probation.

Hewitt also caused controversy when she criticised mothers who care for their children themselves. A 2003 report by the Women and Equality unit which was run by Hewitt stated that there was a "real problem" with mothers who stayed at home to bring up their children.¹⁷

Confrontation, controversy and eventual downfall

In January 2007, Patricia Hewitt criticised the pay of general practitioners (GPs) which had increased to an average of £106,000 per annum as a result of the contract the government implemented in 2004. Her department claimed that GPs had unfairly taken money out of their practices, when the new contract was actually intended to increase investment in practices¹⁸, although statements from Lord Warner in 2004 appear to contradict this claim. He said that "The better services GPs provide, the more pay they will receive, as rewards will be directly linked with patients' experiences." ¹⁹

On 17 March 2007 over 12,000 doctors went to London to take part in a march objecting to the 'Medical Training Application Service' (MTAS), a job application system for junior doctors, which was subsequently subject to an investigation by the Department of Health, and 'Modernising Medical Careers' for revealing the personal data of applicants.²⁰ Joining the march, the Conservative Leader of the Opposition David Cameron claimed that there were people in parliament who had described Hewitt as the "worst Health Secretary in the history of the NHS" ²¹

On 23 May 2007 Hewitt survived a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons led by the Conservatives, winning by 63 votes. A number of her cabinet colleagues joined her on the front bench to express solidarity. Despite this, pressure continued to mount on her to resign as Health Secretary.²²

On 3 April 2007 Patricia Hewitt apologised on the Today programme of BBC Radio 4 saying that the application scheme had caused terrible anxiety for junior doctors. The change offered by the government to the scheme was not accepted by the BMA however,²³ and she was accused of failing to express genuine regret by Andrew Lansley, the Conservative Shadow Minister for Health²⁴. Hewitt also made another apology on 1 May 2007 in the House of Commons²⁵ after the suspension of the MTAS website due to security breaches which she called "utterly deplorable".²⁶

Front line health workers also lobbied against Hewitt, sending her petitions opposing cuts to the NHS and privatization plans which the Department of Health wished to follow up.²⁷ A survey from October 2006 showed only 37% of workers from the Department of Health were confident in the leadership provided by Hewitt, compared to 57% across Whitehall.²⁸

Despite the criticism, Hewitt managed to balance the books of the NHS, which had previously been in huge debt. After having vowed to resign should the NHS complete another year with debts²⁹, Hewitt ensured that the Health Service ended 2006/2007 with a £510 million surplus.³⁰ However to do this she was forced to cut 17,000 jobs, cut public health spending, although that was previously at a high level, and reduce study budgets for NHS staff.³¹ By June 2007, whilst the overall budget was balanced, one in five NHS hospital trusts were still in debt.³²

On 27 June 2007, with the appointment of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, Hewitt announced her retirement from frontline politics, citing 'personal reasons'. On resigning from the cabinet, Ms Hewitt was asked by the Prime Minister to head an EU manifesto group, developing European policy for the next general election manifesto.

In a media interview, Patricia Hewitt claimed she resigned from cabinet because she wanted to spend more time with her family who she had rarely seen whilst in government, she said the hours and pressure from being government was immense and relentless and even though a lot could be achieved from being in government, after ten years in government, she was pleased to leave the government. Many had speculated she actually resigned from the government because of her last job in government, health secretary where she had received absolute abuse from health unions and angry nurses. Many believed her to have resigned due to the pressure and bullying she had received from unions and health workers with constant pressure on her to resign. She has also harboured wishes in the past which she has claimed in tv interviews to be true, that she had wishes at one time to be the first female chancellor, the first female home secretary, the first female foreign secretary and the first female defence secretary.

After Cabinet - Consultancies and Directorships

In January 2008, it was announced that Hewitt had been appointed "special consultant" to the world's largest chemists, Alliance Boots. Hewitt will also become the "special adviser" to private equity company Cinven, which paid £1.4billion for Bupa's UK hospitals.³³

In March 2008, it was announced that Hewitt will join the BT Group board as a non-executive director.³⁴ She joined the group on 24 March 2008.³⁵

Publications

References

^ Who's Who 1987
^ LeicestHERday Trust - Patricia Hewitt Profile
^ Independent - Hewitt branded "Communist sympathiser"
^ BBC News - Surveillance of Hewitt breached Human Rights
^ The Guardian - Another foot up the greasy pole, Roy Hattersley, The Guardian
^ Patricia Hewitt's maiden speech Hansard - July 3, 1997
^ Public Whip - Patricia Hewitt MP, Voting Record
^ Hewitt reveals split over ID cards Gareth Morgan, Computing | September 26, 2003
^ BBC News - Hewitt leaves cabinet health job
^ Cabinet agrees England smoking ban BBC News | October 25, 2005
^ Campaigners welcome smoking ban BBC News | February 15, 2006
^ NHS Cash Crisis The Guardian | April 24, 2006
^ 2006: the best of years, the worst of years? BMA | December 2006
^ Female champion Hewitt discriminated against man The Independent | 12 October 2005
^ BBC News - Hewitt in drive for pay equality
^ Geoff Dench (1996) Transforming Men: Changing Patterns of Dependency and Dominance in Gender Relations, Transaction Publishers
^ Melanie Phillips - Breeding for Britain
^ GP Pay could be capped The Guardian | January 19, 2007
^ New GP Contract Combines Better Patient Care And Good Value For Money Medical News Today | 2 April 2006
^ ITV news Junior doctors in jobs protests
^ YouTube - David Cameron speech to junior doctors' protest march - 17 March 2007
^ Hewitt survives no confidence vote Politics.co.uk
^ BBC News - Hewitt apology for training chaos
^ Channel 4 News report - MTAS apology
^ Daily Mail - Hewitt apologises in House of Commons
^ BBC News - Hewitt attacked over jobs website
^ BBC News - Health workers meet Hewitt
^ BBC News - Survey shows lack of confidence in Hewitt
^ Guardian - Hewitt will resign if NHS continues in debt
^ Guardian - Patricia Hewitt Profile
^ BBC News - NHS fears despite books balancing
^ BBC News - Do the NHS accounts add up?
^ "Former health secretary Patricia Hewitt takes lucrative job with Boots". The Daily Mail (18 January 2008). Retrieved on 2008-01-18.
^ "BT snares former minister Patricia Hewitt". Times Online (13 March 2008). Retrieved on 2008-06-24.
^ BT Non-Executive Directors - Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP

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