Sri Lanka

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Clive Efford

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. I am pleased that he mentioned GCHQ, because it has done a spectacularly important job in recent years in helping us to understand the Daesh networks and how they operate online. That has played a significant role in the defeat of Daesh in recent months, at least in terms of their territorial possessions.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) for her response. They set a perfect tone for this exchange. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) just said, we must consider how we behave and set high standards for how we conduct our politics if we are going to show leadership at times like this. Intolerance can reach into all our communities. Yesterday was the 26th anniversary of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, and such events bring home to us the need for us all to face up to intolerance wherever it is.

If the Bishop of Truro is conducting an inquiry looking specifically at the Christian faith and at how Christians are being persecuted around the world, we must avoid any suggestion that we are setting up one religion to be more important than another, because people may seek to prey on that. I know that the Foreign Secretary would want to avoid that, but we must be aware of it.

[Mr Hunt]

I entirely understand why the hon. Gentleman raises that issue. I reassure him that we support freedom of all religious belief; it is just that we think that Christianity has been slightly left behind for various reasons. More Christians are persecuted than those of any other faith, so we want to ensure that we are giving that the proper attention it deserves without excluding any other faith from our concerns.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Clive Efford

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

There are two things. First, we have succeeded in increasing the number of medical school graduates who go into general practice—a record 3,157 this year. Secondly—I know this from my conversations with GPs in my hon. Friend’s constituency—we are doing what we can to reinvigorate the partnership model. Since meeting those GPs, I have agreed with the Royal College of General Practitioners and the BMA that we will carry out a formal review of how the partnership model needs to evolve in the modern NHS.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

T5. Does the Secretary of State agree that it would be wholly unacceptable if, as a consequence of creating accountable care organisations, private companies gained control of strategic decisions on local health services?

[Mr Hunt]

I point the hon. Gentleman to what the King’s Fund says, which is that accountable care organisations and integrated care systems make a “massive difference” in care to patients. The King’s Fund is not a pro-Government organisation; it regularly holds the Government to account at election time and throughout the year. Not just the King’s Fund but Polly Toynbee and many other people are saying that.

NHS Winter Crisis

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Clive Efford

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), and then to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy).

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on facing down the Prime Minister on Monday, when what emerged was one man, two jobs, no governor. He must accept that the £6 billion in cuts to social care since 2010 has had a major impact, particularly on winter crises. Does he regret the Government’s decision to take that money out of social care?

[Mr Hunt]

In 2010, we faced the worst financial crisis since the second world war. The hon. Gentleman will know which Government were in charge when that happened. People were talking about a run on the pound—I notice that the Labour party continues to talk about that—and the crisis had to be addressed. We, like other countries, had to make significant reductions in public funding, but when we got the economy back on its feet and started creating jobs—1,000 jobs a day since 2010—the first place into which we put extra money was the NHS and the social care system. There is £600 million more in the social care system than there was two years ago.

NHS Shared Business Services

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Clive Efford

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

As the hon. Lady knows, I was informed at the end of March 2016. The issue with the correspondence that was destroyed relates to procedures around what it is legitimate to do when patients have been dead for 10 years. At the moment we are not aware of any specific risk to patients as a result of those sacks of mail being destroyed, but we will continue to look at the issue very closely.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State was made aware of the failings of the contract and warned about the dangers in the House in 2011, yet he did not take up two places on the company’s board. Would that not have added to the overall scrutiny of the contract? Is he not guilty of being asleep at the wheel?

[Mr Hunt]

I have been Health Secretary for a long time, but not since as far back as 2011. However, the hon. Gentleman asks an important question. It is true that the Department was entitled to three seats on the SBS board but took up only one, but I do not believe that would have made a difference in this case, because the board directors were intended to represent the Department as SBS shareholders. What we needed was better assurance of the implementation of the contract. That needed to happen with the NHS as a contractor. That is the lesson that needs to be learned.