Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Healey and Anna Soubry

Tuesday 16th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

We are considering what has been a huge consultation, but I must correct my hon. Friend—I am in no way criticising her—because it is not plain packaging, but what we call standardised packaging. If, like me, hon. Members were to see the cigarette packets now issued in Australia, they would realise that they are far from plain. Some would say that they are a counterfeiter’s nightmare, not a charter for counterfeiters.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

People remember the massive improvements in cancer care services under Labour. Now, more and more people are having to wait longer and longer for those crucial diagnostic cancer tests, when they might be worried sick about what they will have to face. Is the Minister happy that more people are waiting longer and what is she doing now to cut those waiting times?

[Anna Soubry]

We have invested £450 million in improving exactly the matter that the right hon. Gentleman raises, and I do not share his analysis one bit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Healey and Anna Soubry

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

The Silver Star bus is making many journeys because as well as going to my hon. Friend’s constituency, it is coming to mine on Saturday. It is an outstanding charity that provides diagnosis at a local level. I pay tribute in particular to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) because the charity goes to communities that are often hard to reach, such as the Asian community, where we need to do good work to reduce the level of diabetes, both type 1 and type 2. I look forward to local authorities working with outstanding charities such as Silver Star.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

Why is the public health grant for next year £58 per person in Barnsley and £53 per person in Rotherham, but £130 per person in Westminster and in Kensington and Chelsea, especially given that deprivation is less and life expectancy at least seven years longer in those wealthy, Tory London boroughs?

[Anna Soubry]

I do not accept that for one moment. I am exceptionally proud of this Government’s commitment to public health which, in the difficult times that we have inherited, has ensured that local authorities are in some cases receiving an increase of some 10% in spending on public health. That is a record that I am proud of and that the Labour Government could not have matched.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Healey and Anna Soubry

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

Achieving early diagnosis of symptomatic cancer is key to our ambition to save an additional 5,000 lives a year by 2014-15. As I explained in an earlier answer, we are providing more than £450 million in funding over the spending review period to support early diagnosis. From January to mid March 2013, we will be running a regional pilot of our previously tested local campaign on breast cancer symptoms in women over 70. We are targeting those women because that is an area where, unfortunately, survival rates are particularly poor.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

Since his promotion, the Secretary of State has said little and, I assume, read a lot. Did his starter pack include details of the Prime Minister’s promise:

“This year, and the year after, and the year after that, the money going into the NHS will actually increase in real terms.”?

Did it include Treasury figures that show there has been a real terms cut each year since the election? What is he saying to NHS staff and patients who see the cuts and see the Prime Minister’s big NHS promise being broken?