Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Walney Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. I have not felt particularly reticent today, but what I would say is that the economy is recovering. We see that in jobs, we now see that in living standards and we see it in the lowest rate of inflation that we have had for many years in our country. The economy has turned around, we have turned that corner, things are getting better and we must not let Labour wreck it.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

The suffering of constituents of mine such as Liza Brady, Simon Davey and James Titcombe, who lost their babies at Furness general hospital, is hard to imagine. They have had years of struggle to get to the point yesterday where the Kirkup report put through a host of recommendations, both for our local hospital and for the wider NHS. Will the Prime Minister honour their struggle today by saying that the Government will implement those recommendations in full?

[The Prime Minister]

It is a very important report, which is why the Health Secretary made the statement that he did. We want to see many of these changes put in place. Where we have problems in our NHS—we saw them in Mid Staffs and in the case that the hon. Gentleman mentions—it is important that we do not sweep them under the carpet; we need to be open and honest about them. We should send in the inspectors with the newly beefed-up Care Quality Commission. We have this new post of chief inspector of hospitals, which brings focus to the whole organisation, and we need to work out how to turn a hospital around; how to put it into special measures; and how to get things fixed so that these tragedies do not happen again. My heart goes out to all those people who have lost their children as a result of things that should never have happened in our country.