Business of the House

Alex Salmond Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

There will of course be further debates, both general debates on exiting the European Union and others on that matter, as we approach the decision on article 50 and, I am very confident, in the months that follow that. My hon. Friend might also like to know, although this will not satisfy her demand for a debate, that in the next fortnight we will have both Home Office questions, which would cover the free movement issue, and questions to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, on 26 January.

[Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)]

May we have a debate on what constitutes a crisis in accident and emergency in the national health service? The Prime Minister and the Health Secretary refuse to accept that there is a crisis, but the Welsh Tories say that there is a crisis in A&E in Wales, and the Health Secretary says that the English figures are better than those for Wales but fails to point out that, on the basis of what was released this morning, the Scottish figures are 5% better than those in England. May we have that debate on the definition of what represents “a crisis” before the Government fiddle the figures in their response to patients suffering?

[Mr Lidington]

We have had both a statement and a lengthy exchange of questions to and answers from the Health Secretary on Monday, and then we had a full day’s debate in the Labour party’s time yesterday on this subject, when all these issues were thoroughly aired. I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman that he ought not to be too complacent about the situation in Scotland, given that the latest figures I have seen show that NHS Scotland was meeting only one of eight key targets and that one in 12 hospital bed days in Scotland were being lost because of delayed discharges.