Oral Answers to Questions

Ann Clwyd Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for raising this issue. We have turned the zero on No. 10 into the dementia flower today to help to boost the importance of raising awareness of this issue and of encouraging more people to train as Dementia Friends. I will look at what he says about the strategy. As he knows, it is about investing in research and science, where we have doubled the budget for dementia. It is about dementia-friendly communities and also making sure that our hospitals and care homes treat people with dementia better. We will carry forward all those, and I will perhaps write to him about the update to the strategy.

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

Some 100,000 people are already dead in Syria and others are dying while we are here today. They need help desperately. We have talked about humanitarian help, but we have not crossed borders. What on earth are we doing about it?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Lady is right to raise this. The answer to what are we doing about it is that Britain is the second largest bilateral aid donor in terms of humanitarian aid going into Syria, so we are helping to feed, clothe and house people in Turkey, in Lebanon, in Jordan and elsewhere. She raises the important point about getting aid into Syria. More is being done on that, but it is extremely difficult because of the security situation. We will continue to do what we can.