Oral Answers to Questions

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out what voters in Durham can see: what people get if they vote Reform is total chaos and broken promises. Councils have a vital role in our communities. It is not just Durham where Reform is doing this; I think four councillors in Kent have just been suspended for bringing the party into disrepute, which is quite something for a party whose Welsh leader accepts Russian bribes to spread Putin’s propaganda.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Q6. Weston Hospicecare provides an invaluable service for constituents with a terminal illness. The hospice now faces an increased national insurance bill of £139,000 a year as a result of the Chancellor’s jobs tax. The Prime Minister will know that the money he has announced for capital expenditure cannot be used for day-to-day running expenses and that the money he has announced for children’s hospices will not benefit Weston Hospicecare, so what help can he offer the hospice as it struggles under the tax burden imposed by his Government?

[The Prime Minister]

We are putting in the support that we can for hospices, and the money we put aside at the Budget for the NHS is absolutely crucial in relation to that. The NHS was underfunded for 14 long years. We have now put in the funding that the NHS needs to do its work.