Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Bridget Phillipson and Philippa Whitford(5 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South)
The commission found Vote Leave guilty of multiple breaches under electoral law and imposed fines of £61,000 in July 2018. Vote Leave made representations to the commission in June 2018, when it was notified of the commission’s proposals for penalties. The commission considered these representations carefully, in accordance with its published enforcement policy, before deciding on the penalties to be imposed. Vote Leave took up its right of appeal to the county court, and the appeal is listed for July 2019.
Dr Whitford
The Leave campaign was found guilty of sending almost 200,000 unsolicited texts to numbers it had harvested from a football competition with odds of 5 million, million, billion to one. Anyone who is good at trillions can tell me at the end. In view of the threatened economic damage from Brexit, does the hon. Lady really think that a fine of £40,000 is enough to put others off?
Bridget Phillipson
The Electoral Commission works closely with the Information Commissioner and others in making sure that our rules are followed, but the Electoral Commission, in terms of its responsibilities, continues to urge the Government to introduce legislation to strengthen its sanctioning powers for future referendums and elections. Its view is that the current maximum fine of £20,000 per offence could well be seen as the cost of doing business.
GP Recruitment and Retention
Debate between Bridget Phillipson and Philippa Whitford(6 years, 7 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Bridget Phillipson
I am grateful to all hon. Members who contributed to the debate. We have heard that the future of general practice faces a significant challenge the length and breadth of the country.
On the Minister’s point about funding, since 2010, the rate of increase in NHS spending has slowed considerably. It is well below the real-terms average increase of the 3.7% that the NHS has received since its inception in 1948.
For all that the Minister referred to the Prime Minister’s comments about a long-term and sustainable funding model for the NHS, we are nearly eight years on. We need that model, but we also need something to undo at least some of the damage that has taken place in that time.
On a more positive note, given the success that we achieved in the University of Sunderland bid, I hope the Minister will look carefully at regional variation in the fill rate for training places. We need to take more action to address it.
The scale of the challenge that we face with general practice is clear. It falls to the Minister and to NHS England to take action so that all our constituents, no matter where they live, get the access to world-class healthcare they need.
Dr Whitford
On a point of order, Mrs Moon. I have a factual correction to make. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson) stated that only 51% of students at Scottish universities were from Scotland. In fact, it is 70%.