Business of the House

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am very much in favour of young people standing for local government. The Deputy Leader of the House tells me that a 19-year-old in his constituency was recently successful, as was a 21-year-old in my own constituency. The more young people who stand for local authorities and, indeed, for this place, the better.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

For nearly four years, I worked with the NHS and saw at close quarters the huge bureaucracy in the connecting for health programme, in the national programme for information technology, in strategic health authorities and in primary care trusts. May we have a debate on the progress that has been made to reduce Labour’s bureaucratic legacy and to increase the numbers of clinicians, which is what our constituents really want?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend reminds me that the number of doctors has increased by 2,478—[Interruption.] They may have been trained, but they had to be paid for by somebody. At the same time, more than 3,500 full-time equivalent managers have been cut. That is in stark contrast with what happened under Labour, when the number of managers increased six times as fast as the number of nurses.