Clive Efford
Main Page: Clive Efford (Labour - Eltham and Chislehurst)Department Debates - View all Clive Efford's debates with the Wales Office
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I will look very carefully at what my hon. Friend says. Almost 60% of regional growth fund projects are now under way, and the money has been distributed in very many cases, but I will look specifically at this project, which does sound interesting and worth while. As I understand it, it involves radio astronomy and satellite management. It will bring to Cornwall high-tech jobs that it wants and needs, so I will do my best to make sure it happens.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
A third of south-east London health care trusts’ deficit is due to the private finance initiative. Is not the Secretary of State for Health wrong to suggest that the entire deficit is due to the PFI? Should he not be working with local health managers to deal with the situation rather than imposing an outside administrator to cut local health services?
The Prime Minister
First, it is this Government who are putting more money into the NHS this year, next year, and the year after. Some of these NHS trusts, such as the one the hon. Gentleman mentions, do have enormous deficits, and a large part of that is down to the completely failed PFI systems that the previous Government put in place. In hospitals up and down the country, it costs £120 to reset an alarm, £466 to replace a light fitting—[Interruption.] Labour Members are shouting from a sedentary position that these were Conservative PFIs. They were not—every single one of them was put in place under a Labour Government. Yet again, time for an apology.