Oral Answers to Questions

David Rutley Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

It certainly sounds as though there is a need for an accident and emergency department in Kettering. These are matters for the local commissioning boards to take forward, but it would be wrong for the hon. Gentleman or anyone else to say that as part of the Healthier Together programme there are any site-specific proposals that would in any way threaten Kettering accident and emergency department.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

In a week when we are remembering the remarkable contribution made by Margaret Thatcher to our national life, we should also mark the extraordinary contribution made by someone else who died last week—Professor Sir Robert Edwards, the Nobel prize-winning doctor who pioneered modern IVF treatment. One in seven couples in this country experience fertility problems and he has given them hope and, in many cases, wonderful happiness. The whole House will want to applaud not just his scientific boldness, but his moral courage in confronting what was considered at the time to be an extremely difficult ethical issue.

[David Rutley]

In the light of the recent measles outbreak in south Wales, does my right hon. Friend agree that the claims made by Dr Andrew Wakefield about the MMR vaccine are both discredited and completely wrong?