Oral Answers to Questions

David Ward Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

For a party that allowed the scandal at Stafford hospital to take place on its watch, it is pretty rich to start complaining about hospital conditions. The failure of social care and health care to work together effectively and address the problem, to which the right hon. Gentleman rightly alludes, went unaddressed for 13 years. We have offered £3.8 billion to local authorities across the country, in an unprecedented attempt to integrate social care and health care. That is what we are doing and what Labour failed to do when it was in office.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

T5. Irrespective of the outcome of the national debate on the level of net immigration, does the Deputy Prime Minister believe that sufficient support is given to those communities where there are disproportionately high levels of immigration, and in particular to the public services available in those areas?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

That obviously touches on an issue of widespread public concern, and my hon. Friend will know that local public services are funded on a needs-based formula, which relates in large part to the number of people in a local area. The changes in population in a local area are reflected in the funding settlements for our schools and health system. To that extent, changes in local population are of course reflected in the funding provided to our local services. More generally, I think we all need to work together to ensure the public have confidence that we have a firm but fair immigration system that welcomes to this country people who want to contribute to the United Kingdom and play by the rules. We must, however, stamp out abuse and illegality, and ensure that in the European Union, for instance, the right to move to look for work is not synonymous—as it was in the past—with the right to claim benefits, no questions asked.