NHS Services (Access)

David Ward Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[David Morris]

I thank my hon. Friend and namesake for making that point.

I am passionate about the NHS and I know that the Opposition and the right hon. Member for Leigh are also passionate about it, but we should get a grip on reality. Campaigns are saying that £25 million is being cut from the local trust when £150 million has been invested in it, so the maths do not stack up. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) has said, we have been horse-trading figures, but we have to look at the reality of the situation. Scaremongering is not the way forward, because all it does is alienate the electorate, my constituents and the people we all live with across the nation and put fear into the services that we are trying to protect.

I am facing a third erroneous campaign on health cuts in my constituency, and my mail box is always full every time there is such a campaign. All it seeks to do is frighten the electorate, but it does not frighten me, because the electorate know the truth.

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

I was not going to intervene on the hon. Gentleman, but I sympathise with him, because Labour activists in my area have been campaigning against the closure of a treatment centre when all that happened, in fact, was that the contract came to an end. Hard work is now going on to make sure that the provision continues in another form. The big campaign was that this was about cuts and closing a treatment centre, but it was never going to close.

[David Morris]

I share my hon. Friend’s sentiments.

My hospital in Lancaster, in my neighbouring constituency, is not going to close. Like everyone else in the Chamber, I care about the NHS, but I appeal not just to the Opposition, but to all political parties that have the honour to serve here and speak: let us get a grip on reality, stop scaremongering and work towards making a better NHS. It has been an absolute pleasure to speak in this debate.