Oral Answers to Questions

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Gavin Williamson. [Interruption.] Order. Be quiet, Mr Simpson; such behaviour is bad for your health.

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

Q2. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Has the Prime Minister seen the recent comments of the Labour Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee? She said that over the last 10 years productivity in NHS hospitals had been in continuous decline, and that the taxpayer was getting less for each pound spent. Will the Prime Minister assure the House that that trend will be reversed?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I would have thought Opposition Members would listen to the Labour-dominated Public Accounts Committee and its Labour leader, who said this:

“Over the last ten years, the productivity of NHS hospitals has been in almost continuous decline”

and

“the health service has improved as a result of this increase in spending. But the taxpayer has been getting less for each pound spent.”

That is what we have to look at, and the fact that we are not getting even the European average on cancer outcomes, and that people here are twice as likely to die from a heart attack as people in France. We have an ageing population and more expensive treatments, and the Opposition’s answer is to do absolutely nothing. How utterly, utterly feeble.