Health Inequalities (North-East)
Debate between Grahame Morris and Linda Riordan(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Grahame M. Morris
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I agree with him. I was shocked to attend a meeting in my constituency last Friday about the contingency plans that are being put in place for emergency feeding centres after 2013. Those centres are the soup kitchens that we have not seen since the 1930s or the miners’ strike in 1984.
My final point is that the Labour Government produced the first ever targets to reduce health inequalities in the population, and the poorest were healthier when we left Government than they had been when we took office in 1997. My plea to the Minister is this: raise the standards and be a champion for public health and not an apologist.
Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Members that I will call the Front-Bench spokespersons from 10.40 am onwards.