Oral Answers to Questions

Harpreet Uppal Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are committed to that because this is a serious review into our defence. The review needs to ensure we understand the challenges we face and have the capability to deal with those challenges in the modern era, so that is the exercise that is going through. We have committed to the path to 2.5%. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the last time 2.5% of GDP was spent on defence was under the last Labour Government, and that is the difference between the approach on this side of the House and the approach on that side of the House.

[Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield) (Lab)]

Q9.   Huddersfield royal infirmary has recently reduced its elective waiting list from a high of 4,000 to just 20. Will the Prime Minister join me in paying tribute to NHS staff at my local hospital? Will he ensure that the NHS learns from the HRI’s innovative approaches, such as the use of AI for scans and its partnership with the University of Huddersfield’s national health and innovation campus? When the Prime Minister does his hospital tour, may I also invite him to Huddersfield to see the transformative work being done?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend, because the achievements of hard-working staff at Huddersfield royal infirmary prove that we can bring down waiting times through our plans for change. It is important that we are applying that best practice and innovation across the NHS. We must do more. We inherited record waiting lists and we are now bringing them down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Harpreet Uppal Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)]

8. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to tackle violence against women and girls.

[Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield) (Lab)]

9. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to tackle violence against women and girls.

[Claire Hughes (Bangor Aberconwy) (Lab)]

14. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to tackle violence against women and girls.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

It is indeed totally unacceptable, and it is, I am afraid, a legacy of a totally failed justice system. We know that owing to the complexity of the system, rape victims are often left to wait disproportionately longer than others who are already waiting too long. In our manifesto we committed ourselves to fast-tracking rape cases. We are carefully considering the best way to do that, along with colleagues at the Ministry of Justice who lead on this work, and we will announce our plans in due course.

[Harpreet Uppal]

I recently joined a Reclaim the Night march in Greenhead park in my constituency. The first of these marches took place in Leeds in the 1970s, and they are still important, because a woman is killed every three days in the UK. What actions are we taking to prioritise reducing the level of violence against women and girls, and also to create safer environments at night?

[Jess Phillips]

I thank my hon. Friend for question. The first march was in 1977 and, frankly, progress has been too slow if we still need to march. We will use a cross-Government, transformative approach to halve violence against women and girls, and that will be underpinned by a new violence against women and girls strategy, to be published next year. That will include drastically improving the police and criminal justice response. Prevention and education are also absolutely fundamental to our approach, and we will work across key Departments, including the Department for Education, to tackle the root causes of these crimes.