Health and Adult Social Care Reform

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I am so grateful to my hon. Friend for her question and for championing that issue since she arrived in the House six months ago. The disabled facilities grant is not just about new handrails, new ramps, new accessible kitchens and bathrooms and home adaptations; it is about freedom, independence, dignity and happiness. It is really good investment in preventing demand on other health and care services by giving people back their own independence and happiness.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

My constituents will welcome the opportunity to get more services delivered through their GP surgeries, of which there are many excellent examples in West Worcestershire, and through community hospitals. However, I hear from those very same GP surgeries their concerns over the national insurance rises, and how that is leading them to think about reducing services. When will the Secretary of State be able to square that circle?

[Wes Streeting]

Before Christmas—I appreciate that it was just before, but I wanted to get out the certainty to general practitioners before we all went off for Christmas—we announced the biggest uplift in funding for general practice in a considerable number of years, and we will now negotiate the contract in the usual way. That should give general practitioners the stability and certainty to know that this Government are determined to fix the front door to the NHS.

The other thing I would say to the Opposition is that they cannot continue to welcome the investment while opposing the means of raising it, unless they spell out which services they would cut or which other taxes they would increase. They do not have an answer; they do not have a leg to stand on.