Hazel Blears
Main Page: Hazel Blears (Labour - Salford and Eccles)Department Debates - View all Hazel Blears's debates with the Northern Ireland Office
(10 years, 12 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, first of all, about the new businesses setting up in Britain. We have 400,000 more businesses than three years ago. The point she makes about encouraging businesses into schools to inspire young people about enterprise, about small business, and about what that can involve is really, really important. I would urge all MPs to make the most of small business Saturday, but also, in the visits that they make to primary and secondary schools, to push the case for good business access and good business discussions.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
Four weeks ago in Eccles, I met Joy Watson, who is 55 years old, a mum and married to Tony. For the past four years, Joy has had problems with her memory and on her 55th birthday she was diagnosed with early-onset dementia. Her family are devastated, but she is an inspirational woman and is now fighting for better services for people in similar circumstances. Will the Prime Minister ensure, at the G8 in London in two weeks’ time, that there will be a real push for an increase in research into the quality of care and support and prevention, as well as into the important search for a cure?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. There is no one single thing we have to do: the research budget needs to go up—and it is—but we also need to work within the health and social care sectors to improve standards. Frankly, we also need to make our communities more dementia-friendly. Something we can all do is become a dementia friend, which involves a simple, relatively short test and a bit of learning about how to help people with dementia in our communities. It is not just about the health and social care sectors, but about when people are trying to go on a bus, access their bank account or go down to the post office. How they actually live their lives is something we can all make a difference to.