Helen Goodman
Main Page: Helen Goodman (Labour - Bishop Auckland)Department Debates - View all Helen Goodman's debates with the Cabinet Office
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Q5. The Prime Minister has repeated his claim that the Government are putting more money into the NHS, yet the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust has been told that it must make cuts of 16% over the next four years. Why?
The Prime Minister
Let me remind the hon. Lady that her own shadow Chancellor said that there is “no logic”—[Interruption.] This is an answer. He said that there is “no logic” or rationale to our policy of real-terms increases in the NHS. What we are cutting in the NHS is the bureaucracy of the NHS. Since 2002, under Labour, the primary care trusts and the strategic health authorities increased their spending on themselves—on their bureaucracy—by 120%. We can go on spending this money and not put it into patient care and better public health, but I think that that is wrong. That is why we are making these changes.