Immigrants (NHS Treatment)

Henry Smith Excerpts
Monday 25th March 2013

(11 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jeremy Hunt Portrait Mr Hunt
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If the hon. Lady is worried about that, perhaps she might like to complain to her own party leadership, which, during Labour’s last five years in office, had an average underspend in the NHS of £2 billion.

Henry Smith Portrait Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
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I, too, congratulate the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) on his urgent question, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health on following my private Member’s Bill, the NHS Audit Requirements (Foreign Nationals) Bill. When will that primary legislation receive Government time to start its passage through this place?

Jeremy Hunt Portrait Mr Hunt
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I congratulate my hon. Friend on his excellent private Member’s Bill, which looked forward to many of the problems we are trying to address. Our first step is to identify the scale of the problem. We will then identify the right legislative response, but the response will not all be legislative. That is when we will consider including it in the parliamentary timetable.