Future of Health and Care

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Absolutely. We are on track to hire 50,000 more nurses over this Parliament and build 40 new hospitals over the decade. Those were core commitments in the manifesto that my hon. Friend and I both stood on with great enthusiasm, and I look forward to delivering on them. The White Paper will help towards that, but that is on track and under way already. He is quite right about learning from what has gone well in the pandemic, during which the NHS has had to work so incredibly hard, and the White Paper will help to do that.

Some of the culture and some of the ways of working have been more flexible, more dynamic and more joined-up within the NHS over the past year, embracing more modern technology than ever before. It is critical that we keep pushing that culture forward and supporting people in driving that culture forward and do not fall back to old ways of working. The White Paper will help us to do that, but it is only one part, because it is everybody working as a team and working together that is at the core of where things have gone well over the pandemic.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab) [V]]

A year and a half ago, we halted the dangerous back-door privatisation of key services in Bradford’s hospitals while Ministers sat on their hands and ignored the outcry of NHS staff and local people. The proposals in the press confirm what I and many others have long said about the disaster and waste of privatisation in our NHS—[Inaudible.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Imran, it is a very bad line, even on audio-only, but the Secretary of State is going to have a go at answering.