Oral Answers to Questions

Irene Campbell Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty McNeill]

I commend my hon. Friend for her commitment to her constituents, and pass on the best wishes of the whole House to Stephen in his recovery. Her constituents, like mine, are constantly on the receiving end of late diagnoses because of the underfunding of cancer services that the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) has mentioned. We will, of course, continue to raise this issue with the Scottish Government as part of our ongoing commitment to deal with Scotland’s biggest killer, which is cancer.

[Irene Campbell (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

3. What recent discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on the impact of the Barnett formula on funding for the NHS in Scotland.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Kirsty McNeill)]

Thanks to the Barnett formula, a Labour Chancellor and 37 Scottish Labour MPs, Scotland’s public services have received the biggest ever financial settlement from the UK Government, but how has the SNP spent it? Well, despite the best efforts of our extraordinary NHS staff, every week, thousands of Scots will wait more than eight hours in A&E, and more than 100,000 Scots have been stuck on an NHS waiting list for over a year. Doctors, nurses and—most of all—Scottish patients have been failed by 18 years of SNP mismanagement. We desperately need a new direction.

[Irene Campbell]

There has been a noticeable increase in the number of people contacting my office about accessing GP services, and about long waiting times for hospital appointments and operations. Those who live in the Isle of Arran and actually get an appointment often cannot get to it, because they cannot get a ferry there and back on the same day. That is a different point, but as a former manager in the NHS, I have seen the consequences of the shortage of GPs in Scotland. There has been a recent successful recruitment campaign in different parts of England; does the Minister agree that it is time for the Scottish Government to utilise the Barnett consequentials in order to improve access to NHS services in Scotland through robust workforce planning, and to follow the example of the NHS in England and get GPs successfully recruited?

[Kirsty McNeill]

I thank my hon. Friend, not just for her service to her constituents but her previous service in the NHS. As she has noted, thanks to Labour, NHS waiting lists in England have fallen month on month, because this Government have a plan and we have invested. Sadly, it is a completely different story in Scotland, as she has pointed out. Like mine, her constituents see a situation in which almost one in six people are now stuck on a waiting list. John Swinney has announced this SNP Government’s fifth NHS recovery plan in less than four years, but patients and staff know that it is not good enough, and we need a new direction.