Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Janet Daby and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 22nd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I commend my right hon. Friend for his commitment to his constituents. I know that he and my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) met both the Minister for Health and Secondary Care and the Minister for Social Care recently to discuss this issue. I understand that the ICB has extended its consultation by three weeks to ensure that more consideration can be given and voices can be heard, but I will ensure that the relevant Minister keeps my right hon. Friends updated on the progress of this.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Q8. My constituent has recently applied to move from her council home because she can no longer walk up the stairs and is in constant pain. She has been waiting for an knee operation for more than two years and has become progressively worse. She feels forgotten and neglected. Does the Prime Minister agree that his Government are failing and that this country is waiting for a Labour Government to bring down NHS waiting lists?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course I am sorry to hear about the experience of the hon. Lady’s constituent. We are putting in more money and rolling out more elective surgical hubs to bring the waiting lists down. She talks about the difference that the Labour party would make to the NHS. Her constituents can just look to Wales to see what is happening when it comes the NHS: a quarter of the Welsh population on a waiting list, the worst emergency care performance in Great Britain, people on long waiting lists five times more than they are in England and, on average, people waiting 40% longer for treatment. That is the reality of Labour and the NHS—failing.

Iran-Israel Update

Debate between Janet Daby and Rishi Sunak

Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is something that we continually push for. In the meantime, we also focus on building up the technical and administrative capability of the Palestinian Authority, so that they are in a position to provide effective and strong governance for the west bank and Gaza when the moment that that is possible arrives, and we are working very hard to bring that about.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Yesterday, the United Nations Secretary-General said:

“The Middle East is on the brink. The people of the region are confronting a real danger of a devastating full-scale conflict. Now is the time to defuse and de-escalate”.

Does the Prime Minister agree with the Secretary-General, and if so, what is the Government’s strategy to achieve this, as the Prime Minister works with our international allies?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course we want to avoid further escalation and bloodshed, which would be deeply destabilising for the region and risk more lives. That is a message that all Government Ministers will be taking to their counterparts across the region.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Janet Daby and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 13th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. That is why the strategy, which I urge her to wait for, will be one that she can support. It is our duty to ensure that the Government have the tools to tackle the threat that she rightly identifies and highlights. This is absolutely not about silencing those with private and peaceful beliefs, and nor will it impact free speech, which we on this side of the House will always strive to protect.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Q2. Children deserve the right to breathe clean air, but many schools are in areas with high levels of air pollution. Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has announced a pilot for 200 of London’s most impacted schools to access air quality filters so that children can breathe clean air in their classrooms. Does the Prime Minister support that pilot, and will he implement similar measures across our country?

[The Prime Minister]

I am pleased that the latest published figures show that air pollution has reduced significantly since 2010, partly due to our legally binding targets to reduce concentrations. They will continue to reduce over the following years. On top of that, we have also provided almost £1 billion to help local authorities across the country to implement local plans to reduce nitrogen dioxide and to ensure that we can help those impacted by those plans.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Janet Daby and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 7th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting this exciting initiative, and commend Beccy and Lindsey for their campaigning. He will know that our £150 million community ownership fund is there specifically to help to safeguard small but much-loved local assets. Our cultural development fund, which he mentions, is there to support further cultural projects as well. I will ensure that he gets a meeting with the relevant Minister to discuss the plans further, and wish him and his constituents all the best with this redevelopment project.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Q5. Data revealed by the Centre for Cities showed that, after 14 years of Tory rule, towns and cities in every corner of our country have been levelled down, left behind, and left out of pocket. On average, people are over £10,000 a year worse off because the Prime Minister’s party has failed on growth. When will he take responsibility for breaking Britain?

[The Prime Minister]

In fact, what we are seeing is record investment in our towns across the UK, many of which were neglected by the Labour party for decades. If we really care about levelling up, we need to avoid saddling hard-working Britons with higher taxes, which is exactly what Labour’s £28 billion green spending spree would do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Janet Daby and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with my hon. Friend and am pleased that the vast majority of people will continue not to pay the higher rate. I share his ambition to cut taxes for working people. Right now, inflation is falling and we are sticking to our plan, which is delivering a halving of it this year. That is the most effective tax cut we could have delivered for the British people this year, rather than making it worse, as the Labour party would do, by borrowing money irresponsibly and in a way that would just drive up inflation and interest rates. But I want to reassure him that I absolutely share his ambition to cut taxes for working people. As we stabilise the economy, that is something both the Chancellor and I are keen to deliver.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Q6.   My son loves football, and I understand that the Prime Minister is a big Southampton supporter. After his latest Cabinet reshuffle, I wonder whether he can answer me this: since 2010, have we seen more Southampton managers sacked or have we seen more Housing Ministers come and go? The answer might help to explain why the Government are failing so miserably on new home ownership.

[The Prime Minister]

I am pleased that the last figures show that actually we had a record number of first-time buyers. We are delivering 1 million homes over this Parliament, while at the same time the Labour party blocked our plans to unlock 100,000 homes. When it comes to Southampton, I am also pleased that we are on, I think, a seven or eight-game unbeaten run.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Janet Daby and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has been a long-standing champion for Cleethorpes, and particularly for the importance of strong regional transport connections. Network North will see Hull fully connected to the northern powerhouse network, which I know he will welcome, and north-east Lincolnshire will share in a brand new £2.5 billion fund to support local transport connections, perhaps including many or some of the ones he mentions. I know he will have been delighted to see LNER run a test service to Cleethorpes earlier this year, and I can assure him that the Department for Transport is continuing work to see a direct service to London reinstated.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Q2.   Government Members have said the way to fix the economic crisis that they have caused is to cut state spending by £200 billion and to freeze NHS budgets. When will the Prime Minister stand up to the extremists in his party and condemn those ideas?

[The Prime Minister]

Weeks after I became Prime Minister, we announced a significant increase of almost £14 billion for the NHS and social care. We followed that up with the first long-term workforce plan in the NHS’s history, to ensure that we train the doctors and nurses we need for the future. That demonstrates our commitment to the NHS. We also, I am pleased to say, reached a settlement with over 1 million NHS workers, including our nurses, for a full, fair and affordable pay rise.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Janet Daby and Rishi Sunak

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on that fantastic achievement. I can tell him that that market is worth, I think, something like almost £40 million over the first few years—an enormous boost for our land farmers. I would just encourage the 300 million US consumers to give Yorkshire Swaledale lamb a look-in as well, but if my hon. Friend and I disagree on that, I know that we are united on the fact that we will unequivocally back British farming and British farmers.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Q2. This is certainly a topsy-turvy Tory Government. A few days ago, I was going to put my question to the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), the now former Prime Minister. My inbox has been full of emails from constituents writing to me about their desperate situation. Their wages are simply not going far enough. I am also receiving emails about rents going up, energy prices going up and mortgages going up. And of course, the cost of living is already up. This week, my constituents are writing to me demanding a general election. I absolutely agree with them. Can the Prime Minister tell me and my constituents when there will be a general election?

[The Prime Minister]

We have already addressed that, but as I said in the summer, inflation is indeed the enemy. It makes everyone poorer and erodes savings. That is why it will be a priority of our Government to grip and reduce inflation, and provide support to those who need it as we do so.

The Economy

Debate between Janet Daby and Rishi Sunak

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right and I am grateful to her for her instruction on the fiscal maths that we are grappling with! As we move our way through this crisis, the nature of our response has to change. It is simply not sustainable or affordable to continue to provide the level of support that we gave at the beginning of this crisis. That is why our support is now targeted and focused on where it can make the most difference. That will mean that we cannot do absolutely everything that everybody needs at once, but we will be able to focus it on where it can make the most difference, so that, as quickly as possible, we can get our economy growing again and ensure that the maths my right hon. Friend outlined starts to work in our favour. We cannot borrow at this level forever. We must get our borrowing back under control and eventually get our debt falling again.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab) [V]]

I welcome the Chancellor’s statement. Almost 700,000 people lost their jobs between March and July. What is the Government doing to support these people, because the use of food banks has in some cases tripled? What will the Government do to support those who will lose their jobs in the months to come, to help them during any period of unemployment, and to get them back into work as quickly as possible?

Economic Update

Debate between Janet Daby and Rishi Sunak

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

If those businesses are already receiving small business rate relief, that will be known to the local authorities, which will shortly be writing to them to request their financial details so that they can process the grant payments. If businesses have not heard in short order, they can get in touch with their local authorities.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Food banks are used by 1.6 million people, 250,000 more than the number indicated by the previous year’s data, and the demand will increase. Food banks rely on the surplus from supermarkets, and on people’s food donations. What is the Chancellor’s contingency plan to address this very serious issue?

[Rishi Sunak]

My right hon. Friend the Environment Secretary is engaging actively with supermarkets to make sure that all aspects of our food supply are secure, including deliveries and ensuring that everyone receives the food that they need during this time.