Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The issue of engineering, and particularly the need for more women to see engineering as a career, is something that I have promoted for many years now. Engineers are vital to our economy, which is why we want to see everyone, whatever their background—this is about not only gender but background and ethnicity—having a chance to build a good career in engineering. The Year of Engineering gives us a great opportunity to work together with business to do exactly that. If my diary allows, I would be happy to attend the fair to which my hon. Friend referred.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I join the Prime Minister in commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day. Many Members will be signing the book of remembrance and attending the event tomorrow. We have to teach all generations that the descent into Nazism and the holocaust must never, ever be repeated anywhere on this planet.

Does the Prime Minister agree with the Foreign Secretary that the national health service needs an extra £5 billion?

[The Prime Minister]

As I recall, the right hon. Gentleman was in the Chamber for the autumn Budget speech delivered by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which he announced that we will be putting £6 billion more into the national health service.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The only problem with that is that it was £2.8 billion, spread like thin gruel over two years. Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister told the House that

“it is indeed the case that the NHS was better prepared this winter than ever before.”—[Official Report, 10 January 2018; Vol. 634, c. 315.]

Sixty-eight senior A&E doctors have written to the Prime Minister about what they describe as

“very serious concerns we have for the safety of our patients.”

They say that patients being treated in corridors are “dying prematurely”. Who should the public believe—the Prime Minister or A&E doctors?

[The Prime Minister]

It is right that the NHS was better prepared for this winter than it ever has been before. We saw 3,000 more beds being brought into use over the winter period; we saw the use of the 111 call system leading to a significant reduction in the number of call-outs and the number of people having to go into hospital; and we saw the changes made in accident and emergency, with GP streamlining, helping to ensure that people who did not need to go into hospital did not go into hospital. Overall, we saw 2.8 million more people last year visiting accident and emergency than did so in 2010. Our NHS is indeed providing for patients. There are winter pressures; we were prepared for those winter pressures. We will ensure, as we have done every year under this Conservative Government, that the NHS receives more funding.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Since 2010, we have lost 14,000 NHS beds. The King’s Fund, the Health Foundation and the Nuffield Trust all agree that the NHS needs another £4 billion. In December, the month just gone, NHS England recorded its worst ever A&E performances, with more patients than ever waiting more than four hours. Now the UK Statistics Authority says that the numbers may be worse because the figures have been fiddled. Can the Prime Minister tell the House when figures calculated in line with previous years will be published?

[The Prime Minister]

I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that the NHS is open in publishing a whole variety of figures in relation to its targets. We are putting more money into the NHS, year in and year out, and we are continuing to do that. If he wants to talk about figures and about targets being missed, yes, the latest figures show that, in England, 497 people were waiting more than 12 hours, but the latest figures also show that, under the Labour Government in Wales, 3,741 people were waiting more than 12 hours.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The Prime Minister is responsible for the underfunding of the Welsh Government and the needs of Wales. Despite that, the overall Welsh Labour Government health budget has grown by 5% in 2016-17. It is Labour Wales that has a problem of underfunding from a Conservative Government based in Westminster. So far this winter, 100,000 patients have been forced to wait more than 30 minutes in the back of an ambulance in NHS England, for which she is responsible, yet still she refuses to give the NHS the money that it needs. Can she tell us how many more patients will face life-threatening waits in the back of ambulances this winter?

[The Prime Minister]

I say to the right hon. Gentleman that of course we want to ensure that people are not waiting in those ambulances, but the only answer that he ever comes up with is on the question of money. The question—[Interruption.] No, the question is this: why are there some hospitals where the percentage of patients waiting more than 30 minutes is zero and other hospitals where the percentage of patients waiting more than 30 minutes is considerably higher? If he wants to talk about funding, perhaps we should look at what the Labour party promised at the last general election last year. [Interruption.] It is all very well shadow Ministers shouting about the comparison of money. The point is that, at the last election, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said this:

“Labour and the Conservatives are pretty much on the same page…there’s not much to choose between them in terms of the money they’ll put into the NHS.”

[Jeremy Corbyn]

A Labour Government would not be underfunding the NHS. A Labour Government would not be privatising the NHS. A Labour Government would not be underfunding social care. A Labour Government would be committed to an NHS free at the point of use as a human right.

According to a whistleblower, as many as—[Interruption.] Hang on, hang on. According to a whistleblower, as many as 80 patients were harmed or died following significant ambulance delays over a three-week period this winter. This is a very serious situation, and the Prime Minister must be aware of it. What investigation is the Department of Health carrying out into these deeply alarming reports?

[The Prime Minister]

When we hear reports of that sort, of course they are very alarming. That is why the Department of Health makes sure that investigations take place. That may be undertaken by the Department of Health or by the particular trust involved—the ambulance trust or the hospital. These issues are properly investigated, because we do not want to see this happening; we do want to see people being properly cared for. If there are lessons to be learned, then they will be learned, because our support for our NHS is about providing it with the funding, the doctors, the nurses, the treatments and the capabilities that it needs in order to be able to deliver for patients. That is why we are backing the NHS with more funding. It is why we are ensuring that it gets the best treatments; survival rates for cancer are higher than they have ever been before. It is why we are ensuring that we have better joined-up services across the NHS and social care so that people who do not need to go into hospital are able to be cared for at home. And it is why we are ensuring that we are reducing waste in the NHS so that taxpayers’ money is spent as effectively as may be on patient care. That is a plan for the NHS, but it is a plan that puts patients first.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The Prime Minister must be aware of ambulances backed up in hospital car parks, with nurses treating patients in the back of ambulances. Ambulance drivers and paramedics desperate to get on to deal with the next patient cannot leave because the patient they are dealing with at that moment cannot get into the A&E department. It has been reported that a man froze to death waiting 16 hours for an ambulance. Last week, a gentleman called Chris wrote to me, saying:

“My friend’s 93 year old father waited 4 hours for an ambulance after a fall.”

These are not isolated cases; they are common parlance all over the country. It needs money, it needs support, and it needs it now.

The Prime Minister is frankly in denial about the state of the NHS. Even the absent Foreign Secretary recognises it, but the Prime Minister is not listening. People using the NHS can see from their own experience that it is being starved of resources. People are dying unnecessarily in the back of ambulances and in hospital corridors. GP numbers are down, nurses are leaving, the NHS is in crisis—[Interruption.] Tory MPs might not like it, but I ask this question of the Prime Minister: when is she going to face up to the reality and take action to save the NHS from death by a thousand cuts?

[The Prime Minister]

There is only one part of the NHS that has seen a cut in its funding—the NHS in Wales under a Labour Government. This is a Government backing the NHS plan, putting more money into the NHS, recruiting more doctors and nurses, and seeing new treatments come on board which ensure that people are getting the best treatment that they need, because this is a Government who recognise the priorities of the British people: to ensure that our NHS remains a world-class healthcare system—indeed, the best healthcare system in the world—to build the homes that people need, and to make sure that our kids are in good schools. This is a Government who are building a country that works for everyone, and a country in which people can look to the future with optimism and hope.