Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Caroline Dinenage

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The right hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. The tax cuts the Government have prioritised are for lower-paid people, many of whom work in the NHS. When we had a strike last week, he was criticising the Government for not being more generous, but we have been generous—with the tax cuts he is now criticising. The NHS is facing the biggest financial squeeze in its history partly because of an ageing population but partly because the last Labour Government forgot about the deficit.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

T3. In my constituency, waiting times for GP appointments remain long and practices are struggling to recruit enough doctors. Will my right hon. Friend reassure me as to when the improvements he is making elsewhere in the country will take effect in Gosport, and will he meet me to discuss the matter?

[Mr Hunt]

I would be delighted to discuss it with my hon. Friend, who is right to focus on the role of GPs. If we are to transform the NHS by the end of the next Parliament, we need fundamentally to improve out-of-hospital care, and GPs are at the heart of that. We have recruited 1,000 more GPs during this Parliament, but we need many more, and that will definitely include her constituency.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Caroline Dinenage

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I will happily give the hon. Gentleman the figures, but if he is shocked by the amount that was spent on consultancy, he will be even more horrified to learn that it was vastly greater under the last Labour Government. We are paring that down precisely because we want money to be spent on the front line.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State share my hope that the Government’s joint commitment to increasing NHS spending and dealing with the legacy of private finance initiative debt will help areas such as Gosport, which is living under the umbrella of a huge PFI hospital that was approved under the last Government and is sucking up most of the NHS budget?

[Mr Hunt]

PFI debt is costing the NHS more than £1 billion every year. In some cases that money was well spent, but it was often very poorly spent. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we want the money to be spent on front-line care, which is why we have drawn a line under the appalling deals negotiated by the last Government. We are spending money where it should be spent, in order to help patients.