Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and James Gray

Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I take responsibility for everything that happens on my watch. [Interruption.] I think it is a little early to ask the Secretary of State to resign—but maybe not. The ambulance service is under great pressure, but across the country we have 2,000 more paramedics than five years ago, we are recruiting an additional 1,700 over the next few years, and from March this year, compared with March the previous year, the most urgent calls—the category A red 1 calls—went up by 24% and the ambulance service answered nearly 2,000 more calls within the eight-minute period. There is a lot of pressure, we have a plan to deal with it, but we need to give credit to the ambulance service for its hard work.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I stood against Charles Kennedy in 1992 in Ross, Cromarty and Skye and will take the opportunity tomorrow of remembering what a very happy occasion it was and how very glad I was to lose to Charles at that election.

I strongly opposed the creation of the South Western Ambulance Service because I believed the Wiltshire Ambulance Service did a better job on its own. I know the Secretary of State has been monitoring the calls received by the South Western Ambulance Service—one of the two trial areas. Will he tell the House whether response times in the south-west have improved or got worse in recent years?

[Mr Hunt]

NHS England will be updating the House on the results of that trial. It was a very important trial because it was designed to stop the dispatch of ambulances to people who did not need one within eight minutes, in order to make sure ambulances were available for people who did need one. South Western was very helpful in taking part in that trial and we will update the House shortly on the results of it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and James Gray

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman speaks as though the problem of ambulance waits never happened for 13 years under Labour, but he knows that we actually had some appalling problems, with ambulances circling hospitals because hospitals did not want to breach their four-hour A and E wait targets. We are tackling the problem, and as I mentioned, if he looks at the figures published last week he will see that we are meeting the standards for ambulance waits that his party’s Government put in place. However, we are not complacent, and we are monitoring the figures closely. Particularly with the winter coming up, we want to ensure that the ambulance service performs exactly as the British public would want.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Many ambulance trusts are indeed doing extremely well, as the Secretary of State indicated. Does he agree that that is at least partly due to localism in the ambulance service, which may be undermined if, for example, the Great Western ambulance service becomes an amalgamated regional service? Now it has been announced that the call centre in Devizes will be closed in favour of one in Bristol. Does he agree that there is at least a risk that the local service for people in Wiltshire will be reduced if such regionalisation is allowed?

[Mr Hunt]

I agree with my hon. Friend that the purpose of the changes that the coalition Government have brought to the NHS is to tap into local innovation, ideas and ambitions to transform services, and it is important that no changes undermine that. He should take comfort from the fact that my predecessor introduced clear tests for any major reconfigurations, including that they should be strongly supported by local doctors, that the public should be involved in any consultation, that the changes should improve patient choice and that there should be clear evidence of benefits to patients. I hope that that gives him and his constituents some reassurance.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and James Gray

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

When the right hon. Gentleman’s party left office, we had one of the slowest broadband networks in Europe; we have put in place plans that will give us one of the fastest. His party had plans that would not have seen the roll-out of superfast broadband until 2017; we have brought that forward. We have also put in almost £1 billion of public money, so I think that our results have been pretty impressive.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Wiltshire is one of the pilot areas for the roll-out of superfast broadband in England. Will increasing competition among broadband providers hasten its arrival? Despite the excellent efforts of the outstandingly good Conservative-controlled Wiltshire county council, none the less there have been some centrally based delays, so what can the Secretary of State do to assist in that pilot?

[Mr Hunt]

We are doing everything we can to reduce those delays, including seeking early clearance of state aid from Brussels, but we have put in place a competitive process that is led by local authorities, because we think that we will get the best results by putting them in the driving seat. That is why we have had a tremendous response, including from local authorities that, in almost every case, have agreed to match the money being put in by central Government, so in Wiltshire and throughout the country we will have an extremely good broadband network, if not the best in Europe.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and James Gray

Monday 29th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

As well as wishing every success to the England 2018 bid team this week, we wish every success to Andrew Strauss and the English cricket team in Australia and congratulate him, Jonathan Trott and particularly Alastair Cook on their outstanding performances over the weekend.

[Mr Gray]

The Government’s commitment to rural broadband is laudable, but does the Secretary of State agree that providers make a large profit out of urban provision of broadband, but that in rural areas such as my own they make a large loss? What will he do, therefore, to make sure that the £500-odd million that he is committing to broadband will be spread not equally between urban and rural areas, but especially towards rural areas to help businesses and homes which so badly need it?

[Mr Hunt]

The money that we have secured from the licence fee settlement is for the part of the country that we believe the market will not satisfy—that is to say, approximately a third of homes including, I believe, homes in his constituency, where we think that left to its own, the market would not provide broadband. We have every confidence that we will have a solution that is not just 2 meg per home, as was the limit of the ambitions of the previous Government, but the best superfast broadband network in Europe.