Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Karl Turner

Tuesday 24th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

T2. A recent Ashcroft poll shows that only 15% of the public think that this Government have the best approach to running the NHS. Will the Secretary of State stand up at the Dispatch Box and apologise for his top-down reorganisation of the NHS and his Tory privatising Health and Social Care Act, and accept that the public will never trust the Tories with the NHS?

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

I will tell the hon. Gentleman what the public think about the NHS: last year, under this Government, dissatisfaction was at its lowest ever level and satisfaction jumped the highest among Labour voters. And where did satisfaction go down? In Wales.

NHS (Five Year Forward View)

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Karl Turner

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The trouble with a mansion tax is that, in the end, it will apply not to mansions but to homes, flats and people on low incomes. That is why it is the wrong way to put more funding into the NHS. The right way to do it is to have a strong economy, and only this Government can deliver that.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

Up until her retirement, my mother was a very proud and committed nurse in the NHS. The Secretary of State wears a lapel badge pretending his love for the NHS. Today, my mother asked why, if the Secretary of State had £700 million in his Department, could he not have afforded the measly 1% pay rise for our committed nurses in the NHS, which would have cost £200 million.

[Mr Hunt]

It really demeans debate in this House to go on about some phoney argument that one side of the House cares about the NHS while the other does not. We have shown our commitment to the NHS by announcing today £2 billion of additional funding. That is a big deal and it shows our commitment. We have also given all nurses a 1% pay rise.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Karl Turner

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

8. How many patients waited longer than four hours in A and E departments in 2013-14.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

Of the 21.7 million attendances at all A and E departments in England in 2013-14, 939,000 were not seen and treated within four hours, meaning that 95.7%—0.7% above the national target—were. I am pleased to inform the House that hospitals will have an extra 260 A and E doctors this winter, bringing emergency medics in the NHS to a record high.

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to look at the point that the hon. Gentleman raises. I have visited the Northwick Park A and E department, where the clinicians on the front line are working incredibly hard. As he knows, the funding formula is decided independently—at arm’s length from politicians—but we have ensured that everyone gets a real-terms rise.

[Karl Turner]

Data published last Friday show that A and Es have missed their waiting targets for 64 weeks on the bounce. They are in a worse state now than they were last winter. What is going on?

[Mr Hunt]

First, I caution the hon. Gentleman on his use of statistics, because he is referring to a subset of A and Es, not all of them. Last year we hit our A and E target. I say gently to Labour Members that they need to be careful if they try to politicise operational issues, because people will note that in every year of this Parliament we have hit our A and E targets in England and Labour has missed its targets in Wales.

Heart Surgery (Leeds)

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Karl Turner

Monday 15th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

Come on Jeremy, answer the question.

[Mr Hunt]

Whenever he receives information, the medical director is under an absolute obligation to act. What he did was absolutely correct: he said that he would look at the data and get to the bottom of them and that if it turned out that the data were not as accurate as they should have been, surgery would resume. That is exactly what happened.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Karl Turner

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

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

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

In January I published our local media action plan. I am pleased to announce that, by the deadline of 1 March, we had 30 expressions of interest from people who wanted to run local media services, 21 expressions of interest from people interested in running a new local TV network and five expressions of interest from people interested in running local TV services in the devolved nations.

[Karl Turner]

Is the decision to remove funding for Creative Partnerships not further evidence of a deliberate strategy by this Tory-led Government to remove funding from the poorest and most disadvantaged children in our society?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Karl Turner

Monday 29th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I can absolutely confirm this Government’s wholehearted commitment to an S4C with its own distinct identity, operational independence and the support and expertise of our most important and largest national broadcaster. I urge the authority to clear up the confusion over the leadership at S4C as soon as possible, because it owes nothing less to the people of Wales.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

T7. Given the Secretary of State for Education’s disgraceful announcement that £160 million will be cut from school sports funding, what plan does the Sports Minister have to compensate children in my constituency whose health and well-being will suffer as a result of his Government’s policy?

[Mr Hunt]

Our plan for the children in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, as for the children in every constituency, is that more of them will do sport, more of them will do competitive sport, and we will have stronger, more effective, bottom-up school sports partnerships.