National Health Service (Amended Duties and Powers) Bill

John Robertson Excerpts

Friday 21st November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford]

The hon. Gentleman was on the Bill Committee for the 2012 legislation, and I wonder how many amendments he tabled to put those issues right. And he has the cheek to come here and ask questions about my Bill, which seeks to put right what he did not attempt to put right when he was on that Committee.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on getting this Bill to its Second Reading debate. The Government have been throwing all these facts and figures at us about how the number of doctors is increasing all the time, but these things started under Labour. It takes seven years for a doctor to be a decent practitioner, and we are the ones who made a start on this, not the Government.

[Clive Efford]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the claim that this Government, whose top-down reorganisation has caused so much chaos in the national health service, are responsible for the standards of the NHS now is laughable. They claim to have turned the NHS around in a short space of time, but they are standing on the shoulders of the achievement of the previous Labour Government.