Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jon Trickett and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Q11. We now know that every ambulance service in the whole country is in a critical state, but last week, well before the current national heatwave emergency, my constituent Mrs Meacham died after waiting for hours for an ambulance—an excruciating and prolonged delay. Her daughter tells me that the family tragedy was not caused by the staff, but by cutbacks by this Government. In any event, without immediate and drastic action we cannot be sure that there will not be many more Mrs Meachams. Does the PM accept that we are now living through an emergency health crisis? Given the disastrous state he is leaving the NHS in, why is he still in Downing Street?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman talks about staffing levels: the NHS now has a record number of people working in it, with 10,900 more nurses this year than there were last year and 6,000 more doctors. On ambulances, and he is right that this is absolutely critical, the crucial thing is to help the hospital staff to move patients through the system. Too often, I am afraid, it is impossible because a proportion of the patients sadly are in delayed discharge and that is making life very difficult for the ambulances as they come up to hospital. That is why it is so crucial that this Government, in addition to everything else we have done, are fixing social care and helping patients out of hospital. That is why we put in the £39 billion, which unfortunately his party voted against.

Health and Social Care

Debate between Jon Trickett and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree with what my hon. Friend has said. The tragedy of decades of failure to tackle this matter is that people are now facing these costs. What we are doing is investing—as we have done throughout the pandemic—about £6 billion, I think, in dealing with the immediate costs of social care to try to help people through this very difficult time. What this package offers is a way of developing a long-term solution, enabling, we hope, the private sector to come in and give people a long-term plan to fix the costs of their own social care, knowing that the Government will remove the risk of those catastrophic costs. That is the advantage of what we are doing today.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Putting aside the unfairness of the national insurance tax rise that the Prime Minister is proposing, is it not the case that the expenditure cap will be his poll tax? In his Uxbridge constituency, the average price of a house is £500,000; in parts of mine it is £130,000. That would leave people in his constituency with an inheritance of more than £410,000 per family, and in mine £44,000 per family. That is unjust and unfair. It is not about levelling up, is it, Prime Minister? It is about doubling down on everything that is wrong, and yet again the poorest will pay the most.

[The Prime Minister]

This is a massively progressive measure that increases the floor on people’s liabilities four times. It protects people up and down the country from catastrophic costs, which anybody can face. Everybody across the country will benefit not only in the investment in social care and in care workers, but in making sure that we deal now and deal properly with the NHS backlogs and their effect on our NHS, which is what this country wants to see.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jon Trickett and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is quite uncanny; it is as though Miss Twitchett and her class were standing over my shoulder as I wrote the 10-point plan, and I thank them for their telepathic inspiration. I passionately agree that that is the right way forward for our country. It will mobilise about £12 billion of Government investment and possibly three times more from the private sector, and create 250,000 to 300,000 jobs. It is a fantastic way forward for our country.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Prime Minister will share the pleasure that we all have in the great engineering skills that are displayed in our country, especially in the north, and agree that one of the great jewels in the crown are the engineers at Rolls-Royce. Is he aware that Rolls-Royce is about to offshore 350 jobs from the north of England? That will be a devastating blow to that part of the country and remove part of our national industrial infrastructure. Does he agree with the workforce, who are campaigning, that it is in the national interest to retain those jobs in our country? Finally, will he use everything in his power to ensure that that offshoring does not take place?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is so right to support Rolls-Royce, one of the great companies in our country. Obviously, at the moment Rolls-Royce is suffering from the problems in the aerospace sector—the fact that no one is flying. When a company makes a lot of its money from servicing aero engines, as Rolls-Royce does, it is a very difficult time at the moment. We are keen to work with Rolls-Royce to ensure that that company has a long-term future as a great, great British company. He makes an excellent point, and I can assure him that the Government are on it.