Lord Beamish
Main Page: Lord Beamish (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Beamish's debates with the Scotland Office
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s remarks. There are 2,000 people employed by AstraZeneca in his constituency, and he is quite right to speak up for them. Our entire approach is based on trying to secure the best possible deal in terms of jobs, investment and science, and that is why I believe it was absolutely right to ask the Cabinet Secretary to engage with Pfizer, just as we are engaging with AstraZeneca. I find it extraordinary that we have been criticised for this. Of course, there is no offer on the table, but the commitments that have been made so far are encouraging in terms of completing the Cambridge campus and making sure that 20% of the combined companies’ total research and development work force is in the UK going forward—and they specifically mention substantial commercial manufacturing facilities in Macclesfield. The company also goes on to say that because of the patent box that we have introduced, it would look at manufacturing more in the UK. But let me absolutely clear: I am not satisfied; I want more, but the way to get more is to engage, not to stand up and play party politics.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
On a number of occasions the Prime Minister has raised the important issue of awareness of mental health, and I thank him for that, but can he explain why, since 2011, there has been a 30% drop in the number of mental health beds in the NHS, and is it really right that mental health patients are having to travel up to 200 miles to access a bed?
The Prime Minister
What matters in our NHS is the quality of provision and parity of esteem between physical health and mental health. This Government have not solved every problem, but we have put proper parity of esteem into the NHS constitution and the NHS mandate. We have also put in proper targets for some of the talking therapies that are absolutely vital in mental health. Measuring the output of our NHS purely by the number of beds is not a sensible approach.