Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It was this Government who introduced a bank levy and used the money to help some of the poorest in our country. It is this Government who have taxed the oil companies at a time when the oil price is so high in order to cut petrol duties and help millions of people in our country. What a contrast with the Labour party; the action it took against the banks was to give Fred Goodwin a knighthood.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister knows about the real pressures faced by London’s emergency services, including those they will face in the run-up to the Olympics next year. What risk assessment has he made of the London ambulance service’s decision to cut 20% of its work force, including 560 front-line NHS staff?

[The Prime Minister]

I have discussed with London’s emergency services some of the challenges they face, not least the Olympics and the terrorist threat. All organisations in this country are having to make savings and efficiencies and try to concentrate on the front line. That is what is happening in the police and elsewhere. The point about ambulance services and the NHS is that we are protecting spending on the NHS. There was, frankly, only one party that proposed that at the last election. If we had not proposed that, it would not be happening. We listened to the Labour party, including the former health spokesman, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), who spoke earlier, and they were going to cut the NHS. That would have affected the London ambulance service like everything else.