Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

No, they will not. We are making very clear our determination to ring-fence public health budgets so that prevention does not suffer, as it did under the hon. Gentleman’s Government. In 2005-06, the first things to disappear as a consequence of financial pressures were the public health budgets and public health staffing. We will not allow that to happen.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s commitment to ending mixed-sex wards, but does the Secretary of State agree that it is both unnecessary and extreme to extend that policy to children’s wards and to enforce it with the threat of fines?

[Mr Lansley]

I entirely understand my hon. Friend’s point, and the rules we have set out for the NHS are very clear. We are also clear that we will ensure, through the NHS, that people have access to the privacy and dignity they have a right to expect, contrary to what the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) has said. She said that as long as they get the treatment through the NHS, it does not matter whether they are in mixed-sex accommodation, but that is not our policy. It does matter, and we will enforce it.