Marco Longhi
Main Page: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)Department Debates - View all Marco Longhi's debates with the Home Office
(12 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
As I said in answer to an earlier question, we have set out a social care plan. The Chancellor and the Health Secretary set out a long-term plan for the NHS workforce more generally. It is absolutely right that we train more people in this country to be nurses and doctors than we have in the recent past. That is why, for example, the Health Secretary set out a plan for further medical schools in a number of parts of the country, including in places where there have been shortages. That is the way forward. It is not a sustainable future for the NHS or social care to recruit in other parts of the world. Even those places are now encountering shortages. There is a highly competitive international market for doctors and nurses, so the future of our NHS has to be by persuading more of our own young people to go into those sectors and train people properly here.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the people of this country will not be fooled by the shallow, opportunistic tough talk coming from Labour Members? They were the Members for remain, which would have meant completely open borders. They are the party of re-join, which would again mean completely open borders, including to those people who have since migrated into European countries and who would then be completely free to come to the UK. Does he agree that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) said, it is time for a cap on net migration?
Robert Jenrick
I do not think anyone listening to the debate will be fooled by the damascene conversion of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and her colleagues to controlled migration, when they have spent their entire lives campaigning for completely the opposite. One of the few pledges that the Leader of the Opposition launched his campaign on just a few years ago was freedom of movement. We have committed to controlled migration. We share a deep conviction that we have to get the numbers down. I am hopeful and confident that the package the Prime Minister and Home Secretary will bring forward very soon will do just that.