Margaret Greenwood
Main Page: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)Department Debates - View all Margaret Greenwood's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
I will not take that personally, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I thank the Labour party for giving the Conservative side of the House, and me in particular, the opportunity to put on the record the grateful thanks of all our constituents to public sector workers for their fantastic work in hospitals in places such as Blandford, Shaftesbury, Poole, Dorchester, Salisbury, Southampton and Bournemouth, all of which will have served my constituents over the years. We are all grateful to them.
I want to make two points to the Labour party. I entirely endorse what my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) had to say, because this is not a bidding war over which party loves the NHS more; it is about all of us trying to come together to ensure that the NHS is fit for purpose for the next 70 years, delivering quality care that is free at the point of use in the face of ever-increasing demand in the ever-more competitive space of medical advancement. At the heart of that, I am afraid to say, is cruelty from the Labour party, which makes huge promises about raising this, doing that or scrapping the other without saying how, by how much, or how it is going to be paid for. Labour raises expectations only for them to be dashed, as always, on the rocks of what would ultimately be the folly of a Labour Government. Labour’s childish approach to economic management defines what it is to be a Conservative. Broadly, being a Conservative in public life is to be the man or woman with the bucket, the brush and the shovel following behind the horse of Labour Government and picking up the mess.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is aware of how his Government are reducing supply in the national health service, creating demand for private healthcare. People outside the Chamber are fully aware of the Conservative Government’s privatisation agenda and their agenda of selling off buildings—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. It is not normal to intervene just after coming into the Chamber. The fact is that Members who have been here all day are desperate to get in, and I am worried that they may not.