Hospice Funding
Debate between Martin Vickers and Karin Smyth(5 days, 14 hours ago)
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Karin Smyth
I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution and, indeed, for his singing. Those events bring joy to people at a particularly difficult point in their life, and they are very welcome.
Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)
Any increase in funding for the hospice movement is of course welcome, but let us be honest: it is giving with one hand and taking with the other. The two excellent hospices that serve my constituency—St Andrew’s in Grimsby and Lindsey Lodge in Scunthorpe—tell me they want certainty. The Minister says they will be told early in the new year. Can the Minister give a categorical assurance that in the first half of January hospices will be told how much extra they are getting from the £100 million she mentioned?
Karin Smyth
I thank the hon. Gentleman for welcoming the announcement. As I said, we will be working with the sector in the new year and then we will make allocations accordingly.
National Insurance Contributions: Healthcare
Debate between Martin Vickers and Karin Smyth(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Karin Smyth
The hon. Lady tempts me to make specific commitments, which I am not prepared to do, as I am sure she understands. She is right that people are expressing concerns about some of these decisions. That is because they are in such a precarious situation as a result of what we have inherited from the past 14 years. As the Prime Minister and the rest of the Government have been clear throughout the election and afterwards, we have a 10-year plan because it will take a long time to fix the foundations and build up the sector to make it more resilient and sustain it for the future. We want to fix those foundations, and we will talk closely with everyone affected over the coming months, but this will take a long time. Those providers are precarious because of the mess that we inherited.
Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)
Earlier this week, I received a letter from the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire air ambulance, a charitable healthcare provider. The national insurance changes will add £70,000 a year to its costs, and if it is forced to close, lives will be lost. May I urge the Minister—I know she will want to protect this service—to do all she can to ensure that that air ambulance and others across the country are not hit by this tax?
Karin Smyth
I assure the hon. Gentleman that since we were elected, the Government have already taken action to secure extra investment in the health and social care system, and we are committed to building a thriving health and social care system for the rest of the 21st century.