Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This is an important issue and my hon. Friend is right. We do need more GPs, which is why we are increasing the number of places at medical schools by 1,500, the first 500 of which will be available next September. On her specific point about committing people who have been trained to work in the NHS, the Department of Health has been looking at ways in which we can maximise our investment in medical education and it has asked Health Education England to look at the precise point she has raised and to report back early next year.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

Q10. The Foreign Secretary told this House that he has seen no evidence of Russian interference in UK elections or the referendum. Yet on Monday the Prime Minister warned Russia not to meddle in western democracies, and today The Times reports that fake Russian Twitter accounts churned out thousands of messages in an attempt to influence the EU referendum result. Has the Foreign Secretary been kept in the dark on the intelligence? Has he not read it, or is he wilfully blind? Will the Prime Minister now stop dragging her feet and set up the Intelligence and Security Committee to look urgently into the Kremlin’s attempts to undermine our democracy?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is right to say that I spoke on Monday about the issue of Russian interference in elections, which has taken place in a number of countries in Europe—[Interruption.] It is all very well for Labour Members to point at the Foreign Secretary. He made a specific point about what was happening in the United Kingdom, and if they cared to look at the speech I gave on Monday they will see that the examples I gave of Russian interference were not in the United Kingdom. The hon. Lady raises the issue of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which is being established today.