Oral Answers to Questions

Nicholas Dakin Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is of course right that fairness is one of the NHS’s founding principles and we must retain that principle. We need to consider measures to make possible dealing with people who have rightly been given care by the NHS—because the NHS provides care to everybody on the basis of need—and who are supposed to make a contribution but escape the obligation to do so. That is what we are working on and we will be coming forward with announcements soon.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Q9. What would the Deputy Prime Minister say to my constituent, Rachael Shipp, who now finds that all her hard work, community action and fundraising in line with big society thinking will come to naught as the Government cut the moneys promised to her neighbourhood group for their much-needed playbuilder scheme? She cannot understand why a referendum that has no electoral mandate and that she sees as irrelevant will go ahead at a cost, according to the TaxPayers Alliance, of £100 million which could be better spent on community schemes such as hers in Lilac avenue.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am very amused that the referendum, which the hon. Gentleman claims has no mandate, was in the manifesto on which he campaigned at the last election. I know that Labour is enjoying denying any responsibility for the past—U-turn after U-turn after U-turn. One hundred thousand members of the public have made suggestions about how we can try to bring some sense to our public finances without hitting the vulnerable and without hitting front-line public services. Have we heard a single suggestion from anyone on the Opposition Benches? Not a single suggestion. Until the Labour party catches up with reality, it will not be taken seriously.