Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Raynsford Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am delighted to welcome that real ale, and I of course recommend that my hon. Friend’s constituents take advantage of the 1p cut—not just in this Budget, but in the previous Budget. I know that people in Avonmouth have suffered unacceptably from the air pollution problem, and I am very happy to discuss that with my hon. Friend. We are seeing a growth of community pubs, and that is all to the good. It is of course welcome that we introduced the community right to bid, which has enabled a number of communities to take hold of such facilities and operate them for the use of the public.

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Q4. In its recent report on the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Woolwich, the Care Quality Commission praised the staff for being “kind, caring and respectful”, but highlighted serious capacity constraints in the A and E department. Does the Prime Minister remember that a year ago, before being stopped by judicial review, his Government proposed to close the A and E department in the neighbouring Lewisham hospital, which would have added massively to the pressures on the already overstretched Queen Elizabeth? What lessons have been learned from that serious error of judgment?

[The Prime Minister]

The most important thing with our health service is to praise good service when we see it, but to recognise that where we see poor service, it has to be turned around. We are very clear about the turnaround work that is being done in many of our hospitals and that was left for year after year under Labour. The House might be interested to know that the average wait in A and E was 77 minutes when Labour was in power; it is now 30 minutes under this Government.