Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Flynn Excerpts
Wednesday 19th January 2011

(13 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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Yes, I shall try to nudge him. What we want is an answer, not an essay.

Paul Flynn Portrait Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
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Has the insight team considered an independent think tank’s judgment that the Government’s health reforms are like trying to resuscitate a corpse, which has not been done successfully since the time of Lazarus? How will the Government’s reforms help the nation when they are imposing chaos on the health service?

Oliver Letwin Portrait Mr Letwin
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I do not think that the national health service is anything like a corpse at all; it is a living, breathing body that does a fantastic amount of good for our nation, and we are trying to improve it. The behavioural insight team has, as a matter of fact, been involved with the Department of Health—I was hearing about it just this morning—in thinking through ways in which we can nudge improvements in the health service, too, and try to make it more effective without imposing additional regulation on it.