Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me first thank my right hon. Friend for his service as Northern Ireland Secretary. He is absolutely right: we need to resolve the issue of the Northern Ireland protocol. My preference is for a negotiated solution, but it does have to deliver all the things that we set out in the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. What we cannot allow is for this situation to drift, because my No. 1 priority is protecting the supremacy of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

Q10.   The new Prime Minister tells us that she will deliver on the NHS. Well, that is a turn-up for the books, because after 12 years of Conservatives driving our NHS into the ground, we have record waiting lists, people dying in ambulances outside A&E, and nurses using food banks. Given that the Prime Minister has served in the past three Conservative Governments on that watch, can she explain why we should trust her to deliver?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not agree with the way the hon. Lady is talking down our national health service. The fact is that our health service did brilliantly in tackling covid, in delivering the vaccine roll-out and in getting this country back on its feet, but we do face challenges now with the backlog following covid, and that is why the new Health Secretary is going to work to address those challenges.