Budget Resolutions

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

It is, of course, a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karen Lee), but unlike her, I choose to welcome the Budget, which will deliver genuine benefits to my constituents in Redditch.

First, I welcome the overall framework of this Budget—the fact that the money being spent for my constituents comes from growth in the economy. It comes from jobs and lower taxes, which means that my constituents will have more money in their pockets.

I am glad to see the shadow Chancellor back in his place. He referred to leafy Surrey, and we are very proud of our leaves in Redditch, but I doubt that that was what he had in mind. This is a Budget for middle England. My constituents come from all walks of life, and we cannot get much more middle England than somewhere like Redditch. We welcome the £20.5 billion to be spent on health up to 2023-24, a massive increase of 3.4% every year.

Members will know that I have spoken often about the acute trust that services my constituents—or rather, that lets them down on a regular basis, unfortunately. This matter is dear to my heart because the trust is one of the worst performing in the country. As the local MP, I inherited a flawed process that involved the removal of services from our local hospital, the Alex, before the trust as a whole was ready to take them on. We are coming to the end of that painful process and seeing more money being put into our local trust, with £16 million already delivered to it, but I want that trust to hurry up and get itself out of special measures. I consistently advocate that and lobby for it. I am meeting the trust and urging it to submit its business case so that it can give my constituents the good services they need and deserve.

To sound a note of positivity, there is capital investment in that hospital and a new urgent centre for the Alex. These steps are to be welcomed, but there is more to do, so I welcome the fact that money is coming into our NHS more generally.

I want to pick up in particular on the fact that we are focusing on technological investments in the NHS more widely. I would like the Health Secretary to come to Worcester and Redditch to see what we are doing there with the innovative bed capacity app. That is helping the flow-through of patients, which will of course help more patients to be seen more quickly at the front door.

The Government have made up to £10 billion more available for social care in the three years up to 2019-20. There are lots of pressures in Worcestershire in adult and children’s social care. There is rising demand in children’s social care. I note that local authorities are able to make bids for a fund, and I would like Worcestershire to be able to do so, as it has rising need and demand.

As the daughter of a dementia sufferer, adult social care is close to my heart, and I have seen how much pressure there is on that service. The number of people over the age of 85 needing 24-hour care in England is projected to almost double to 446,000 by 2035, so I welcome the fact that there will be a long-term solution in place following the Green Paper on health and social care.

Many colleagues have touched on mental health, and I am going to touch on one specific aspect, about which I have already spoken in the Chamber: the menopause. We had a fantastic debate on that subject not long ago in this very place, and it was a real pleasure to be supported by colleagues from all across the House. I pay particular tribute my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), who responded to the debate for the Government. In fact, two male MPs spoke, and they put a real focus on the issue of mental health at the time of the menopause. That focus is really welcomed by women up and down the country.

I would like to make a plea for some of the additional mental health funding to be used for issues relating to the menopause, because that is a time when women battle with mental health issues. Surely if two men in this Chamber can talk about the menopause, businesses and other organisations up and down the country can do so as well. I want to put on record my thanks to my male colleagues from all parties who have pledged to support me further on this so that we can stop the stigma of the menopause and stop it being a taboo subject. We need to raise awareness, because this affects people’s mums, wives and partners, and the women they work with. It is good that we are raising awareness around this critical issue.

There were a number of welcome announcements in the Budget, and I want to focus on the air ambulance service. I have been privileged to meet a wonderful woman called Jenny Ashman, who is a volunteer from Inkberrow in my constituency. She is known locally as “Jenny from the chopper”, because she has raised nearly £2 million for the midlands air ambulance services, and I am sure that she will be jumping for joy at the announcement of £10 million for the air ambulance services up and down the country.

There is a lot to welcome in this Budget, but as time is short, I shall finish by saying that the Budget speaks to the aspirations of middle England. It is a practical Budget that puts more money back into the pockets of my constituents in Redditch. We are seeing tax cuts for 30 million people, which will mean that they have more money to spend. That will put money back into the economy.

I have been dismayed to hear the negativity coming from the other side of the House. The Opposition have no answers to the problems facing our country. We remember the legacy that was left by their Government when they crashed the economy, and the note from their Treasury Minister that there was no money left. That was the legacy that we inherited, yet all they have come up with in the intervening time is a plan that would cost every man, woman and child in this country £3,500. They would load £1 trillion of debt on to our hard-working citizens, and they are still blind to the misery that they inflicted on my constituents. Their comments are outdated and patronising. People should come to Redditch. They would see that, although my constituents are not rich, they are rich in spirit. They come from all walks of life, and they will welcome this Budget.