Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Helen Whately

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Helen Whately)]

Right now, we are putting an extra £750 million into our health and social care system to free up beds in hospitals. Looking ahead, we will shift the dial on the decades-old problem of delayed discharge by properly planning for discharge, making more care available at home, and joining up health and social care in a way that has never been done before. That is how we are freeing up beds in hospitals such as the Alexandra in Redditch.

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the Minister for that answer. In Worcestershire, we warmly welcome the £2.6 million that has been allocated as our share of the discharge fund. Will the Minister set out when my constituents who use the Alexandra will start to see these changes flowing through? What practical changes will they see and what impact will there be on waiting times and waiting lists?

[Helen Whately]

I thank my hon. Friend for her excellent and important question about her local share of the £750 million of extra funding for discharge this winter. I can tell her that, in Worcestershire, money is already going into extra placements in homecare, community care and care homes, and into providing practical support to help people when they get home from hospital, in partnership with the voluntary sector. I assure her that we will publish the spending plans for her area and the rest of the country shortly.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Helen Whately

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

The hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) made a different point from the one I made. My point stands because it was about the building of houses.

By contrast with the previous Labour Government, the current Government have made progress on the gender pay gap. This is the Government who are requiring companies to publish data on the gender pay gap. As we well know, and as has been said this afternoon, transparency is a huge driver of change. We have seen that in many sectors, including a lot in the health sector, which is where I got most of my experience. This Government introduced and are raising the national living wage, which disproportionately benefits women; this Government have taken the lowest paid out of tax; this Government are making sure that for every £1 that the lowest-income households pay in tax, they benefit from £4-worth of public spending; and this Government have overseen a huge expansion in jobs so that millions more are in work.

On the point that the hon. Member for Brent Central made about children, it is significant that many more children are now in households in which somebody in the family is working; far fewer are in workless households. We know that work is key to getting out of poverty.

[Rachel Maclean]

My hon. Friend is making a great point about our record on job creation. Does she also recognise that it is this Government who have overseen the greatest expansion of women in work since records began?