Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Life Sciences (George Freeman)]

I can confirm that the Minister for Community and Social Care will be delighted to meet my hon. Friend. NHS England is looking into how the fair funding formula works between different clinical commissioning groups, which is the reason for the uncertainty, and I, too, would be happy to meet my hon. Friend and confirm the process.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

T8. Millions of people are worried about the privatisation of our national health service, so it is a real concern that the health sector remains part of the negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Tomorrow the European Parliament votes on TTIP, but the European Commission has already said it will not remove health from those negotiations, so can the Government confirm that they will defend the NHS and support the removal of health and other public services from future TTIP negotiations?

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

Really, the Labour party has got to stop this scaremongering that it did so much of, and to so little effect, at the election. Privatisation is not happening, but I will tell the hon. Gentleman what is happening: at his hospital, 85 more doctors in the last five years, 185 more nurses, 7,700 more operations, 20,000 more people being seen within four hours at A&E—progress in the NHS with a strong economy.