Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rishi Sunak and Simon Lightwood

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend should be commended for his tireless campaigning on this issue. He is particularly right to focus on suicide, and I am grateful for his engagement with the suicide prevention strategy, which sets out the actions that we will take to reduce suicides in the coming years. It was thanks in part to his campaigning that on International Men’s Day we announced that we are appointing the first men’s health ambassador and launching a men’s health taskforce. I look forward to continued collaboration with him so that we can represent his concerns adequately.

[Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q4. Convicted criminals are being held in police station cells across West Yorkshire because the Government have completely failed to deliver more prison places. Two thirds of prisons are overcrowded, criminals are let out early—if sentenced at all—only 2% of rapists reach court, serious violence is up by 60%, knife crime is up by 70%, and nearly 65,000 cases are waiting to be heard. How can the Prime Minister reassure the residents of Wakefield that they are safe on our streets?

[The Prime Minister]

We have a clear plan to protect victims, punish criminals and cut crime. We are in fact investing £400 million more in prison places on top of the £4 billion that I announced as Chancellor, which is delivering 20,000 new cells. We are also making sure that rapists serve every day of their sentences and ensuring that life means life for the worst offenders—something that I hope the Labour party will be supporting soon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rishi Sunak and Simon Lightwood

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we want to safeguard the future of our public services and make sure that our young people inherit a strong economy, we must be disciplined on spending and borrowing. She is absolutely right about no unfunded spending commitments, unlike the Labour party, as she says, which at the last count has made £90 billion of unfunded spending commitments. It is the same old Labour: it always runs out of other people’s money.

[Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q6. Less than half of Wakefield’s children managed to see an NHS dentist last year. My constituent Mr Faqirzai’s six-year-old daughter has never seen an NHS dentist. She has 10 teeth that are black with decay and is often crying in pain. Her father feels helpless. He has called every dentist in Wakefield for a place but has not managed to secure one. More than 25% of five-year-olds in Wakefield already have visible tooth decay, so when will the Prime Minister stop dithering and take action to address our national dental emergency?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very sorry to hear about the case raised by the hon. Gentleman, and I am happy to look into that specific one more closely. As I said in answer to an earlier question, we have recently reformed the NHS dentistry contract, and the hundreds of millions of pounds more funding and more dentists should make a difference around the country, but I will write to him on that specific case.