Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What I meant when I said we would protect the NHS is just that. We are spending £12.7 billion more on the NHS; Labour said that that was irresponsible. We have 7,000 more doctors in our NHS, 3,000 more nurses in our NHS, and over 1,000 more midwives in our NHS, but there is something we have less of in our NHS—we have 19,000 fewer bureaucrats, and that money has been piled into patient care, including improving primary care right around the country.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

The people of Newark have enjoyed becoming better acquainted with the Prime Minister this past month.

I regret to inform the Prime Minister that last week the town of Southwell in my constituency was again flooded. Will he reaffirm his commitment to supporting my proposal that the parts of Nottinghamshire that were severely affected by the floods of 2013 receive similar grants to the parts elsewhere in the country flooded at the beginning of this year?

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, may I welcome my hon. Friend to his place in the House of Commons after what was a long and arduous but well fought and very positive by-election campaign?

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which is that there are parts of the country, in Nottinghamshire but also elsewhere, that flooded during the course of 2013 and were not eligible for some of the payments made subsequent to the flooding at the turn of the last year, with support for householders and farmers and other sorts of proposals. We are looking very hard at whether we can put back to the beginning of the 2013 financial year the eligibility criteria for that flood work. I will look at this issue very carefully and talk to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to see whether we can resolve it for my hon. Friend.