Health and Social Care

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that elegant but telling point about the cross-party support that there should be. We are trying to create the conditions by decisive Government action for exactly the kind of insurance systems that I know he wants to see.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

It has been a long time coming, but this announcement is too little, too late for the 34,000 people who have died of covid with dementia. Will the Prime Minister tell us when he will honour his manifesto pledge to double research spending into this cruel disease that took my mum—it was isolating before covid—or is this just another one going the same way as the money for the NHS promised on the side of the bus?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very sorry to hear about the suffering of the hon. Member’s mother. Dementia is a very cruel affliction, and it is because of the cruelty of that lottery about who gets it and who does not that we are putting in the measures that we are. But we are also funding extra research into dementia, and my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary is determined to ensure that we continue with the moonshot that I was referring to earlier.