Access to GP Services and NHS Dentistry

Debate between Sajid Javid and Kate Hollern

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

We are working with our colleagues in the Home Office on this and other skills and healthcare issues, so I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. He talks about the major problem he is facing in Wales, and that major problem is a Labour Government. I hope he agrees—[Interruption.] He is nodding.

Look at the performance of Labour in Wales, whether on health or education: the median waiting time for outpatients in Wales is almost double the median waiting time in England. People in Wales are waiting more than three years, whereas the longest wait in England is more than two years. Thanks to the covid recovery plan we set out in this House a few months ago, the number waiting more than two years has been slashed by more than two thirds in just four months, and it will be almost zero next month.

Thousands of people in Wales are waiting two or three years. In fact, one in four patients in Labour-run Wales are waiting longer than a year. In England it is one in 20, which is far too high and will be lowered, but in Wales it is one in four. It is not surprising the hon. Member for Ilford North had nothing to say about his colleagues in power in Wales.

[Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)]

rose—

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[Sajid Javid]

I would like to hear what the hon. Lady thinks of the Labour Government in Wales and their abysmal performance when it comes to healthcare.

[Kate Hollern]

There is much better performance from the Welsh Government than from the UK Government. The Prime Minister promised 6,000 more GPs, which has not happened.

I wrote to the Secretary of State about Blackburn having only 33 GPs per 100,000 people, whereas the south-west has 73. I wrote to him about a young man whose cancer was misdiagnosed, but I have not had a response. I would say Wales is doing much better than the Secretary of State.

[Sajid Javid]

That is a very strange comment about the hon. Lady’s colleagues in Wales. Either she does not know or she is deliberately saying something she does not quite believe. Perhaps I can make her aware of the facts in Wales, where the number of people waiting more than two years for treatment currently stands at more than 70,000. That is more than three times the figure in England. That is more than three times the figure in England. It is at 70,000, and the hon. Lady seems to be very comfortable with that. I am surprised—it tells us all we need to know about Labour’s ambitions for government if she thinks that is acceptable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sajid Javid and Kate Hollern

Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I commend my hon. Friend for the huge amount of work he has done on tackling homelessness and rough sleeping; I saw that as Communities Secretary as well. The Government believe that no one should be criminalised for simply having nowhere to live and sleeping rough. The Government’s 2018 rough sleeping strategy committed us to reviewing the homelessness and rough sleeping legislation, including the Vagrancy Act 1824. That is what we are doing, and I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that further.

[Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)]

T3. The Government have been severely complacent in preparing fire services for an emergency on the scale of Grenfell Tower. There are still hundreds of dangerous high-rise buildings, and by continuing to degrade our fire service, the Government are failing to recognise the severity of the risk. Since Grenfell, Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service’s funding has been slashed by £3.8 million. Response times have continued to rise. Can the right hon. Gentleman guarantee that all fire and rescue services will be properly prepared for high-rise emergency incidents?

Integrated Communities

Debate between Sajid Javid and Kate Hollern

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman raises the important issue of resettlement. He might be interested to know that one of the policies that we will be reviewing through the Green Paper is about providing the support that is given to people who rightly and legitimately settle in this country on a long-term basis, because we have tended to have an approach, under successive Governments, where once people have their leave to remain, they are left on their own. It is very important to have an approach where they are constantly provided with information and helped along with the process—perhaps a process that eventually leads to citizenship. I am pleased that the Home Secretary will be reviewing that.

[Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I congratulate this House on its total cross-party condemnation of the vile messages that have gone to some of our colleagues. There is no place in this country for such prejudice and hate.

Broadly, I welcome this national strategy. I am extremely pleased that Blackburn with Darwen is going to be a pilot area. As I am sure the Secretary of State is aware, we have a number of fantastic examples of where the communities have integrated, and we are constantly working towards that. I have spent my whole political life working on cohesion and integration for Blackburn because that adds value to the town and to the people and makes it a better place in which to live and work. Will the Secretary of State clarify how the resources will be used, because in tackling integration we also need to tackle social and economic issues? I plead with him to come to Blackburn and share some of the experiences of our communities.

[Sajid Javid]

Let me take this opportunity to thank the hon. Lady for all the work she has been doing for Blackburn, and long before she became a Member of this House, as the former leader on community cohesion and integration. That work is well known to my Department and Ministers, but also among wider communities that have looked at the experience of Blackburn. She has set a real example and I thank her for that. This is one of the reasons Blackburn is a pilot area. We think that it has been especially innovative in this regard and can do more. We want to work with it but we also want others to learn from it.

The hon. Lady mentioned resources for social and economic issues. The Green Paper talks about resources specifically for integration. However, that will help to leverage in other funding that is available for skills, perhaps, through the Department for Work and Pensions or the Department for Education and others. That is an important way to look at the resources that will be available.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sajid Javid and Kate Hollern

Monday 16th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we will continue to look at the resources applied to adult social care, from both local councils and central Government, to make sure that they are adequate. We will also continue to push the case for reform to ensure that all councils realise that more can be done, besides just getting more funding.

[Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)]

What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that local authorities are able to move patients in need of social care from hospitals to a more appropriate facility in a timely manner, thus preventing bed-blocking?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady will know that both my Department, working with local authorities, and the Department of Health have a role to play in doing just that; they are working together closely on integration plans with all local councils. Part of the funding— £1.5 billion a year by 2020, in the improved better care fund—is designed to do just what the hon. Lady suggests; it is money that goes towards trying to promote just such integration.

[Kate Hollern]

Library figures show that between November 2013 and November 2016, instances of bed-blocking for which social care needs were solely responsible increased by 89%. In the 12 months to November 2016 alone, bed-blocking has increased by 39%. Does the Minister recognise that the precept package brought forward by the Government in December is insufficient to solve the crisis in our social care system, and is putting further pressure on our already stretched NHS?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sajid Javid and Kate Hollern

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)]

9. What discussions he has had on the effect of freezing the threshold at which graduates repay their student loans.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade (Sajid Javid)]

I consulted on the proposal to freeze the student loan repayment threshold and received responses from a wide range of interested parties. I considered those responses, as well as a detailed impact analysis, before deciding to proceed with the freezing of the threshold.

[Kate Hollern]

Does the Secretary of State agree that if a commercial company had made a retrospective change to a contract in this way, costing students £6,000 in the process, there would likely be an investigation? Does he accept that, in doing so, he breached the trust of former, current and future students?

[Sajid Javid]

What I accept is that these were the right set of changes. I considered the responses to the consultation carefully. It is important that we strike the right balance between the interests of the students, making sure that all who have the ability have the opportunity to go to university, and the interests of the taxpayer, ensuring that we have an affordable, sustainable funding system. That is exactly what the changes bring about.

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[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade (Sajid Javid)]

The recent spending review delivered a strong settlement for many of the Department’s sectors, focusing support on areas that drive up productivity across the UK.

As we have heard, in the past hour Major Tim Peake has successfully blasted into orbit. This morning, the Government launched their space policy, which has achieved lift-off. Launched a short time ago in a museum that is not far, far away, the policy document shows that there are no limits to the UK’s ambitions in this area. To mix intergalactic metaphors, we want to boldly go to infinity and beyond, and our new policy will make it so.

[Kate Hollern]

As everyone knows, if we are to improve productivity, we need a good, strong education system. Will the Secretary of State give a categorical assurance that further education institutions, such as Blackburn College in my constituency, will not receive a real-terms funding cut as a result of the cash-terms freeze in adult and 16-to-19 funding?

[Sajid Javid]

I agree with the hon. Lady on the issue of productivity and the need to boost skills. There will be area reviews, so I cannot make a promise about any particular institution. However, as the Minister for Skills has said, there will be an increase in FE funding of more than 35% in real terms over the lifetime of the Parliament. In the hon. Lady’s constituency, there has been a 75% increase in apprenticeship starts during the past five years, which I am sure she welcomes.