Oral Answers to Questions Debate
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Sarah Olney
Main Page: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)Department Debates - View all Sarah Olney's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Maria Caulfield
Actually, under this Government, last year, the number of first-time buyers passed the 400,000 mark, which is the highest number in 19 years. I will not take any lectures from a former Labour Prime Minister because when Labour was in government it saddled the NHS with a £10 billion failed IT system that never saw the light of day, an £80 billion failed private finance initiative contract that NHS trusts are still paying for, and a GP contract that enabled opt-out at weekends and evenings, which patients still suffer from.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Today marks the three-year anniversary of the death of Tom Pirie, who tragically took his own life just days after being assessed as at low risk of doing so by his counsellor. Over the last few years, I have been working with Tom’s father Philip on his campaign to improve suicide risk assessment procedure, particularly in view of the upcoming 10-year suicide prevention strategy review. Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to Tom’s life and Philip’s excellent work in his memory by providing us with an update as to when we can expect the review to be published?
Maria Caulfield
I absolutely pay tribute to Tom and to his father. I reassure him that we have many campaigners. Only last week, we received the baton of hope at No. 10 from those campaigning to reduce the number of suicides in this country. We are working on the suicide prevention plan and hope to be able to publish it very soon.