Sheila Gilmore
Main Page: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)Department Debates - View all Sheila Gilmore's debates with the Cabinet Office
(12 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberAs my hon. Friend will know, we are running a consultation on exactly those kinds of questions—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) says that it does not do that, but those are exactly the kinds of questions on which people can provide their views, and we will of course listen to all the views expressed.
Given that satisfaction with the health service rose from 34% in 1997 to 70% in 2010, will the Deputy Prime Minister withdraw his comment that there was a mess to be cleared up and change his advice to the Prime Minister by encouraging him to drop the Health and Social Care Bill?
I was pointing out that the Labour party’s position now, if I understand it correctly, is to remove the freedom of hospitals to be financially viable, thus condemning them to having to make £20 billion of savings. Guess who announced those huge savings that need to be made in the NHS? The Labour Government. The Labour party has no plans for how hospitals should make those savings and still will make no commitment to providing real-terms increases for the NHS of the sort we are making. I do not think we need to take any lessons on the NHS from the Labour party.