Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Wales Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Sheryll Murray Excerpts
Wednesday 8th September 2010

(13 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Nick Clegg Portrait The Deputy Prime Minister
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I of course congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his birthday and I am delighted to see that his enthusiasm for things European has not mellowed with age. I am happy to give him a gift, but on the question of whether it is a gift of the size and shape that he has requested, I am afraid that I cannot oblige him today.

Sheryll Murray Portrait Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
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Q8. Some people enter the country and receive NHS treatment but do not pay their bill. Then they apply for another visa to come back again. Is that fair? Will the Government stop it?

Nick Clegg Portrait The Deputy Prime Minister
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My hon. Friend is of course right that fairness is one of the NHS’s founding principles and we must retain that principle. We need to consider measures to make possible dealing with people who have rightly been given care by the NHS—because the NHS provides care to everybody on the basis of need—and who are supposed to make a contribution but escape the obligation to do so. That is what we are working on and we will be coming forward with announcements soon.