John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)Department Debates - View all John Bercow's debates with the Cabinet Office
(10 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberWould the Minister care to comment on the recent dramatic fall in the disposable household income of the former Welsh Minister for Natural Resources and Food? Does he agree that, in that instance, the fall in household income was absolutely justified, given the disgraceful dirty tricks the former Minister was employing against other Members of the Welsh Assembly?
The Minister has no responsibility for that matter. The hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) has put his thoughts on the record with his usual assertiveness.
Has my hon. Friend seen the evidence from the Office for National Statistics that, since the election in 2010, the gap between disposable incomes in Wales and in the rest of the UK has narrowed every year? That gap widened in each of the three years before the last election during the tenure of the Labour party.
Will the Prime Minister welcome—[Interruption.]
Will the Prime Minister welcome the President, MPs and choir of the German Parliament, who have come to sing in a joint concert with our parliamentary choir in Westminster Hall tonight to commemorate the centenary of the first world war and the tercentenary of the Hanoverian monarchy?
It is very obvious that the Prime Minister does not want to talk about what he said on accident and emergency, where the House of Commons called him out. [Interruption.] Let us go to the common-sense definition of what a waiting time—[Interruption.]
Order. As always, it does not matter how long it takes; the question will be heard, so the braying and the yelling and the calculated heckling might as well cease, as we are just going to keep going for as long as is necessary.
Let us go to the common-sense definition of a waiting time in A and E. It is not how long someone waits to be assessed; it is the time between arriving at the A and E and leaving it. The number of people waiting more than four hours is at its highest level in a decade. Why does the Prime Minister not just admit the truth, which everybody in the country knows? People are waiting longer in A and E.