Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Yes, of course. Any change in something as complex and important as the NHS in any part of the country needs to be done with the fullest possible participation of the health professionals who will be delivering that change. I regularly encounter—I am sure that my hon. Friend has found the same—health professionals who complain about the straitjacket of decision making from Whitehall and who will welcome the idea that more decisions can be taken locally to suit the health needs of local communities.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

First, may I echo the Deputy Prime Minister’s words about the tragic air crash in the Alps?

Over the past five years, average cuts to local authorities have been £80 per person, but in the Deputy Prime Minister’s city of Sheffield the figure is almost three times higher, and in my city of Liverpool it is almost five times higher. Will he take this final opportunity at the Dispatch Box to admit to the House that the Conservative Government whom he has supported for five years is no friend of the north?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I know that the hon. Gentleman’s party is in perpetual denial about the economic mess it bequeathed this Government. The problem is that, because of mismanagement on Labour’s watch, the economy blew up, the banks, which it was sucking up to, held a gun to our heads, and 6% was wiped off the value of our national economy, which took £2,400 off every household in this country. That is what the Labour party did. We have had to pick up the pieces. Of course, given that local public spending represents about a quarter of the total, savings need to be made locally as well as nationally, but that is a direct consequence of Labour’s mismanagement of the national economy.