Steve Brine
Main Page: Steve Brine (Conservative - Winchester)Department Debates - View all Steve Brine's debates with the Cabinet Office
(12 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The King’s Fund, which carried out this survey, says:
“There is no evidence of a real decline in service quality or performance”.
That is what the King’s Fund says about its own survey. Frankly, I would put more weight on a survey of people who have actually been using the NHS. As I said, of the users of the NHS, 92% of in-patients and 95% of out-patients rated their overall experience as good, very good or excellent. I do not think that is surprising, because since the election there are 4,000 more doctors, mixed-sex accommodation is down 96%, hospital infections are at their lowest levels since surveillance began, the number of people waiting more than 18 weeks is also at its lowest since records began, and average waiting times are down as well. The health service is performing extremely well and we should praise all those who have delivered that performance.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
Q11. As a constituency MP, the Prime Minister will be aware of the current shortage in primary school places across our country. It is particularly acute in Winchester right now, where temporary classrooms are the order of the day, to accommodate reception year pupils for this September. May I ask the Prime Minister what the Government are doing to help councils in this bulge year, and whether he is confident that enough is being done to prevent a repeat performance when those pupils reach secondary school in six years’ time?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend raises an important point. I know that in certain constituencies this is becoming an issue. What the Department for Education has done is put aside £1.4 billion of schools capital for 2011-12 and a further £1.4 billion for the subsequent year. There is also the opportunity, through free schools, to have excellent new schools established in hon. Members’ constituencies, so that we get not only new capacity, but the competition and choice that I believe will help to drive up standards.