Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Tuckwell Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As ever, the right hon. Gentleman is distracting from the actual record of what the SNP is doing in Scotland. This obsession with independence means that Scottish schoolchildren are being let down, plummeting down international league tables; the Scottish NHS is the only place in the United Kingdom where funding is actually falling in real terms; and taxes are going up for ordinary hard-working families and small businesses. That is what the SNP is doing in Scotland while this UK Government are delivering for them.

[Steve Tuckwell (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

Q4. Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating Uxbridge College, which has recently entered into a pioneering partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology? This is groundbreaking work for the further education sector and it will have great benefits for local businesses and local students, and for the education sector and the local economy.

[The Prime Minister]

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Uxbridge College and the West London Institute of Technology on their collaboration with MIT. This is equipping students with the skills of the future that local businesses require, and that is very much the story of this Government, with the biggest long-term settlement for post-16 education in this country in years and a proud record of creating over 5.5 million apprenticeships since 2010—providing opportunity for all, while the Labour party wants to halve the number of apprenticeships and put a brake on people’s aspirations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Tuckwell Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We continue to call for international humanitarian law to be respected and for civilians to be protected. That is what our current legal assessment says is happening: that, as the Foreign Secretary outlined yesterday, Israel plans to act within international humanitarian law and has the ability to do so. But we are deeply concerned about the impact on the civilian population in Gaza. That is why we have trebled the amount of aid that we provide to the region, and just recently we sent our first maritime shipment of aid to Egypt. A UK military ship delivered over 80 tonnes of new blankets and life-saving medical equipment for Gaza, and we are working with Jordan to find more land routes. We will continue to do everything we can to support the vulnerable people who are being impacted by what is happening on the ground.

[Steve Tuckwell (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

Q13.   In my constituency, the new Hillingdon hospital has full planning permission and full funding and enabling works are well under way. Does the Prime Minister agree that this new state-of-the-art hospital will uplift the health benefits for the residents of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, and will he join me in visiting the project site at a time when his diary allows?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has been a fantastic campaigner for the new Hillingdon hospital and I agree that it will provide fantastic care to him and his constituents. I am pleased that planning permission and funding have now been granted for the site and that work is progressing. I will look at my diary, but in the meantime I can tell him that my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary will be very happy to visit the project and see the significant progress for herself.