Health and Social Care

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from Questions to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on 28 January 2020.

[Mr Perkins]

I do not know whether the Minister is aware, but we have a winter every year. We have had one for the past 71 years, and yet these are the worst A&E waiting times in history, and they are the culmination of the policies that his party has followed for the past nine years: the cuts in social care, the number of GPs driven out of practices, and this Government’s failure on prevention. All of that has led us to the worst A&E waiting times in history, and the Minister’s answer does not start to look at the failure that he has delivered.

[Edward Argar]

Well, as I pointed out to the hon. Gentleman—he may not have heard this—demand in A&E has significantly increased this winter. He asks about GPs. I am sure he fully supports our clear commitment to 50 million more GP appointments and 6,000 more GPs. I am sure he also welcomes, in his own constituency, the £19 million investment by this Government in 2017 in a new urgent treatment centre, which will serve his constituents and is due to start work this summer.

[Official Report, 28 January 2020, Vol. 670, c. 664.]

Letter of correction from the Minister for Health, the hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar):

An error has been identified in the response I gave to the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins).

The correct response should have been: