Business of the House

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

This sounds a very serious matter of which I must confess I was not previously aware. I will take it up on behalf of the hon. Lady with the Home Secretary, who will be in front of the House on 13 July for oral questions.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

For what it is worth, I think that Essex probably has the edge and for the third time in four years will win the county championship when it gets started.

Some 700,000 people have had their hip and knee replacements cancelled as a result of covid-19. Will my right hon. Friend find time for us to have a debate in this place about how we tackle that backlog, but also in a way that keeps services as close to people as possible so that we do not have a situation that has been proposed by East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust where it strips back our elective orthopaedic service in Ipswich and moves it to Colchester? This is very unpopular in Ipswich and, in my view, would be detrimental to my constituents.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, leaving aside his jibe about Essex county cricket. I commend him for his stalwart representation of the people of Ipswich in this House. We know that fewer people are coming into the NHS when they need to. That is why the NHS has begun restoring services that were rightly suspended while we dealt with the initial impact of covid-19. It is working on the principle that the most urgent treatment should be brought back first, and this will be driven by local demands on the system. The matter in his constituency sounds like a worthy subject for an Adjournment debate to highlight it more broadly.