Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vicky Ford and Helen Whately

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Social Care (Helen Whately)]

As the hon. Lady will have heard me say earlier, we are grateful to international care workers who come to care for our loved ones in this country. We need to get the balance right between international recruitment and our home-grown care workforce. On the question specifically on dependants, I say to her that every care worker who comes here to do work in the UK has a choice as to whether to come here or not.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

T8. I thank the Health and Secondary Care Minister for visiting the new medical school in Chelmsford yesterday. This is the first time that students have ever been able to train as doctors in Essex in its history, and the results are phenomenal. This is living proof of the Government’s commitment to train the NHS staff of the future. What progress is he making to increase work placements for students so that we can train even more doctors, nurses and people for important roles such as physician associates?

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Vicky Ford and Helen Whately

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

I have already taken an intervention from the hon. Lady, so she has had a chance to make her point.

[Vicky Ford]

Does my hon. Friend agree that making sure people can keep more of their earnings before they pay tax, introducing the national living wage and reducing the very high taper rate for people on legacy benefits will all contribute to helping people to get out of the in-work poverty trap?

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and she reminds me of a constituency case, before universal credit, of a mum who was looking to raise her income but who was coming up against a threshold. If she worked more than 16 hours a week, she would not benefit, so she was trapped in poverty—the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) used the word “trapped” earlier—because it did not make sense for her to increase her hours of work.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Relief from Non-Domestic Rates) Bill

Debate between Vicky Ford and Helen Whately

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 10th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

I completely agree. As in his constituency, there are parts of my constituency that do not have 4G, 3G or even enough mobile signal to make a phone call. I am very keen for the Government to intervene to ensure that there is comprehensive mobile phone reception across rural areas. I also hope that we can have a catch-up for those areas, so that they can canter quickly through 3G and 4G and then go straight to 5G.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

While we are on the subject of notspots and blackout areas, does my hon. Friend agree that there are priority areas such as along railway lines? Many of my constituents commute every day and it is so frustrating not even being able to get a phone signal on the railway line. The Bill will enable extra infrastructure, so that we have connected commuters, which is key in the 21st century.