NHS Winter Update

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Alex Sobel

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

First of all, I join my hon. Friend in thanking Ms Bullock for her work and public service, and I wish her a speedy recovery.

On the progress made in my hon. Friend’s local area, he is right: there are some really encouraging signs for the future of the NHS. All the work that we have been doing across all the recovery plans—whether it is for urgent and emergency care, primary care or elective recovery plans—is about embedding progress in the future of our NHS in this year of all years, as we celebrate 75 years of its establishment.

On the impact of the junior doctors’ strikes, my hon. Friend is right to refer to the number of new nurses and the progress that has been made locally. In fact, this year we have been able to announce that we have met a manifesto commitment to recruit 50,000 more nurses. We made that promise in 2019. We have met it early, as well as the commitment to have 50 million more GP appointments than in 2019—two manifesto commitments made, and two manifesto commitments kept.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Happy new year, Mr Deputy Speaker.

More and more of my constituents are waiting longer and longer for emergency care. In 2010, the target for emergency care was 95% of patients within four hours. The Government watered down that target to 76%, and are not meeting that. When will they meet their own target, and when can we expect to see 95% of my constituents being seen within four hours?

[Victoria Atkins]

I hope the hon. Gentleman is injecting the same anguish into the conversations that I imagine he is having with his local junior doctors, asking them to come back to work. Of course, having junior doctors not working in hospitals across the NHS has an impact—of course it does; they are a vital part of our NHS. The attention of NHS leaders, medical directors and clinicians over past weeks has had to be diverted towards covering the strike action rather than making the sorts of improvements and progress we all want to see across urgent and emergency care, in line with our recovery plan.

Rural Crime and Public Services

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Alex Sobel

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I wonder, then, if the hon. Lady could help with the fact that her constabulary, as of March last year, had reserves of £32.2 million—20% of funding. It may be that the police and crime commissioner has plans for how those reserves are to be spent, but that is a decision for the PCC. We need to be careful. The whole point of police and crime commissioners is that they are democratically accountable to local people. They are elected by local people to set policing priorities. Decisions on how money is spent must be made by local police and crime commissioners. We gave those powers to police and crime commissioners precisely because we thought it was better for local people to make those decisions, working together with chief constables, rather than bureaucrats in Whitehall trying to decide policing priorities across the country.

As I said, taken together, public investment in policing has grown from £11.9 billion in 2015-16 to £13 billion in this financial year. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has made it clear that he will prioritise police funding at the next spending review, again demonstrating this Government’s commitment to providing the police with the resources they need.

Community policing is obviously very important in our rural areas.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

There is a lot of talk about rural areas. Geographically, over half of my constituency is rural and we have rural crime, such as fly-tipping and the theft of agricultural equipment. The West Yorkshire police and crime commissioner is perceived as being an urban PCC. Does the Minister accept that even in supposedly urban areas there are large numbers of rural crimes?

[Victoria Atkins]

Absolutely. I do not claim there are boundaries when it comes to criminal behaviour. Indeed, we have heard from across the House how some criminals deliberately exploit county and constabulary boundaries, because they hope that that will cause investigations and so on to be more difficult for the police. We are very clear that we need the police to work together better. In fairness, I think they are doing that. There have been huge changes in the way police forces talk to each other and share information. On county lines for example, there is a great deal of work going on to co-ordinate and share intelligence, and we see this with the regional organised crime units.

The reformed policing landscape and the introduction of police and crime commissioners by the Government has supported community policing. We have enabled police and crime commissioners to work with local people to set priorities for their areas. They are the ones best placed to make decisions with their communities, rural or urban, based on their local knowledge and expertise.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council is also transforming its role and presence in dealing with rural crime. The NPCC recently published its rural affairs strategy, which, following a period of consultation with rural stakeholders, sets out operational and organisational policing priorities in respect of tackling crimes that particularly affect rural areas.

The strategy recognises that rural areas experience the range of crimes faced in our urban areas—the threat of modern slavery, for example—and also identifies specific rural threats, including poaching, fuel theft, theft of farm machinery and types of antisocial behaviour such as fly-tipping. We welcome that strategy.