Income Tax (Charge)

Warinder Juss Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

The Chancellor’s Budget last week finally ended the Conservative party’s austerity. It is a Budget that fixes the foundations to deliver real change, by fixing the NHS, cutting hospital waiting lists, reforming public services and rebuilding our country.

As the Chancellor said, this Budget is about “investment, investment, investment”. This Labour Government are investing over £25.5 billion over two years in the NHS. That will cut waiting times, so that patients do not have to wait longer than 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment; provide 40,000 extra appointments; put in place new surgical hubs and diagnostic scanners, building capacity for more than 30,000 additional procedures and over 1.25 million diagnostic tests; and provide new radiotherapy machines to improve cancer treatment.

We are investing in NHS technology and digital, to run essential services and to drive NHS productivity improvements, freeing up staff time. We are providing a dedicated capital fund to deliver upgrades to GP surgeries, boosting productivity and enabling the delivery of more appointments.

We are investing £26 million to open new mental health crisis centres. At last, we have a Government who are committed to tackling the root causes of mental health problems and to supporting people to remain in work and to return to work.

We are supporting social care through at least £600 million of new grant funding to be able to increase local Government spending, alongside an £86 million increase to the disabled facilities grant to support more adaptations to homes for those with social care needs, thereby reducing hospitalisations and prolonging independence.

This Government are cutting down barriers to opportunity for all by increasing the core schools budget by £2.3 billion, supporting the recruitment of 6,500 teachers in key subjects and tackling retention issues, to prepare our children for life, work and the future.

We are providing a £1 billion increase to improve SEND provision and to improve outcomes and an additional £300 million for further education to ensure that young people are learning and developing the skills they need to succeed in the modern labour market, which will help the City of Wolverhampton college in my constituency. We are increasing investment in children’s social care reform, and it is great to see a real-terms funding increase for local government spending.

We are taking all of these decisions, while also taking tough decisions on spending and welfare, eliminating fraud and error in the welfare system—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I call Baggy Shanker.

Oral Answers to Questions

Warinder Juss Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

17. What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of patient access to primary care services.

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

20. What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of patient access to primary care services.

[The Minister for Care (Stephen Kinnock)]

As identified in Lord Darzi’s review, primary care is broken. Satisfaction with GP services has fallen from a peak of 80% in 2009 to just 35% last year—a truly damning indictment of 14 years of Tory failure. We will rebuild general practice. We have invested £82 million to recruit 1,000 new GPs, we have launched our red tape challenge, and we are committed to improving continuity of care and ending the 8 am scramble. On primary care more broadly, we are committed to boosting the role of community pharmacies, enabling patients to be treated for certain conditions by their local pharmacists, without the need to see a GP.

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[Stephen Kinnock]

We are absolutely committed to the challenge of cutting red tape and reducing the administrative burden for staff to help patients get the care that they need. An important element of our plan will be streamlining access to registration in order to move it online, and we are working at pace to make online registration available in all practices. I am very happy to come back to my hon. Friend on the constituency issue that she raises.

[Warinder Juss]

Lord Darzi’s report on the NHS states that people are struggling to see their GPs. Prevention is better than cure, and interventions to protect health tend to be far less costly than dealing with the consequences of illness, both financially and in terms of outcomes. Early and quick access to primary care is therefore crucial. I accept that it is not always necessary to see a GP—an appointment with a nurse may suffice—but what steps are being taken to ensure that patients in my Wolverhampton West constituency have quick, easy and direct access to GP surgeries?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I note that Wolverhampton West has seen a decrease of 28 full-time equivalent GPs since 2018, which of course massively exacerbates the issues to which my hon. Friend refers. We will introduce a modern booking system to end the 8 am scramble and make it easier for patients to contact their GP. In particular, we are committed to increasing the use of the NHS app to view patient records and order repeat prescriptions. All of that will take pressure off the booking system.