Budget Resolutions
Debate between Wes Streeting and Cherilyn Mackrory(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Wes Streeting
Who knows? I must confess I do not even know who the New Conservatives are, there are so many warring tribes and families involved every week. It is a level of reproduction that even the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson fails to match.
Turning to the list of the damned who made their way into the Chancellor’s Budget speech, the hon. Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) was identified as pushing the Government to give into the shadow Chancellor’s call to cancel their planned rise in fuel duty. Where Labour leads, the Tories follow. I wonder if he will defend his Government making pensioners in Dudley £1,000 a year worse off. The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) was singled out by the Chancellor. Does she think her constituents earning £15,000 a year will forgive her for voting to pinch an extra £580 from their pockets in tax rises?
Wes Streeting
She does! She wants to defend the Chancellor and her fingerprints on the Budget.
Cherilyn Mackrory
The hon. Gentleman seems to be taking the wrong tone with my constituents. Being overly political with each other is not something we practice, and he would know that if he spoke to my Labour opponent in Truro and Falmouth. The Chancellor singled me out because we have worked very hard across Cornwall to remove advantages for short-term holiday lets; that is all.
Wes Streeting
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. I do not think that that alters the fact that there are 60,000 people on the NHS waiting lists in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. I am sorry if she takes issue with my tone, but the simple truth is this: however much the Conservative party tries to build the idea that politics cannot change anything—that there is no point in voting, that we are all the same and that there will not be any change with a change of Government after the next general election—politics does make a difference and voting can change things. I cite in evidence the fact that when Labour left office we had the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in the history of the NHS. I cite in evidence that if we had economic growth under this Government at the rate we had growth under the previous Labour Government, there would be £40 billion extra to invest in our public services without having to raise taxes on anyone. That is Labour’s record. It is a record we are proud to defend. Conservative Members cannot defend their record—they have no record.