NHS: Independent Investigation

Debate between Wes Streeting and Jo White

Thursday 12th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

Fiscal policy is a matter for the Chancellor. I know on which side my bread is buttered, so I will not write her Budget or spending review now, but let me reassure the hon. Gentleman that, notwithstanding the £22 billion black hole that the Conservatives left in the public finances this year and the weak foundations of our economy that we have inherited, the Chancellor knows as well as I do that it is investment and reform that will deliver results. It will take time—we cannot reverse more than a decade of underinvestment in a single Budget or even a single spending review—but at least we have a Government able to face up to the hard choices and capable of making them.

[Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I very much welcome Lord Darzi’s report, which exposes how our country was let down by the previous Government. In my Bassetlaw constituency, I will be asked when people who need a GP appointment will get one, and when the 2,000-person dental waiting list will come to an end. I am listening to my GPs and my dentists so that I can work with them to tackle this crisis. I will be meeting them shortly. What is the Secretary of State’s message to them all?

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend, who I am delighted to see representing Bassetlaw, is already showing herself to be an outstanding champion for her community. She raises a really good challenge that we all face as constituency MPs: the public recognise that change takes time and that we cannot fix more than a decade of problems in the immediate future, but they want to know that at least we are hitting the ground running and getting the job done.

I can reassure my hon. Friend’s constituents in Bassetlaw that within our first couple of months, this Government employed 1,000 more GPs on the frontline who had been left unemployed by the previous Conservative Government. We did that pretty much immediately. We have settled—I hope; we await the outcome of the ballot—the junior doctors’ dispute, so we can remove the cost of disruption and industrial action and start work on getting the waiting lists down. We will be working at pace to deliver 40,000 more appointments every week so that we can cut waiting lists, and 700,000 urgent emergency dentistry appointments so that we can ensure that people get the care they need. Every single promise in our manifesto, notwithstanding the challenges in the public finances, was a fully costed, fully funded promise that we will keep and that the country can afford.