Access to GP Services and NHS Dentistry

Debate between Wes Streeting and Richard Fuller

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point about the importance of looking at primary care as a whole and the really powerful and valuable contribution that community pharmacies can make, alleviating pressures on other parts of the primary care system, particularly general practice.

Communities across the country are experiencing those problems; let me take one place at random to illustrate the scale of the challenge. Today, after a decade of Conservative mismanagement, the city of Wakefield has 16 fewer GPs than in 2013. In fact, Wakefield has not seen a single additional GP since the Prime Minister promised 6,000 more at the last election, and since Wakefield has been served by a Conservative MP—albeit, thankfully, no longer—it has seen three GP practices close, with some surgeries so short-staffed that 2,600 patients are left to fight over one family doctor. Last month, patients in Wakefield were able to book 25,000 fewer GP appointments than in November 2019, the last month in which they were served by a Labour MP. The only good news for general practice in Wakefield in recent years has been that Simon Lightwood, an NHS worker and brilliant candidate in Thursday’s by-election, has successfully campaigned to save the King Street walk-in centre. [Interruption.] They don’t like it. Conservative Members shout in protest and point the finger at us, but they have been in government for 12 years.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about problems, but his motion does not include one solution. He has now been speaking for 20 minutes, and he has not outlined one solution. If he wishes to be taken seriously as a politician, will he now turn to some solutions to the problems he has outlined?

[Wes Streeting]

It is certainly true that I am saving the best until last in my speech, but the hon. Gentleman may have missed the point I have made repeatedly, which is that the NHS—an organisation that employs more than 1.2 million people—needs a workforce strategy. It needs a proper analysis of what its workforce needs are today, the workforce needs of tomorrow, and the future shape of the workforce. We gave Government Members the opportunity to vote for that; the hon. Gentleman voted against it, and he wants to lecture me about being taken seriously as a politician. Who is he trying to kid? I do not know how the hon. Gentleman voted, because it was a secret ballot, but the fact that a majority of Government Members voted to keep the current Prime Minister in office means that they are not in any position at all to lecture anyone else on who is and is not a serious politician.

The Economy

Debate between Wes Streeting and Richard Fuller

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

The shadow Chancellor has always been willing to work with the Chancellor and we would be very happy to engage with the Government in terms of the flexibility that we are calling for in the sector-by-sector approach. In fact, as the Government did in establishing the job retention scheme, we would encourage them to sit down with employers and trade unions to look at what support is needed, for how long and across which sectors to make sure that people come through this crisis. The challenge with what the hon. Gentleman describes is that for too many businesses it will simply be too late. When there are some businesses that are still shut down through no fault or choice of their own, it is completely unreasonable for them to see Government support beginning to wind up before they can actually open their doors to business. The public health response and the economic response have to go hand in hand. I would have thought that point would be obvious to the Government.

Part of the Government’s challenge is demand and getting consumers spending again, as we have heard, but many of the challenges are also supply side, where a cut in VAT or a £10 discount on a Tuesday night is neither here nor there. Beyond tourism and hospitality, we have seen job losses across a range of sectors in recent days and weeks. The Chancellor offered nothing for manufacturing, including for companies at risk in aerospace and automotive industries, and nothing for the businesses whose doors are still closed. We fear that the Chancellor’s refusal to accept a more flexible and tailored sector-by-sector approach to business support and job retention is a failure of judgment that will be reflected in higher unemployment figures. I would be delighted to be proven wrong on that point.

In his statement, the Chancellor said that people need to know that although hardship lies ahead, no one will be left without hope. I am afraid, as we have already heard, he offered no hope whatever to the excluded, those who have consistently fallen through the cracks of the Chancellor’s support for employed and self-employed workers. Instead, they remain forgotten. Some of this is about choices and priorities. It is not clear why many of those facing the greatest financial hardship were offered no direct financial support in what the Chancellor announced today. Those who will benefit from the cut in stamp duty will, by definition, be better off.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I am very pleased that the hon. Gentleman is moving on to this group of people. He has just been talking about extending existing programmes from which they are excluded. In addition to wanting to extend those programmes, what does he want to happen to those who have been excluded, so that that sense of being left behind no longer continues?

[Wes Streeting]

It seems to me that people who have been excluded require exactly the same sort of assistance as people who have been included, which is direct support to protect their incomes. We would be very happy to sit down with the Treasury to discuss how to bring that about.

Turning to climate change, the Chancellor promised a green recovery with concern for the environment at its heart. What we actually got today was a scaled-back ambition that fell well short of what the Committee on Climate Change and climate change justice campaigners were looking for. The Conservative manifesto promised £9 billion for energy efficiency. Today the Chancellor announced just £2 billion, which is about a fifth of what they promised people before the election. If the crisis has taught us anything, it is that there is such a thing as too late. It is this decade to 2030 where action will really count if we are to prevent catastrophic climate breakdown —not the next 30 years to 2050, but the next 10 years to 2030—so where was the green new deal? A green industrial strategy will get our country back on track to meet its climate obligations in the longer term, but it can also be the shot in the arm our country needs in the shorter term, creating new jobs and delivering improvements to our quality of life.