Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Will Quince and Steven Bonnar(1 year, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Will Quince)
That is hugely frustrating, because I know how hard my hon. Friend campaigned for the Stockton community diagnostic centre and that he recognises the urgency of increasing diagnostic capacity locally. Delivery plans have to be agreed at a local level, so I urge Stockton council to work with him to meet the ambitious timeline and get Stockton CDC open as soon as possible.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
A recent report by the Trussell Trust warns that people facing hunger are more likely to be affected by spiralling debt and a decline in their physical and mental health. The same report shows that one in seven people in the UK faced hunger in the last year due to a lack of money. Will the Minister make representations to his colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions about increasing support for low-income households, thereby improving public health outcomes for all?
NHS Industrial Action: Government Preparations
Debate between Will Quince and Steven Bonnar(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
Scotland’s First Minister has managed in one day to do what the Tory Government could not—agree with the nursing unions to call off strikes planned for this month. NHS workers are the backbone of these countries. If they do not work, the country does not work, and if the country is not working, it is broken. Britain is broken, is it not? And Brexit has broken Britain, has it not? The Tories will not negotiate and the Labour Opposition spokesperson has branded the British Medical Association as “hostile”, while in Scotland the strikes are off, and they are off permanently. An offer of 7.5% has been negotiated and agreed, with an 11.24% pay rise for the lowest paid across the board in NHS Scotland. Why are the UK Government refusing to give public servants a decent pay increase when they have all the financial power to do so?
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. My understanding is that the industrial action in Scotland has been suspended, not cancelled, as the hon. Gentleman suggested. The Scottish Government have made a considerably higher offer, partly because a politician has got involved in pay negotiations, directly in contrast to the independent pay review body, and it will be interesting to see whether the First Minister of Scotland is going to do this every single year and go against the recommendations of their pay review body.
Would the hon. Gentleman like to confirm—I appreciate he cannot do it now—whether the Scottish Government have also looked at things such as leave and working times? I think it is important to stress that every 1% increase for the “Agenda for Change” workforce equates to about £750 million. That is £750 million that will come out of the NHS budget and that we will not be able to spend on things such as tackling the elective backlog, which is so important to people up and down the country.
Universal Credit: Delayed Roll-Out
Debate between Will Quince and Steven Bonnar(4 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Lady for her question but do not accept the anecdotal points that she makes. Governments and Ministers make and take decisions based on evidence. I am building the evidence base within the Department based on the family resource survey and the questions in it in relation to food insecurity, and working with food bank providers—the Trussell Trust being one, but there are around 800 independent food bank providers—to better understand the issues and how we can tackle food insecurity in the round and for good.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
This Government need to take a long, hard look at themselves and the pressures they are placing on hard-working, low-income families and individuals. I do not trust the Minister’s pledges. For a hard-working, loving parent, it is absolutely, gut-wrenchingly worrying—which is no doubt beyond the comprehension of many of the privileged folk of this place—to find out that the moneys they are depending on, and entitled to, will not be coming. I do not need to visit a jobcentre to know that; I speak with some authority on the matter, because until my election to this place, I was a universal credit claimant, as a single parent. I ask the Minister to scrap the five-week wait and stop plunging hard-working families and individuals into further debt by making it necessary for them to avail themselves of a loan from the DWP.
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I would suggest very strongly that he should visit his local jobcentre, because he would have a better understanding. [Interruption.]