Engagements — House of Commons, 2015-03-18
Topic: Health
Questions: When this Government took office, metal theft was rife, especially in the black country. This Government listened to the all-party group on combating metal theft, banned cash payments, and passed the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013. Once my right hon. Friend has been returned for another term as Prime Minister, what more will he do to ensure that instances of this abhorrent crime reduce still further so that no more church roofs get horrendously damaged and no more trains get stopped in their tracks as a result of sheer greed?; One in four patients is waiting more than a week for a GP appointment, and some in my constituency are waiting two weeks. A third cannot even get through on the phone, but 23% of London GPs are due to quit the NHS in the next five years. Will the Prime Minister take responsibility for the increasing crisis in GPs on his watch?; The black country economy in the west midlands has been one of the fastest growing local economies of any region in the United Kingdom over the last two years, with more investment in manufacturing, new high-skill jobs, more exports and better opportunities for local people in my constituency. Would the Prime Minister agree that as part of our long-term economic plan, the people in the black country can be proud of that industrial revival, and be confident in saying that things are made in the black country and sold around the world?; In January, John Smedley in Clay Cross announced that it was making 21 seamstresses redundant. It took nearly two months before someone from the Jobcentre Plus rapid response team went in to see those women. The response was unsympathetic, unhelpful and anything but rapid. What has happened to rapid response and why have those workers been so badly let down?; The unemployment count in Redditch at the end of the year had fallen to below 850 for the first time since 2005. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be catastrophic for the hard-working people of Redditch if that was undone by the Labour party?; The Prime Minister will be well aware of the hard work that went into the Smith agreement. He will be as disappointed as I am to see the front page of the Daily Record today showing four Scottish National party councillors burning that very agreement. Not only did they escape discipline; one of them was actually promoted. Are these the actions of a party that seeks to increase its representation in this place?; When the Prime Minister answered the Leader of the Opposition, he was able to show that cancer waiting targets had been met in my right hon. Friend’s constituency. They obviously have a very effective Member of Parliament, but—[Interruption.] The Prime Minister is responsible for the national health service as a whole. He will be aware that nationally the 62-day wait for treatment for cancer patients after referral has been breached in each of the last four quarters. What does he have to say to the more than 5,000 cancer patients, including one in four people with bowel or lung cancer, who are waiting months before they get any treatment?
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): We have made sure that half a million more people have been referred for cancer treatment, and as a result, cancer survival rates are going up. As well as looking at the national figures, it is worth while looking at constituency figures, and I have the right hon. Lady’s figures here—she is obviously a very effective MP too, because her area is meeting all three cancer targets. That is what is happening in Britain—more people referred, more resources going in, more people surviving, but more to be done—but let me remind her: this can only happen with a strong economy. It is when the Labour party wrecks the economy that it wrecks the health service.