Engagements — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Immigration
Questions: Rugby is the fastest-growing town in the west midlands, and work is under way to provide 6,200 much-needed new homes at the Rugby Radio site. My constituents are keen to ensure that public services keep pace with those developments and to see more services at their local hospital, St Cross. Does the Prime Minister agree with the NHS chief executive, Simon Stevens, that district hospitals such as St Cross play an excellent role in the NHS?; Not everybody is as satisfied as the Chancellor with what for Google is loose change to cover its tax liabilities. On Monday, the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) called on the Government to make companies publish their tax returns. In that way, we can all see how they make the journey from their cash profits to their tax bills. Does the Prime Minister agree?; As cancer survival rates continue to improve and given that this is cancer talk week, will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming a new state-of-the-art cancer information centre due to open at Royal Bolton hospital, and will he praise the collaboration of Macmillan Cancer Support, Bolton People Affected by Cancer, Bolton hospice and the Bolton clinical commissioning group, which are all making this happen?; In the summer of 2014 when I was the leader of Highland Council, I wrote to the Prime Minister asking him to join the Scottish Government and Highland Council in taking forward a city deal for Inverness. Highland Council has submitted a detailed plan on the theme of “a region for young people”. Will the Prime Minister now commit to giving this the green light in the coming weeks?; Forty-six per cent. of five-year-old children in Bradford suffer from dental decay, compared with just 28% across England. Fewer than half of the children living in the Bradford district have seen a dentist in the last two years. Given that the cost of treating tooth decay far exceeds the cost of prevention, will the Prime Minister look at the lack of availability of NHS dentists in Bradford South as a matter of urgency?; Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating my constituents Dominic and Rebecca from Mitcham on the birth of their daughter Alice. Like every parent, they want their daughter to have better opportunities than they had, but with average London house prices increasing by £40,000 in 2013 alone and the average house in London now worth more than half a million pounds, does he understand their fears that Alice will never have the chance they had to buy her own home in the area she was born in?
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of taking action to help with the refugee crisis. No country in Europe has been more generous than Britain in funding refugee camps, whether they are in Syria, Turkey, Lebanon or Jordan. However, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s view that the right answer is for Britain to opt into the EU relocation and resettlement schemes. Let me tell him why. We said that we would resettle 20,000 people in our country, and we promised to resettle 1,000 by Christmas. Because of the hard work of my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), the Under-Secretary of State for Refugees, we achieved that. If we add up all that Europe has done under its relocation and resettlement schemes, we find that all the other 27 member states have done less than we have done here in the United Kingdom, because of those 1,000 Yes, we should take part in European schemes when it is in our interests to do so, and help to secure the external European border; but we are out of Schengen, we keep our own borders, and under this Government that is the way it will stay.