Engagements — House of Commons, 2015-03-18
Topic: Law and Crime
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?; My neighbour Helen was able to live in her own home for many years with degenerative multiple sclerosis because of the independent living fund, until sadly she died. How can the Prime Minister and the Government morally justify taking away the fund from the most disabled people in our communities, so that they might end up being institutionalised, not independent?; Does my right hon. Friend agree that our long-term economic plan is doing an outstanding job in my constituency? Unemployment now stands at 269, making it the best performance of any constituency in the country. Will he join me in thanking the firms that I visited last week in Thame that are running fantastic apprenticeship schemes, and the young people joining them?; Despite the Prime Minister’s fine words and rhetoric, his Government’s cost of living crisis has hammered many families in the north-east. Tens of thousands of public sector jobs have been butchered; we have the highest unemployment level in the UK; we have weekly earnings £71 less than the national average; and our life expectancy is 10 years less than anywhere else in the country. Is it not time that the Prime Minister showed some guts and apologised to the people of the north-east?; On that theme, BAE Systems, which manufactures world-beating military jets, announced that it is to set up a training academy in the Ribble Valley, upskilling the current work force and bringing on new talent via its ambitious apprenticeship scheme. Will the Prime Minister welcome the £15.6 million investment in this training academy, and when it opens next year, will he visit the Samlesbury site in his continuing capacity as the Prime Minister of our great country?; Just over a fortnight ago, the Secretary of State for Transport visited Wolverhampton and reached a conclusion that I and almost every resident has reached: that the station is desperately in need of an upgrade. Locally, Centro, working with developer, Neptune, has come up with an innovative deal, bringing £80 million and 1,300 jobs, to make sure that we continue investment in the city. Will my right hon. Friend use his offices, along with the DFT, to ensure not only that Wolverhampton gets a station, but that we increase the industrial renaissance in the west midlands that we have seen over the last five years?; The Prime Minister has a record of looking the other way when it comes to allegations of wrongdoing in his own team. He did it with Andy Coulson and he is doing it now with the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps). Can the Prime Minister explain why he has been so quick to rule out an investigation into his own party’s chairman?
Tom Watson (Labour, Centre-left): This week it was revealed that a second criminal inquiry into a former Member of this House, Sir Cyril Smith, had been closed down by senior police officers, and I believe that there are other examples of cover-ups which are yet to be revealed. Notwithstanding the reassurances from the Home Secretary, will the Prime Minister please give a cast-iron guarantee that former public officials with knowledge of the cover-ups are given full whistleblower protections?