UK Parliament / Open data

Defending Public Services

We need extra legislation to expedite the process. I point out to my right hon. Friend that that is another policy which has been opposed by the Labour party. All the time it says we should be doing more to grip NHS finances and yet it opposes every policy we put forward in order to do precisely that. The answer to his question is that the issue with the NHS is primarily that we are not very good at collecting the money to which we are entitled from other European countries, because we are not very good at measuring when European citizens are using the NHS. This legislation will help us to put those measurement systems in place so that we can get back what we hope will be about half a billion pounds a year by the end of this Parliament.

We will no doubt hear later this afternoon the charge that the Government have lost control of NHS finances, but we strongly reject that charge. The House may want to ask about the credibility of that accusation from a party that is at the same time proposing a funding cut for the NHS and criticising the difficult decisions we need to take to sort out NHS finances.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
611 c274 
Session
2016-17
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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