My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We hear about this source of funding again and again—we hear that non-doms will provide all this money—but plenty of the shadow Health Secretary’s predecessors in Labour have said that they do not think the policy he suggests would generate any more income whatsoever.
It will imminently be time to give Back Benchers an opportunity to speak, so let me end by saying that it has been an honour to open this debate on behalf of the Government and to respond to the array of misrepresentations from Labour Front Benchers. The NHS exists to care for patients, and they should always be our first priority, but the NHS’s greatest asset is its workforce.
From a lifetime of talking to staff, I know that what they want is to care for patients in a way they feel proud of. They can do that only if they themselves are cared for, feel valued, are looked after and have enough colleagues to support them. The Government are working flat out on every one of those areas. We are hiring more staff, harnessing new technology, joining up health and social care, and building bridges between parts of the system like never before. I know how tough it has been and, on too many days, how tough it still is on the frontline. I am determined that we will continue to do what is right by health and social care staff, for them and for the people they look after.
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