Junior Doctors Contracts

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I will be pithy, Mr Speaker. This is not just about cost-neutrality, but about dealing with weekend care, which is why that proposal was not accepted.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on always having at the forefront patient care and the wellbeing of young doctors? Did it not give the game away when the BMA said that this was a blow against austerity? Will he remind the House how much extra money has gone into the NHS, by contrast to what happened under the Labour party?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am afraid that, regrettably, there are some political elements inside the BMA. The great irony is that, without the austerity measures that those same people opposed in the previous Parliament, we would not have been able to give the NHS its sixth biggest funding increase ever.