Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Watkinson Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Lady knows, NHS England is now in a position to make some of those big judgments—[Interruption.] We are having questions on what money goes where in the NHS from the party that, if I understand it correctly, still does not agree with our protection of the NHS budget. We are putting £12.7 billion extra into the NHS. I would be interested to know whether the Labour party agrees with that.

[Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

Will the Deputy Prime Minister join me in congratulating the London borough of Havering, which has rehomed 1,000 previously overcrowded families into larger and more suitable accommodation as a result of the Government’s welfare policy?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I would certainly like to join my hon. Friend to congratulate the borough of Havering on the excellent work it has done. Overcrowding is a real problem, and hundreds of thousands of families are living in overcrowded properties in which children have no space to do their schoolwork. The fact that the Labour party has no answers to some of those fundamental problems that it created in the first place shows a bankruptcy of ideas.