Angus Robertson
Main Page: Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party - Moray)Department Debates - View all Angus Robertson's debates with the Wales Office
(13 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I would have thought Opposition Members would listen to the Labour-dominated Public Accounts Committee and its Labour leader, who said this:
“Over the last ten years, the productivity of NHS hospitals has been in almost continuous decline”
and
“the health service has improved as a result of this increase in spending. But the taxpayer has been getting less for each pound spent.”
That is what we have to look at, and the fact that we are not getting even the European average on cancer outcomes, and that people here are twice as likely to die from a heart attack as people in France. We have an ageing population and more expensive treatments, and the Opposition’s answer is to do absolutely nothing. How utterly, utterly feeble.
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
Today’s statistics show that unemployment has gone down in Scotland but has gone up in the rest of the UK. Will the Prime Minister ensure that the trend of lower unemployment in Scotland is not endangered by ridiculously high fuel prices and fuel duty, in what is still the largest oil-producing nation in the European Union?
The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he says. Clearly, today’s figures are a very mixed picture. The youth unemployment figures are disappointing, once again, but overall what is interesting is that employment is up and the number of claimants nationwide is actually down: the number of claimants has fallen by 32,000 since last year.
On fuel duty, the hon. Gentleman knows that we have a Budget coming up. I do not want to speculate as to what will be in it, but I know the pain that families and small businesses are feeling from the huge number of fuel duty increases put through by the previous Government. In their last Budget they put through seven fuel duty increases—one for before the election and six for afterwards. What a surprise that Labour did not even have the brass neck to raise that one today.