Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What I say to my hon. Friend, who I know is passionate about these issues, and to everyone in the House, is that this was an absolutely appalling and inexcusable act of terror, and one can only imagine the effect on the families and friends of those poor teenagers, and what happened to them. It is very important that Britain will stand with Israel as it seeks to bring to justice those who are responsible. We also welcome the fact that President Abbas has firmly condemned the abduction and tried to help find those people. As my hon. Friend said, it is important that all security operations are conducted with care so that further escalation is avoided. The people responsible for this should be found and brought to justice.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Q5. In 2011, the Prime Minister said that waiting lists “really matter”. Why, then, are nearly 3 million people on ever-lengthening waiting lists—the highest number for six years? What does he have to say to Katherine Sinclair, a constituent of mine, who has been waiting in pain for 33 weeks for a hip operation? Does not she “really matter”?

[The Prime Minister]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that he needs to look at the figures. The figures show that the numbers of people waiting longer than 18 weeks, 26 weeks and 52 weeks to start treatment—[Interruption.] The shadow Chancellor says they are getting worse, but they are lower today than they ever were when he was sitting in government—lower than at any time. We have the record from yesterday of the Leader of the Opposition using dodgy statistics. Yesterday he claimed that three quarters of the jobs in our country were created in London. That is totally wrong. Have we heard an apology? Have we heard a correction? Does he want to correct the record? He will do anything to talk down the British economy.