Autumn Statement

Debate between Jess Phillips and Jeremy Hunt

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I have talked to my hon. Friend on a number of occasions about the problems with Leicestershire County Council’s financial situation. What all councils say is that the biggest pressure on their budgets is adult social care, and I think today’s announcement will be welcomed by them for that reason. However, I am very aware of the particular issues in Leicestershire, and I am happy to keep engaging with him on them.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

On the NHS point, will the Chancellor expand on whether the increase is in real terms? I spent 17 hours on a hard chair with my father in A&E last week, and I have heard a lot of talk about how the vulnerable are going to be defended by this Government. To follow on from the point about Leicestershire County Council, the vast majority of vulnerable people’s funding—such as vulnerable women who are victims of domestic and sexual violence—comes from local authorities, from the Home Office budget and from the Justice budget. Every single one of those budgets has been squeezed today, so will the Chancellor guarantee that those vulnerable people, unlike my father, will actually be looked after, and that there is not a single cutback to an already dreadful service that leaves criminals on our streets and vulnerable people in danger?

[Jeremy Hunt]

The hon. Member speaks incredibly powerfully, and I hear every word she says—[Interruption.] I heard someone shouting, “12 years”. We have actually had the third fastest growth in the G7 over the last 12 years, and that means we are in a better position to fund public services than we would otherwise have been. I will take away what the hon. Member says, and I will write back to her.

Economic Update

Debate between Jess Phillips and Jeremy Hunt

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that I have already had extensive discussions with my Treasury officials about the needs of energy-intensive industries and we are very well aware of those issues.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I welcome the Chancellor to his place, but it seems quite baffling to me that everybody is giving him plaudits for all the work that he is doing—well done—when the thing that he is undoing is the Prime Minister’s Budget. It is as if the past four weeks have not happened, and I feel a tiny bit gaslit by that, I have to say. Why is he spending £2 billion a year on unfunded stamp duty cuts when he said today that he could not announce unfunded tax cuts? How will he pay for that?

[Jeremy Hunt]

The hon. Lady will find out in two weeks.

Mental Health and NHS Performance

Debate between Jess Phillips and Jeremy Hunt

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right—obviously his role on the Select Committee gives him a particular insight—but we do not want to rush to a solution, which is why we have said that we will produce a Green Paper before the end of the year. It is a complex area. Other hon. Members have alluded to the risk of medicalising problems, given that, as we know, all young people at school experience periods of stress, anxiety and worry that are not necessarily diagnosable mental health conditions and which we would not want to make out to be such. This is about thinking through a smart way to improve resilience training and self-help and to educate schools so that they can spot when something is just a temporary thing in the run-up to exams, or whatever, and when it could be something a lot more serious, such as obsessive compulsive disorder, an eating disorder or something else that needs more immediate help. We have today started a big education programme with schools, but we want to go further.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I welcome the extra investment, if that is what it turns out to be, in mental health, but I want to press the Secretary of State on the question asked from the Dispatch Box by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) about educational psychology and how it will work. I speak as a mother of a child with SEN issues who has relied on clinical and educational psychology in schools. The school that my children currently attend is increasing class sizes from 30 to 33 and reducing the teaching staff—specifically those who engage with SEN children—because of changes to education funding. How does the Secretary of State think that will affect the mental health of pupils in my children’s school?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Lady raises a very important issue. Like her, I have had constituents who found it difficult to access educational psychologists and they have not been able to get approval for the plan that they need. We will consider these issues in the build-up to the Green Paper, and I encourage the hon. Lady to participate in that process.