Windrush Compensation Scheme (Expenditure) Bill
Debate between Lyn Brown and Priti PatelMonday 10th February 2020
(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Priti Patel
If I may, I will finish the point. To rebuild that trust, working with third parties and other stakeholder groups and organisations is vital, and we will continue to do that.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
On that point of trust, the phone calls to my office today are about a flight tomorrow to Jamaica, and some of my constituents believe that this Bill is being used as some kind of flim-flam before that flight goes. Will the Home Secretary assure me that she will look carefully at every one of the cases that we bring to her to ensure that only those people who absolutely need to be deported are deported tomorrow?
Priti Patel
Let me make a few points on that. First and foremost, we should not be conflating this charter flight—the criminality—with the issue of the Windrush compensation scheme. The hon. Lady will know that the House has heard the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) respond to the urgent question earlier, and every person on the flight has been convicted of some of the most serious offences and has received a custodial sentence of 12 months or more. That means that under the UK Borders Act 2007, introduced by the Labour Government at the time, a deportation order must be made. These crimes cover manslaughter, rape, violence, the appalling scourge of drug dealing and sexual offences against children, with a total sentence for this group totalling more than 300 years. It is important to say that the suffering of their victims is incomprehensible, and these offences have a real impact on victims and their communities. It is important to recognise that the individuals being deported have criminal convictions, and that this is about the criminality of the acts they have participated in, not their nationality.
Health
Debate between Lyn Brown and Priti Patel(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate because it is a Queen’s Speech that will help to deliver a stronger economy for this country and better and stronger public services. Four years ago, this Government embarked on a radical and necessary programme of measures to turn the fortunes of this country and our economy around. For 13 years, my constituents were betrayed and let down by the previous Government, as taxes rose while unemployment soared, the economy went into meltdown and public services wasted taxpayers’ money on a colossal scale.
It is a tribute to this Government’s economic focus and policies that we have been able to turn things around. Ministers have implemented many clear measures. For example, unemployment in my constituency is now almost half the level it was when it peaked under the previous Government in 2009. These are the positive policies that I bring to today’s debate on the NHS. It is a testament to this Government’s commitment to the NHS that we are now seeing an increase in spending.
I heard the opening speeches in the debate, including by Labour Members. It is appalling that the Labour party likes to talk as though it owns the NHS politically. That is wrong. Labour should listen to some of the facts not just in my constituency but in the eastern region. The fact is that Labour went into the last general election with plans to cut NHS spending—we have heard about the impact of that in Wales—while we have continued to invest in the NHS. While Conservatives recognise the increasing pressures that the country faces from demographics and the health care needs of the public—
Priti Patel
I want to develop my discussion and go into more detail on the NHS. More investment in the NHS is required. This is not about cutting services, including front-line services, or funds. It is about expanding the NHS in the right way and, as the Secretary of State said, putting patients first and moving away from the bureaucratisation of the NHS.
Priti Patel
Let me continue.
There were classic examples of that not just in my constituency but more widely in Essex. We heard earlier about Basildon hospital. In my constituency, one primary care trust saw its number of managers and senior managers increase tenfold over a decade. At the same time, it failed miserably to recognise the health needs of my constituents; we have a growing population as well as an ageing population. I had cases in 2010 where patients were denied access to life-saving hospital treatment and access to drugs because the PCT sought to prioritise spending on the bureaucracy of the NHS, rather than front-line patient care.
In Witham town, at the heart of my constituency, there is a chronic shortage of locally accessible health care facilities. All the talk by Labour and the slogans referring to “record investment” under Labour translated into nothing in my constituency. Under the previous PCT and the previous regime, we had consultation after consultation but no new services were created.