Speeches by George.

“Coming back to the wider geographic view, I would be interested to know, given the difficulties—I am not saying that you are fully responsible, but I know that you are not proud of the Health Check response rate or take-up levels—what lessons can be learned from health programmes that have been a success. I do not have…”

“But in each case, with a successful programme, you get them through a door or you get them to try something to get the process started. I think the problem that you are having is that you are not even getting any kind of response.”

“Exactly. I suspect that there is probably something within the methodology of the reporting that might explain it, but I will raise it with the GP when I am over there.”

“I sympathise with the Secretary of State for having to pull these projects out of the fire of non-funding, and I thank him for the announcement on the women and children’s hospital in Cornwall. I know that all my parliamentary colleagues in Cornwall will be delighted at today’s news. I sympathise with colleagues who fi…”

“Sir Julian, you described the one-word assessment system as at least having the advantage of being more publicly comprehensible. In the light of that, would it be fair to deem the CQC as you arrive inadequate, in a one-word judgment?”

“We will move on, you will be pleased to hear, to the nature of the inspections that you undertake. A lot of it seems to be kind of forensic, and understandably needs to be forensic in nature, but to what extent are you sensitive to the whistleblowers when pursuing inspections on the basis of that kind of intelligence-l…”

“In terms of trying to extract some benefit from the difficulties that the CQC has experienced, and following from Danny’s line of questioning in relation to the IT contract that you have undertaken, there will be lessons to be learned that I think the wider public sector could really learn from. I would hope that the C…”

“Yes. Learning that you have reports that you cannot get out of your system, and that you have not even kept paper copies, let alone Word copies on laptops or whatever, is just remarkable. I think people will be shocked. I mean, we were all shocked; jaws were on the floor when we heard this.”

“So you have gone native in the new organisation and are taking their view. Do you think it would be not unreasonable for someone external who was looking at the state of the organisation to perhaps preface it with the word “shockingly”, considering the IT debacle?”

“I accept that the Government are clearly not the architect of the current unacceptable state of affairs. However, may I encourage the Secretary of State to reflect again on our exchange at the Health and Social Care Committee just a month ago, when he resisted the recommendation of the president of the Royal College of…”

“My hon. Friend is making an excellent case. Penzance, west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly are all in my constituency, so I know that if there are problems on the link at Dawlish, that can multiply the impact of those disruptions for people in the far west of Cornwall. Does he share my concern that it seems that with …”

“That is a different matter, isn’t it?”

“I think you can answer the question I've been allocated relatively quickly. Therefore, I would like to ask a supplementary question on the back of what Joe was asking Andrew earlier. I think you have twice said that if we improve health and social care and people live longer, it will result in a larger social care bill…”

“I have a supplementary question on that. The figures that I picked up in Cornwall alone indicate that of the delayed discharges in the acute sector over the last year, only 25% can be attributed primarily to a lack of social care packages. Others are actually a combination of a lack of primary—”

“Exactly. That is what he was implying.”

“Q9. Over the past 10 years, more than £500 million has been handed to holiday home owners in Cornwall through various tax loopholes, while local families are being evicted from their homes to make way for yet more holiday homes. As the housing crisis worsens, the six Cornwall MPs are determined to reverse this situatio…”

“I just want to work out, Andrew, whether you feel optimistic for Baroness Casey. From what you are saying, in the last decade or so, things have kind of muddled along. I am trying to interpret your language and your body language with regard to how confident you feel. Do you think it would take the media to slavishly r…”

“Thank you very much. That would be useful for us, because this is very central to the question we are asking. I think there is a fairly obvious answer to this question, so I will give you a minute to answer it. The Government have their three shifts—all of which I am sure are very agreeable to everybody—one of which is…”

“So in the cold hearts of the Treasury, they will look at the pension budget and this and perhaps make rather cold-hearted calculations on the back of that. I am sorry to be vague, but I was not sure whether it was Professor Darzi or someone else who indicated that if you improve people’s health and wellbeing into their…”

“The Netanyahu regime continues to seek to justify its cold-blooded slaughter of Palestinian people behind the dishonest façade of self-defence. While the Minister asserts that the Government are taking an even-handed approach in this regard, he will remember that only two months ago the UK military intervened to protec…”