Prime Minister's Questions - Health

The Prime Minister was asked-

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 31st March.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): Before announcing my engagements, I would like to begin by paying tribute to the police and security services for carrying out successfully a large-scale operation yesterday, resulting in arrests. As we have said, the UK and its interests abroad remain a terrorist target, and the Government and the services will continue to do all that we can to fight terrorism in every way.

I would also like to welcome specifically the letter that has been sent from the Muslim Council of Britain to every mosque in the country, condemning terrorism and making it clear that such activity has nothing to do with the true message of Islam. The threat from terrorism affects every family in this country, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, and it is right that we all work together to defeat that threat, and do not allow the extremists to divide us.

This morning I had meetings with my ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I will have further such meetings later today.

Tony Baldry : The Prime Minister should know that children's services in the Horton general hospital in Banbury are being threatened with downgrading, and that mental health care services in Banbury are threatened with closure by the strategic health authority. In Bicester, there will not now be the new and enlarged community hospital that Ministers promised us from the Dispatch Box, and the future of the existing hospital is in jeopardy. In addition, the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS trust tells us that it is likely to be some £40 million overdrawn next year. Will the Prime Minister take time out of his schedule to visit my constituency and discover what is actually happening in the NHS?

The Prime Minister: I will obviously look carefully into what the hon. Gentleman has said, but in his area, as in other areas, there has been a huge additional investment into the national health service. That is why we have cardiac deaths in this country down by more than 20 per cent., why we have cancer deaths in this country down by more than 10 per cent., why every single national waiting time and waiting list indicator is in better shape than in 1997, and why we have the largest hospital building programme that this country has seen since the beginning of the NHS.

I will certainly look carefully into what the hon. Gentleman says, but surely the answer must be to continue the investment that we are putting into the national health service, not to transfer it out of the health service and into the private sector, which is the policy of the Conservative party.