PMQs live: May rejects 'irresponsible' British Red Cross description of 'humanitarian crisis' in NHS
Follow the latest updates from the Commons here
Welcome to The Independent’s live blog of the first Prime Minister’s Questions of 2017. Here are the latest updates:
- May rejects British Red Cross description of 'humanitarian crisis' in NHS
- Corbyn accuses May of 'fiddling figures' on hospital waiting times
- NHS crisis 'putting lives at risk'
- May urged to declare financial investments
- Corbyn's relaunch dubbed 'day of chaos'
- Momentum aims to affiliate to Labour
Theresa May is set to face Jeremy Corbyn for the first Prime Minister’s Questions of 2017. It comes before Labour’s opposition day debate on the on-going crisis in the NHS. At the weekend the Red Cross described the situation in hospitals across the country as a “humanitarian crisis”.
Speaking in the Commons on Monday, Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, disclosed that visits to A&E departments are up 30 per cent on last year. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said nurses on the front line had reported patients are waiting up to 23 hours in hospital corridors across the UK.
It said nurses were reporting, "serious concerns over the quality of the care they can provide, in what for many are the worst conditions they have ever experienced".
But Ms May could use Mr Corbyn’s relaunch on Tuesday against him as ammo during the session, which some claimed descended into a “day of chaos when he was forced into climbdowns on both immigration and high pay.
His ‘relaunch’ speech – stating he is “not wedded to freedom of movement” – was altered, confusingly, by adding: “But I don’t want that to be misinterpreted, nor do we rule it out.”
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