Sir Mike Penning calls for a debate on local health authorities and the importance of them providing accurate and truthful information to Ministers.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
I join you, Mr Speaker, in paying tribute to my two good friends, David and James, whom we lost a year ago.
May we have a debate on the way that local health authorities sometimes pull the wool over the eyes of Ministers and perhaps even mislead them in their letters? On 6 September, I got a letter thanking me for supporting a brand-new 18-storey tower block hospital in the middle of Watford. I have spent 20 years opposing that, so I was chewing a wasp. May we have a debate on how we can have honesty from Department of Health and Social Care officials and from trusts, so that Ministers can inform us in this House of the facts and not what the Department wants us to hear?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Penny Mordaunt)
My right hon. Friend raises a serious point that I will raise on his behalf with both the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health and Social Care. May I also associate myself with the remarks that he made about our late colleague James Brokenshire?