Speeches by Gilmour.

“On that point—”

“It will be really brief. What you are saying—that the Crown court sat at maximum capacity for three years—sounds good. But if it sat at maximum capacity for three years and the backlog is still going up, that tells us that maximum capacity is not sufficient to deal with the combination of factors you have referenced. O…”

“That is Sir Brian Leveson’s starting point—it’s broke; it ain’t working.”

“Does the right hon. Member agree that the essence of the petition is in fact the political manifestation of buyer’s remorse, and that the delivery and introduction of proportional representation would not lead to such remorse so soon?”

“Will the hon. Lady give way? She has heard me.”

“I will come on to Pharmacy First at the end of the debate, because I see it as the solution, rather than the problem. The sector is trying its hardest, but without a fundamental overhaul of the system these NHS services, which are much-needed by patients and the public, may fall by the wayside into one of the following…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his not particularly concise, but erudite, intervention. I will turn briefly to the funding model of pharmacies. Some 90% of a pharmacy’s income is derived directly from NHS funding, but when it comes to how that funding is allocated, the system is broken. Community pharmacies across the UK d…”

“I will of course do that.”

“I speak on behalf of Helen from my home town of Bampton and the 5,500 WASPI women in my constituency. They are not disappointed; they are devastated, as am I because—mistakenly, as it turned out—I believed that this Labour Government, who were supported by millions of women across this country who rightly turned their …”

“The Health and Social Care Committee reported in May that “the undoubted potential for pharmacy to improve access to health care, crucially including immunisations, and reduce pressure on general practice and other areas of the health system can only be realised with the right support and the right investment of public…”

“As the hon. Member knows, I am keen on strategies, particularly the one that he has just mentioned. Pharmacies are not paid for the informal advice sessions. In over half of such occasions, if the patient had not been able to access their local community pharmacy they would have instead visited their GP surgery. That s…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered Government support for community pharmacies in Devon and the South West. I am delighted to have secured my first Westminster Hall debate. It is an honour to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. At a time such as this, when we repeatedly hear from the Government and our …”

“I do agree. In addition to delivering formally commissioned services, pharmacies provide an alternative point of contact for the public for informal clinical advice. The 2024 pharmacy advice audit found that the average pharmacy carries out around 22 informal consultations per day, which is the equivalent of 1.3 millio…”

“I agree with both courses of action, and I thank my hon. Friend very much for that important and interesting contribution. The increase in workload is not sustainable, but that workload is too important not to receive proper backing from central Government as they make headway on their ambition to create what they have…”

“I agree that we need to do that as often as possible. I will move on to the workload. This is not a typical example: along with prescriptions, in Tiverton and Minehead each pharmacy conducted 398 flu vaccines on average during the 2023-24 season, higher than the national average of 355. If Members are unfortunate enoug…”

“I see it as a pyramid, with pharmacies at the bottom, right up to operations and A&E at the top. According to the CCA, between September 2022 and June 2024 nearly 200,000 hours of pharmacy time was lost due to pharmacies closing their doors permanently. Over 1,000 pharmacies have closed since 2016, with a net loss …”

“ Hopefully a strategy will help. Now that your objective is to reduce the tax gap, will the strategy be the way out, or how will this affect the way that you approach tax evasion?”

“ Will that include really basic things such as having staff who will answer a phone within an hour and be able to give accessible advice? The lack of a human face at HMRC at the moment is something that people comment on. If you have three and a half hours to spare to hang on to the end of the …”

“ From what you have just said, it follows quite logically that, effectively, HMRC is saying that it is willing to tolerate a degree of tax evasion. Would you be able to put a figure on that level of tolerance?”

“ My next question goes to Penny Ciniewicz. I have a relatively poor constituency. There are very few things that are more distressing than when one, having quite rightly filled out one’s tax returns, gets a bill that one knows to be inaccurate, and it takes ages and age…”