Responding to the King’s Speech, Daisy Cooper MP for St Albans said:
“During the General Election, I stood on a platform of campaigning to save our NHS and care services, take real action on the cost of living and end the sewage scandal, so I’m pleased to see that the Labour government will bring forward laws to update mental health laws, improve public health and tackle the quality of water in our waterways.
“However, I want to see much greater ambition to rescue our NHS and social care services.
“The previous Conservative government drove our local health services into the ground, leaving people struggling to see a GP or NHS dentist. And despite promising in 2019 to build a new hospital in Watford, they failed to release the funding, leaving people here in St Albans and across West Herts with a crumbling emergency hospital.
“We Liberal Democrats called for the Kings Speech to include new legal rights for patients, such as giving people a right to see a GP within 7 days or 24 hours if urgent, to start urgent cancer treatment within 62 days of a diagnosis, and for a statutory duty to be put on Ministers to deliver on these targets over the course of this Parliament. We are also still calling for an Emergency Budget on Health and Social Care so that our health and care services and crumbling hospitals can get the investment they desperately need.
“When it comes to our local green spaces, I’m concerned that the Labour Government may continue the legacy of the Conservative’s top-down housing targets, which don’t deliver the houses we need here in St Albans but do mean bulldozing over our precious green belt. I will scrutinise their plans carefully.
“Finally, we Liberal Democrats also support the removal of the ‘two child cap’ as the quickest and most cost-effective way to lift children out of poverty and bring long-term benefits to our society and economy. I hope the Labour Ministerial Taskforce look at the evidence and act accordingly, without much more delay.
“Following the Kings Speech, I will be pressing Ministers every step of the way to recruit more GPs, bring dentists back into NHS contracts, release the funds for our crumbling hospitals, improve our rivers and protect our green spaces – we cannot wait any longer.”