The Blackpool Gazette and Blackpool Lead invited the candidates standing for the Blackpool North constituency at next month's general election to a hustings in which they fielded questions from voters.
The candidates standing for election on 4th July were each given 90 seconds to answer questions from an audience at a Cleveleys venue.
Six out of the eight people on the ballot took part in the event with Jeannine Creswell (Social Democratic Party) missing and a stand-in taking the place of the absent Lorraine Beavers.
In order of appearance on stage:
PAUL MAYNARD (Conservative Party)
JAMES RUST (Monster Raving Loony Party)
GITA GORDON (Independent)
BILL GREENE (Liberal Democrats)
TINA ROTHERY (Green Party)
DAN BARKER (Reform UK)
CLIVE GRUNSHAW (Labour [Stand-in])
The candidates standing for election on 4th July were each given 90 seconds to answer questions from an audience at a Cleveleys venue.
Six out of the eight people on the ballot took part in the event with Jeannine Creswell (Social Democratic Party) missing and a stand-in taking the place of the absent Lorraine Beavers.
In order of appearance on stage:
PAUL MAYNARD (Conservative Party)
JAMES RUST (Monster Raving Loony Party)
GITA GORDON (Independent)
BILL GREENE (Liberal Democrats)
TINA ROTHERY (Green Party)
DAN BARKER (Reform UK)
CLIVE GRUNSHAW (Labour [Stand-in])
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hi, mine's a multi-layered question. So to all of you, where do you stand on the NHS
00:13in terms of privatisation and in terms of the local area, the difficulties of people
00:18trying to get an NHS dentist, not having seen a dentist for many years because there just
00:23aren't any slots for anybody to go into? And also for Conservatives, Labour and Reform,
00:31will you defy the whip when your parties want to privatise the NHS? Because they have actually
00:38said that that's what they're going to do. I've always believed the NHS should be free
00:42of point of views. You should not have to present a credit card when you go into A&E
00:47or when you're waiting for an operation. That doesn't mean the NHS should not use spare
00:51capacity in the private sector to try to bring down waiting lists, for example. To my mind,
00:57that just makes common sense. You take advantage of all healthcare capacity in the UK. Yes,
01:02dentistry has been a problem, not just locally, but nationally. The government has now at last
01:08begun to take action, both locally and nationally again. We're seeing more dentist appointments
01:13being made available across the Fargo because we've changed the funding formulas to encourage
01:18dentists to offer more appointments. We now need more dentists to come back into the NHS
01:24and away from the private sector. Perhaps the biggest way that could be changed in my view
01:28is to make sure that you don't have to train a year longer to be an NHS dentist than to go
01:33into the private sector. That's a fundamental flaw. Privatisation of NHS bit by bit, breaking
01:45it up and backdoor entry of private investors and profit making happened a long time ago with
01:54Tories and then it was extended by the Labour. So no, all the departments that have not been
02:02very helpful, the privatised sections need to be brought back. The dental service needs to come
02:12back under the NHS hold as a state service. There is no need to have it as a private practice or
02:19something because it's about our basic health. Rotting teeth causes other illness inside the
02:26body as well. We can't afford a private practice over there. The point about the NHS is real. The
02:37pressure on the NHS at the moment is extreme. The waiting lists are off the scale. People are
02:44dying before they get their appointments and we need to invest heavily to resolve the crisis.
02:53Now I'm against privatisation within the NHS. I think it should be free for point of use as has
03:01been said but I think there's a capacity issue and I think the Labour government, should they
03:08come in, are taking a pragmatic view about the use of privatisation in terms of not paying for
03:17the service but in terms of delivering the service for the public. Until we get such a situation where
03:25we resolve the waiting lists and resolve the backlogs that we have at the moment because we
03:31can't carry on with the way we are. We need investment. So to answer your question, just to be clear, our policy is for the NHS to remain free at the point of use.
03:43Free at the point of use. There's no point to privatise it. So what we do know is that 11% of GDP are putting more money into the NHS than ever before.
03:52You can't talk over me. I'm telling the truth and it's in our literature and our leaders say it everywhere as well.
03:58So with 11% going into GDP, you can't just put more money in. It's not the problem. We've got to sort out the capacity issue.
04:04Our plan is to reduce waiting lists within two years by more use of the private sector.
04:09If you can't get a doctor's appointment in three days, you get a voucher. If you can't see a consultant in three weeks, you get a voucher.
04:14If you can't get an operation in nine weeks, you get a voucher and we will get the waiting list down in two years.
04:21Voucher to use the private sector.
04:24Farage said he's going to... Farage actually said... Farage said he wants to bring an insurance back scheme in. That is essentially privatisation.
04:39I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
04:40Just that what we can do is get our...
04:42Okay. I'm not being lied to though.
04:44I'm telling you the truth madam.
04:46No you're not.
04:47No you haven't.
04:48No you haven't.
04:50One of the issues that I would wish the government would actually address is the staffing issues.
04:56And that is to do with the fact that some of my daughters who are involved in nursing find that they get better pay by being a bank nurse than they do by being a reg nurse.
05:08And that cannot be right.
05:11And then we have to look at the other little problem that we have which is there's a heap of doctors and locums who can't get work.
05:19And that's because the way that the government structures it is they give a health authority X amount of money and they tell them okay you need to have this service, this service and this service and what's left is what you pay your doctors with.
05:32And there is not enough money to go around to hire them.
05:35And then they're looking now at that new grade of doctor which is a grade down from regular doctor.
05:40We've been chastised as a party.
05:42During the debate, not debate, the interviews the other day and Nick Robinson said to one of our leaders, Adrian Ramsey, he poured out Lego bricks.
05:52There was blue, red and then there was green.
05:55And this was how much we were going to tax.
05:57And it was like a little bit for blue, a little bit for red.
05:59This massive mountain of green.
06:01We're going to tax the billionaires not you.
06:03So that was misleading.
06:05And then what you have to ask yourself is why are we willing to tax to get that much money?
06:10Because everything is broken.
06:12You can't say as Labour and Tory well we're only going to take this much money because we can't afford more.
06:18We have to make that money be affordable.