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Business of the House

My hon. Friend looks back at the situation that there used to be in relation to hospital waiting lists. We should always remember that setting a target for bringing down hospital waiting lists has really made a difference. The Opposition decried targets; they may well have felt that if their constituents needed to get an operation, they should simply pay to go private. I can remember my constituents literally weeping in my advice surgeries when they had been told that they would have to wait two years for a hip replacement. This Labour Government's targets mean that people do not have to borrow money from relatives who cannot afford it in order to go private or else have to wait in pain for months and years. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the fact that massive progress has made. We are going to bring in further guarantees so that, for example, people will have to wait only a week before they get referred to a cancer specialist. These issues, too, can be debated in the Budget debates, because they include questions of resourcing.