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I was a member of the Justice 1 Committee in the first session of Parliament, and we had to deal with very complex pieces of legislation. If we required extra time, we went to the minister and were then given that extra time.
I have concerns about that, because local government is constantly being loaded down with extra statutory duties without being given the extra finance to pay for them.
We will still have 100 fewer police officers than we had three years ago. While we are on the subject of extra police officers, will the minister assure me that his extra police officers are not the same as his friend Jack Straw's fictitious extra officers?
That is why it is important to have extra consultants, extra nurses and extra junior doctors, but equally important is the redesign of services, about which we will say more in the forthcoming cancer debate.