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Tory MP tried to get hospital cuts petition pulled from government website

February 20, 2013 12:33 pm

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Two weeks ago there was a Westminster Hall debate in parliament concering the provision of A&E, Maternity and Intensive Care at Royal Lancaster Infirmary. So far so normal. Except one Tory MP turned up at the debate to make a different point from everyone else – he wanted to get a petition pulled from the government’s e-petition site. Referring to this petition, David Morris – the MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale – said:

“I want the e-petition removed from Directgov and have written to the Cabinet Secretary to ask for him to intervene. We cannot have this dishonest campaign fought through the Directgov e-petition platform.”

Morris has claimed that the petition is inaccurate, as the CEO of the local NHS trust has told him that it is “hard to imagine” Lancaster losing A&E services, despite an ongoing review. Yet Matt Hood (who drew up the online petition) notes that “A&E, Maternity and Intensive Care services at the RLI are still within the scope of this review – whilst there may be no plans thus far this does not mean there may not be in the coming months once the review is complete”. The truth is perhaps more prosaic – the potential closures are being opposed vociferously by local Labour members.

Regardless though, it’s a worrying development that Tory MPs think that they can get government petitions pulled just because they disagree with the contents. So far the petition is still online – common sense seems to have prevailed and Morris has been ignored, for now.

 

Related posts:

  1. The arguments for cuts at Lewisham Hospital don’t stack up
  2. John Prescott sings to celebrate NHS petition success
  3. New website False Economy launches to combat coalition cuts
  4. New Tory website “designed by US anti-healthcare lobbyists”
  5. Providing a ‘dented shield’ against Tory cuts
  • JoeDM

    When will Labour apologise for the 1200 unnecessary deaths at Mid Staffs NHS due to poor care and the untold number of deaths elsewhere in the NHS when they were in power?

    The NHS was NOT safe in Labour’s hands.

    • trotters1957

      As Denis Healey would say, “Silly Billy”.

    • Dave Postles

      Your name is really Phil and I claim my £5.

  • Redshift1

    What a scumbag!

  • trotters1957

    Just signed the petition.

    • Matthew Hood

      Thank You!

  • MonkeyBot5000

    Nice work, Morris. I hadn’t heard about it until you tried to ban it and now I’m going to sign it.

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