Barbara Keeley MP,
Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Minister for Mental Health, commenting on the NHS report on Out of Area
Placements In Mental Health Services for February, said:

“These statistics show yet another rise in the number of mental health patients
being treated hundreds of miles away from their homes due to lack of beds in
their local area. These are some of the most vulnerable people in our
communities and the fact that some are having to go over 180 miles from where
they live just to get a bed creates extra pressures on them and their families.

“Last week’s NHS Five Year Forward View report says that some areas of the NHS
have:  ‘…been living off bail-outs arbitrarily taken from other parts of
the country or from services such as mental health’.  Using mental health
budgets to plug financial black holes elsewhere is leading to issues like these
out of area placements.

“The Tory government has talked a lot about parity of esteem between physical
and mental health but the reality is simply not matching the rhetoric. It’s
time the Government ended the warm words and started giving mental health
services the money they need.”

Angela
Rayner MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, commenting on the Government’s
funding announcement for schools in England, said:

“None of today’s announcement is new money. Seven years
of Tory neglect has left our children in crumbling and overcrowded schools.

“The National Audit Office have
already told us that existing school buildings across the country are
inadequate, while money has been ploughed into inefficient free schools and the
Prime Minister’s grammar schools vanity project.

“This announcement will do nothing to address the funding crisis facing
schools across the country.”

Jeremy
Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party,
commenting on the Prime Minister’s visit to Saudi Arabia, said:

“The Prime Minister
should put human rights and international law at the centre of her talks with
Saudi Arabia’s government this week.

“Numerous human
rights organisations, including the UNHRC and Amnesty International, have
documented the dictatorial Saudi monarchy’s shocking human rights record.

“The Saudi-led
coalition bombing in Yemen, backed by the British government, has left
thousands dead, 21 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and three
million refugees uprooted from their homes.

“Yemen urgently
needs a ceasefire, a political settlement, and food aid, not more bombing.
British-made weapons are being used in a war which has caused a humanitarian
catastrophe.

“Britain must halt
arms sales to Saudi Arabia immediately, throw its weight behind a ceasefire
resolution at the United Nations and back a full and genuinely independent
investigation of the evidence of war crimes in Yemen.

“As it stands, the
British-Saudi relationship is damaging to the people of Saudi Arabia, Britain
and the wider Middle East, and helping to export insecurity to the rest of the
world. 

“Unless the Prime
Minister challenges the Saudi regime over its abuses this week, it will be
clear she is ready to sacrifice human rights and security on the altar of the
arms trade.”

Diane Abbott MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, speaking in response to
the announcement that bail terms will now generally be limited to 28 days, said:

“This is a welcome
move, which ought to end open-ended bail periods for all but exceptional cases.

“But in general this
Government has been cutting access to justice, with new tribunal fees and deep
cuts to legal aid. Recent laws have also reduced the privacy of citizens. This
change to bail is a move in the right direction, but most Government policy is
going the opposite way.”

Labour research
reveals that the Tories’ tax changes that came into effect on 1 April will see
£2.5 billion in tax giveaways alone handed out to big business and a wealthy
few in 2017/18.

The figures also
reveal that by 2022, Tory Tax giveaways that came into effect on 1 April
could total around £20 billion, which includes over £2 billion in
corporation tax giveaways to big corporations like Google in the next year
alone.

These changes will
take place at the same time as the Government goes ahead with billions of
pounds worth of cuts to low income working families on in-work benefits.

John McDonnell MP,
Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, said:

“This April the Tories
are taking working families for fools by thinking they can hand out billions of
pounds in tax giveaways to big business and the super-rich and expect no one to
care, while at the same time cutting in-work benefits to the low paid.

“These figures show
the true priorities of Theresa May and Philip Hammond. They refuse to ensure
that big corporations like Google pay their fair share, while they are handing
out huge tax giveaways worth billions, and cutting the incomes of low paid
people in our country.

“Only Labour will
create a fair tax system: one in which all big businesses pay their fair-share
and working families are supported by ending the tax giveaways at the top,
bringing in a £10 an hour Real Living Wage by 2020, and reversing the cuts to
in-work benefits.”