Part of Orders of the Day — National Health Service (Primary Care) Bill [Lords] – in the House of Commons at 9:45 pm on 12 March 1997.
Mr Peter Thurnham
, Bolton North East
9:45,
12 March 1997
The hon. Gentleman was kind enough to support my speech in Committee. As I said at the time, I gave the Government the benefit of the doubt. I am now thoroughly persuaded that eye tests should be free, and I hope that the Labour party has not made a U-turn on the matter, as the arguments to support that are so strong.
I hope that the regional differences will be addressed. As I mentioned to the Minister, I celebrated my 5,000 days as a Member of Parliament by distributing 5,000 toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste to five-year-olds in my Constituency. If the Minister has time to visit my constituency, I hope that he will join me in showing five-year-olds how to clean their teeth with those toothbrushes. I support the Bill and look forward to it reaching the statute book.
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