Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts
Tuesday 15th November 2016

(8 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Jackson of Peterborough Portrait Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
- Hansard - -

I thank the Secretary of State for taking time last week to visit the Peterborough City hospital and to praise the magnificent staff there, who are labouring under a £35 million annual private finance initiative millstone. Is the wider context not that we would have a lot more money to spend on front-line care if we did not have to deal with a poisonous legacy from Labour of £64 billion of appalling PFI contracts in the NHS?

Jeremy Hunt Portrait Mr Hunt
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was incredibly impressed with the staff I met at Peterborough hospital—there was incredible commitment to patients and some fantastic work going on in the oncology and renal departments, which I visited. He is right: PFI was a disastrous mistake, saddling hospitals up and down the country with huge amounts of debt, which cannot now be put into front-line patient care. We are doing everything we can to sort that out and not repeat those mistakes.