Building an NHS Fit for the Future

Andy Carter Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

As we begin the final Session of this Parliament, we do so for the first time in more than 70 years debating a King’s Speech. I am pleased that this King’s Speech lays out a comprehensive legislative programme for the forthcoming year: an ambitious set of reforms that will help boost economic growth, strengthen society and make Britain a safer and healthier place.

Having looked back at my contributions in this place over the last four years, there are a couple of Bills I want to spend time talking about, because the subjects they address have dominated what I have said. First and foremost, the subject of the debate is “Building an NHS fit for the future”. The reason I am keen to take part in the debate is because the NHS has been front and centre of my campaigning in Warrington South, before and since becoming its Member of Parliament.

Since 2019, we have seen the benefits that Government investment in our local health services is making in Warrington, including a new £5 million radiology centre at Warrington Hospital, with state-of-the-art MRI and CT scanners, and £6 million to extend the emergency department, building a new same-day emergency care unit to speed up discharge and free up capacity. Money from Warrington’s £21 million town deal has funded a new health and social care academy so that we can train people to work in our health and social care sectors in the future, and a mammography unit has boosted screening capacity.

I have named but a few projects in Warrington, but there is still much more to do. Putting in place the right health infrastructure and training more doctors, dentists and nurses is vital for the long-term future of our national health service. I regularly speak to regional NHS leaders who tell me that the extra funding the Government are putting into Warrington is making a difference to people and staff alike in Warrington. In fact, there are more doctors, nurses and staff working in GP practices and the hospital today in Warrington than there were in 2019.

However, there are two areas related to health infrastructure where we need to go further. Warrington’s status as a new town has meant its population has gone from 60,000 in the late 1960s to more than 200,000 today. When I became the MP for Warrington South, I promised to campaign for a brand new hospital for our town, not because I wanted it but because Warrington needs it. Working together with local health chiefs and local cross-party politicians, we put forward plans that would allow that to be delivered. So far we have not managed to achieve that, but there are simply not enough beds to cope with the demand, nor sufficient parking spaces for patients, visitors and staff. The facilities we have today are not fit for a town of 200,000 residents. When the Minister for Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), who was on the Front Bench earlier, came to visit in January last year, she saw for herself the challenges that we face in our A&E unit.

The other infrastructure issue I want to raise relates to the building of new GP surgeries in areas where new homes have been built. On Friday, I met with local GP Dr Jain, at the Appleton medical centre. She showed me around and, understandably, she is keen to progress from a first floor consulting suite with limited parking spaces in Appleton to a new surgery that is being funded by section 106 contributions from the local developers of all those houses that have been built. However, the process of securing an agreement to build is being delayed because of challenges in agreeing prices with the district valuer. One of my key asks for the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is to help unlock the funding and make progress on building the new health centres that are now urgently needed for our growing towns.

I will touch briefly on a couple of other areas mentioned in the King’s Speech that I have spoken about in the Chamber on numerous occasions, including the leasehold reform Bill. I have spoken many times on behalf of residents in Chapelford about the crucial need for changes in the law to protect those who are trapped in the leasehold system. Homes, particularly in the Chapelford area of my constituency, have been built under leasehold systems. I have been dealing with the issue on an almost daily basis since becoming the Member of Parliament for Warrington South. In common with colleagues across the House, I have constituents who face an endless array of problems with leasehold—including high service charges, and drawn-out and complicated processes to get information about the leaseholds on their homes, with people having to spend money to get that information if they are able to obtain it at all—so I welcome the leasehold and freehold Bill.

Like the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith), I am pleased to see the Media Bill, which I and colleagues on both sides of the House have been pushing for. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary media group and of the APPG on commercial radio, I have spent a lot of time looking at and working on the issue. It is hard to explain to constituents why we want to prioritise a Media Bill, but the truth is that if we do not get today’s legislation right, frankly, it will be the only such legislation we see for 20 years, and what we watch on our TVs and listen to on our radio stations will be controlled not by what happens here in Parliament, but by what happens with tech companies on the west coast of America. That is why it is so important that we get the Media Bill right.

When the last media Bill came through Parliament 20 years ago, Facebook was not around, we did not have streaming services and people listened to a radio station not through an on-demand speaker, but through a dial that they tuned. All those things have changed and we need to get the legislation right to ensure that viewers and listeners in this country are protected, and get to listen to and see public service radio and TV in the way they should.

Finally, I will briefly touch on the Government’s criminal justice agenda. As a magistrate, I know all too well how important it is to ensure that justice is seen to be done, so I very much welcome measures on proportionate sentencing and powers to compel criminals to hear their verdicts read out in court.

I do not want to take up any more time, Madam Deputy Speaker. To sum up, the King’s Speech contains a strong and promising agenda from the Government. There is lots of work to be done, and I am looking forward to another year of healthy debate and parliamentary scrutiny, so that we can get these important reforms on to the statue book over the next 12 months.