Business of the House

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Lady should thank me. I have been giving her publicity that money cannot buy, and I think it is encouraging that we have generated such a following and such an interest in what goes on in the Chamber during business questions. Let me make it clear to the hon. Lady that I am not talking Scotland down. I am talking the Scottish National party down, because it has been an unmitigated disaster for Scotland. The stoicism of the Scottish people in dealing with their inept Government deserves great credit.

Each week the hon. Lady talks about our record on delivery and invites me to make the comparison with the Scottish Government. I shall try to do so this week without mentioning the appalling record of the SNP Government, and just invite people to contrast our record with theirs.

In the UK, we have the largest rail infrastructure investment since Victorian times. We have massive regeneration projects across the UK. More than 1,000 miles of major roads have been refurbished; compare that with the A9, please. We have 20 times as much offshore wind capacity as we had when we entered office. Eighteen million households have full-fibre broadband. How is the Scottish Government’s broadband rollout going? Then there are our hospitals, mental health facilities, 50 new surgical hubs, new nuclear power stations and record investments in home and flood defences, and in the coming financial year our research and development spend will be about £20 billion.

In 2010, the strategic defence and security review greenlit a couple of aircraft carriers and, six years later, one was commissioned. That complex 65,000-tonne warship was built through the carrier alliance, a wonderful example of the UK supply chain working together. After the same six-year timeframe, the SNP is still building a couple of ferries, which are £308 million over budget. For context, the overspend is three times the original budget, and I now understand that these pioneering green vessels will run on diesel.

The SNP Government have been an unmitigated disaster for Scotland. They have been found out. They are incapable and incorrigible, and now they are in trouble.

The hon. Lady’s final question is a matter for the House of Lords, not the House of Commons.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will be meeting in Strasbourg next week, which means that Members on the UK delegation will not be here for the tributes to Tony Lloyd. He was latterly an effective and diligent member of that Assembly, and I hope we will be able to pay our tributes in Strasbourg. We miss his charm and humanity. As a fellow Member who first entered this House in 1983, I had the privilege of knowing him for a very long time.

Will the Leader of the House initiate a debate on the effectiveness or otherwise of integrated care boards? The rationale for the boards was to deal with the interaction between health and social care and to reduce the incidence of bed-blocking. Last week we heard that no fewer than 353 hospital beds in Dorset are occupied by people who do not need them, at a cost of over £100,000 a day, let alone the opportunity cost of missed operations and so on. This is intolerable and shows that the system of integrated care is not working. Can we have a debate?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for putting on record his beautiful tribute to Tony Lloyd. It would be wonderful if such tributes could also be heard in Strasbourg.

My hon. Friend is right that it is vital that commissioners are held to account. Our NHS will not function properly without accountability and choice. The former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), undertook work on patient outcomes data and the quality of commissioning in each board and across the UK, which will help to drive accountability. Now that we have that data, I am sure it will make for a very interesting debate. My hon. Friend knows how to apply for a debate, and he may also wish to raise this matter with the Secretary of State on 23 January.