Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has given decades of service to his community. I am a firm believer in moving power out of Westminster and into the hands of those with skin in the game. That is how we boost growth, create opportunities and drive reform. I am pleased that we are establishing a combined county authority in Lancashire. Our ambition is for mayors across all areas of England who can take advantage of the powers set out in the devolution White Paper, including in Lancashire.

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

Q11. I declare an interest as a governor of the Royal Berkshire hospital, and a family member has shares in a medical company. In the Public Gallery today are patients who use the Royal Berkshire hospital. Parts of its estate are crumbling as we speak and it urgently needs a rebuild, but we will have to wait until at least 2037. Can the Prime Minister please explain to those visitors and to the House why he thinks it is acceptable that staff and patients will have to dodge buckets collecting rainwater from leaking roofs for another 18 years? Will he meet them and explain that to them face to face?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this matter on behalf of his constituents, so I will speak and his constituents will hear the answer. There was not a plan for the building. It was a pretend plan; it was a fiction. It was unfunded and undeliverable. It only existed in the head of Boris Johnson. There is the frustration for his constituents and I really understand it. They thought—because they were promised—that they were going to get something, which the Conservative party knew was never going to be delivered. That is absolutely unforgiveable. We will pick that up. We have put in place a funded scheme to build as quickly as we can, but it has to be funded and it has to be deliverable. That is the difference between the approach that we are taking and the approach that they took. Of course I will ensure that a relevant Minister meets the hon. Gentleman and his constituents to explain that more fully to them.