NHS Capital Spending

Clive Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) for securing this extremely important debate.

Let us make no mistake: what we are talking about today is a national scandal. Many parts of our hospitals are falling to pieces. That is not just political rhetoric; it is a statement about genuine risk. Some of my constituents, for example, use Frimley Park hospital, which is primarily built out of RAAC, and it has already lasted for twice as long as it was supposed to. In January, the National Audit Office reported that the most urgent RAAC-related phase of the new hospital programme would be completed at least two years later than originally planned, and could take even longer, despite the pressing safety risks posed by buildings with RAAC. We need to do better.

My hon. Friend spoke eloquently about the challenges with capacity at his local hospital, St Helier. Such hospitals are suffering from many years of Conservative under-investment and neglect. The story is repeated across the country: crumbling buildings; leaky roofs; sewage leaks, in some cases; and equipment faults that delay diagnosis and care. That did not happen in just the last two years, so I hope the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), will show some contrition for the part that the Conservatives played in there being a lack of capital investment over many years, which allowed those conditions to develop. The promise of 40 new hospitals, which was made by the Conservatives but had nothing at all behind it, will not be forgotten for generations.

Labour is not addressing this crisis with the urgency that it demands. The response has been to delay the new hospital programme even further, which is a staggering miscalculation. It will cost the country billions to keep old—indeed, dying—hospitals on life support, including around £400 million for the Royal Berkshire hospital alone. I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as a governor of that hospital, and a family member works there as well.

The Royal Berkshire staff are hard-working, compassionate people, as are the doctors, nurses and other clinical professionals working across the country. Our NHS staff are truly the best of us. Despite the best efforts of the hospital trust, the conditions they work in are very poor. The building—parts of it almost 200 years old—is quite literally sinking. Cancer patients receive chemotherapy in a children’s ward from 1910. Wards and offices are inadequately ventilated. Parts of the hospital are poorly accessible, and 50 operations were cancelled in 18 months, not due to staff unavailability or incompetence or for medical reasons, but because the building was simply inadequate on the day. Labour’s response has been to make that hospital struggle on for at least another seven years, on top of the Conservatives’ already lengthy delay, at huge cost to both the taxpayer and patient dignity.

It is not a problem confined to the Royal Berkshire hospital. Between 2019 and April 2025, there were at least 5,000 cancellation incidents caused by crumbling infrastructure at our hospitals. These incidents are only recorded when the care of at least five patients is affected, so that is a minimum of 26,000 people who have had vital care delayed or cancelled simply because the hospital was not in an acceptable condition. Once we consider the incidents affecting fewer than five patients, the actual number may well be much higher.

We must also not forget those hospitals that are not part of the new hospital building programme. Yesterday, my staff spoke to an NHS consultant working in accident and emergency at such a hospital, who has asked not to be named. The consultant described an incident this very week where family members had to be moved out of the resuscitation relatives’ room at the hospital because raw sewage was flowing through the room. Simply imagine that: your loved one critically unwell in resuscitation—your whole world turned upside down—and in that moment, you are hurried away from a stream of vile effluent. It is a national disgrace that this is the reality of our NHS today. That happened just this week. There is no new hospital coming for those patients, or for that consultant. The Government must today commit the money needed to maintain our entire hospital estate properly.

Care, of course, starts in the community, before a patient ever reaches a hospital, but we all hear from our constituents that our primary care system is also not coping due to under-investment. In my constituency, we have seen thousands of new homes built in the last 10 years, but no new GP practice to serve those thousands of new residents, and I know that many Members will recognise that problem in their constituencies as well. The investment in facilities is just not keeping up with the reality on the ground. That is why I am fighting for a new GP practice at Arborfield Green, although the sad reality is that the lack of capital investment in this infrastructure and the incredibly complex commissioning rules stand in the way. I hope the Minister will have something to say about investing in primary care as well as hospitals.

Let us not forget the outdated equipment currently in use in our NHS. Data uncovered by the Liberal Democrats has revealed that 80% of hospitals are using outdated X-ray, MRI or radiotherapy equipment. Imaging is critical for the diagnosis of so many medical conditions. NHS England itself says that CT, MRI and X-ray machines need to be replaced every 10 years to be reliable, but 38 out of the 48 trusts that responded to the request for information reported having X-ray machines over that age in active use. Some 21 of them were using MRI machines that were more than 10 years old. Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust reported an X-ray machine that was 30 years old—older than some Members of this House. It should be a national scandal that lifesaving diagnoses are being left to equipment that we cannot safely rely on. Patients are at risk and staff pushed to breaking point.

I would like to recognise the hard work of my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) on radiotherapy. Like him, I was disappointed to see that the national cancer plan was not more ambitious in its investment in radiotherapy. Anyone who talks to him about this issue will hear about how outdated radiotherapy units are being pushed well beyond their life across the country. We must do better than that for our cancer patients. The national cancer plan, which I called for in this Chamber some 16 months ago, was a welcome step by the Government, but on radio- therapy investment—as with the new hospital programme —Labour has not met the moment.

At this point, I pay tribute to the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), who was the Minister who made the national cancer plan happen. I am sorry that she has decided that she needs to stand down from her post. She did a really good job.

The Liberal Democrats would implement a 10-year capital investment programme that allows the NHS to plan for its future, not just its next budget cycle. That would include £10 billion to end the scandal of crumbling hospitals and GP practices, improving outcomes for patients and cutting daily costs for our national health service. We would establish a winter taskforce with a ringfenced £1.5 billion fund to deal with winter pressures, ending the cycle of raiding the capital budget just to cope with the latest predictable emergency. We have said on many occasions how that will be paid for. The question before the Minister today is not whether something needs to be done; we all know what needs to be done—investment on a huge scale—but the question is when. When will the Government deliver?