Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I take this opportunity to thank the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust for all its work in commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and to say what a privilege it was to meet Holocaust survivors at the Guildhall event.

When my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Ian Roome) and I recently visited a hospital in Barnstaple, a surgeon there told us that it was like a ticking time bomb. He explained that a hospital of that size needs 12 operating theatres to meet demand; it has just four. The last Conservative Government promised to rebuild it, but we all know that that was a hollow promise. Now the North Devon district hospital is one of nine across the country whose urgent rebuild programme has been postponed for over 10 years. Will the Prime Minister meet hon. Members whose constituents’ lives being are harmed by this delay, to see if there is any way we can bring these urgent projects forward?

[The Prime Minister]

I join the right hon. Gentleman in his comments about the Holocaust survivors that we met earlier this week. It was incredibly moving, as it always is, and I was struck by the fact that there were so many in the gathering. We are unlikely to see so many in one place like that again. We must never, ever forget.

On the question of hospitals, I think people across the country are right to feel angry, betrayed and frustrated at the last Government’s plan, or non-plan, for hospitals. It was unachievable. It was unfunded. It was empty promises. Under them, these hospitals would never have been built. Our funded plan, backed by the investment we have put in, will deliver them. We will take such steps as we can on hubs etc, to advance quickly on waiting lists and operations, and I am more than happy to make sure that all constituents and Members can meet the relevant Ministers.

[Ed Davey]

Last week, the Prime Minister told me that it would be three years before social care reforms can be implemented. Now he is saying that urgent hospital rebuilds will take more than a decade. My hon. Friends and I will keep coming back to this issue.

The Chancellor has now admitted that we need to go further and faster in the pursuit of economic growth, and we agree, but the Prime Minister knows that we believe that means setting aside his objections to a UK-EU customs union so that our country can go further and faster in rebuilding our trading relationships with our European neighbours, especially with the threat to world trade posed by Trump’s tariffs and trade wars. If the Prime Minister will not change his mind today on a customs union, will he confirm to the House that when he goes to Brussels on Monday he will open negotiations for the UK to join the pan-Euro-Mediterranean convention so that we can start removing the growth-damaging trade barriers set up by the Conservatives?

[The Prime Minister]

Our No. 1 mission is growth, which is why have we set out all the initiatives over the past seven months, particularly the ones this morning. The right hon. Gentleman knows that in relation to the reset with the EU, which we are determined to achieve, we have clear red lines when it comes to the single market and the customs union. He knows where we stand on that.