Health and Social Care

Gary Sambrook Excerpts

Friday 3rd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

As the hon. Lady knows, I do not have responsibility for social care. The Minister for Care and Mental Health is sitting next to me and will have heard what she said and will take it back to the Department to see whether a letter in response can be expedited.

We are fixing the system for the long term, but my hon. Friend the Minister has announced £162 million that is already going into the bank accounts of organisations to help support the social care workforce. The hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) is right that we need short-term support, but we also need a long-term solution. We are putting the money in to support this vital sector.

[Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)]

I thank the Minister and the Government for the eight successful bids into University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, which will see new wards opened and will go some way towards helping our local NHS through the winter. What a stark contrast that is with the Labour years. When the Queen Elizabeth Hospital was built it was supposed to cost about £500 million, but that has rolled into billions of pounds’ worth of private finance initiative debt. Is that not the difference between us and the Opposition?

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for Birmingham and his local trust. It is always a pleasure to announce more money going into his trust, and he is right to highlight the Labour party’s record on PFI.