Hospital Car Parking Charges

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend is quite right. He has done much to highlight some of the PFI contracts, the long-term consequences of which we are now having to deal with, where the contractors may have been rather more savvy in negotiating a deal that suits them rather than the patients. We must remember that the NHS should serve the interests of patients, not the providers of any contracts or services within it. I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend and I hope that the Minister will consider what more can be done to challenge some of the contracts.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing the debate. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) was also involved in that.

The hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) touched on the heart of the problem. I was an ex-Paymaster General when the Coventry bid was pushed through as a PFI project. We have a magnificent new hospital, but people’s impression of it is not how good the facility is, but how high the car parking charges are, necessitated, unfortunately, by the PFI contract. Does the hon. Lady agree that the key point to put to the Treasury is that these PFI contracts are often too onerous to be sustained by the normal income that the NHS can expect a hospital to generate, and, in particular, the car parking fees built into that are too high?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I remind Members that about 37 Back Benchers want to speak in three debates that must finish at 10 o’clock, and we must also take the Front-Bench speakers and the proposers. We need interventions to be short, pithy and to the point, and Members must be disciplined if everybody who wishes to speak is to be able to do so. Time is of the essence.