Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Whately and Selaine Saxby

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

T5. Does my hon. Friend have plans to help high streets such as that in Barnstaple in North Devon, which has many large vacant units with several storage floors above them, with measures such as business rates reform or a redevelopment fund, to enable those empty buildings to be repurposed and become smaller units combined with much-needed housing, so that town centres can bounce back after covid?

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Helen Whately)]

Like my hon. Friend, I am keen to support high streets in towns such as Barnstaple. At the autumn Budget, we announced business rates relief for thousands of retail, hospitality and leisure businesses to help them get through the pandemic and adapt to wider economic changes. I would also point my hon. Friend to the £4.8 billion levelling-up fund and encourage Barnstaple to apply for round 2, which will be opening this spring.

NHS Update

Debate between Helen Whately and Selaine Saxby

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

I join the hon. Lady in thanking NHS staff in her constituency, particularly in St Thomas’ Hospital, just across the river from where we are now, where I had one of my three children and was extremely well looked after. She asks about mental health support for staff. We recognise the pressure and mental health challenges that staff have been facing, particularly during the pandemic. That is why the NHS is putting in place 40 mental health hubs to provide specific mental health support to NHS and social care staff. That is one of a range of things that we are doing to support the mental health of staff through this time.

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s commitment to our NHS through the delivery of the biggest hospital building programme in a generation. Will my hon. Friend set out the progress that her Department has made towards identifying and progressing the 40 future hospitals that it will be building and significantly enhancing, such as North Devon District Hospital in my constituency?

[Helen Whately]

We have indeed committed to build 40 new hospitals by 2030. Together with eight existing schemes, that will mean 48 new hospitals by the end of the decade—as my hon. Friend says, the biggest hospital building programme in a generation. The programme is absolutely on track, but I will have to take up the specific hospital in her constituency with the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), who is the hospitals Minister.