Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)]

What progress his Department has made on improving the health service capital estate.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

What progress his Department has made on improving the health service capital estate.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

In our election manifesto, we committed to building 40 new hospitals by 2030 and upgrading another 20 hospitals. We are delivering on that commitment and now have plans to build 48 new hospitals this decade. We will open a competition for the eight further new hospitals shortly.

[Matt Hancock]

I thank everybody who is working at Scunthorpe General Hospital for their incredible effort over the last year. My hon. Friend has been an assiduous campaigner for Scunthorpe hospital and the upgrades that we have already been able to put money into, and now there are eight slots for further new hospitals. Forty have been announced and we will build eight more over this decade. We will shortly announce how we are going to make that decision. There will be an open process and I look forward to working with her, her colleagues and colleagues across the NHS in Lincolnshire to make sure that they can put together the best possible application.

[Jack Brereton]

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Government for investing in mental health facilities at Heartlands Hospital and acute facilities at the Royal Stoke University Hospital. Together, this will see over £32 million being invested in our local NHS, so would my right hon. Friend agree that it is more important than ever, as our NHS starts to recover from the pandemic, that we provide the best possible health facilities?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I would. The NHS has clearly played such a critical part in the response to the pandemic in the last just over a year. I thank all those working in and around Stoke, including at the Royal Stoke, which is a great hospital. We have put £32 million into the local NHS, and we protected the NHS even through the worst challenges of this pandemic. Of course, I will be open to further investment to make sure that the NHS across Stoke gets the support that it needs so that we can build back better. Today, we are all able to see the improvements that are being made in the response to the covid pandemic, with the opening yesterday of step 2 —I am delighted, Mr Speaker, to see that you have had a haircut. So many of us have been looking forward to being able to get life back to normal, and thanks to the work of people across Stoke and across the nation, we are able to take these steps.