Public Spending: Inheritance

Jeevun Sandher Excerpts

Monday 29th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I welcome you to your place, Madam Deputy Speaker. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will meet with people affected. We were promised a new hospital in Leeds that has never been built, so I understand the concerns that right hon. and hon. Members have about the hospital programme. However, there is a £22 billion in-year overspend, which means taking incredibly difficult decisions. They are not the decisions that we would want to make, but they are responsible ones in the circumstances, given our dire inheritance from the Conservative party.

[Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) (Lab)]

I used to work in the Treasury; what we have heard today about the Conservative party is shocking and shameful. The Chancellor has set out how far away the last Government were from meeting their own targets on hospital building. Does she agree that our plan, by contrast, represents a deliverable way to ensure we get waiting lists down?

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend is welcome on the Government Benches with his expertise. Everything in our manifesto was fully costed and fully funded, including 40,000 additional NHS appointments every single week, which will be funded by cracking down on tax avoidance and ensuring that people who make their home in Britain pay their taxes here. We will finally deal with the terrible situation of non-doms claiming that they do not live in Britain for tax purposes, despite making their home here. Those people should contribute to the public purse; under Labour, they will.