Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Money)

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Money resolution
Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I am conscious of the limited time available and so will keep my remarks focused. I appreciate that it is not commonplace for Front Benchers to speak at length on money resolutions, but this is not commonplace legislation. I reiterate that His Majesty’s loyal Opposition have taken a neutral stance on the merits of the Bill, both in principle and in detail. The House has expressed its support for the introduction of assisted dying, and Members are currently considering the Bill in detail before it is presented back to the whole House for further consideration. The money resolution is a necessary part of associated legislation. Proponents of the Bill will welcome the Government bringing this forward, as it is not unheard of for Governments to withhold these resolutions in a manner that delays the progress of legislation.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

There are concerns from those of us who voted against the assisted dying Bill. I understand the process, and how it works with the money resolution coming forward, but on the day that this was finalised I asked a question, and the make-up of the Committee was 15 of those who voted for the Bill, and nine who voted against. A secrecy process has now been brought into the Bill, and we do not know what is happening. That is against the rules of this House. The second thing they have done is the issue of withdrawing the opinion of the judges, which is also out of order.

[Dr Mullan]

I hope that the hon. Member will appreciate that the money resolution is narrow in scope—I will perhaps bring the attention of the House to some tangentially related issues when it comes to the role of the Government in these proceedings.

As I said, proponents of the Bill will be glad of the progress that has been made, but this motion brings into sharp focus the fact that at some point the Government will need to fund, organise and provide assisted dying services to reflect any legislation that receives Royal Assent. As the Minister said, the money resolution will provide the legal basis for funding that service. I recognise that we are not yet at the stage when the Government can say with certainty what exactly those services and their associated funding will look like. There is time still for changes to be made, and we should not of course make an absolute assumption that any Bill will pass all its stages, as likely as that is, given the will of Parliament as expressed to date.

As the Bill proceeds, it will become increasingly important, and helpful to Members voting on future stages, to begin to have some idea of how the civil service and Ministers are envisioning enacting the legislation, not least in relation to the matter of resources before us today. The hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) estimated that up to 3% of adults may eventually choose assisted dying. In 2023 there were 577,620 adult deaths in England and Wales. If 3% of those were assisted dying cases, that would result in about 17,000 cases annually. Those are not insignificant numbers, and Members will recognise the considerable existing challenges with resources and personnel in the relevant areas of spending.

Although this is not a Government Bill, the Lord Chancellor has ultimate responsibility for ensuring the effective functioning of our legal system and judiciary, as does the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care for the delivery of this service, and how that will balance and interact with the other health services provided. I therefore have a small number of questions relating to resources, which I hope the Minister agrees will assist the House in better understanding how the Government are approaching such matters.

If information is not forthcoming today, it is crucial that the Minister sets out, in slightly more detail than he did earlier, at what point the Government will engage more fully with the detail of how they intend to resource the Bill, and start sharing their considerations. First, have the Government produced at the very least internal estimates of a potential range of the costs of delivering an assisted dying service, for both the NHS and the judiciary? If they have, will they share that with the House today? If they have not produced internal estimates, when do they anticipate doing so, and when do they intend to publish such estimates?

Secondly, have the Government identified potential sources of funding for the service? If they have, will that funding come from existing departmental budgets, or will it be allocated from outside currently allocated funding? In the latter case, where will those additional resources be drawn from? If the Government have not yet produced options for Ministers to consider on these questions, when will they do so, and when will they share them with the House?

Questions of resources relate to the impact on existing services of any decisions that the money resolution enables. The closer we come to the closing stages of the Bill, particularly ahead of any final parliamentary vote on a settled set of proposals, the more important it will be that Members get the benefit of answers to those questions, which can only come from the Government. It is important to say that it is perfectly legitimate for Members to decide that a better understanding of these issues is not an absolute necessity, and it will be for Members to decide whether they are happy to support legislation purely on principle. That may well be the position for many Members of the House, but I think most would agree that it would be preferable to be able to vote with, at very least, possible approaches and assessments of these matters, even if not definitive answers.

In conclusion, these are not merely procedural or technical issues. The Government’s tabling of this motion signals an acceptance that, should the Bill become law, the financial costs will need to be met, and that will not be a minor area of expenditure. This House has a duty to scrutinise every aspect of the Bill, and I urge the Government to provide a degree of clarity that only they can provide to assist Members in doing that. At this stage there has been a clearly expressed will of Parliament to introduce this service, and it is right for the Government to make legal provision for funding it in principle. However, the Government should enable Members to make decisions at future stages with as good an understanding as possible of how the legislation they may wish to support will translate into the real world.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

New Hospital Programme

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

I will call Dr Kieran Mullan to move the motion, and then I will call the Minister to respond. As is the convention with these 30-minute wonders, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the New Hospital Programme.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq, for a debate that is very timely in the light of the statement of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care this week. My remarks will focus on three hospitals that serve my constituency as part of the East Sussex healthcare NHS trust: Eastbourne district general hospital and Conquest hospital, which are situated outside my constituency but are major secondary care providers for my constituents, and Bexhill community hospital.

As part of the new hospital programme announced by the previous Government, Eastbourne district general hospital is due to be entirely rebuilt, and Conquest hospital is set to be reorganised and the structure improved to ensure that it is fit for the future. Alongside creating additional in-patient wards and improved parking facilities, the plans include expanding the emergency departments at Eastbourne and Conquest, improving access to cardiology and ophthalmology services, and redeveloping out-patient theatres, endoscopy and diagnostic services.

Plans to upgrade Bexhill community hospital are also included in the programme, equipping it to deliver more services locally. Currently, only 53% of space in the hospital is allocated to clinical space. Once that work is complete, that will increase to 70%. To reflect increasing demand for care, the plans will also increase the number of hospital beds by 13%, the number of single rooms as a proportion of hospital space from 18% to 70%, and the number of out-patient consulting rooms by 28%.

Having worked in the NHS as a doctor in A&E for a number of years before becoming an MP, I know the difficulties that can arise from working in buildings that are in need of improvement. The physical infrastructure of the building is outside the control of frontline staff, so they often have to do whatever it takes to make it work, but it would be better if they did not have to. I think the Minister would agree that despite those circumstances, our healthcare staff work tirelessly, and we owe it to them to deliver better infrastructure.

Whatever the new Government may say, progress on the new hospital programme was being made under the previous Government, despite the challenges presented by the pandemic and the inflationary pressures on construction costs as a result of the war in Ukraine. The programme was incredibly ambitious but remained a significant commitment to investment in hospital infrastructure.

During the 2024 general election, the Labour party committed to delivering the new hospital programme. Candidates up and down the country made pledges to deliver on the programme, but this week, the Health Secretary broke that pledge at the Dispatch Box by moving the goalposts, as a result of which many constituents in Bexhill and Battle will not see the benefits of the programme until 2039 at the earliest.

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

I declare my interest as a governor of the Royal Berkshire hospital, and that a family member has shares in a medical company. My constituents are heartbroken by the Government’s decision to push the start date of the Royal Berks’s construction to 2037, which will disappoint patients and staff. The hon. Member must recognise the role that his party played in creating that situation, so does he agree that his party needs to reflect on its part in the delayed new hospital programme, and will he apologise for it?

[Dr Mullan]

It is a 30-minute debate, and I want to be generous in letting hon. Members make short points in support of their hospitals, but I do not want to allow it to degenerate into a highly political back and forth. As I was saying, the Government pledged to do it and they did not.

[Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Mullan]

In a moment.

[Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Mullan]

I will.

[Mr Mohindra]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this timely debate. As he will know, Dean Russell, the former Member of Parliament for Watford, was a keen advocate for Watford general hospital. He continued to make sure that we progressed the project for that hospital, which has a real impact on my constituency of South West Hertfordshire. Does my hon. Friend share my disappointment that Watford general is now not likely to get spades in the ground until 2032 at the earliest? Furthermore, some of the figures being bandied about are concerning. I know that the Minister has uploaded draft costs, but £1.5 billion to £2 billion seems a bit high for what was initially proposed.

[Dr Mullan]

I share that disappointment, which relates to some of the remarks that I will go on to make about how those costs will go up with the delays, because of the inflationary pressures globally.

To address the concerns about our role in the process, I remind the Minister that the Chancellor was specifically asked during the election campaign about commitments that were being made on tax and spend. She was also asked whether those commitments would have to change when Labour was in government, because of the fiscal challenges that she had not known about—

[Helena Dollimore]

rose—

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Dr Mullan]

I will not give way yet.

Yet that is exactly what the Government have done again and again, breaking not only that pledge but a series of pledges they made during the election—that they would not say in government that they had been forced into a particular situation. That was the Chancellor’s specific pledge. It was clear from the Secretary of State’s statement this week that the Government intend to continue making the issue a political football.

I will reiterate the important context behind the challenges that we are seeing in NHS capital backlogs. When we came into Government in 2010, £1 in every £4 being spent by the Government was borrowed, which was clearly unsustainable. If the Labour party thinks that its current economic inheritance presents challenges for public spending, let me remind it of what we inherited. Unemployment was higher; inflation was higher; the deficit, or the black hole as Labour Members like to call it, was higher; and economic growth was lower. Even in that context, however, we prioritised NHS spending.

[Helena Dollimore]

I thank the hon. Member, my constituency neighbour, for giving way and I congratulate him on securing this debate. We both care deeply about our three local hospitals and I, too, pay tribute to the work of our amazing NHS staff. Recently, I was at one of those local hospitals with a family member and I will be there again next week.

Does the hon. Member agree, however, that when Labour came into office, it was confronted with the fact that the Conservative Government had not budgeted for the new hospital that they had promised for our community, and that the money for it had run out in April? If the Conservative Government had been serious about committing to the new hospital programme, they should have budgeted for it. The new Labour Government have provided that funding and put in place a realistic and honest framework for our communities that sets out when we will get that work done.

[Dr Mullan]

Governments make choices. I have just laid out the economic situation that we inherited, which was worse than the one Labour has inherited, and yet we prioritised NHS spending. Nobody forced Labour to give above-inflation pay increases to a number of public sector workers and enormous pay increases to train drivers, or to make a significant but unwise investment in the green investment plan.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Dr Mullan]

I do not have to let anybody intervene, but I will let you intervene to make a point about your hospitals. If there continues to be a back-and-forth, I will not let anybody intervene—this is my speech and I will make my points.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. We have had the word “you” a few times, which refers to me as the Chair.

[Dr Mullan]

There is not time for a continual back-and-forth in a 30-minute debate, so I will make some more progress.

When it comes to comparing the record of the NHS, the performance of the NHS under Labour in Wales, across many of the metrics that Labour Members have criticised us for, is actually worse than the record of the NHS elsewhere. That is because across England, Scotland and Wales—this is why I hope we can come to some agreement—we not only had the pandemic but face an increasing demographic challenge.

The SNP, Labour and the Conservatives, in the three areas in which we respectively have responsibility for health, are seeing considerable challenges that all of us are struggling to manage, as the Labour party will now struggle to manage them. As was the case when Labour was last in office, capital spending is often deprioritised when budgets are challenged, and decisions are made that might make sense in the short term but that also create long-term pressures.

The issue that we are debating is nothing new. Members from both sides of the House agree that our hospitals need modernisation, with 42% of the NHS estate having been built before 1985 and 14% of the estate pre-dating the NHS.

[Perran Moon]

rose—

[Chris Vince]

rose—

[Dr Mullan]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon), who stood up first.

[Perran Moon]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way. I appreciate that he does not want this debate to be political, but so far it has been all about politics. If we want to have a debate about the state of the NHS and how we transform it, it must be a level debate.

In Cornwall, we have one general hospital, but we are very fortunate that it is in the first phase of the programme because it is a women and children’s unit, which we have a desperate need for. It was originally promised by the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, more than 10 years ago, but nothing came to fruition. We have been waiting a long, long time for it.

I fully accept that government is about choices. We have had to deal with—whatever we want to say; however we want to position it—a number of different challenges since we came into government—

[Perran Moon]

Does the hon. Member agree that we now have a coherent programme—however long it is for—to implement those changes?

[Dr Mullan]

That remains to be seen; we will have to see what the Office for Budget Responsibility says in March about the planned public expenditure limits.

To be clear about taking interventions, I am very happy to debate things, but this is a 30-minute debate in which the primary focus is on the person who secured the debate. The Minister will get a chance to make those repeated points, so I will not let anyone else make another intervention. I was happy to let people make interventions, because I am keen for you all to champion your local hospitals, but if you are not willing to play ball with me—

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. Avoid the word “you”—that is one to steer clear of.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Mullan]

I apologise. If Members are not willing to go along with that courtesy, I am afraid that I will not continue to take interventions. I have tried to be fair and decent.

I hope that the Minister will at least be shorter on rhetoric and longer on the details of what will actually happen than the Secretary of State was. That brings me back to my local hospital and what happens next. Shortly after the election, I attended a briefing with East Sussex healthcare trust, which I am proud to say has made incredible improvements over the past 10 years. Despite being in what it described as a challenging financial position, it has reversed its special measures and improved standards across the board.

The hospitals under the trust are crucial parts of our local healthcare services in East Sussex and have served the community for decades. Each year, they carry out over 160,000 emergency attendances, 56,000 planned surgeries and 438,000 out-patient appointments. It is also important to remember that those hospitals are not just healthcare providers but job creators, employing around 8,700 people locally.

However, East Sussex healthcare trust was clear that the remedial works due under the new hospital programme could not be delivered soon enough. When the programme was announced in 2019, the trust estimated that the total backlog rectification cost throughout all its hospitals was over £300 million. Its critical infrastructure risk was the 10th highest in England, and was estimated to represent around £64 million of the £300 million total required to resolve the backlog. If left untouched, it is estimated that that figure will rise to £220 million over 10 years.

Given the disappointing decision to delay the major infrastructure investment that would have addressed the situation, what is the plan now? How will the Government now ensure that those sites can continue to function effectively? I am grateful to the Minister for her time in our previous interactions, but I ask her to explain in detail how the Government are going to manage those issues. The trust is now working at pace to try to develop a better understanding of the impact of the decision and the possible mitigations. What support is being put in place by the Department and NHS England to assist hospitals in that work?

Tackling the colossal backlog of repairs is not enough to equip such hospitals for the 21st century. The way that we deliver care has drastically changed since they were built. A new hospital is not just a new building; it is more than just bricks and mortar. It is about rethinking traditional and outdated models of care to reflect the changing needs of patients. Hospitals in East Sussex have been assessed as having a digital maturity level of zero. That must be addressed if the Government’s ambition of a digital revolution is to be realised. The layout of the hospitals is simply not designed for modern healthcare, with far too few single rooms to meet demand, which leaves hospitals poorly equipped to effectively control infection and unable to offer patients privacy and dignity when they need it most.

Those issues are more pronounced when we enter the winter months, with the UK Health Security Agency reporting a sharp increase in the number of patients admitted to hospital for flu and other respiratory diseases. As the Health Secretary mentioned last week, there are 5,100 people in hospital with flu, which is more than three times the number at this point last year. That is only compounded by the UK’s ageing population, which is often described correctly as a demographic time bomb, as in the next 25 years the number of people older than 85 will double to 2.6 million. In East Sussex alone, the population is expected to increase by 14%, with significant growth in the over-70s demographic. As that comes to pass, healthcare needs will become more complex and the demand for services will continue to grow.

I have been working with a number of GP practices in my constituency to help bring to fruition their plans to move to larger, more modern premises. As such, I am encouraged by the Government’s £889 million of extra funding for general practice. From that work, I know that a significant barrier to those projects being delivered is the rising cost of construction. I was informed by Rother district council that construction costs on its joint projects have increased by approximately 40% since 2020.

Those issues underscore how critical the rebuilds are to East Sussex healthcare trust, as well as others across the country, to deliver the best healthcare outcomes for patients and future-proof our NHS. Although financial prudence is essential, the Health Secretary’s delays only escalate construction costs and deepen the strain on our healthcare system. Investment now will save money and lives in the long term. Instead, the Labour Government have delayed plans—admittedly ambitious plans—and kicked the can down the road. The decision to delay schemes in East Sussex will have consequences for patient care, NHS staff and public trust.

Without urgent interim funding to address those issues, patient safety and care standards will be at risk. I call on the Minister to secure dedicated resources to tackle the new challenges in maintenance and capital spending created by the Government’s decision, and ensure that hospitals can continue to serve the community safely and effectively while we wait for the new promised facilities to materialise. Delay must not mean deterioration, and I urge the Government to act now to protect both patients and NHS staff.

--- Later in debate ---

[Clive Jones]

rose—

[Dr Mullan]

rose—

[Karin Smyth]

If the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, whose timing is superb, wants to make an extra point, I will give him the courtesy of a chance to come back in.

[Dr Mullan]

In the last hour, I have had a communication from the trust explaining that, with the delay, the extra cost may be in the hundreds of millions. I would be grateful to take up the Minister’s offer of some time, as well as to talk to MPs who use those services, to see how we can help the trust to access that funding.

[Karin Smyth]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. We learned a lot yesterday from the expert team from the new hospital programme; I thank them for their incredible work in getting to this point. Those colleagues who could make the meetings yesterday found that the team’s knowledge about every single programme was phenomenal. I have yet to ask the team a question about any scheme to which they do not know the answer—I give hon. Members that confident assurance. The team includes colleagues from both NHS England and the Department.

When I went to an assurance meeting a few weeks ago, I learned that the relationship between the central control of the programme and the trusts, how we get the schemes delivered for everyone’s constituents, and the value of parliamentarians talking to me—everyone has stopped me in the corridors to raise these issues—are all very valuable. That is a good function of parliamentarians. That is the spirit in which we want to continue.

Our commitment is to deliver these hospitals, including the Eastbourne district general, Conquest hospital and Bexhill community hospital schemes, and I am pleased to say that we have an affordable, deliverable plan to do so. It will be difficult, but I look forward to working with the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle and other colleagues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for setting out a list of all the failures of the past 14 years. He is dealing with that mess thanks to Members on the Benches he sits on. I strongly encourage his constituents to get actively involved in the 10-year plan that we will launch. There will be an important national engagement exercise on shifting from hospital to community, from sickness to prevention and from analogue to digital, because given the total and utter chaos that we inherited, we need systemic reform.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I recently met representatives of Martins Oak and Oldwood surgeries in my constituency. Both surgeries have ambitious plans to move to bigger premises so that they can see more patients, but they face numerous challenges, including the gap between the lease lengths that the integrated care board will support and those that GP practices can get developers to sign up to. There are other challenges that I am sure the Minister can help unpick, so will he meet me to see whether we can help bring those ambitious plans for new surgeries to fruition?

[Stephen Kinnock]

The hon. Gentleman has considerable expertise in this area, given his background. I would be happy to discuss that issue with him, but I remind him that although there may well be specific issues, there is a generic problem: the total and utter failure to ensure investment, reform and strategic thinking about our system.

NHS: Independent Investigation

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend has done a lot of work in this area and I would be delighted to meet her. Let me give the Conservative party a lesson in humility. However proud I am of the last Labour Government—and I am incredibly proud of what they did to our health estate, the investment they brought in, through a range of different types of private financing, and the impact that had; I can see the benefits in my own constituency— I have never shied away from what we did not get right. At the same time as celebrating what we got right in government, we must reflect on what we did not get right and genuinely learn those lessons, which is what we did in opposition. It took us too long to get back into government—we will learn from that for the future—but it has been really interesting to listen to Conservative Members over the past nine weeks. They have not learned anything, they have not got the message and they are not going to change.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

As Labour embarks on a reform programme, may I ask whether the Secretary of State has read the report of the Mid Staffordshire public inquiry, which looked at the shocking patient neglect last time Labour was in charge? Reading it might temper the hubris that he is showing in the Chamber today, in the face of the challenges that his colleagues in Wales have certainly not managed to overcome.

[Wes Streeting]

I gently point the hon. Gentleman to the bold claims made by the now shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt), about patient safety. He might like to reflect on every subsequent patient safety scandal. In fact, he might want to walk into maternity services across the country and ask himself whether the Conservatives bothered to learn lessons on patient safety.

Leighton Hospital Rebuild

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)]

I will call Dr Kieran Mullan to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the rebuild of Leighton Hospital.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. My aim today is to take this opportunity to ensure that the rebuild of Leighton Hospital is front and centre of the Minister’s priorities, because a successful rebuild and management of the short-term challenges on the way there are vital to ensuring that my constituents, and residents across the region more broadly, can access excellent healthcare from their local hospital.

All of us involved in the campaign were delighted when we secured Leighton’s place in the £20 billion new hospital programme, which will see 40 hospitals benefit in the largest concerted effort in a generation to modernise our hospital estate. As part of that, Leighton Hospital will receive hundreds of millions of pounds in funding to be rebuilt. The current hospital is a crucial part of our local healthcare services. Built in the early 1970s, Leighton Hospital was opened by the late Queen in 1972. Generations of families have been born there and millions of people have received treatment there, and I know our local community is incredibly proud of its local hospital. Each year, the Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, of which Leighton is the primary site, has more than 100,000 A&E attendances and 290,000 outpatient appointments, and carries out more than 100,000 diagnostic tests. Leighton provides not just healthcare, but over 4,500 job opportunities to members of staff employed at the trust. Those fantastic members of staff cover a whole range of roles, including porters, cooks, receptionists, cleaners, occupational therapists, healthcare assistants, physiotherapists, nurses, doctors and many others.

Having worked in the NHS prior to becoming an MP, I know the difficulties that can arise working in buildings that are in need of refurbishment or, in this case, replacement. The physical infrastructure of the building being worked in is outside the control of the frontline staff, and they often have to do whatever it takes to make it work, but it would be better if they did not have to. Since it was built, Leighton has been expanded with new, modern buildings added on, including a new intensive therapy unit and theatre suite, campaigned for by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) when he represented Crewe and Nantwich.

More recently, I worked with others to secure £15 million for a new A&E department. When it was originally built, much of the building was made with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. RAAC is a lightweight, bubbly form of concrete, which was often used in schools, colleges and hospitals from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. It is usually found in roofs and occasionally walls and floors, and has since proven to be at risk of structural failure. Since that came to light, it was clear that something needed to be done to ensure that Leighton remains safe for patients.

By the time we started our campaign for a new hospital building, much work had already been done to manage that risk, but it was clear that remedial work would only take us so far and that the best thing to do—not least the better use of taxpayers’ money—was to have a whole new building, so the campaign was launched. Thousands of local residents signed our petition for a rebuild and shared their positive experiences of being treated at Leighton, often having been born there, and they very much wanted to see its future secured. The inclusion of Leighton Hospital in the hospital building programme is a win for its staff and the patients it serves. It has been a privilege to have played a part in securing it, alongside the hard work of so many other key players, including my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury, and the cross-party support we achieved.

My hon. and learned Friend very much wanted to be here today, but is on an important visit with the Justice Committee. As I know he has done already, I have been glad today to be able to sit down and discuss this important local issue with the excellent Chester South and Eddisbury Conservative candidate for the forthcoming general election, Aphra Brandreth, who is in the Gallery. I know Aphra will continue championing the cause if she is elected as the next MP, which I very much hope she will be.

Having spoken recently with the leadership at Leighton Hospital, I understand that the building programme is coming along well, and I want to thank all those working on the project at Leighton, in NHS England and in the Department of Health and Social Care for their hard work to date. I am delighted that the Leighton site has been selected as the national low-rise hospital 2.0 design template reference site. Procurement of technical advisers is ongoing, and there has been positive engagement with the Cheshire East planning department. The funding allocated for the purchase of the land required to enable a new build has been received, with the purchase expected to be made in the next few weeks. While the trust is waiting for full DHSC and Treasury approval, the current timeline for completion runs through to 2029. That achieves the Government’s goal of ensuring that the proposed projects in the hospital building programme are done before 2030.

However, as with any large infrastructure project, there will always be challenges and room for improvement. Most critically, the RAAC issue has not gone away. The hospital building programme is the long-term solution and we intend to have a whole new hospital to deal with the issue, but in the meantime, remedial works are absolutely necessary to ensure the continued safety of the building.

These challenges can be expected to persist for the next six to seven years. There has been encouraging support to manage them to date, with over £55 million spent in 2022-23 and £28 million in 2023-24, with further spending likely to be needed in the next financial year. A wide range of work has been undertaken, including the construction of a two-storey modular decant ward building. The development provides decant accommodation, which in turn has allowed the trust to undertake essential RAAC refurbishment and stabilisation works to existing wards, ensuring patient safety.

However, the remedial works inevitably create challenges for the dedicated team of staff. Access routes and clinical areas sometimes need to be closed, forcing staff to make large detours and creating a negative impact on the patient and staff experience. It can be difficult to deliver business as usual. Although I appreciate that disruption is at times unavoidable, it would greatly assist the trust if the Minister could talk to colleagues in DHSC and the local NHS to agree a clear, forward-looking timetable for the RAAC work, which will need to carry on and progress as the rebuild does. If there are elements that cannot be agreed in advance, perhaps there could be a smoother mechanism for sign-off to allow more timely decisions to be made.

My second ask is for the Minister to use his considerable skill to work with officials and agree the full cost envelopes and timescales for the whole rebuild as soon as possible, and agree a more streamlined approval process for the elements that are tentatively agreed locally but need sign-off higher up as the work progresses. His attention will benefit the rebuild process not only in Leighton but in other areas if changes can be agreed and implemented across the programme. I am confident that a deep dive by the Minister to understand how it has all been working to date would help identify where improvements in the process could be made.

While I have the Minister’s attention, I want to highlight the potential for Leighton and other NHS hospitals to be heated by deep geothermal resources. A recent study by the British Geological Society identified more than 100 hospitals that sit on deep geothermal resources. As the Minister knows, with a net zero target of 2040, the NHS and hospitals in particular face a considerable challenge to secure net zero heat. I have been working with the Carbon and Energy Fund to develop proposals for identifying the best public sector candidates for deep geothermal, with a focus on NHS sites. I was glad to have the opportunity to meet the Hospitals Minister from the other place, Lord Markham, and his team. We are continuing discussions with them, the Treasury and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to see what we might be able to achieve.

I conclude by again paying tribute to all those who were part of the campaign to secure a rebuild of Leighton Hospital, and to all those at the hospital and in the wider NHS who put in an enormous amount of work to secure the progress we have made to date. I know that the Minister will take my questions in the spirit in which they are intended—as positive suggestions as to how we might deliver even more efficient progress—and see what he can do. We remain very happy to have secured the rebuild. We just want to ensure that it is delivered as swiftly as possible, and that Leighton staff and patients are supported to keep on delivering and receiving healthcare within the existing building in the meantime.

New Hospitals

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

On the issues that my right hon. Friend raises, it is agreed that a replacement is needed and that North and Mid Hampshire will go into the rolling programme for the new hospital programme. As a result, a site will be found, and the intention is to work to a 2032-33 timescale—that is the plan. The original timescale was already stretched because of some of the complexity involved, and I have also signalled just how long previous designs for hospitals have taken, so we are speeding up the construction side but we also need to address some of the issues, particularly around junction 7 and the site design.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

I very warmly welcome this announcement and pay tribute to the leadership of Leighton Hospital, who have relentlessly advocated for this. It has been a three-year, team-effort campaign, particularly with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson), as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and others. I thank the thousands of residents who signed the petition backing this campaign, and I know the team will be itching to get started. Could my right hon. Friend perhaps outline what the next steps will be for Leighton and the other sites?

[Steve Barclay]

Again, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s campaigning work, as well as the work he did in his local hospital as a volunteer during lockdown, which was extremely well received. It is why he has campaigned—along with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury and my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton —to make the case for this investment. I am very happy to have further discussions with him as liaison with the trust on the next steps moves forward.

Patient Choice

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

We are talking about the wider workforce. The hon. Lady mentions private capacity. This patient choice will enable people to make much better use of the independent sector and to do so free at the point of access. Given the size of the challenge of pandemic backlogs, the question is: how can we make full use of capacity across the NHS and in the independent sector?

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

The problem of variation in waiting times is symbolic of all sorts of variations across the NHS. My previous employer, the national clinic audit programme commissioner, focused on identifying and spreading good practice. Will the Minister join me to meet the programme’s CEO, Jane Ingham, to hear her insights on how to tackle this challenge, and also join me in paying tribute to her as she retires after 10 years of dedicated public service in this role?

[Steve Barclay]

I am very happy to join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to Jane Ingham, who, as he says, is retiring after 10 years in that post. She has a long history of working to improve the quality of healthcare in the NHS and it is right that we pay tribute to her. I am sure the ministerial team are keen to engage with her on lessons to be learnt from her career.

Covid Pandemic: Testing of Care Home Residents

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

I fear that the hon. Lady did not hear my previous answer, which was that the public health advice and the advice of the chief medical officer was followed. Of course there is a job to do when advice is given, and then there are the practicalities of implementation. As the volume of tests became available, those tests were used as advised, following the public health advice.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

I will not forget the totally shameless politicking by Opposition Members during the pandemic. I specifically remember the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, who is no longer in her place, and the Leader of the Opposition talking about how we had the worst death toll in Europe. They said that again and again. [Interruption.] I hear the shadow Minister say from a sedentary position that we did, but the studies now show that we were ahead of Italy, ahead of Spain, broadly in line with France and Germany, and very far from the worst in Europe. Have we ever heard any Opposition Member come to the Dispatch Box and apologise for misleading the British public about our record during the pandemic? Does my hon. Friend agree that they might seek to do that before criticising us any further for our record?

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend is right. The right thing for us to do as a country is to reflect overall on how we handled the pandemic, on the decisions that we made and, indeed, on how prepared we were in the first place. That is the right way to do it. Of course we regret every life that was lost; I think about the families who lost mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and grandmas. It is so deeply sad that so many lives were lost, but that is something that affected us here in England, across the UK and, indeed, across the world. But the right thing for us to do is to look at these things in the reasoned environment of the inquiry and then use the lessons learned and the reflections from that inquiry to make sure that, in the event that we ever have to face another pandemic like it, we can do better.

Government PPE Contracts

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is right to capture the mood of the public on this. At a time when the public are told that we have to show restraint, at a time when they can see the finances—not least because the Government’s former Prime Minister and former Chancellor crashed the economy—it absolutely galls them to think that Ministers were not doing the due diligence that was required with the funds we needed. Now we have a situation where we are spending billions of pounds on wasted PPE and we also have thousands of pounds every single day being wasted on storage for PPE.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Obviously in government you have to get on and make decisions, and we do not often get to see what the Labour party would do in our place. On this occasion, we did have an insight because the Labour party recommended a whole series of people who could supply vital supplies for us during the pandemic, including a football agent supplying ventilators. What assessment has the right hon. Lady made of the quality and credibility of the Labour party’s own suggestions for supplies during the pandemic?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the hon. Member for his comments, but I ask him: how many Members from across the House who were not Conservative Members got access to the VIP lanes? I can give him the answer: none, zilch, zero. That is the problem. The due diligence was not done on those contracts and it was his Government’s problem, his Government’s responsibility and his Government’s failure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Will Quince]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Under those circumstances, in those conditions, we had to be quick and decisive to protect colleagues on the frontline so that they could continue providing life-saving care. With lives on the line, of course we had to change our approach to procurement and adjust our appetite for risk. I do not believe the British people would have forgiven us if we had stuck to the same old processes. We had to balance the risk of contracts not performing and supplies being sold at a premium against the real risk of harm to the health of frontline workers, the NHS and the public if we failed.

[Dr Mullan]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Opposition want to have it both ways? They criticise us for our procurement decisions but, as I said earlier, they recommended a football agent to supply ventilators, and the Labour Welsh Government procured PPE from the same Serco company that they criticise us for procuring PPE from,

[Will Quince]

I am keen not to get into a political slanging match on this point, but my hon. Friend is right that all Members on both sides of the House were receiving multiple emails from people who, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) said, were panicking because they wanted to ensure that we procured PPE as quickly as possible.

Colleagues across Government and beyond worked day and night, taking tough decisions, to keep our country safe. Those efforts secured billions of items.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the Minister’s robust performance. He said at the end that the Government have learned many lessons. Lesson No. 1 appears to be, “Apologise for nothing.” He knows that no one I heard was criticising the civil servants. Everyone on the Opposition side of the House knows that the civil servants were working in impossible conditions—conditions created by this Government.

I can understand why the Minister has been told to come out swinging and apologise for nothing. Let us be honest: from the moment we first learnt of the existence of the VIP lane for the politically connected, it was inevitable that it would come to this, with Members of this House discussing the eye-watering sums of public money that was earmarked for procuring vital PPE during the pandemic but instead found its way into the hands of fly-by-night chancers who had little or no knowledge or experience of PPE procurement, but who—and this is probably the most charitable thing I can say about them—became fabulously wealthy while making an absolute pig’s ear of it while trying to learn on the job.

Long before the PPE Medpro scandal broke, many of us were already trying to work out how the brains behind this “get rich quick” scheme ever believed that a plan in which the Government would fast-track their cronies, their politically connected pals and now, it would appear, their parliamentary colleagues was ever going to end well. I suspect, as I said during the urgent question on 24 November, that the shocking allegations that have been levelled against PPE Medpro in both The Guardian and The Times—allegations that lead directly to a Member of the other House—may well be the tip of a very large iceberg.

I suspect the reason the Government have been so reluctant to release the papers containing the advice, the correspondence and all the communication between Ministers and special advisers relating to the awarding of that contract is that they do not want to create a precedent that would require them to open the Pandora’s box that is the VIP lane for PPE procurement. However, the Minister would do well to remember that there is another precedent here. The similarities between today’s motion and the motion of 17 November last year, when the Government were instructed to release the papers in relation to the Randox/Owen Paterson scandal, are striking. They will also recall how that scandal rumbled on for two and a half months into February, before the papers were finally made available. Similarly to last year’s debate, the same very simple questions go to the heart of today’s: do this Government have something to hide? Is there something this Government do not want us to see?

The Minister must be aware that the more the Government dodge scrutiny, so public suspicion will grow about this PPE procurement programme being little more than a get-rich-quick scheme for their politically connected pals. Given what we already know, who can blame the public for thinking that? Byline Times recently said that the covid contract winners with direct links to the Conservative party—donors and associates—have seen their collective financial position improve by in excess of £300 million. Was anyone really that surprised when Private Eye described how

“The DHSC’s London-controlled PPE ‘cell’ was dishing out contracts like confetti to opportunistic businessmen”?

[Dr Mullan]

What would the Scottish public think about the Scottish Government awarding PPE contracts, without competition, to more than 20 brand-new suppliers that were unknown to the Government?

[Brendan O’Hara]

I hate to say it, but my goodness you are predictable, Sir. That was probably the most predictable question I could ever have imagined. I will come to that later in my speech. Compared with what went on in this place, the audit of the Scottish Government’s treatment of the procurement process is squeaky clean. I so look forward to having that conversation in about six minutes.

Many of those opportunists hit the jackpot in the Government’s VIP lane for PPE procurement. Prominent among them was PPE Medpro, whose bid to supply the UK Government with face masks and surgical gowns was in the high-priority lane after, we are told, some particularly enthusiastic lobbying was carried out on its behalf by someone down the corridor. Indeed, the peer in question was so enthusiastic about the abilities of PPE Medpro to deliver that she made her passionate pitch to Ministers before the company was even incorporated. Through remarkable powers of persuasion, she persuaded Ministers to propel that embryonic company—one with no experience in delivering medical or protective equipment, and one with which, she told them, she had no personal involvement and from which she did not stand to gain financially—straight into the VIP lane.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Mullan]

The hon. Member is talking about the Scottish Government’s track record on procurement and value for money. Does he think that that applies across the piece? How well are they doing when it comes to ferry procurement in Scotland?

[Brendan O’Hara]

It is remarkable—we can always spot when a Tory is sinking beneath the waves when they start shouting “ferries” at us. Let us remember that this is a Government who awarded a ferry contract to a company with no boats.

Hospital Building Programme

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings. This is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I also remind Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the parliamentary estate. That can be done either at the testing centre in the House, or at home. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated, and when entering and leaving the room.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the hospital building programme.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I welcome the chance to discuss the Government’s £3.7 billion hospital building programme, and particularly welcome the opportunity to make the case to the Minister for my local hospital, Leighton, to be included as one of the final eight sites chosen by the Government.

Leighton Hospital was built in the 1970s, and officially opened by the Queen in 1972. I have looked back at the pictures of her visit, and it made me think about just how long Her Majesty has been serving our nation in this way—visiting, before I was even born, the hospital that serves my constituents today. At that time, Leighton Hospital represented a huge change in how healthcare was provided in the area, going on to pick up the role of several smaller hospitals spread across the patch. Its importance and role have only grown since then, serving a population that has increased significantly and now stands at more than 300,000 people.

Whether it is the hip and knee replacements it carries out, the babies it helps deliver, the thousands of cancer screening tests and treatments it undertakes, the cataracts it repairs, or the urgent GP and accident and emergency care it provides, Leighton is at the heart of our local health services. In an ordinary year, Leighton provides around a quarter of a million out-patient appointments, carries out more than 30,000 operations and more than 200,000 diagnostic imaging tests, and has more than 90,000 visits to its emergency department. Of course, none of that would be possible without its fantastic staff: Leighton employs more than 4,500 staff, and that fantastic team of cleaners, porters, cooks, receptionists, healthcare assistants, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurses, doctors, volunteers and many others is what turns a building into a hospital.

Those staff can be proud of their achievements in the battle against covid. Not only have they cared for covid patients, but they have also vaccinated 47,000 people under the leadership of their director of pharmacy, Karen Thomas. I had the absolute pleasure of volunteering alongside the staff during the first lockdown. I was quite uncomfortable with the media attention on me for doing this for only a short period of time, when those staff do it day in, day out without any fuss or attention.

As I have seen again and again during my time working in the NHS, its staff have an enormous amount of dedication, often going above and beyond, and are perhaps too accustomed to working in departments and environments that make doing a really good job more difficult than it should be. That is why, although we are talking about buildings today, it is important to highlight that—as others have said—we will only be able to make the most of new facilities if we are able to carry on with the success we have had so far in recruiting more staff.

[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a strong case for Leighton, and he will know that, as a former Member for his constituency, I was able to work with that hospital very closely. All four of my children were born at Leighton Hospital, which sits in my constituency, and I also spent a week working in that hospital and cannot praise its staff highly enough. I hope that this building programme will give those staff the environment they deserve in order to provide the healthcare we know they can deliver, which is world class.

[Dr Mullan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and what he has said is typical of people who live in the area, who have also experienced their children being born at that hospital and receiving excellent care there.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Speaking as a neighbouring constituency MP whose family has also made great and beneficial use of Leighton over many years, I strongly support my hon. Friend’s campaign for additional resources and support for Leighton. I very much respect him for that effective campaign, which I know has strong support across our constituencies.

My hon. Friend has spoken about the number of people who seek services from Leighton at the present time. Does he agree that that number is not going to diminish: it is going to increase, due to the additional numbers of houses that are being built in our areas? I note, for example, Northwich, where there is a huge amount of house building on the former ICI site, Middlewich in my constituency and Sandbach. Altogether, in recent years, thousands of new houses have been built for people who will want to look for support from Leighton.

[Dr Mullan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the great things about the plans for the new site is that they take into account those future projected increases in population. I do not know what we will do if the resources are not there to do that.

Going back to staffing, we have more nurses and doctors and more staff overall working in the NHS than ever before, but it remains a huge undertaking for the Government to continue to work on recruitment and retention to staff new facilities. I know a lot of the media and campaigning by Opposition parties has focused on pay. While it is important, my experience is that fixing staff shortages would be the priority for most staff. The obstacles for further recruitment will not simply be solved by higher pay; the challenges are more complicated than that.

Of course, buildings and facilities matter, but we have to remember that the material used to build Leighton was expected to last only 30 years. It might seem odd to us now to create a major public facility with that sort of life span, but that is the reality.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is a neighbouring MP. A reference was made to Northwich in my constituency. This proposal certainly has cross-party support. I support the hon. Gentleman and all Cheshire MPs in arguing this case with the Minister in front of us for much-needed investment in a first-class hospital facility in our patch.

[Dr Mullan]

It is great to get cross-party support to demonstrate to the Minister how important it is to all our local communities. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support.

As I was saying, the building was not designed to last this long or to serve the size of population that it serves. My view is clear that we can be more efficient and do more in the community, but an aging population will have an ever-increasing demand for healthcare. We can delay the need for the most specialist hospital care in a population, but we can almost never remove it and stop the demand increasing overall.

How has Leighton managed this challenge over recent years? Rightly, it has benefited from major investment, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) who is working closely with me on this campaign alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I remember his excellent work in helping to secure funding for brand new theatres and a brand new ITU.

My first campaign after becoming the candidate for Crewe and Nantwich was to reverse the decision to turn down a request for an emergency department extension, which was ultimately funded in 2019. More recently, Leighton received £15 million to build a brand-new emergency department. As the Government understand the necessity, Leighton has had funding to tackle the parts of the original building that are simply not fit for use in the short term. However, there comes a point where the costs of one-off investments, accumulated maintenance and the need to replace the original building structures become a cost that cannot be borne by the ordinary capital spending, and when a whole new building becomes the best option financially and for patient care. That is where Leighton is at.

The life span of the original building is coming to an end. I suggest to the Department of Health and Social Care and the Treasury that they view the funding committed to the hospital building programme as a unique opportunity to look at estates that are winding down towards the end of their life span and address that now.

Under the leadership of the chief executive officer, James Sumner, Leighton has done an enormous amount of work for many months to develop its plans for a new hospital. The team sought expert advice on the life span of the current estate and, importantly, the cost of maintaining it and to keep the existing original buildings in use. I know the Minister will scrutinise the figures and see for himself the financial sense in the case that has been made. Independent analysis demonstrates that the ongoing refurbishment of the present failing infrastructure over the next 15 years will cost substantially more than projected new build costs.

Importantly, the plans are ambitious in ensuring better healthcare is delivered in a better environment for patients and staff. As well as providing the mentioned much-needed bed capacity to meet the projected demand later in the decade, the new facilities will deliver single rooms to improve privacy, dignity and infection control. The new layout will incorporate the latest design advice for supporting patients with conditions such as dementia.

The site as a whole will be reorganised some of the long journeys from key locations, such as the emergency department, to other parts of the hospital that have grown as a result of sporadic development to date. They will future proof the hospital with the most up-to-date digital infrastructure which is becoming increasingly important for delivering the best possible care and doing so efficiently. A new site will enable Leighton to play its part in the race to net zero with more energy efficient buildings and solar power and even, potentially, a geothermal heat source, which is a technology I am campaigning for the Government to support to get off the ground across the country.

The team at Leighton have a track record of delivering improved and innovative care to back up their pledges. For example, the trust recently received an award for its same-day emergency care programme, led by surgeons David Corless and Ali Kazem. I am sure that, with improved facilities, they will continue to find new and better ways to care for their patients.

[Edward Timpson]

My hon. Friend has been extremely generous with his time. Will he also confirm that this project, if delivered, would save more than £400 million in backlog maintenance, as well as helping to free up a lot of the community care, which at the moment is under extreme pressure because of the lack of beds available at Leighton and in the surrounding area?

[Dr Mullan]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This is actually about saving money in the long term given the unavoidable costs at the existing site.

Of course, building the hospital will provide jobs and opportunities for local people, with apprentices at South Cheshire College and others well placed to take advantage in the parts of Crewe where employment and salaries are still not where we would want them to be. I know that the plans have the full support of my hon. Friends for Congleton and for Eddisbury. Leighton’s bid is also supported by both Cheshire West and Cheshire East, as our local authorities, and the Cheshire clinical commissioning group. There is also cross-party support with the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury).

The chair of our newly formed Crewe Town Board, Doug Kinsman, has been keen that the whole board support the proposal, and the rest of the board have seen how important Leighton is to Crewe, both economically and in improving the health and wellbeing of Crewe residents. Importantly, we have the support of those residents. So far, more than 1,000 people have signed our petition supporting the hospital in its efforts to make it into the final eight. The residents include Betty Church, whose daughter was born in the hospital the year it opened, 1972, and Steve Burnham, who explained that not only were three members of his family born there, but his mum worked there for 40 years.

I asked residents to tell me about their experiences and share why they were supporting the campaign. Janice Butler wrote:

“My husband, elderly mother-in-law and father-in-law have all received fantastic help and treatment here. The hospital serves a huge population now and help to improve and upgrade its facilities is desperately needed and has been for many years. Despite the huge pressures, we have experienced excellent help here.”

Susan Marsh wrote:

“I started work at Leighton in 1972 and worked there for 35 years. Since retiring I have been a patient there numerous times. It has changed in the care it delivers since my day, both numbers and treatments. With a new build it will be able to continue to grow along with the population in the area, which will be badly needed.”

I will finish with what a current staff member said about Leighton, both as somewhere to work and as somewhere their family received treatment. Sophie Morris has shared her perspective from what must have been a difficult time in her life, which makes her words even more powerful. She wrote:

“I have worked at Leighton A&E for 6 years now and over that time the demand on the hospital has increased massively. Our last few summers have been busier than most winters. Shortly after starting as a nurse in A&E, my husband became ill. We found out he had terminal throat cancer when I was 7 months pregnant. From beginning to end we had fantastic support and care from all over the hospital.

I think it says a lot about the place and the fabric that is the staff who work there, that I could carry on working in a place that holds so many raw memories. As a body of staff we work so hard to look after the people who come to us for help, now we need some help so that we can provide the care that is demanded of us. Now we need some help so that we can provide the care that is demanded of us.”

I could not have put it better myself.

I know that the Minister will hear the case for investment in many other sites. He will need to consider all the applications carefully. I will work with residents to campaign for this much-needed investment, whatever the outcome of this opportunity, but I hope that I have left him in no doubt today that the case for Leighton to be included is a strong one and there is a whole community of people who want to see it succeed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Mullan]

I thank the Minister and the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), for the time they have taken to listen to us all in Westminster Hall today. I particularly thank the Minister for his openness and frankness in discussing this issue. I am sure that, as Members, we all understand why he cannot commit today to the various programmes we have put forward.

I particularly thank my hon. Friends the Members for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who have worked very closely with me on pushing forward this campaign for Leighton Hospital. I also thank the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for showing cross-party support for Leighton. The contribution from my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) reminded us all of what a unique role an MP plays in their constituency, having that individual voice on behalf of their constituents. My hon. Friends the Members for North West Norfolk (James Wild), for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) and for Keighley (Robbie Moore) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) all spoke powerfully and passionately about their commitment to their local hospital and the investment they are seeking.

There were a couple of common themes that I want to pick out, the first of which was about house building and population growth, which touches on work I have been doing in my constituency to address the postcode lottery when it comes to the voice of the NHS in the planning system. Very often, schools’ education provision is supported by housing development, but it is not very often that our local hospitals are supported financially by developers. Those developers have a role to play, and I encourage the Minister to look at what more he could do centrally to spread best practice. I have been doing that locally, but we need that central drive to make sure that hospital developments, mental health and primary care get the money they deserve where there is new housing.

We are all facing a similar challenge when it comes to the shelf life, so to speak, of our hospital buildings. There is no shame in that—when things are built, they have a timeline—but it is very important that the Minister makes sure that for those of us who may end up disappointed, particularly in relation to the RAAC plank issue, the Government have a clear and strong story about how they are going to tackle that issue and what investment will be put in place, regardless of which hospitals make it into the final round of the hospital building programme. I will finish by inviting the Minister to Leighton Hospital, if he does not mind,

[Edward Argar]

What is one more visit on a tour? I am delighted to accept; it would be a pleasure.

[Dr Mullan]

I look forward to seeing him there with my hon. Friends the Members for Eddisbury and for Congleton. I thank the Minister for his time, and thank you, Mr Sharma, for chairing proceedings today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the hospital building programme.