Health Infrastructure Plan

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Monday 30th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her comments and for their tone. She is absolutely right to highlight the importance of the workforce. Investment in new, first-class buildings and in equipment is vital because they are the tools that the amazing workforce need to do their job. She highlights a specific point about pensions, particularly consultants’ pensions. As she will be aware, we have been looking at this, and the Secretary of State has recently launched a consultation more broadly on proposals to address the challenges on pensions taxation.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Ind)]

Thanks to the brilliant chief executive, Sarah-Jane Marsh, and the fantastic team of doctors and nurses and all the support staff, the most seriously ill children from Dudley and elsewhere in the west midlands receive the most fantastic care at Birmingham Children’s Hospital. But that care is provided in buildings that are 155 years old and, as I understand it, there is no possibility of them being replaced for at least another 15 years. I know that the Minister has had a lot of requests for meetings and visits today, but I would like to ask him to make the short trip to Birmingham and come with me to meet Sarah-Jane Marsh and the staff, see what they are doing and see how much better it could be if he managed to find a way of enabling the hospital to have the new facilities it needs.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He is right to highlight the world-leading work of that hospital, carried out by Sarah-Jane Marsh and her team. He is right: it is a team effort. Every single person in the NHS family is vital to delivering those amazing outcomes and he is right to highlight that. I am very happy, as ever, to visit the great city of Birmingham, and even more so to do it in tandem with him.