Budget Resolutions

Pippa Heylings Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

It is so inspiring for women and girls across the country to have heard the first female Chancellor deliver her Budget today. As Liberal Democrats, we will always welcome those parts of the Budget that aim to take the NHS off life support after so many years of under-investment by the last Conservative Government. It is good to hear those commitments today.

If we are to fix the NHS and bring down the disastrous treatment and appointment backlogs that are causing incredible suffering to constituents across the country, we need not only to repair hospitals with crumbling roofs but to build new ones, and urgently, because progress has been far too slow. We all knew that the new hospitals programme was ambitious but, sadly, the Conservatives failed. Originally, 40 new hospitals were promised by 2030, but not one of them has yet opened. In a cruel irony, we find ourselves with a backlog of hospitals waiting to be built, with no assurances in this Budget on how many will be funded.

In my constituency, the cutting-edge Cambridge cancer hospital, with its great ambition to change the story of cancer forever, will offer lifesaving treatment to patients across the east of England, including, I hope, my husband. What really sets it apart is that in the same building, alongside the patients and their medical teams, academic and industry researchers will focus on delivering groundbreaking early detection and innovations that will transform the lives of millions of cancer patients, not just in Cambridgeshire and the east of England but worldwide.

However, this new hospital is trapped in uncertainty. Despite having had a full business case approved, planning permission granted and spades in the ground, this essential hospital is on hold. Every day that we wait for the final green light, the costs escalate—not only the cost of the building but, potentially, at the cost of human lives, too. The Government have placed these hospitals that were promised in 2019 under review, because despite their promises the Conservatives never allocated the necessary funding. We wait with bated breath for the final decision, which is now set for January 2025.

I had the pleasure of meeting the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to discuss the situation facing the Cambridge cancer hospital in my constituency. I received assurances that funding to support the costs of the contractor is still being paid. Will the Chancellor commit finally to allocating the funding necessary for the Cambridge cancer research hospital, so that the promises to all those in the east of England and beyond who are desperate for groundbreaking, lifesaving cancer treatments are not broken once again?