NHS

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the opening of those services. I look forward to attending that opening with him and colleagues across his area. In the dental recovery plan I set out a number of ways in which we will improve the delivery of dental care across England, including immediate, medium and long-term work. The immediate-term work is already seeing results. Having switched on the new patient premium, we are already seeing practices opening. We want to bring forward the golden hellos to encourage dentists into areas that do not have the services that we would like. There was a slightly misinformed Prime Minister’s question yesterday; we are in the middle of tendering our dental vans, because as a rural MP I want services as quickly as possible while we are building the foundations to ensure that people get the care they need.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Let me say that it has always been a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall miss you terribly; your fairness, insight and wit has brought colour to this Chamber. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]

Moment of consensus over, I stand here as the Member of Parliament for a constituency that will have listened to the Secretary of State with horror. For 14 years we have been desperately waiting for Whipps Cross Hospital to be redeveloped. The Minister for Social Care, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), and I had a meeting about it this morning that she had to cancel, presumably because the general election has been called. The failed new hospital programme has cost my constituents dearly. We were told under that programme that works would be finished by 2025. They have not even started, because the Government still have not committed the funding. The board meeting notes admit that they will not even start next year, and they certainly will not be finished by 2030. What a damning indictment of this Conservative Government.

My constituents have to be treated in corridors at Whipps Cross. The physical layout of the mangled, broken building is directly impacting on the quality of care that my constituents receive. There is an amazing team at Whipps Cross, doing incredible work, almost in tears that we still do not have our new hospital, because of the impact on patient care. Will the Secretary of State answer the question that I wanted to ask her colleague in that meeting this morning? We need urgent confirmation that we will get the funding to build the hospital at Whipps Cross, to finalise the plans and to start talking to a contractor so that works can begin in 2026. Conservative colleagues in my borough pledged to start works last year, but that was not true. Will the Minister at least confirm that under her plans we will finally get the funding? Walthamstow deserves better.

[Victoria Atkins]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I had not heard the news that you were stepping down. I share the House’s dismay, but also pass on our thanks to you for having been a Chair. It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, although it is a steely pleasure because you let us know, most of the time, when we speak for too long. [Interruption.]

[Stella Creasy]

Answer the question.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am trying to; the hon. Lady’s colleagues are trying to prevent me.

We have committed to Whipps Cross Hospital. It takes time to build hospitals. We have six new hospitals open to the public already, and another 18 entering construction. I hope that the hon. Lady is challenging her own leadership, including the shadow Health Secretary, because Labour’s health mission—or first step, or pledge; who knows what the terminology is—says that one of its first steps in government would be to pause all capital projects in the NHS. The Labour party needs to answer on that.