New Hospital Programme Review

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

We recognise the challenge of RAAC in the Queen Elizabeth hospital in King’s Lynn, and took that approach from the outset. I can confirm that the programme will start construction in 2027-28. It is due to complete in 2032-33 but will be prioritised for expedition as a RAAC scheme. If we can go faster, we will. Today I am setting out a credible timetable. If we are able to under-promise and over-deliver, I will be delighted, but I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are going as far and as fast as we can, given the safety challenges. If he is not happy with the pace, he should reflect on the fact that one of the local MPs was a former Prime Minister. She had the chance to get on with it. I hope I do not get a legal letter, but she did not deliver, did she?

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

For nearly 25 years, I have been part of campaigns to either save or rebuild Whipps Cross hospital. For the last 10 years, I have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Secretary of State, so I know—let me put this on the record for him, because he cannot say it—his pain and frustration that we are now talking about eight years to restart the building works that have already started at Whipps Cross, and which will finally deliver the new hospital that we need and a thousand new homes in our community. It is devastating to us all, but we can see from the list that some hospitals have moved between the different waves. Given that, and given the examples of funding sources that can be put together, will he organise an urgent meeting—we know about his conflict of interest—for all MPs whose constituents use Whipps Cross, to look at the criteria and possible new sources of funding? I know that he will agree that we owe it to our constituents not to give up fighting for the hospital that our community so desperately needs.

[Wes Streeting]

As my hon. Friend says, I must declare an interest, as Whipps Cross hospital and Barts health NHS trust serve my constituents. I would be delighted to lead a delegation with her to lobby the Minister of State for health, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), who has to take decisions on schemes that affect my constituency. It would be nice to be on the other side of exchanges for the first time in a while. Let me reassure the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), and my own, that pre-construction work on Whipps Cross hospital is due to begin in 2029 to 2031, with construction beginning in 2032 to 2034. My constituents know me well enough to know that if we could go faster, we would do so. On alternative investment vehicles and means of raising additional capital investment—not to mention learning from some of the less successful initiatives of the past—I would be delighted to work with Treasury colleagues and Government Members on how we can get more capital investment, but for reasons that she will well understand, we need to tread carefully on that point.