Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has approved the business case costings for the New Hospital Programme.

On 25 May 2023, the Government announced that the New Hospital Programme (NHP) is expected to represent over £20 billion of capital investment for the financial year 2030/31, and that there would be a rolling programme of investment in health infrastructure in the longer term. Future spending beyond this current spending review period will be subject to the usual spending review processes.

The NHP has developed a third version of its Programme Business Case (PBC) which includes costs for the programme’s future spend. This was approved by the Department’s Joint Investment Committee on 19 February 2024. Following this approval, the PBC will go through Government assurance processes in May 2024.

Future spend will be confirmed through the usual processes of future spending reviews, and all funding allocations for specific schemes within the NHP will only be confirmed once the individual Full Business Cases have been reviewed and agreed by ministers.