Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the £1 billion reduction in the Department of Health and Social Care's capital departmental expenditure limit for 2026–27 to 2029–30 on the delivery timetable of each scheme in the New Hospital Programme, announced in the Budget on 28 October; and whether any scheme will now be delayed or cancelled.

The uneven profile of the multi-year capital settlement agreed for the Department at the 2025 Spending Review was always intended to produce a lower Capital Departmental Expenditure Limit in 2027/28 before increasing again in subsequent years, and reaching record levels by 2029/30. This profile is typical of capital budgets with multiple programmes at different stages of their investment cycle.

On the question of defence spending, I refer the Noble Lord to the answer provided in the House of Commons on 3 November in response to Question 39074, which, for ease of reference, has been reproduced below:

“The Department’s contribution to the Defence Investment Plan will avoid any impact on the delivery of frontline NHS services, patient safety, investment in technology, or the New Hospital Programme (NHP). We remain fully committed to delivering all 46 hospitals in the NHP, including the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete replacement hospitals, and no projects within the programme will be delayed as a result of the Budget announcements.

“Large capital programmes are designed to be flexible because projects develop at different speeds and funding needs change over time. That flexibility means that we can redeploy some funding from NHS capital projects to the Defence Investment Plan without affecting their overall delivery. The NHS continues to benefit from record levels of capital investment, and we are reforming how these projects are delivered by cutting red tape, speeding up approvals and giving local leaders more freedom to initiate their own plans.”