GP Contract

Alistair Strathern Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

I am not familiar with the details of that specific case, but if the hon. Member writes to me, I will be more than happy to furnish her with a response. There is a real concern in some parts of the country, particularly where there have been new developments or populations moving into the area, that the GP practice does not have the required capacity. I am not sure whether that has happened in the case she refers to, but in such cases we also look to developers, including to section 106 and the community infrastructure levy as an opportunity. We have the primary care utilisation fund, and with neighbourhood health centre funding coming on stream, that may also be an opportunity. If she cares to write to me, I will furnish her with a response.

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

The welcome funding, alongside the contract, to hire 16,000 more GPs will be really encouraging news for my community. However, in high-growth areas such as mine, all too often it is physical space rather than funding for GPs that constrains practices. I am really glad that, after getting involved, we have been able to help move forward crucial expansion projects at Shefford health centre and Lower Stondon GP surgery in my constituency, but we should not need the MP to get involved in such situations to help our GPs. Will the Minister meet me to decide how we can work with our ICBs better to ensure that, where we have areas of significant housing growth, we will automatically see growth in the number of GP surgeries in the future?

[Stephen Kinnock]

Very much along the lines of what I said to the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), we need to ensure that the social infrastructure is there in such areas of population growth. I would be more than happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that further.