Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Carden Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I understand that there have been some clarifications of some of the statements that President Trump made. I did raise with President Trump the incident in Salisbury and the fact that we have seen somebody die here in the UK as a result of contact with a nerve agent. Of course, we took immediate action at the time after the Salisbury attack when we had been able to attribute it to Russia. The United States stood alongside us, as did many other nations across the world, and took action against Russia, which showed a united international front that sent a clear message that we will not accept this behaviour, that this is not behaviour that Russia can conduct with impunity and that we will continue to act together.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Q12. Carillion forecast an £83 million loss on the Liverpool Royal Hospital, and physical cracks now exist in the structure’s concrete beams. It is 16 months late, over budget and structurally unsound, but the answer to my question in the Prime Minister’s absence last week offered no solutions. Will she now take responsibility for finishing and opening the new Royal and guarantee that the spiralling costs will not fall to the hospital trust, which would cut the budget for patient care in Liverpool for decades to come?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman raised this in my absence last week, so he will know that we are supporting the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust in its work on this, and we want to see the new hospital built as quickly as possible while securing best value for money in doing so. The Government and the trust continue to be in active discussions with the existing private sector funders to see whether there is a way forward to complete the remaining work on the hospital. It has taken longer, and further issues were uncovered during the process, but the way that we are approaching the situation is the right way to ensure that we are clear about what we are dealing with. We want to make the right decisions, and it is right that those discussions continue.