New Hospitals

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

There are different issues around construction and service design. In terms of service design, there will need to be discussions with local clinicians and others. As my hon. Friend knows, with his scheme in North and Mid Hampshire, there are issues around the new site for junction 7 of the M3, where there is significant work on potential land acquisition and what upgrading of the motorway would be required. There is a question about the size of the hospital versus other services offered locally. Those are the issues we are keen to get in discussion with the North and Mid Hampshire trusts on, and that will be part of the rolling programme we take forward.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

On the Leeds project, I welcome the announcement by the Secretary of State, but can I press him on the detail? How much money is going to be allocated to the Leeds project? Will the standardised approach that he has talked about have any flexibility within it, given the particular characteristics of the Leeds site, which he knows about, and the fact that, as he is also aware, it is cleared and ready to go?

[Steve Barclay]

For reasons of commercial confidentiality, which I am sure the House will recognise, it would be unwise to say what each scheme is allocated—that would be most interesting to the developers bidding for that work. That is why we will not set out individual allocations. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I have been to see Leeds and I recognise the importance of the work there. On the modular design 2.0, I pay tribute to the work that Lord Markham has done; he brings real commercial experience into the use of modular methods of construction. Those schemes are designed to have some flex. I sat for four years on the Public Accounts Committee, and one of the recurring themes during my time there was costs increasing because specifications were changed mid-build. One of the advantages of the modular method of construction is that, by putting all the advice into the design at the front end, we can standardise design, have the benefits of scale and maximise the “national” in National Health Service, rather than having individual schemes, all of them at risk of specifications changing and costs inflating.