NHS Capital Spending

Josh Babarinde Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

Thank you, Mr Western. I was half expecting to hear “Luke Babarinde”, but we got there in the end. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) for securing this critical debate.

I will focus my remarks on Eastbourne district general hospital, where I was born. It is at the core of life in Eastbourne. I want to pay tribute to the amazing staff at that hospital, who deliver for the people of Eastbourne and beyond day in, day out. However, over the years we have lost key services at Eastbourne district general hospital to hospitals such as the Conquest in Hastings, forcing Eastbourne residents to travel even further for the care they need. As well as that, our buildings are falling into a state of disrepair. Indeed, the trust has said:

“The age and standard of the current hospital buildings presents challenges for the consistent delivery of safe, effective, responsive and efficient care”.

The half a billion-pound maintenance backlog bill that the trust faces is a financial representation of that.

We were grateful to be included in the new hospital programme by the last Government—I am very sad not to see more representatives of that Government in attendance at this debate—but of course nothing happened under the Johnson Government. Eastbourne was therefore even more grateful to this Government for making a much more serious commitment to include it in the new hospital programme and to fund the DGH through the programme. It is of grave concern to us, however, that we are in the last wave of that programme, which means that investment will not land with us until 2037 at the earliest.

Meanwhile, many of our fears in Eastbourne have materialised. On 6 January, Eastbourne district general hospital suffered a power outage that hit many areas of the hospital. Nurses told me that they were forced to use their iPhone torches to light the way for the several hours that the power cut occurred. Because of that outage, operations were cancelled and our midwifery unit was closed for days. It stemmed from the insufficient power infrastructure that is in need of urgent investment—the very reason, in fact, why Eastbourne district general hospital was included in the new hospital programme full stop.

I have appealed to the Minister and the wider Government numerous times to accelerate that investment to Eastbourne and to bring forward our plans—after all, we were ready to go, but we were asked to pause. If the Government will not do that, however, will the Minister at least meet with the trust and me to discuss accelerating the release of the £42 million needed to replace the failing electricity substation that was responsible for the power cut, to ensure that Eastbourne residents get the consistent care and urgent investment that they need and deserve? I really do appeal to the Minister—if I need to, I will beg her—for that meeting so that we can figure out how to unlock that critical investment.