UK Infrastructure: 10-year Strategy

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the Ely junction. The great thing about the multi-year spending review in the 10-year strategy is that the Department for Transport and its partners are now able to plan ahead, so I encourage him to talk to Transport Ministers about that particular project. He is right to say that we are absolutely in the business for high value-for-money cases that unlock growth and opportunity in every part of the country.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

A long-term approach to spending is really sensible and I, as a northern MP, particularly welcome the Treasury reviewing the Green Book to make sure that regional inequalities are not further entrenched by future spending. Stepping Hill hospital in my patch has a reported repairs backlog of £138 million, so I was really interested to hear the Chief Secretary talk about the pilot of place-based business cases. Can he say a bit more about how the Treasury will review those pilots, and does it mean that Stepping Hill is more likely to get the funding it needs so that my constituents get the hospital they deserve?

[Darren Jones]

I hope that Stepping Hill will be able to bid into the new, longer-term maintenance fund so that we can get work done more quickly than it has been done in the past. On the place-based business case pilots under the Green Book review, we have not yet made any decisions about where we will pilot them or how, so we now have to do that work. As I said in my statement to the House, the intention behind them is to look across different types of spending to make sure that we are creating functioning places that have the relevant public service infrastructure, transport infrastructure and house building in one place. We will be able to come to the House with more detail on that in due course.