Spending Round 2019

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend is right on every count; it has been delivered by Scottish Conservatives, and may I take this opportunity to thank him for all the representations that he made to me, along with his colleagues, and for achieving this result? It just shows that Scottish Conservatives really care about their constituents, unlike the SNP.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (LD)]

This morning I met with NHS trust leaders from around the country; they painted an absolutely shocking picture of infrastructure that is crumbling, unsafe and broken. They welcome the unfreezing of £1 billion so that they can get on and fix some of that, but it does not go far enough; there is a £6 billion backlog, and they are asking for us to reach the levels of comparable countries in spending on NHS infrastructure. Will the Chancellor meet me to discuss their serious concerns and the measures that we need to take to move this forward?

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the hon. Lady for welcoming one of the changes I made a few weeks ago, which was to unlock or bring forward £1 billion of new capital investment in our hospitals and an additional fresh £850 million on top of that to upgrade 20 hospitals. She makes an important point, but today’s announcement is about day-to-day resource spending whereas she is talking about another important area, which is capital. I will make sure she gets the meeting with Ministers she wants.