Hospice Services: Support

Stephen Hammond Excerpts

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Paul Holmes]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention. She tempts me to talk about issues that I will come to later in my speech—it is only a couple of pages away, I assure you, Ms Nokes. She is right that hospices have not been included in the energy support given to other charities, even though their services are energy intensive due to the equipment they use. Her point is well made and will be recognised in her constituency.

The energy bill for Mountbatten has risen by an eye-watering £250,000—a fivefold increase—and there has been no additional financial support. One might think that that is surely as high as prices can go, but a London-based hospice has forecast that its energy costs will increase by almost £300,000 a year due to inflation pressures. A north London hospice told Civil Society Media that it faces an energy bill of £433,000 in 2023-24, based on predicted energy costs.

Adult hospices are not the only ones affected by this issue. As my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) said in his letters to the Department of Health and Social Care, there is also uncertainty about the children’s hospice grant—a vital source of funding that represented an average of 15% of children’s hospices’ income in 2021-22.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the pressures on the sector, which also affect St Raphael’s in my constituency. The Government have been generous with the children’s hospice grant, but it runs out next year, and the lack of certainty is the problem. We would really like the Minister to stand up and say that she will renew the grant after 2023-24, which would provide a huge amount of certainty for the sector.