PMQs: Lib Dems slam Sunak on new hospitals broken promise

EMBARGO: Immediate Release

The Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey and two Liberal Democrat MPs have today slammed the Prime Minister on the Conservative government's broken promise to build 40 new hospitals.

The questions were met with jeers and boos from Conservative MPs which Ed Davey described as an "insult" to voters let down by years of neglect.

After a damning ITV investigation, the Lib Dem Leader asked the Prime Minister when he would deliver on the promise of 40 new hospitals. Ed Davey mentioned St Helier in South London and Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire which each have buildings with collapsing roofs or floors. 

Liberal Democrat MP for Tiverton and Honiton Richard Foord also asked what progress had been made on nearly a dozen hospitals promised for the West Country. 

Meanwhile fellow by-election winner Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire Helen Morgan condemned the Prime Minister for neglecting local health services and asked what steps the Government is taking to recruit more GPs.

The Liberal Democrats are calling for a rescue plan to fix the country's hospitals and end sewage leaks in hospitals and crumbling buildings that are putting patients and staff at risk.

Commenting Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey MP said: 

“The NHS is facing collapse after years of this Conservative government running our country into the ground and there is still no sign of progress on the long promised 40 new hospitals.

"But instead of addressing the issues, Conservative MPs booed and jeered from the sidelines. It is an insult to millions across the country suffering from years of Conservative broken promises and neglect.

“This Conservative government is more interested in the latest chaos in Westminster than tackling the multiple crises our health service is facing. 

“The NHS needs a rescue plan now. A plan to bring our crumbling hospitals up to standard, end the sewage leaks on wards, and ensure that everyone can get the care and treatment they need, when they need it.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors 

ITV investigation on collapsing hospital buildings can be found here. It comes after an investigation by the Liberal Democrats into sewage leaks in hospitals last week.

Prime Minister Questions texts (check against delivery):

• Ed Davey 

  • Mr Speaker,The Conservative manifesto promised forty new hospitals. After three years, most of these hospitals haven't even got planning permission. And communities feel betrayed and taken for granted. As ITV showed yesterday, St Helier in South London is literally crumbling – but there’s still no plan to save it. Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire has sewage leaking into its wards – and a roof that could collapse at any moment. Does the Prime Minister agree that these are conditions no patients, doctors or nurses should have to put up with? Can he tell us when he will end them?

• Richard Foord 

  • Eleven of the government’s promised 40 new hospitals that my right honourable friend mentioned are in the South West. Yet those surrounding my constituency - in Barnstaple, Dorchester, and Taunton - still don’t have planning permission. It is reported that staff at Eastbourne District General Hospital have been told that their town “would not get a hospital” and that it was a “bare-faced lie”. Given that the Prime Minister claims his mandate rests on a manifesto that promised 40 new hospitals, when will we see them?

• Helen Morgan 

  • Mr Speaker, The Government has not only broken its promise on new hospitals, it has also broken its pledge of 6,000 more doctors, with the number of qualified GPs having actually fallen. GPs in Shropshire are now seeing 400 more patients each than they did in 2016 – one of the biggest rises in the country. Places like East Sussex, Devon, Cambridgeshire and Hampshire have also seen the number of qualified GPs fall while the number of patients grows. When will the Prime Minister end his government’s neglect of local health services, and recruit and retain the GPs we need, so everyone can see their doctor when they need to?