Kieran Mullan MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 22 Jan 2025 · New Hospital Programme · Hansard source

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  I do not have to let anybody intervene, but I will let you intervene to make a point about your hospitals. If there continues to be a back-and-forth, I will not let anybody intervene—this is my speech and I will make my points.

• 22 Jan 2025 · New Hospital Programme · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 22 Jan 2025 · New Hospital Programme · Hansard source

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  I will not give way yet. Yet that is exactly what the Government have done again and again, breaking not only that pledge but a series of pledges they made during the election—that they would not say in government that they had been forced into a particular situation. That was the Chancellor’s specific pledge. It was clear from the Secretary of State’s statement this week that the Government intend to continue making the issue a political football. I will reiterate the important context behind the challenges that we are seeing in NHS capital backlogs. When we came into Government in 2010, £1 in every £4 being spent by the Government was borrowed, which was clearly unsustainable. If the Labour party thinks that its current economic inheritance presents challenges for public spending, let me remind it of what we inherited. Unemployment was higher; inflation was higher; the deficit, or the black hole as Labour Members like to call it, was higher; and economic growth was lower. Even in that context, however, we prioritised NHS spending.

• 22 Jan 2025 · New Hospital Programme · Hansard source

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  In the last hour, I have had a communication from the trust explaining that, with the delay, the extra cost may be in the hundreds of millions. I would be grateful to take up the Minister’s offer of some time, as well as to talk to MPs who use those services, to see how we can help the trust to access that funding.

• 22 Jan 2025 · New Hospital Programme · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the New Hospital Programme. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq, for a debate that is very timely in the light of the statement of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care this week. My remarks will focus on three hospitals that serve my constituency as part of the East Sussex healthcare NHS trust: Eastbourne district general hospital and Conquest hospital, which are situated outside my constituency but are major secondary care providers for my constituents, and Bexhill community hospital. As part of the new hospital programme announced by the previous Government, Eastbourne district general hospital is due to be entirely rebuilt, and Conquest hospital is set to be reorganised and the structure improved to ensure that it is fit for the future. Alongside creating additional in-patient wards and improved parking facilities, the plans include expanding the emergency departments at Eastbourne and Conquest, improving access to cardiology and ophthalmology services, and redeveloping out-patient theatres, endoscopy and diagnostic services. Plans to upgrade Bexhill community hospital are also included in the programme, equipping it to deliver more services locally. Currently, only 53% of space in the hospital is allocated to clinical space. Once that work is complete, that will increase to 70%. To reflect increasing demand for care, the plans will also increase the number of hospital beds by 13%, the number of single rooms as a proportion of hospital space from 18% to 70%, and the number of out-patient consulting rooms by 28%. Having worked in the NHS as a doctor in A&E for a number of years before becoming an MP, I know the difficulties that can arise from working in buildings that are in need of improvement. The physical infrastructure of the building is outside the control of frontline staff, so they often have to do whatever it takes to make it work, but it would be better if they did not have to. I think the Minister would agree that despite those circumstances, our healthcare staff work tirelessly, and we owe it to them to deliver better infrastructure. Whatever the new Government may say, progress on the new hospital programme was being made under the previous Government, despite the challenges presented by the pandemic and the inflationary pressures on construction costs as a result of the war in Ukraine. The programme was incredibly ambitious but remained a significant commitment to investment in hospital infrastructure. During the 2024 general election, the Labour party committed to delivering the new hospital programme. Candidates up and down the country made pledges to deliver on the programme, but this week, the Health Secretary broke that pledge at the Dispatch Box by moving the goalposts, as a result of which many constituents in Bexhill and Battle will not see the benefits of the programme until 2039 at the earliest.

• 22 Jan 2025 · New Hospital Programme · Hansard source

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  I share that disappointment, which relates to some of the remarks that I will go on to make about how those costs will go up with the delays, because of the inflationary pressures globally. To address the concerns about our role in the process, I remind the Minister that the Chancellor was specifically asked during the election campaign about commitments that were being made on tax and spend. She was also asked whether those commitments would have to change when Labour was in government, because of the fiscal challenges that she had not known about—

• 22 Jan 2025 · New Hospital Programme · Hansard source

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  That remains to be seen; we will have to see what the Office for Budget Responsibility says in March about the planned public expenditure limits. To be clear about taking interventions, I am very happy to debate things, but this is a 30-minute debate in which the primary focus is on the person who secured the debate. The Minister will get a chance to make those repeated points, so I will not let anyone else make another intervention. I was happy to let people make interventions, because I am keen for you all to champion your local hospitals, but if you are not willing to play ball with me—

• 22 Jan 2025 · New Hospital Programme · Hansard source

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  In a moment.

• 22 Jan 2025 · New Hospital Programme · Hansard source

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  There is not time for a continual back-and-forth in a 30-minute debate, so I will make some more progress. When it comes to comparing the record of the NHS, the performance of the NHS under Labour in Wales, across many of the metrics that Labour Members have criticised us for, is actually worse than the record of the NHS elsewhere. That is because across England, Scotland and Wales—this is why I hope we can come to some agreement—we not only had the pandemic but face an increasing demographic challenge. The SNP, Labour and the Conservatives, in the three areas in which we respectively have responsibility for health, are seeing considerable challenges that all of us are struggling to manage, as the Labour party will now struggle to manage them. As was the case when Labour was last in office, capital spending is often deprioritised when budgets are challenged, and decisions are made that might make sense in the short term but that also create long-term pressures. The issue that we are debating is nothing new. Members from both sides of the House agree that our hospitals need modernisation, with 42% of the NHS estate having been built before 1985 and 14% of the estate pre-dating the NHS.

• 22 Jan 2025 · New Hospital Programme · Hansard source

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  I will.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Covid-19 Inquiry · Hansard source

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  I want to begin by saying that although the loss of every single life is of course tragic—and I saw that at first hand when volunteering—it is important to note that, despite repeated political attacks at the time suggesting that we had the worst death rate in Europe, now when we look at the figures properly we see that we actually had a lower death rate than Spain and Italy, and that we were broadly in line with Europe. I caution against diminishing the results of a national effort, which was actually broadly in line with other countries, in a desire to make political attacks on the Conservative party. As exhaustive as the inquiry’s proposals for things to look at is, to my mind I see a big gap which relates to the decision making of MPs. The inquiry does not seem to cover that. Those of us on the Government Benches—equally, it could be said of those on the Opposition Benches—were often faced with very difficult votes that were expected to go down to the wire and were asked to make very difficult decisions. MPs’ access to independent advice and scientific briefings was nowhere near like it should have been. If the right hon. Gentleman agrees that that is not part of the current inquiry, can he at least accept that it is a task for the Cabinet Office to think how we can better equip MPs with the information they need to make decisions on important votes of that nature?