Stephen Kinnock

I am sure the hon. Lady will appreciate the fact that we have now come forward with a programme built not on sand or smoke and mirrors, but on reality, and the hospital she mentioned will be a part of that. She is very welcome to write to me with any further representations. The situation I have described is the dog’s breakfast that we inherited from the Conservatives. This is genuinely not a partisan point, because when the previous Government did the right thing—for example, on the Tobacco and Vapes Bill—we were more than happy to support them, but where they failed, fibbed, and fobbed off Members of this House, we will not pretend that they were acting in good faith. It now falls to us to level with the British people about why their hospitals will not be fixed on time. Our constituents are understandably furious, because our national health service is quite literally crumbling. As Lord Darzi found in his investigation, over the past 14 years our NHS has been starved of capital, with a staggering £37 billion under-investment over the course of the 2010s. I know that we will hear today from hon. Members about many examples of hospital roofs failing or falling, leaky pipes that freeze over in the winter and buckets for catching rainwater in corridors, and I know that capital spending is needed now more than ever. Although we are deeply shocked by the neglect and incompetence of the Conservatives, it has not prevented us from rolling up our sleeves and clearing up the mess that they left behind. That is why we immediately commissioned a review, which had two core objectives. The first was to put the programme on a firm footing with sustainable funding, so that all the projects can be delivered to a realistic and affordable timetable. The second was to give patients a realistic, deliverable timetable based on facts rather than fantasy.