Milton Keynes Labour and Conservative groups play blame game over delay to hospital project

A new women and children’s hospital, based at Milton Keynes Hospital, was one of 40 announced by the Conservative Government in 2020, under then Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The hospitals are due to be built by 2030, however earlier this year Labour Health Secretary Wes Streeting ordered a review of the New Hospitals Building Programme, saying the current timescale was not deliverable.

This week in Parliament Milton Keynes North Labour MP Chris Curtis asked Streeting whether he agreed the Conservatives should apologise for promising to deliver a new hospital for the city, even though "they had no plan on how they were going to deliver it.”

Streeting replied: "I share his anger and his constituents anger. We were told there was a plan [for a new hospital], we were told there was a timetable, and we were told the programme was fully-funded.

"Then we came into Government to find the timetables were a work of fiction, and the funding runs out in March.

"We will not play fast and loose with the public’s trust. We will come forward with a plan for the upgrade of those hospitals and those schemes which is creditable, achievable and funded.”

The Citizen approached the Milton Keynes Conservative Group for a response, and they replied: "The apology should be from the Labour Government and the Labour MPs for Milton Keynes.

"Former Conservative MPs Ben Everitt and Iain Stewart had secured funding for a new Women and Children's Hospital for Milton Keynes.

"Funding had not only been allocated, it has already been drawn down to develop the full business case with expected completion before 2030.

"Unfortunately the entire project has now been thrown into doubt by the Labour Government and MK's Labour MPs, Chris Curtis, who praised Ben’s efforts on the hospital in his maiden speech, and Emily Darlington.

"They have launched a review of the project with no guarantees it will still go ahead so it is Chris Curtis and Emily Darlington who should offer an apology to the people of Milton Keynes."