In April the Labour MP for Earley and Woodley voted “no” on a parliamentary motion to speed up delivery of a replacement for the Royal Berkshire Hospital – despite promising that a Labour Government would start building before 2029 during the General Election.
This represents an incredible U-turn for her on her pre-election stance. Labour made a new hospital a top priority in their election campaign locally. During a debate on BBC Radio Berkshire, the now MP criticised the Conservatives for not moving fast enough and promised that under a Labour Government the RBH redevelopment would begin before the next General Election in 2029.
Since coming to power last July, the Labour Government has delayed this programme, pushing back building work by at least a decade, or to put it another way two parliaments. When the delay was originally announced, local Conservatives stated that this amounted to an effective cancellation of rebuilding plans. Labour MPs denied this – however, their vote in Parliament shows we were right to call Labour out.
The Conservatives established the hospital rebuilding programme. Claims that there isn’t any money, like Labour’s mythical £22 billion black hole, have been widely debunked. While the Labour Government refuses to spend money on hospitals, it has awarded eye-watering pay rises to Labour's union backers and is proposing to pay the Mauritian government tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers money to take over the Chagos Islands.
A replacement for the RBH is desperately needed. By the time this Government plans to start rebuilding, parts of the current hospital will be almost two centuries old. But it is more than simply having a new building. A purpose-built hospital, fit for now and into the future, would be able to provide care for the increased numbers of patients the hospital is currently seeing. In particular the current A&E department is too small. A new layout would mean more efficient patient flow and better triaging. Also, a new hospital would allow state of the art technology including robotics and AI to be implemented to improve patient monitoring.
The RBH Foundation Trust believes that the best option would be a brand-new, purpose-built facility and have said they are extremely disappointed following the Government’s announcement.
Yet again, this Labour Government is letting down its voters with broken promises.
P.S. It seems on one topic at least Labour is realising they made a mistake. During a BBC interview The Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, recently said, “I know that people aren't happy about the winter fuel allowance in lots of cases.”
Regular readers will know that I have been campaigning for a reversal of this unfair policy, including writing to Ministers and MPs, and bringing a motion to Council.
Almost 30,000 people living in Wokingham Borough were affected by the Government’s decision to scrap the Winter Fuel Allowance for those not receiving Pension Credit.
Pension Credit is only available to pensioners on an income around half the full-time salary of someone on the minimum wage – not enough to live on. Clearly this policy affected some of the poorest and most vulnerable in our community. I hope Mr Streeting’s comments mean that Labour will now reverse this punitive cut before we get to next winter.
