The Leader of the Conservatives on Brighton & Hove City Council, Cllr. Geoffrey Theobald, has criticised the local Labour Group for misleading residents over the 3Ts Royal Sussex County Hospital redevelopment.
Cllr Theobald says that in a Notice of Motion at last night’s (March 27) Full Council meeting, the Labour Group claimed that money for the 3Ts redevelopment (Trauma, Teaching & Tertiary care) had been ‘earmarked’ by the previous Labour Government and that the current Coalition Government is deliberately delaying release of the money.
However, Simon Kirby, the local MP for the Kemptown constituency where the hospital is located, has received and published a letter from the current Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, which states that the funding was never allocated by the Labour Government.
To read the letter, CLICK HERE:
Cllr Theaobald points to the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is currently reviewing the Brighton & Sussex University Hospital Trust’s Business Case for the redevelopment and is due to make a decision shortly.
Cllr. Theobald, said: “The Labour Party really should stop using the hospital as a political football and trying to claim credit for something which just isn’t true. The Notice of Motion they put before the Council was ill-thought out and factually incorrect. They didn’t even seem to realise that it is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, who makes the final decision about funding the project. It is quite right that Mr Osborne should be satisfied that such a large sum of taxpayers’ money is going to be spent wisely before agreeing to its release. That may be an alien concept to the Labour Party who, under Chancellor Gordon Brown, signed off many PFI schemes that continue to give taxpayers a raw deal. The city and the wider region desperately need the proposed new state of the art facilities at the Royal Sussex and the Labour Party should be trying to help Simon Kirby in his efforts to secure the funding, not undermine him.”
Responding to the criticism, Cllr Warren Morgan, Leader of Labour and Cooperative, said: “It’s six years since this project was announced and two years since planning permission was granted. The government have asked the NHS Trust to resubmit their business case nine times. If the funding isn’t earmarked in the NHS capital budget and available to be allocated, then all the time and money invested in the redevelopment so far would be for nothing. Even Tory ministers have said it is a case of “when, not if” the funding is approved, so why the continuing delay from our Tory Chancellor?”
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