This week, the Government unveiled 21 hospital trusts who will have the chance to make the case for new buildings. East Sussex Healthcare Trust was one of the 21 selected. There is now the opportunity to put a business case together and have our sites in Eastbourne and Hastings improved. I talked up our local hospitals during the Commons announcement and welcomed the £14 million which has just been unveiled to help bring wards up to standard at the Eastbourne District General Hospital.

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Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)

"On Friday, I had the pleasure of visiting the Conquest Hospital in Hastings with my amazing neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd). The hospital was delighted with the £14 million that has just been allocated to its sister hospital in Eastbourne to help to develop wards there, and the trust would be absolutely delighted if it were able to deliver a new hospital. May I ask my right hon. Friend—he will soon be right hon. if he is not already—what more the Conservative MP team in East Sussex, one of whom, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), is sitting right in front of me, can do to get a new hospital delivered to our constituents on the East Sussex coast?"

Edward Argar

"I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) for their campaigning work on behalf of their local hospital trust, East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, and their two local hospitals, the Conquest and Eastbourne. The investment that we envisage flowing from this seed funding will lead to current district ​general hospital services being provided from a significantly enhanced environment at both Eastbourne and the Conquest—something that my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) has campaigned for very actively. I encourage him to continue doing so and to continue working very closely with his local trust to ensure that it continues to develop those services."