Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-03-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to his Department’s press release of 25 November 2015, entitled Department of Health’s settlement at the Spending Review 2015, how the figure of £2 billion of asset sales over five years was calculated; what the 25 potential asset sales with the highest prospective value are; what the value of projected asset sales scheduled to take place will be in each of the next five years; and if he will make a statement.

George Freeman

The £2 billion target was a Spending Review target agreed between the Department and HM Treasury. The target was derived from 2015-16 capital plans submitted to the Department from across the NHS Group, taking account of historic trends and additional future disposals needed to deliver the Department’s policy and finance objectives over the Spending Review period.

Land and buildings are the highest value asset class in the National Health Service. The Department works with a wide range of NHS and foundation trust’s bodies in confidence to identify and help bring forward surplus property. Data on the values of surplus land and property, before it is sold, is commercially sensitive and is not appropriate for the public domain.

The NHS continuously looks at ways of using its assets more efficiently, including disposing of what is surplus. It is not possible to provide a projected value of surplus assets at this stage while this work is ongoing but the Department is aiming to achieve circa £400 million per annum in sales from NHS and NHS Property Services’ assets over the Spending Review period.