Cllr Paul Swaddle met Victoria Atkins MP, former Secretary of State for Health, at St Mary's Hospital Paddington. The previous Government was committed to the complete rebuild of St Mary's. It had the full support of Victoria Atkins as the Conservative Secretary of State, with the release of money for planning and design works in the final stage of being approved. 

And, during the July election campaign, the Labour Party committed to the rebuild too. 

Wes Streeting, now Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, made the commitment alongside Westminster's Labour candidates and now MPs Rachel Blake and Joe Powell. 

That’s why it’s completely shocking and unacceptable to hear that this government has put the rebuilding of St Mary’s under review until further notice. 

Victoria Atkins MP explains,

During the election campaign, not only we as Conservatives committed to building a brand new hospital here - brilliant for patients, brilliant for staff, brilliant for the local area. Labour matched that, but since then, they have put this hospital and 23 other hospitals at risk. And that is not on. 

But we know that they have been planning this all along because in May last year, 2023, they published a document saying that they were going to pause all capital projects. 

In other words, all new hospitals. And so this is them sticking by what they said in 2023 rather than what they promised during the General Election campaign. And I think local residents and patients deserve better.

People living in Westminster don’t deserve to have major operations cancelled or face hours-long waiting times. They deserve state-of-the-art facilities, and that’s what the Labour Party promised. 

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