labour Archives - Satvir Kaur MP

We had a fantastic second meeting of the Southampton Energy Coalition at St Mary’s Stadium this week. The Coalition is a platform I have established, in partnership with Energy Minister Lord Alan Whitehead CBE, to allow key players in the city to collaborate and increase our energy resilience.

The Coalition was established after research from the University of Southampton and Dr Alan Whitehead showed that our city could reach full electricity capacity as early as 2026. With the port electrifying, buses going greener and more data centres on the horizon, Southampton urgently needs more capacity and more clean energy of its own.

It was brilliant to get over 60 people in the room this week, including SSEN, ABP, Blue Star, Star Energy, Bring Energy and Southampton General Hospital, alongside Darren Paffey MP. There was a real buzz and a feeling of partnership at the meeting, which is exactly why we created this coalition in the first place.

Labour has announced that they will deliver vital maintenance in hospitals to help prevent cancelled appointments and operations, with patients in Southampton set to benefit from the Government’s Plan for Change.

Across the country, over 400 hospitals, mental health units and ambulance sites will be handed £750million to tackle long-term problems such as leaky pipes, poor ventilation and electrical issues, helping to prevent thousands of cancelled operations and appointments.   

Satvir Kaur, MP for Southampton Test described the funding as ‘crucial and urgent’ and ‘another step in our promise to fix our public services which have been on their knees for far too long.’

The projects include much needed works at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, specifically the Southampton General Hospital and Princess Anne Hospital, which will help patients benefit from better services and facilities across the health system. Up and down the country, fixing the backlog of maintenance at NHS hospitals will help prevent cancellations, with services disrupted over 4,000 times in 2023/24 due to issues with poor quality buildings.

The hospital funding package was confirmed in last year’s Autumn Budget, in which an extra £26billion was secured for the NHS by the Labour Government.