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General election live: Diane Abbott says she has been banned from standing for Labour at election - BBC News General election live: Diane Abbott says she has been banned from standing for Labour at election - BBC News
(about 1 hour later)
We're still waiting to hear from Labour HQ about Diane Abbott's claim that the party's banned her from standing at the election - but shadow health secretary Wes Streeting, who's doing the media round this morning, has been asked about it a few times. As we've been reporting, Labour's latest campaign policy is about the NHS - specifically it's a promise that a target to start treatment within 18 weeks in England will be hit within five years.
He tells Radio 4's Today programme that it's a "decision for the Labour Party's National Executive Committee" - the party's government body. Earlier, it was put to shadow health secretary Wes Streeting on BBC Breakfast that NHS waiting lists in Wales - where Labour is in power - have reached record highs.
Pressed by the BBC's Justin Webb on whether Streeting wants Abbott to remain as an MP, he says "it's not a decision for me" - but that he has "enormous respect" for his colleague and everything she's achieved in politics. He responded by saying the health service is in crisis "in every part of the UK, because decisions taken in Westminster don't just affect England, but Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland".
Put to him that some of Abbott's allies think the party's leadership may have "stitched her up", Streeting says he "not going to rely on hearsay. "If the Conservatives get another five years in power there is a genuine risk, based on Rishi Sunak's performance to date, that we'll see NHS waiting lists rise as high as 10 million," he said.
"Huge numbers" of people were opting to go private where they could afford it, Streeting added. "I'm not going to see working class people left behind while operating theatres in private hospitals are left empty."
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