Rishi Sunak’s plan to double down on his five core political priorities after the Tories dismal local election results suffered a setback on Tuesday as the government admitted it had missed a key target by cutting NHS waiting lists.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay has made it clear that some patients in England have not been able to get hospital treatment within 18 months, despite the government aiming for no one to wait any longer a year and a half by April of this year.
It came as Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer repeatedly refused to rule out a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats if his party does not win a majority in the House of Commons in the next general election.
Sunak’s five policy promises outlined in January include cutting NHS waiting lists as well as halving inflation, growing the economy, reducing public debt and ‘stopping the boats’ – a reference to government efforts to reduce the number of migrants coming to the UK in small boats.
Barclay told MPs on Tuesday that “18 months of waiting [for NHS hospital treatment] have declined by more than 90% since their peak in September 2021”.
It represented a tacit admission that the government has failed to take a major step in its plan to reduce NHS waiting lists.
In February 2022, as part of a plan to eliminate post-Covid hospital treatment backlogs, NHS England said it would “aim to eliminate waits longer than 18 months by April 2023”.
Wes Streeting, Labor health spokesman, used Barclay’s comments to declare ‘the second broken promise of the day’ after ministers appeared earlier to confirm a breach of a manifesto pledge Conservative election in 2019 to recruit 6,000 additional GPs by 2025.
NHS leaders have sought to blame missed targets on shrinking waiting lists during the health service workers’ strike, which has led to around 300,000 operations and appointments being canceled in England.
The most recent performance data from NHS England showed that by the end of February the number of patients waiting 18 months for hospital treatment had fallen by almost a third to just under 30,000.
Downing Street officials said Sunak was determined to stick to his five-priority plan despite mounting pressure to change direction from nervous Tory MPs whose alarm skyrocketed after the party lost nearly 1,000 council seats in England last week.
Some Tory backbenchers are pushing for new policies to appeal to voters, such as tax cuts, while others want to see faster progress on Sunak’s key promises – including his plan to curb migrants crossing the Channel in small boats.
Mark Jenkinson, Tory MP for Workington, said attacking small boats was “a big issue among my constituents”.
Meanwhile, Starmer has abandoned his vow made last year not to enter into a coalition with another political party.
Local council polls in England last week suggested Labor was on track to be the largest party after the next general election, but may not win a majority in the House of Commons.
Modeling by academics Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher for The Sunday Times predicted Labor would win 298 seats in the election, 28 short of a majority, based on local council polls.
Starmer reiterated his opposition to negotiating any coalition deal with the pro-independence Scottish Nationalist Party.
But he has repeatedly refused to rule out a coalition or an informal pact with the Lib Dems.
In July last year, Starmer said he would not even consider a so-called confidence and supply agreement, under which the Liberal Democrats could informally support a minority Labor government, telling Bloomberg : “I exclude any arrangement”.
Starmer sought to dodge questions from the media on Tuesday about the possibility of a Lib Lab government by saying he was “aiming for a Labor majority” and unwilling to respond to “hypotheticals”.
He spoke about Labour’s prospects, telling ITV he was “confident” his party would secure a majority.
Tony Blair, the former Labor prime minister, warned Starmer against taking victory in the upcoming general election for granted.
He said Starmer had “done a good job of bringing Labor back to where it was” under his far-left predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, but told Bloomberg: “Of course you can’t du just be satisfied with these things.”
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