Rishi Sunak’s plan to double down on his five core policy priorities after the Tories’ dismal local election results suffered a setback on Tuesday as the government acknowledged it had missed a key target on cutting NHS waiting lists.
Health secretary Steve Barclay made clear some patients in England have been unable to secure hospital treatment within 18 months, despite the government having a target of no one waiting more than a year and a half by April this year.
It came as Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer repeatedly refused to rule out a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats if his party fails to win a House of Commons majority at the next general election.
Sunak’s five policy pledges outlined in January include cutting NHS waiting lists as well as halving inflation, growing the economy, cutting public debt and “stopping the boats” — a reference to the government’s efforts to curb the number of migrants coming to the UK in small boats.
Barclay told MPs on Tuesday that “18-month waits [for NHS hospital treatment] have decreased by over 90 per cent since their peak in September 2021”.
It represented a tacit admission that the government has failed to meet a significant milestone in its plan to cut NHS waiting lists.
In February 2022, as part of a blueprint to clear post-Covid hospital treatment backlogs, NHS England said it would “aim to eliminate waits of over 18 months by April 2023”.
Wes Streeting, Labour’s health spokesperson, seized on Barclay’s comments to declare “the second broken promise of the day” after ministers had earlier appeared to confirm a breach of a Conservative 2019 election manifesto commitment to recruit 6,000 more GPs by 2025.
NHS leaders have sought to place the blame for missing goals on cutting waiting lists on strike action by health service workers, which has led to about 300,000 cancelled operations and appointments in England.
The most recent NHS England performance data showed that at 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 blueprint despite growing pressure to change direction from jittery Tory MPs whose alarm has rocketed after the party lost close to 1,000 council seats in England last week.
Some backbench Conservative MPs are pressing for new policies to appeal to voters, such as tax cuts, while others want to see faster progress on Sunak’s core pledges — notably his plan to curb the migrants coming over the English Channel in small boats.
Mark Jenkinson, Tory MP for Workington, said tackling the small boats was “a big issue among constituents of mine”.
Meanwhile, Starmer jettisoned his vow made last year not to enter into a coalition with another political party.
Last week’s local council polls in England suggested Labour was on track to be the biggest party after the next general election, but could fail to secure a Commons majority.
Modelling by academics Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher for The Sunday Times predicted that Labour would win 298 seats at the election, falling 28 short of a majority, based on the local council polls.
Starmer reiterated his opposition to negotiating any coalition agreement with the pro-independence Scottish Nationalist Party.
But he repeatedly refused to rule out a coalition or informal pact with the Lib Dems.
In July last year Starmer said he would not even consider a so called confidence and supply deal, under which the Lib Dems could informally prop up a minority Labour government, telling Bloomberg: “I’m ruling out any arrangement.”
Starmer sought to duck questions from the media on Tuesday about the possibility of a Lib Lab government by saying he was “aiming for a Labour majority” and did not want to answer “hypotheticals”.
He talked up Labour’s prospects, telling ITV he was “confident” his party would win a majority.
Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, warned Starmer against taking victory at the next general election for granted.
He said Starmer has “done a pretty good job pulling the Labour party back from where it was” under his hard left predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, but told Bloomberg: “Of course you can’t be complacent about these things at all.”