Good morning. Wes Straating, the shadow health secretary, is today the main speaker at a conference organized by the Institute for Government think tank and according to last night’s briefing his speech will be an attack on ‘waste’ in the NHS, and a statement Labor will make. it more efficient. This is a relatively standard theme from the opposition party. The Conservatives said much the same thing when Labor was in power. But Streeting has also given an interview with the Sun to promote his message, and this will attract more attention because he has used it to accuse his own party of being too nostalgic about the NHS.
He told the newspaper:
I think there are times when the Labor Party is guided too heavily by nostalgia. It would be the easiest thing in the world to go into the next general election just saying ‘worst crisis in the history of the NHS’, ‘you can’t trust the Tories on the NHS’, ‘you have 24 hours to Save the NHS’. ‘ and by the way, here’s a nice sepia video of Nye Bevan.
When the sun Harry Cole put it to Streeting that this was exactly how Labor campaigned for the NHS at elections, Street work replied:
Well, we haven’t done that well in the last four, so I don’t plan on repeating those mistakes.
Streeting also repeated an argument he previously made as shadow health secretary, saying what the NHS needs most is reform, not extra money.
You can’t keep pouring increasing amounts of money into a leaky bucket; you’re dealing with the bucket itself.
And on the subject of NHS funding, he told the Sun:
It is not right to continue asking low to middle income people to pay high taxes when they are struggling. And it’s not right that they don’t get much for the money they put in.
I’ll post more of the interview and speech soon.
Otherwise, we will have a Cabinet today and expect a statement from the House of Commons from Rishi Sunak on the latest airstrikes on the Houthis. There’s full coverage of this on our Middle East crisis live blog.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.15am: Wes Streeting, shadow health secretary, delivers a speech at the Institute for Government’s annual conference. Other participants include Kwasi Kwarteng, the former Tory chancellor, speaking on a panel, and John Glen, the Cabinet Office minister, giving a speech. The full agenda is here.
Morning: Rishi Sunak chair cupboard.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
11.30am: Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, answers questions in the House of Commons.
After 12.30pm: Rishi Sunak is expected to make a statement to MPs on the latest airstrike against the Houthis.
After 1.30pm: MPs debate a Labor Opposition Day motion which, if passed, would free up a day for the House of Commons to debate and pass a Labor bill on school absenteeism, which would force the government to set up a national register of children who do not go to school.
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