In a wide-ranging speech, prime minister Rishi Sunak has set out five key pledges to deliver for the British public ahead of the next general election.
The promises include bringing NHS waiting lists down within two years, halving inflation to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, growing the economy and creating opportunity, bringing down the national debt, and curbing illegal migration.
In what was his first major speech of the New Year, the PM told reporters and the public to hold him and his government to account if he was to fail on his promises to the NHS, and that there would be “no ambiguity” from ministers on their track record.
However, he stopped short of going into major detail on how that and his other promises would be delivered, saying that many factors causing the issues were “out of my control”.
Downing Street later offered clarification on Sunak’s pledge to halve inflation, saying that it would be judged according to a comparison between the final quarter of last year and Q4 of 2023.
With inflation standing at 10.7 per cent currently, forecasts from the Bank of England and Office for Budget Responsibility suggest that the target can be achieved by the end of the year.
While the prime minister’s ambitions for inflation could be realised, his speech comes at a time when the NHS is under severe strain, a challenge which will make bringing waiting lists down a much more complex undertaking.
The waiting list for NHS care in England remains in excess of seven million people and has grown since the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Some accident and emergency units have declared critical incidents as a surge of new admissions from Covid and flu has placed additional pressure on hospitals already burdened by the pandemic treatment backlog.
A shortage of capacity in the social care sector also means that patients who are medically fit to be discharged from hospital are unable to leave. This has led to bed-blocking which is having a knock-on effect on ambulance response times, waits to receive emergency treatment, and non-urgent care.
On top of this, there was further turmoil in December as nurses and ambulance staff staged industrial action.
Despite the scale of the crisis, Sunak said that he believed his government “will have practically eliminated waiting times for those waiting a year and a half” within “just a few months”.
The prime minister said that increased funding for the NHS and new developments such as virtual wards to help treat people at home would help deliver on the promise.
Sunak said: “We've already eliminated those waiting two years, and by next spring I think we will have eliminated those waiting a year.”
Elsewhere, the PM is also having to contend with record numbers of migrants risking their lives crossing the Channel in small boats to enter the UK illegally.
Sunak has already promised to reform UK asylum laws with new legislation to help hasten the removal of those arriving illegally to claim asylum with no grounds for doing so.
However, the speed at which this legislation can be passed and implemented is dependent on parliamentary scrutiny, which could prove a lengthy exercise.
Even if the legislation is given parliamentary approval, it could subsequently be held up in the courts by legal challenges. Indeed, Sunak himself conceded during his address that the changes were “not going to happen overnight”.
Time will be of the essence, however, as his government aims to win back support from the public with the Tories trailing in the polls ahead of the next general election, which is expected to take place no later than January 2025.
Image by Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing - , OGL 3, on Wikimedia Commons
