Streeting admits Reform could be main opposition by next election – UK politics live | Politics

Wes Streeting has said although NHS waiting lists were coming down, he recognised millions were still waiting for their treatment.

He told Sky News’s Sunday With Trevor Phillips that although hundreds of thousands of people had been treated faster, not everyone could be helped as soon as they wanted.

“As I have done before and said, NHS waiting lists are falling. They’ve fallen six months in a row. The three million more appointments we promised, we delivered seven months early, we’re actually over three million, and we’ll be even higher by July,” he said.

“Well, for hundreds of thousands of people who have been seen faster and come off the waiting list, great news (but) if you’re one of seven million cases still on there, this is the point at which you start shouting at the telly, saying, ‘hang on a minute – you’re saying the NHS is improving. I’m still waiting’.

“Now both those things are true, the NHS is improving, but people are still waiting.”

“Does it wash away the cost-of-living crisis? No.”

Reform UK will introduce a taskforce to audit spending in the councils where it has won control, the the party’s chairman Zia Yusuf has said.

“If you take Lincolnshire County Council, yes, they do not currently have somebody with the job title ‘DEI officer’ (but) they do spend considerable money on DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) initiatives”, he told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme.

“And they have other people who have basically that same job, but under a different title, partly in response to the fact that they’ve been inundated by think tanks and activists putting in FOIs (freedom of information requests).”

He said Reform would send “teams” into councils, adding: “We’ll be opening up application shortly. We want the brightest and the best. “If you’ve got experience in audit, if you’ve got experience in fixing potholes, if you’re a software engineer.

“We’re going to bring taskforces in. We’re now going to have access to the contract, access to the numbers, access to payroll, and we’re going to make these changes.”

Nigel Huddleston, the shadow Treasury financial secretary, has said Lucy Powell’s comments on grooming gangs were “completely inappropriate”.

Speaking on Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, Huddleston, who took part in the Radio 4 debate on Saturday during which Powwell referred to grooming gangs as a “dog whistle”, said: “This is a really serious issue and to kind of belittle … it is completely inappropriate.”

“I think that shows that, unfortunately, Wes Streeting and the Labour Party have underestimated how big an issue this is, how it resonates with the public and how they are angry about what they perceive as this government’s lack of action here.”

The head of Unite, the UK’s biggest union, has urged staff at Reform UK-controlled councils to join them after Nigel Farage warned employees working on diversity or climate change initiatives to seek “alternative careers”.

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Unison general secretary Christina McAnea says the local election results are a “wake up call” for the Labour government.

Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, McAnea said: “Just talking in soundbites and rhetoric won’t work anymore. People expect more from a Labour party, especially those who voted for them, obviously, and they’re not getting it at the moment. They need to feel better about the world and about their own lives, sadly that’s not been delivered so far.”

McAnea said Labour could look at relaxing fiscal rules. “That would give them a bit more flexibility in terms of where they could spend money.”

Wes Streeting has said Lucy Powell’s comments that appeared to describe a question about grooming gangs as a “dog whistle” were not interpreted as his cabinet colleague had intended, PA reports.

Asked if he and his Labour colleagues see the grooming gangs scandal as a dog-whistle issue or a “coded signal to racists”, the health secretary said: “No and I don’t think that’s what Lucy intended to imply in a heated debate on Radio 4, and that’s why she’s apologised for what she said.

“I don’t think for a moment she would have meant or wanted to imply that raising these issues, talking about these issues, is dog whistle.”

“We all make mistakes” and the important thing is that “we own it”, Streeting told Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips. Asked if Powell’s job as leader of the House of Commons was safe, he said: “I think she’s made a genuine mistake, she’s owned up to it she’s said sorry and we’ll move on.”

The health secretary Wes Streeting has said that Reform is “definitely a real threat” for Labour and one they are taking seriously.

Speaking on Sky News on Sunday morning, Streeting said: “I think there’s clearly, on the right of British politics, a realignment taking place. It’s not yet clear at the next general election whether it will be Reform or the Conservatives that are Labour’s main challengers.”

In other developments:

• Reform’s chairman, Zia Yusuf, has said his party would erect statues of “Great British figures” and “end all this woke nonsense” within the first few months of government if they were to win power. Speaking to the Sunday Times, Yusuf also criticised Keir Starmer’s decision not to visit Runcorn in the run-up to the Thursday byelection that Reform won. In contrast, he said Nigel Farage visited the constituency three or four times and walked “50,000 steps” knocking doors on polling day.

• Donald Trump’s tariffs tsar has accused Britain of being a “compliant servant of communist China” at risk of having its “blood sucked” dry by Beijing. In comments to the Telegraph, Peter Navarro, the president’s trade adviser, said the Government must resist “string-laden gifts” from Beijing and avoid becoming a “dumping ground” for goods that China can no longer sell to the US.

• Kemi Badenoch has apologised for the “bloodbath” of the local elections after the Tories lost 674 councillors. The Conservative leader will appear on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg this morning alongside Streeting and Yusuf.