Starmer latest: Labour brings 9pm ban on junk food ads as Starmer warns no more money for NHS without reform

The UK’s national debt is on an “unsustainable path” and is set to nearly triple in relation to the economy over the next 50 years, the Office for Budget Responsibility has warned.

Public debt is currently at its highest since the early 1960s, sitting at a total of some £2.7trn – equating to around 99.7 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).

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Sir Keir Starmer has admitted there has been no impact assessment of how the decision to cut pensioners of winter fuel payments will affect them.

The prime minister said he had not been shown any reports about the consequences of his decision.

Speaking to reporters during a flight to Washington DC, he said: “There isn’t a report on my desk which somehow we’re not showing, that I’m not showing, as simple as that.”

Sir Keir said his cabinet was not legally obliged to carry out an official assessment of the plan to be done in advance.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “There are clear rules on this that we followed carefully.”

Winter fuel payments based on council tax banding “would not be possible”, the pensions minister has warned, as she revealed the Government has not set a target for pension credit uptake.

Responding to a written question by Labour MP Rachael Maskell, Emma Reynolds said banding based on property values may not accurately reflect taxpayers’ incomes.

The Government has axed the universal winter fuel payment, which all pensioners used to receive regardless of their income, and replaced it with an allowance available to pensioners on means-tested benefits, including pension credit and universal credit.

Ms Reynolds vowed to “work with external partners, local authorities and the devolved governments to boost the take-up of pension credit” but declined to say how many pensioners she would like to see sign up, in response to a further written question from Democratic Unionist Party MP Gregory Campbell.

MPs voted 348 to 228 to cut the seasonal payment for all but the country’s poorest pensioners on Tuesday, rejecting a Conservative bid for the controversial policy to be blocked.

Keir Starmer’s growing impatience with the House of Commons suggests that, having come late to politics, he thinks he is better than those who have spent their lives doing nothing but politics, says John Rentoul:

The size of the waiting list for routine hospital treatment in England was unchanged in July, following three consecutive monthly increases, figures show.

An estimated 7.62 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of July, relating to 6.39 million patients, NHS England said.

The list hit a record high in September 2023 with 7.77 million treatments and 6.50 million patients, after which the figures fell for several months before rising in April, May and June of this year.

Wes Streeting has pledged to be “tough on ill health, tough on the causes of ill health” as he evoked the spirit of New Labour in the House of Commons.

The health secretary gave a nod to Sir Tony Blair’s “tough on crime” mantra as he outlined a “national mission” to improve health opportunities across the country.

Mr Streeting said he wants to be “honest about the problems” facing the NHS and be “serious about fixing them”, as he updated MPs about the “raw, honest and breath-taking” Darzi report commissioned by the new government.

Respected surgeon and former Labour health minister Lord Darzi’s rapid review said the health service “is in critical condition, but its vital signs are strong”.

Speaking in the Commons, Labour MP Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) warned a person’s socio-economic circumstances will “drive their health status”.

She added: “We don’t want to see the position where for every 1% increase in child poverty, six additional babies per 100,000 live births will not reach their first birthday.”

Mr Streeting replied: “She’s absolutely right about the social determinants of ill health and that is why I am genuinely excited that with the mission-driven approach that the Prime Minister has set out, we are already bringing together Whitehall departments, traditionally siloed, to work together on attacking those social determinants.

“And the real potential and the real game-changer is taking genuine cross-departmental working with also working alongside business, civil society and all of us as active citizens to mobilise the whole country in pursuit of that national mission.

“Tough on ill health, tough on the causes of ill health, as someone might have said.”

Professor Sir John Bell has denied Labour claims that the NHS is underfunded and warned the answer to the crisis in the service is not more money.

He told the BBC: “I think it [the NHS] is not underfunded to be honest. I think we need to get better at using the money that is in it.

“We did run a healthcare service for actually many of my early years when I was a practising physician which was profoundly underfunded and the outcomes weren’t bad, people did pretty well.

“But then over the last five, 10 years we have been pumping up the amount of money going into the NHS so when you look at it as a comparator, as a percentage of GDP we actually spend more money than Spain, we spend more money than Japan, we spend more money than a lot of developed economies that have healthcare systems that deliver much better outcomes.

“So the answer is not in my view pouring more money or indeed pouring more people into the system.”

Former first minister Alex Salmond has said he would have stayed on in the role after the 2014 referendum if he knew Scotland would still not be independent after a decade.

Mr Salmond made the decision to step down the day after the vote – which the Yes campaign lost by 55% to 45%.

But in recent months, he has described the move as a “mistake”.

Speaking in a new documentary by ITV Border about the 10th anniversary of the independence referendum – named A Decade of Debate – Mr Salmond said he would not have handed off the reins to deputy Nicola Sturgeon at the time had he known how the next 10 years would play out.

“I thought to make a point of departure for the referendum in the future was a right thing for the national movement. Looking back, that was a mistake,” he said.

“Now, in retrospect, that was a daft thing to do. But then… I thought we were set for independence in a reasonable timescale.”

He added: “If you’d told me then that ten years later, we’d still be waiting despite the manifest opportunities there have been, then I would have said, ‘well, I’ll just hang about then and see the matter through.”

But Ms Sturgeon questioned if that would be the case.

“So clearly he’s going to think that he could have done things so much better. I say that in as gentle a way as possible, to coin one of his favourite phrases,” she told the documentary.

Leading clinical professor Sir John Bell has said that sending more doctors into the NHS would be like “sending more guys into the Battle of the Somme”.

The health expert claims that the service is in desperate need of reform, not more staff.

He told the BBC’s The Today Podcast: “There are two models. Crank the handle faster, which is I think the model that many people would argue you need to do.

“My view is that is really hard because as you throw more people in to crank the handle, the efficiency of the system just falls away. ‘Let’s train an extra 20,000 doctors’: that was the plan of the last government, and I just said: ‘Well, you know, it is like sending more guys into the Battle of the Somme.’ You are not going to get any more ground, you are just throwing more people into a system that doesn’t work.

“My personal view is that is not the model. You have got to have changing roles. People have to do [things] differently. We have to move things to the community, try and keep things out of hospital wherever we can, and use a whole range of innovations to do that.”