Labour conference live: Public can’t trust Farage with the NHS, Streeting warns before Starmer unveils reforms

Darren Jones suggested his move to the new role of Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister was borne of “frustration” at the pace of delivery and a sense that “the machine is too slow.”

Asked whether the changes Sir Keir Starmer had made to his Government team came from a frustration that delivery was proving harder than expected, he told a Labour conference fringe event: “Yeah, and the machine is too slow. It still is too slow, we’ve got to fix it.”

He said progress was too “sluggish” and the Government would be looking at introducing more measures like taskforces, as “timebound” projects to speed up delivery.

Mr Jones, who is also Chancellor to the Duchy of Lancaster, also revealed the Prime Minister had moved back the No 10 morning meeting by 15 minutes so that he could drop his children off at breakfast club and do the morning run.

Mr Jones, a former solicitor, said the Prime Minister, a former barrister, addresses problems “like a lawyer”.

Referring to their previous roles, he joked: “In the old days that would mean I instruct him, not the other way round.

Reform UK’s efforts to walk away from the European Convention on Human Rights are “wrong” and “reckless”, the Northern Ireland Secretary has warned.

At the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, Hilary Benn said that the “Good Friday Agreement enabled Northern Ireland to move away from the bloody and brutal trauma of the Troubles, towards peace and progress”.

Mr Benn continued: “It was, without doubt, the greatest achievement of the last Labour government.

“It took courage. It took patient negotiation, and yet, what does Nigel Farage want to do?

“He actually wants to undermine the Good Friday Agreement by walking away from the European Convention on Human Rights.

“And after all that the people of Northern Ireland have been through, I cannot think of anything more irresponsible – it’s wrong, it’s reckless, and we’ve got to make sure it never, ever happens.”

Wes Streeting urged the BMA to work with Government, stressing that there “isn’t a more pro-NHS, more pro-doctor health secretary or government waiting in the wings. It’s Nigel Farage and Reform UK”.

“If we fail, there is every chance that N’gel Farage will come in and say ‘Labour has failed on the NHS, let’s do away with the NHS, let’s have an insurance-based system that will check your pockets and your credit card before you can access care’,” he told the PA news agency.

“That’s not a future I want to see, I don’t think it’s a future BMA members want to see. That is the choice.

“There isn’t a more pro-NHS, more pro-doctor Health Secretary or government waiting in the wings. It’s Nigel Farage and Reform UK. So work with a Labour government that wants to work with you.”

Labour activists and delegates in Liverpool have been urged to be “vigilant” by the party’s conference arrangements committee chairwoman, ahead of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s speech.

Lynne Morris made the announcement as she opened the third day of the Labour Party conference on Tuesday, and following a one-man pro-Palestine protest during Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s speech on Monday.

She said: “In order to deliver a safe conference, we would ask you to be vigilant and to report any concerns you have to a member of staff or steward immediately.

“If there is someone sitting with you in your delegation or in a seat near to you that you do not recognise, or that are concerned about in any way, please inform the regional, Scottish or Welsh teams.”

Only delegates and those with tickets, which includes several journalists, will be let into the hall for Sir Keir’s address, Ms Morris said.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said that the BMA is “letting the side down” due to the latest dispute over GP online access.

He told GB News: I think the BMA are letting the side down, to be honest, because they’re giving people the impression that GPs are opposed to online access, and actually, loads of GPs are already doing it, we just want to make sure it’s happening everywhere.

“They’ve got to work with us, not against this. I mean, it’s been, it’s been a running theme of my first year as Health and Social Care Secretary, that the BMA kickoff from one week to the next, and I’d rather we work together as partners. I really, I really do.

“And the alternative is, we either get, we get the NHS back on its feet with a Labour Government and we’ll be proud of that achievement for years to come, or if the BMA hold us back and the forces of conservatism win, there’ll be a Reform government with Nigel Farage, who doesn’t believe in the NHS, wants an insurance system that will check your pockets before your pulse and your credit card before you care.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said Sir Keir Starmer would confound his critics when he addresses the Labour Party conference later on Tuesday.

Mr Streeting said: “I actually think this Labour conference has been really important for the party and for the Government.

“I feel like we’ve got a spring in our step, I think people have come together at this conference.

“We’re proud of what we’ve achieved in our first year as a Labour Government, but we know there’s so much more to do to rebuild our economy, rebuild our public services and rebuild trust in politics.

“That’s the challenge that we’re facing, that’s the fight we are up for.

“Keir Starmer has confounded his critics and confounded expectations before, and he will do it again today.”

The Health Secretary has called for an apology after an NHS website suggested there are benefits to first-cousin marriage, despite the known increased risk of birth defects.

An article on NHS England’s Genomics Education Programme website last week – which has since been taken down – outlined the risks but said first-cousin marriage is linked to “stronger extended family support systems and economic advantages”.

Research, including from the long-running Born in Bradford study, has found children from first-cousin marriages are more likely to have speech and language difficulties, less likely to reach a “good stage of development” and have more GP practice appointments.

Interviews among 13,500 families between 2007 and 2011 for the study found 60% of couples of Pakistani heritage were related by blood (first cousin, second cousin or other blood relative), with 37% first-cousin marriages.

This compares with less than 1% in white British couples. Marrying a first cousin is legal in the UK.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting told LBC radio on Tuesday he thought an apology should be issued over the NHS material, which was first highlighted in the Mail on Sunday.

Mr Streeting said: “The first I heard of this was when I saw that report, I asked immediately, ‘What on earth is going on here and what are they playing at?’

“The advice has been taken down but why was it ever there in the first place? The medical science and evidence is clear. First-cousin marriages are high risk and unsafe, we see the genetic defects it causes, the harm that it causes.”

Nigel Farage has “blown a very loud dog whistle” by proposing an immigration policy that is “worse than racist”, Shabana Mahmood has said.

In a fierce attack on Reform UK, the Home Secretary said the insurgent right-wing party’s plans, which include abolishing indefinite leave to remain, were “immoral” and “extreme”.

In conversation with Tory peer Lord Michael Gove during an event on the fringes of Labour conference, Ms Mahmood suggested Mr Farage had sent an implicit signal to racists allowing him to claim “plausible deniability.”

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Wes Streeting has said Reform UK’s immigration plans would be a “disaster” for the NHS.

Asked what Reform UK’s plans to scrap indefinite leave to remain would mean for the NHS, the Health Secretary told LBC:”I mean, there are doctors, nurses, care workers, NHS, staff earning less than £60,000 a year, who have come to this country, who have given back, not just through their taxes, but through their service to our country.

“If we were to send those people back, I think that would be a disaster.

“And my message that I’m giving in my speech Labour Party conference today is to those of you listening who are in that situation, who are fearing for your future now in the way that you weren’t some weeks ago: “

Farage says ‘go home’. I say ‘you are home’, and I’m grateful for the service that you give to our national health service, to our social care system and to our country.”