UK politics: Streeting does not want ‘corridor care’ in UK hospitals to be normalised – as it happened | Politics

• Keir Starmer has said Rachel Reeves will be chancellor for “many, many years to come”, as he insisted the government could not “tax our way out” of the problems it faces. (See 2.22pm.)

• Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has told MPs that he does not want “corridor care” – patients being treated in corridors because beds are not available in wards – to be normalised. (See 3.33pm.)

Welsh secretary Jo Stevens rejects call for HS2 to be designated England-only project

Steven Morris

The Welsh secretary, Jo Stevens, has rejected a call to have the HS2 scheme redesignated as an England-only project, which would result in a funding boost for Wales.

Plaid Cymru believes that if HS2 was designated an England-only scheme rather than an England and Wales one, the latter would receive £4bn of extra funding.

At the Welsh affairs committee, Plaid MP Ben Lake, asked:

Would she [Stevens] not agree that reclassifying HS2 as an England-only project would unlock a lot of that extra funding … does she think there is a case of very nicely requesting the Treasury to look again at this?

Stevens replied that Wales’ railway system had been under-funded, blaming the Tory government.

But she said:

I want us to have a sustainable pot of rail infrastructure funding for Wales and I think we need to stop deriving the future of rail in Wales from HS2 alone. What’s gone on in the past, I can’t change but I can change what happens in the future.

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has confirmed that the government will revive large parts of the Tory law passed to guarantee freedom of speech in universities.

The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act was passed in 2023, but never implemented under the last government. When Labour took office, Phillipson shelved the law, claiming it was technically flawed, lead to the Conservatives claiming the government was not interested in freedom of speech.

Now she has concluded a review of the law, and decided that many of its provisions will be implemented, but that some of them will be scrapped.

Here is the Department for Education’s news release setting out the details. And here are extracts from what she told MPs in her statement to the Commons.

The ability of our academics to explore and express new ideas through teaching and research is precious and we must protect it.

And these fundamental freedoms are more important – much more important – than the wishes of some students not to be offended. University is a place for ideas to be exposed and debated, to be tried and tested.

I’m proposing shortly to commence the following requirements currently in the act: the duties on higher education providers to take reasonably practicable steps to secure and promote freedom of speech within the law; the duty on higher education providers to put in place a code of conduct on freedom of speech; the ban on non-disclosure agreements for staff and students of higher education providers in cases of bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct.

I also plan to commence the duties on the OfS [Office for Students] to promote freedom of speech and the power to give advice and share best practice.

• Phillipson also announced that two provisions in the act will be repealed. The first was the rule saying it applied to student unions. “Students’ unions are neither equipped nor funded to navigate such a complex regulatory environment, and they are already regulated by the Charity Commission,” she said. And the second provision being repealed was the statutory tort – the legal provision saying people could be entitled to compensation if denied freedom of speech under the law. Phillipson said this would lead to “costly litigation” taking resources away from universities.

• She said the OfS complaints scheme would be retained for people who felt their freedom of speech had been infringed. She said “there must be a route for righting wrongs, but it must be proportionate”.

Gerry Adams, the former Sinn Féin president who was interned in Northern Ireland in the 1970s on suspicion of being involved in IRA terrorism, has claimed that the British government will try to “dodge” its duty to pay compensation.

Referring to the thinktank report saying a proposed government change to the law should enable Adams and other internees to claim compensation (see 10.39am), and Keir Starmer telling MPs that the government would look at “every conceivable way” to block payments (see 12.18pm), Adams said:

The decision by the supreme court in 2020 was explicit. Interim custody orders not authorised and approved by the secretary of state are illegal. The British government has accepted this. It is a breach of the European convention on human rights.

When the legislation is changed there will almost certainly be further legal process in the courts before there is clarity on this matter. But no one should be surprised by a British government seeking to dodge its lawful and human rights responsibilities.

Mr. Starmer’s comments reflect the infamous assertion of British General Frank Kitson who said: ‘The law should be used as just another weapon in the government’s arsenal, in which case it becomes little more than a propaganda cover for the disposal of unwanted members of the public’.

Adams has always denied being a member of the IRA. But for decades the British government, and other players in Irish politics, operated on the basis that he was an IRA leader, and that was why he was able to play such an influential role in the peace process.

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has told MPs that he does not want “corridor care” – patients being treated in corridors because beds are not available in wards – to be normalised.

In a Commons statement, he said he wanted to end this “undignified” practice. But he said that this would take time, and that he could not promise that corridor care would have gone by next winter.

He said:

Let me address the issue of corridor care, which became normalised in NHS hospitals under the previous government.

I want to be clear, I will never accept or tolerate patients being treated in corridors. It is unsafe, undignified, a cruel consequence of 14 years of failure on the NHS and I am determined to consign it to the history books.

I cannot and will not promise that there won’t be patients treated in corridors next year. It will take time to undo the damage that has been done to our NHS, but that is the ambition this government has.

At the weekend the Sunday Times revealed that a hospital in north London has been advertising specifically for nurses to look after patients in corridors.

Asked specifically about this story by the Lib Dem MP Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex), Streeting said:

It’s not the fault of the Whittington [hospital] that there is corridor care, it is a legacy of 14 years of Conservative failure.

I would also say that my reaction to seeing that advertisement was the same as hers, which it is was proof that corridor care has been normalised.

And I want to reassure her, the house and patients across the country that this government will not accept corridor care as normal care. We will not tolerate corridor care as being acceptable care. We will do everything we can, as fast as we can, to consign corridor care to the history books.

Keir Starmer has faced calls from one of his own MPs to meet an election promise to “save” the Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland, as it winds down, PA Media reports.

During PMQs Brian Leishman, the Labour MP for Alloa and Grangemouth, told the Commons:

In the general election campaign, Labour leadership promised that if we won, we would step in and save the Grangemouth refinery, retain those jobs and invest in its future. Six months later, this hasn’t happened yet.

If the refinery closes then thousands of jobs will be lost and Scotland’s national security will become massively weaker. Now that we are in power, I know that the government should use it to intervene and save the refinery jobs, protect Scotland and deliver on the promise to build Grangemouth for the future. Will the prime minister do that?

After jeers from the opposition benches, Starmer replied:

This is a really important point because before July, there was no plan at all to support the workers of Grangemouth. Within weeks and importantly we announced a £100m deal for a growth deal and we’re jointly funding Project Willow to find a viable long-term future.

It is a really serious point, I take it very seriously and we’ll do everything we can to make sure that viable long-term future is there for the workers, for their communities and all that rely on it.

Donald Trump’s administration will be consulted before any deal for the UK to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is finalised, Downing Street said.

Speaking at the post-PMQs briefing, the PM’s spokeperson said it was “obviously now right” for Trump’s administration to consider any deal.

But, as PA Media reports, the spokesperson steered away from suggestions Trump would now have a “veto” on the deal, and also said: “It is perfectly reasonable for the new US administration to actually consider the detail and we will obviously have those discussions with them.”

Bridget Phillipson says special educational needs reform will require people to ‘think differently’ about support offered

Richard Adams

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, advised people to “think differently” about special needs education for children in England, and said the government was considering legislation to increase special needs provision within mainstream schools.

Phillipson told MPs on the education select committee:

This is a complex and challenging area. In terms of the longer term reform that I believe is required, I think it will require all of us to think differently about the kind of system and support that we want for all children – and children with Send [special educational needs and disabilities] have, I believe, been forgotten for far too long.

But Phillipson would not be drawn on addressing the financial pressures facing councils on increasing special needs spending, and the high needs deficits that some have accrued in recent years. A report published today by the Public Accounts Committee called for the government to address the accumulated council deficits by March.

Phillipson did clarify that the government’s new children’s wellbeing and schools bill would not limit teachers’ pay to national scales, as some academies had feared.

Pressed by Patrick Spence, the Conservative MP, over whether schools could offer pay above a teacher’s maximum band, Phillipson replied: “Yes because there will be a floor but no ceiling.”

Here is the PA Media story from PMQs.

Keir Starmer said Rachel Reeves will be chancellor for “many, many years to come”, as he insisted the government cannot “tax our way out” of the problems it faces.

The prime minister offered strong support to Reeves following recent questions over whether her future in No 11 was guaranteed amid high government borrowing costs.

He also sought to dampen talk of an emergency budget after Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch questioned if one was expected.

Badenoch used her questions to suggest Reeves was not qualified to manage the country’s finances and pressed Starmer to rule out any new tax rises this year.

After the Tory leader asked if the country could “afford four more years of his terrible judgments”, Starmer accused Badenoch of serving up a “barrage of complete nonsense”.

Speaking at PMQs, Badenoch opened by asking Starmer why anyone should “trust a word he says” over businesses who were saying “again and again that his budget means fewer jobs, lower growth and higher borrowing costs”.

Starmer said the global economy was experiencing “volatility” which was why he “took the tough and right decisions in the budget to get our finances back in order”.

He told the Commons: “We had to deal with the £22bn black hole that they left, made difficult cuts, raised taxes to invest in health, public services and housing, vital to stability, vital to growth, and we’ve got an ironclad commitment to our fiscal rules, and she will welcome, no doubt, the inflation figures from this morning.

“But contrast that with the party opposite, they weren’t brave enough in government to take those difficult decisions. They’ve opposed all of our measures to stabilise the economy and promote growth.

“They’re back to the magic money tree, she wants all the benefits of the budget, but she can’t say how she’s going to pay for them. They haven’t changed, they’re still economic vandals and fantasists, imagine where we’d be if they were still in charge.”

Badenoch highlighted warnings from the British Retail Consortium about price rises linked to government tax hikes, adding: “The prime inister refused to repeat his chancellor’s promise that she would not come back for more, will he now rule out any new tax rises this year?”

Starmer again defended the government’s budget, before adding: “When it comes to tax, she knows very well the limits of what I can say from this despatch box, but we have an ironclad commitment to our fiscal rules.

“We can’t just tax our way out of the problems that they left us, which is why we put in place tough – they were howling at the spending decisions, they wouldn’t take them, and we’ll stick to those spending decisions and our focus is absolutely on growth.”

Badenoch faced shouts of “shame” from Labour MPs after she said: “At the budget, Labour were congratulating themselves for having the first female chancellor instead of ensuring the country had someone actually qualified to do the job.

“The prime minister claims he has full confidence in the chancellor, but the markets clearly do not. Yesterday, the chancellor repeated her promise to have just one budget per year to provide businesses with certainty.

“The talk in the City is that she can’t meet her fiscal rules, and there will need to be an emergency budget. So does the prime minister stand by the chancellor’s commitment that there will be only one budget this year?”

Starmer replied: “She’ll be pleased to know the chancellor will be in place for many, many years to come. She’ll outstrip that.

“If we all thought that politics was about cheap words, I could criticise their chancellors, but I don’t have enough time to go through all the chancellors that they had.

“We had one budget, that’s what we’re committed to, strong fiscal rules, that’s what we’ll stick to, unlike the party opposite.”

Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, has described the fact that Mauritius has still not accepted the UK offer on Chagos Islands sovereignty (see 11.58am) as humiliating for the government. In a statement Patel said:

This is a complete humiliation for Keir Starmer and David Lammy and marks yet another failure of British diplomacy under Labour.

Labour have been desperate to sign off the surrender of the Chagos Islands before President Trump returns to office, and the Mauritius Government know. They see the weakness at the heart of this government and are trying to exploit it by pressuring Britain into paying more for an even weaker lease for the military base at Diego Garcia.

During PMQs Kemi Badenoch said it was wrong to give up sovereignty of the Chagos Islands. (See 12.10pm.) The Conservatives have repeatedly attacked the proposed sovereignty deal with Mauritius since it was announced in October last year, but mostly they have attacked the terms of the deal. Today Badenoch went further, saying any transfer of sovereignty was wrong in principle.

Patel echoed this in her statement. She said:

While Labour have been hiding the details from us, we know they are prepared to blow billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money for the indignity of this dodgy deal, which will undermine our security and defence. It is high time they abandoned it altogether start focusing on how to strengthen our defence capabilities and get the economy growing.