Key events
Victoria Atkins was also on the BBCâs Sunday Laura Kuenssberg progamme. She said the government wants to build new GP practices and âbring healthcare closer to our communitiesâ.
This followed an announcement from the Conservatives to build 100 new GP surgeries in England and increase the number of available appointments by allowing more treatment in the community if they stay in power after the general election.
The Tories said they wanted to expand the Pharmacy First scheme, under which patients could seek help from a pharmacist instead of a GP for certain common conditions including earache, sinusitis, a sore throat, infected insect bites and shingles.
Laura Kuenssberg puts it to her that over 450 GPs have been shut since 2013, with funding for pharmacies cut.
Atkins said there are more GPs working in the NHS than there were in 2019, with ârecord numbers working across primary careâ.
Conservatives accuse Labour of having ‘identity crisis’
The health secretary, Victoria Atkins, has suggested Labour is having a âbit of an identity crisisâ, referring to Natalie Elphickeâs controversial defection to the party and the infighting that erupted last week over issues around Diane Abbottâs selection.
Keir Starmer had spent three days insisting Abbottâs candidacy was not in his power, and it was a matter for the partyâs ruling national executive committee (NEC), but the row was increasingly distracting from Labourâs election campaign. He then said she was free to stand.
Atkins said she would not comment on individual Tories who have defected to Labour, saying they will have had their âown reasons for goingâ.
She then told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News:
Itâs a great surprise, I think, to everyone, including possibly to Natalie Elphicke herself, that such a hard-right Conservative politician should choose to join Labour.
But then we see this week from Labour that Sir Keir Starmer canât work out whether Diane Abbott, one of his longest-standing and trailblazing Members of parliament, should in fact be a Member of parliament. He canât work it out. So, it shows that there is a bit of an identity crisis within Labour.
We see today that Sir Keir is suggesting giving out peerages to solve the problem and, interestingly, inserting some of his own, his boysâ club, into those very seats from which heâs ejecting women. I have noticed that.
Labour wants to see a ‘significant’ cut in migration numbers, shadow home secretary says
Yvette Cooper is being questioned by Laura Kuenssberg her BBC Sunday politics programme.
The shadow home secretary says that Labour is not setting a target for how many people should be allowed to come to the UK, as numbers vary from year to year depending on circumstances, but wants a âsignificantâ change in net migration.
Echoing Labour leader Keir Starmerâs comments to the Sun on Sunday, she said: âWe are going to be clear: net migration must come down.â
The shadow home secretary says sectors including social care and engineering need stronger recruitment, but refuses to be drawn on specific figures.
In terms of illegal migration, Cooper says Labour would not commit to the Rwanda scheme and instead focus on clearing the existing backlog for those who are waiting â often a lengthy amount of time â to have their claims processed.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has said no party can âmake those sorts of commitmentsâ in response to allegations that veteran Labour MPs have been offered peerages to stand down at the election.
As we mentioned in the opening summary, The Sunday Times reported that several left-wing MPs claimed that since the 4 July general election date was announced, they have been told they would be raised to the House of Lords if they pass up their seats to allies of Keir Starmer.
Cooper told Sky News:
No party can do that, itâs not the way the system works. Thereâs a whole process with the independent committee that will vet nominations, there have to be processes in terms of the numbers of nominations, designated by the prime minister and so on. So, no party can do that or make those sorts of commitments.
Asked if Starmer had promised anyone a seat in the Lords, Cooper added:
Thatâs not the way the system works. The thing that we do know is weâve seen a series of quite shocking Conservative resignation honours list from Boris Johnson to Liz Truss, and Keir has already said that he would change the way that he approaches all of those things.
Indeed, heâs said that he wouldnât have a resignation honours list as well because itâs been so distorted by the way that the Conservatives have done that.
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper has said the government has âfailed to fix our crumbling hospitals,â and that the partyâs manifesto will feature a pledge to âreverse cuts to the Public Health Grantâ for local authorities in an âinvest to saveâ bid.
In a statement, the party pointed to research by The Health Foundation that found the Public Health Grant was cut 28% on a real-terms per person basis between 2015/16 and 2024.
According to the Liberal Democrats, £1bn of investment each year, paid for by a crackdown on tax evasion, would support communitiesâ ability to âimprove their own healthâ and reduce NHS pressures.
PA Media reports the party described its pledge as the âsecond major pillar of the partyâs plan to fix the health and care crisis, after proposals announced last week to boost GP numbers by 8,000 and give people the legal right to see a GP within seven daysâ.
Cooper said:
The Conservative party has decimated public health funding, leaving Britain with a ticking timebomb of health challenges. The public health crisis in our country has Rishi Sunakâs fingerprints all over it. He has slashed funding for vital local services that support children, failed to fix our crumbling hospitals and overseen a stark rise in health inequality.
Britainâs system of public appointments needs to be overhauled by an incoming government over alleged Tory cronyism that has seen dozens of former MPs, party supporters and donors given key public roles, campaigners have urged.
The public appointments system was reformed in the 1990s, but ministers still retain significant powers during the selection process. Experts say the current system in effect allows a party to âcoloniseâ key parts of the state.
You can read the full story by my colleague, Jon Ungoed-Thomas, here:
Opening summary
Good morning and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the 2024 general election campaign.
Keir Starmer has pledged to cut levels of net migration to the UK if his party wins the general election, in another attempt by Labour to appeal to Conservative voters.
The Labour leader is putting the migration plan in his manifesto, and it will include passing laws to ban law-breaking employers from hiring foreign workers and to train more people from Britain.
Last yearâs net migration figure of 685,000 has âgot to come down,â he told The Sun on Sunday.
A Labour government would bar bosses who break employment law â for example by failing to pay workers the minimum wage â from hiring foreigners, the newspaper reported.
It would also legislate to link the immigration system to training, with businesses applying for foreign worker visas having to train Britons to do the jobs.
Starmer declined to name the target level for migrant numbers, or a timeline. We will give you all the reaction to the announcement throughout the day.
Health secretary Victoria Atkins, shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson and Green party of England and Wales co-leader Carla Denyer are among those doing the media round this morning.
Here are your other headlines:
-
The latest Opinium poll for the Observer on Sunday gives Labour a 20-point lead â the highest level it has recorded since Liz Truss was briefly running the country. Labour is on 45% â up four points on last weekend, while the Conservatives are down two points on 25%. Reform is up on one on 11%, the Lib Dems down two on 8%, and the Greens down one on 6%.
-
The Conservatives have said that 100 new GP surgeries and 50 community diagnostic centres would be built were they to remain in power, funded by slashing the number of NHS managers. They pledged to expand their Pharmacy First scheme, which allows patients to access some treatments via their pharmacy without having seen a GP first. Rishi Sunak said the proposals would make it âquicker, easier and more convenient for patients to receive the care they need and help to relieve pressure on hospital servicesâ. The shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, said the public would not believe this âlatest empty promiseâ as people are finding it harder than ever to see a GP.
-
A report in The Sunday Times that a number of left-wing MPs, including Diane Abbott, have been offered peerages in return for quitting. They have been told they would be elevated to the Lords if they made way for allies of the leadership team in their seats, according to the newspaper.
-
SNP leader John Swinney will formally launch the partyâs general election campaign at a rally in Glasgow today.
-
The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, and the shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, will be in south west London at midday for a campaign visit focused on Labourâs proposed Growth and Skills Levy.
It is Yohannes Lowe here today. If you want to get my attention then please do email me on yohannes.lowe@theguardian.com. Comments on this blog will be open later given weekend staffing levels.
