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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

National insurance increase will be reversed from 6 November, says Kwasi Kwarteng – as it happened

Thérèse Coffey NHS GPS Liz Truss
Kwasi Kwarteng.
Kwasi Kwarteng. Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters

Nick Macpherson, a former permanent secretary at the Treasury, says the UK is already paying a price in higher borrowing costs for the fact that the Treasury, which decides fiscal policy, and the Bank of England, which decides monetary policy, are at odds with each other.

Ipsos Mori has published its latest political monitor. It says the polling “does not show a significant polling bounce for Liz Truss”. The fieldwork was carried out in the week after Truss became prime minister and it has Labour on 40% (down 4 points from July), and the Conservatives on 30% (no change).

Keir Starmer has a narrow lead over Truss on who would make the most capable PM (40% versus 36%), but when respondents were asked about the two leaders’ characteristics, Starmer was ahead of Truss or level with her on all positive attributes, except being patriotic.

Polling on Truss v Starmer
Polling on Truss v Starmer Photograph: Ipsos Mori

On the economy, the picture is more mixed. The Conservatives are ahead of Labour as being the party most trusted to grow the economy, and to manage inflation. But Labour is ahead on reducing the cost of living (probably the most important of the four criteria) and on taxation.

Polling on the economy
Polling on the economy Photograph: Ipsos Mori

Updated

During his speech in the Ukraine debate in the Commons, Boris Johnson briefly thanked the “inspirational leadership of Vladimir Putin” before quickly correcting himself and saying Volodymyr Zelenskiy. He said:

Thanks to the heroism of the Ukrainian armed forces, thanks in part to the weapons that we are proud to be offering … thanks also, of course, to the inspirational leadership of Vladimir Putin – the inspirational leadership of Volodymyr Zelenskiy, forgive me – the Russian forces have, in recent days been expelled from large parts of the north-east of the country around Kharkiv.

Updated

Labour MP Apsana Begum says party has 'failed in its duty of care' towards her

The Labour MP Apsana Begum, who is returning to work after being off sick and who is facing a “trigger ballot” reselection process, has accused the party of failing in its “duty of care in relation to my health and wellbeing”.

Updated

Liz Truss will chair a cabinet meeting tomorrow, before Kwasi Kwarteng’s statement to MPs. As my colleague Jessica Elgot reports, this is what usually happens before a budget – although No 10 insists that tomorrow’s statement isn’t actually a budget. If it were a budget, the independent Office for Budget Responsibility would have to publish a new economic forecast alongside it, which could have been awkward given what other economists are saying about government borrowing.

Updated

Sinn Féin says figures showing Catholics outnumbering Protestants in NI indicate need to prepare for 'unity referendum'

Northern Ireland census figures have confirmed a landmark change in faith and national identities, with Catholics outnumbering Protestants for the first time and those identifying as British-only dropping significantly.

Colum Eastwood, leader of the nationalist SDLP, said it was “a seminal moment in the history of modern Ireland”. He explained:

The census figures published today reveal that, by any measure, the constitution of the North has been transformed utterly 100 years on from partition. That is a moment of true change because it reflects a sustained period of lasting change.

As we have built a more inclusive and diverse society, we have together shattered the bonds of an oppressive state which engrained discrimination against a Catholic minority in its every outworking for far too long. We are never going back to state-sponsored discrimination against any religious minority. I hope that all those who lived through decades of discrimination and who experienced the sharp end of that oppressive state are able to breathe a sigh of relief today.

The significance of this transformation should not be downplayed or diminished out of fear or insincere politicking. I acknowledge that today’s figures may generate feelings of insecurity for some. But it is my honest hope that we can all now take a moment of serious and sincere reflection about the scale of change we have experienced and commit to a conversation about the powerful potential for change in the future.

Colum Eastwood.
Colum Eastwood. Photograph: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PA

In a statement the Sinn Féin MP John Finucane said the census figures were “another clear indication that historic change is happening across this island”. He went on:

There is no doubt change is under way and irreversible. How that change is shaped moving forward requires maturity to take the challenges which face our society.

We can all be part of shaping a better future; a new constitutional future and a new Ireland.

Finucane said the Irish government should set up a citizens’ assembly to prepare for a possible “unity referendum”.

John Finucane.
John Finucane. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

However, the Democratic Unionist party said that “to draw political conclusions based on the number of Protestants and Catholics is simplistic and lazy”. In a response for his party, the DUP MLA (member of the legislative assembly) Phillip Brett said:

For the last 20 years, there has been a trend towards a Protestant minority, a Catholic minority and a minority who don’t identify as either. Rather than focus on a divisive border poll we should ensure that Northern Ireland builds first-class public services and a genuine shared future.

Updated

Truss could follow Trump and move UK embassy to Jerusalem

Liz Truss has said she is considering relocating the British embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in a controversial move that would break with decades of UK foreign policy in order to follow in the footsteps of Donald Trump. My colleagues Bethan McKernan and Patrick Wintour have the story here.

A petition signed by more than 400,000 people demanding action on the cost of living crisis being delivered to Downing Street today.
A petition signed by more than 400,000 people demanding action on the cost of living crisis being delivered to Downing Street today. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Updated

MPs are holding a general debate on Ukraine, and Boris Johnson has just been called to speak from the backbenches. He says Vladimir Putin is on course to lose as many troops in the war in Ukraine as America lost in the entire 20 years of the Vietnam war. He goes on:

In all those seven months of horror that this modern Moloch has personally unleashed, he has not attained a single one of his objectives in a war that, do not forget, was meant to be over in days.

Johnson also says the announcement by Putin of partial mobilisation in Russia has generated such panic that the price of a one-way ticket from Moscow to South Africa rose to $50,000.

Updated

The Scottish government is going to keep its ban on fracking, even though the UK government will allow fracking in England, Michael Matheson, the Scottish government’s energy secretary, has confirmed.

The Labour party has sold a stall at its party conference to a company led by a leading Conservative donor whose comments about “foreign Muslims” running urban areas were recently condemned by the Labour party chair, Anneliese Dodds. My colleague Henry Dyer has the story here.

And here is Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, announcing the change on Twitter.

Kwarteng says national insurance increase will be reversed from 6 November, saving 28m people £330 on average next year

The Treasury has just announced the national insurance increase introduced earlier this year will be reversed from 6 November.

It put out a press release announcing the change to coincide with the introduction of the health and social care levy (repeal) bill. It said:

The 1.25 percentage point rise in national insurance will be reversed from 6 November, the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, has announced today.

Delivering on the prime minister’s pledge to slash taxes to help drive growth, scrapping the rise will reduce tax for 920,000 businesses by nearly £10,000 on average next year as they will no longer pay a higher level of employer national insurance and can now invest the money as they choose.

The government will also cancel the planned health and social care levy – a separate tax which was coming into force in April 2023 to replace this year’s national insurance rise. This will help almost 28 million people across the UK keep more of what they earn, worth an extra £330 on average in 2023-24, with an additional saving of around £135 on average this year.

The health and social care levy (repeal) bill, legislating for the tax change, has been introduced into the House today. As part of the cancellation of the levy, the chancellor is also set to confirm that the increases to dividend tax rates will be scrapped from April 2023 in his growth plan tomorrow. The increased dividend tax was introduced in April 2022 to ensure those who gained income from dividends contributed the same amount to help fund health and social care.

The levy was expected to raise around £13 billion a year to fund health and social care. The chancellor confirmed today that the funding for health and social care services will be maintained at the same level as if the levy was in place, protecting the NHS through the winter and ensuring long-term investment in social care.

The Treasury press release confirms what had been expected to be a key feature of the “emergency budget” coming tomorrow. The decision to put it out now will reinforce suspicions that Kwarteng has a surprise announcement saved up for tomorrow – possibly a stamp duty cut.

Updated

Coffey tells Tory MP she will look into case for introducing tax relief on private health insurance

During the statement Thérèse Coffey also told MPs that she would look into the case for introducing tax relief on private health insurance. She was responding to the Tory MP James Cartlidge who said:

[Coffey] will be aware figures show that as many as one in 10 adults in England have used the private sector in the past 12 months. Does she agree without them, waiting lists will be even higher and will she therefore consider the reintroduction of tax relief on private medical insurance, first introduced by Ken Clarke in 1989, and scrapped by the party opposite?

Coffey said she would “look into that for him and respond to him”.

Coffey reveals she gave up trying to get A&E treatment over summer after waiting almost nine hours

In her statement Thérèse Coffey told MPs that she gave up trying to get A&E treatment in a hospital over the summar after waiting almost nine hours. The next day she went to a different hospital, and was seen quickly, she said.

She told the story as she said she would not change the four-hour waiting time target for A&E. She said:

I can absolutely say there will be no changes to the target for a four-hour wait in A&E.

I believe it matters, and I’ll give you a personal experience recently. Just in July I went to A&E, I waited nearly nine hours myself to see a doctor and I still didn’t get any treatment.

I was asked to go back the next day, so I went to a different hospital just three miles away and I was seen and treated appropriately.

That’s the sort of variation that we’re seeing across the NHS.

Tory health committee chair Jeremy Hunt criticises two-week appointment target for GPs, saying it won't help

In the Commons Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative chair of the health committee and former health secretary, told Thérèse Coffey that he welcomed much of what was in her plan. But he criticised the proposal to tell GPs that they had to offer people an appointment within a fortnight, one of the headline elements in the package. (See 9.43am.) Hunt said:

If targets were the answer, we would have the best access in the world in the NHS because we have more targets than any other healthcare system in the world.

GPs alone have 72 targets. Adding a 73rd won’t help them or their patients because it’s not more targets the NHS needs, it’s more doctors.

Hunt also asked when Coffey would provide “hard numbers'” setting out how many extra staff the NHS would need in the future.

In response, Coffey said she remembered supporting Hunt from the backbenchers when he was health secretary. She said this politely, but in the light of his criticism of her announcement, it sounded as if she was making a point.

On workforce planning, she said her department was looking at this. But she said she wanted to make it more straightforward for qualified people to come and practice in the NHS in England. She went on:

Frankly, I was astonished to learn we can’t even have people who are accredited in Scotland to come straight away and be dentists in England. It’s those sorts of things where we will be laying regulations the first day we are back after the recess, and that will enable the General Dental Council to accelerate this sort of aspect of streamlining.

Here is the government document setting out the “plan for patients” in full.

Updated

Labour says Coffey's NHS plan shows government is 'out of ideas'

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, is responding to Coffey’s statement, which he says is proof the government is “out of ideas”. He goes on:

The NHS is facing the worst crisis it has ever seen: patients waiting longer than ever before in A&E, stroke and heart attack victims waiting an hour for an ambulance, 378,000 patients waiting more than a year for an operation, and that was the summer.

We’ve gone from an NHS that treated patients well and on time when Labour were in office 12 years ago, to an annual winter crisis and now a year-round crisis under the Conservatives.

He says the plan will have “minimal impact” on patients, telling MPs those are not his words, but the words of the Royal College of GPs. (See 8.58am.)

Expecting the Conservatives to sort out the NHS is like expecting arsonists to put out the fire they started, he claims.

And he says there is a big “black hole” in the plan because it does not explain what will be done to address the shortage of staff in the NHS.

Updated

Coffey's statement to MPs about government's 'our plan for patients'

Thérèse Coffey, the new health secretary, is delivering her statement to MPs about the government’s “our plan for patients”.

Here is the summary from the Department of Health and Social Care.

Updated

Rees-Mogg accused of 'outrageous slur' after suggesting some anti-fracking groups funded by Russia

During the Commons statement on fracking, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the business secretary, suggested that some of the groups opposing fracking were funded by Russia. In response to a question from Labour’s Cat Smith, he said:

I’m well aware that there have been objections to fracking, but I would also note that there have been stories widely reported that some of the opposition to ... fracking has been funded by Mr Putin’s regime.

Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary of state for climate change and net zero, later said that was an “outrageous slur”.

Rees-Mogg seemed to be referring to reports like this one, which refers in part to a claim made by the then Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in 2014.

Updated

Rees-Mogg angers Tory MPs by failing to promise local residents a vote on allowing fracking schemes

Jacob Rees-Mogg faced repeated criticism from Tory MPs in the Commons over fracking, particularly over what was meant by his claim that drilling would only go ahead with approval from local communities. Some MPs wanted an assurance that residents would get to vote on whether projects should go ahead. But Rees-Mogg refused to promise that. Instead he said it would be up to fracking companies to come up with plans that would be welcomed by residents. He said these should involve people being compensated financially for the inconvenience they would face.

Mark Menzies, the Tory MP for Fylde in Lancashire, was particularly angered by Rees-Mogg’s claim that opponents of fracking were luddites. (See 11.39am.) He said:

There is nothing luddite about the people of Lancashire or of Fylde …

Can we be crystal clear on one thing? The prime minister at the Manchester hustings ... made it crystal clear – no ifs, not buts, no caveats – that fracking would only take place in the United Kingdom where there was local consent. Crystal clear. So, if the prime minister is to remain a woman of her word, a woman that we can believe in, which I believe she is, can the secretary of state outline how that local consent will be given and demonstrated?

In response, Rees-Mogg said companies would work with communities to draw up plans they would accept.

Greg Knight, the Conservative MP for East Yorkshire, told Rees-Mogg that the government should not be taking risks with safety. He said:

Despite what [Rees-Mogg] said, is it not the case that forecasting the occurence of seismic events as a result of fracking remains a challenge to the experts? Is it not therefore creating a risk of an unknown quantity to pursue shale gas exploration at the present time? Is he aware that the safety of the public is not a currency which some of us choose to speculate in?

Rees-Mogg said he disagreed. “It is all a matter of proportionality,” he said.

Scott Benton, the Tory MP for Blackpool South in Lancashire, asked Rees-Mogg for more detail about how the government would decide if a project had local support. And later, Mark Fletcher, the Conservative MP for Bolsover in Derbyshire, said he was not impressed by Rees-Mogg’s comments on local consent. He said:

The local consent plans don’t seem to wash. It seems to come back to communities being bought off, rather than having a vote. Can the secretary of state confirm, once and for all, if local residents across Bolsover will get a vote to object to these schemes locally.

Rees-Mogg refused to give that assurance.

Paul Maynard, the Tory MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, also said he has assured local residents that their consent would be required before fracking projects went ahead. He went on:

Listening carefully to the secretary of state this morning, I have yet to hear any explanation of how local consent will be determined – indeed, an absence of any reference to local consent. Let me try once more: will my consituents be asked whether they want fracking or not?

Rees-Mogg said the companies would have to get local consent, and that would involve giving money to residents.

Updated

Rees-Mogg facing a strong backlash from some Tory MPs over his decision to lift ban on fracking

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the business secretary, is facing a strong backlash from some Tory MPs over his decision to lift the ban on fracking, my colleague Peter Walker reports.

I will post more on this shortly.

Rees-Mogg accuses fracking opponents of 'hysteria' and 'sheer ludditery'

In his response to Ed Miliband on fracking (see 11.27am), Jacob Rees-Mogg, the business secretary, said allowing fracking was “good common sense”. He went on:

It is safe, it is shown to be safe, the scare stories have been disproved time and time again. The hysteria about seismic activity fails to understand that the Richter scale is a logarithmic scale. It seems to think that it is a straight arithmetic scale, which of course it is not.

Bringing on this supply will bring us cheaper energy, which we need …

This is is of such importance, and it is sheer ludditery that opposes it.

UPDATE: Rees-Mogg also claimed Labour wanted people to be “cold and poor”. He said:

The motto of honourable and right honourable members opposite for the next election is ‘let’s be cold and poor’ - that’s really the prospectus they’re putting before the British people.

As regard seismic activity, there are millions of seismic events of 2.5 or lower in the world every year. We should not assume that every seismic event is the San Francisco earthquake.

Updated

Labour denounces Rees-Mogg's 'charter for earthquakes' on fracking, saying it will do nothing to cut energy bills

Back in the Commons the urgent question on the energy package for business is over and Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary of state for climate change and net zero, has asked an urgent question about the decision by Jacob Rees-Mogg to relax the rules governing fracking. Here are his key points.

  • Miliband said lifting the fracking ban would not cut the energy bills. It would not, Miliband said, because gas was sold on the international market. He went on:

The current chancellor said so in February of this year, and I quote, ‘No amount of shale gas would be enough to the to lower the European price of gas.’

Even the founder of Cuadrilla said the secretary of state was wrong in an article published yesterday.

So first, why doesn’t [Rees-Mogg] admit the truth, that anyone who knows anything about this subject says his claim that fracking will cut bills is nonsense.

  • Miliband said the government had failed to provide evidence that lifting the fracking ban could be done safely – even though in their 2019 manifesto the Tories said they would only lift the fracking bank if it could be done safely. And he pointed out that, in his written ministerial statement on the subject today, Rees-Mogg says:

While HM government will always try to limit disturbance to those living and working near to sites, tolerating a higher degree of risk and disturbance appears to us to be in the national interest.

  • Miliband described the plan as a “charter for earthquakes”. He said:

I look forward to [Rees-Mogg] and his colleagues explaining his charter for earthquakes to the people of Lancashire, Yorkshire, the Midlands, Sussex, Dorset and indeed Somerset [that they] will be part of his dangerous experiment. Let me tell the party opposite, we will hang this broken promise around their necks in every part of the country between now and the next general election.

He also said the announcement showed communities could never trust the Tories again.

  • Miliband said the government should be focusing on renewables instead. He said:

The truth is, [Rees-Mogg] doesn’t get this, that you can’t escape a fossil fuels crisis by doubling down on fossil fuels. Renewables are today nine times cheaper than gas. The only way to cut energy bills with energy security is with zero-carbon, home-grown power, including onshore wind and solar, which his wing of the Conservative party hate and he continues to block.

Updated

Here is a link to the text of the full response from Prof Martin Marshall, the chair of the Royal College of GPs, to the health plan being announced by Thérèse Coffey. It will have “minimal impact”, the RCGP says.

Updated

In interviews earlier this week Liz Truss defended her plan to cancel the planned increases in corporation tax, saying that when corporation tax was cut, revenue increased. But at its briefing this morning the Institute for Fiscal Studies said cancelling the proposed increase would not pay for itself.

Updated

Catholics outnumber Protestants in Northern Ireland for first time

Catholics outnumber Protestants in Northern Ireland for the first time, a demographic milestone for a state that was designed a century ago to have a permanent Protestant majority, my colleague Rory Carroll reports.

Coffey denies being part-time health secretary because of deputy PM role

Thérèse Coffey is deputy prime minister as well as health secretary. Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain this morning, and responding to a question from the former Labour MP Ed Balls, who was presenting, she said that as deputy PM she would be “chairing things like the home affairs committee and different elements like that”. But she rejected claims this meant she would be doing the health job part time. She said:

I’m conscious that in two weeks we’ve already pulled together our plan for patients and we will continue to develop that.

I don’t think it will be a case of being part-time ... We don’t have fixed working hours.

Updated

Average earners £500 a year worse off in real terms than last year, says IFS

Most people will be worse off this year than last year, despite the huge package of support offered by the government to help with the cost of living crisis, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said.

In a briefing before the “emergency budget” tomorrow, the IFS researcher Xiaowei Xu said rising inflation meant people across the income spectrum would see their living standards fall in real terms. She said:

In real terms, we expect the median earner to be £500 worse off than they were last year, which is around a 3% net cut in their income.

High earners - but not very higher earners - will be more than £1,000 worse off which would be a larger increase in percentage terms. Lower earners and those out of work will be more shielded from the rising cost of living, both in cash terms and as a share of income.

Even after the government is spending vast amounts of money to protect households from the rising cost of living, most households would still see their living standards fall this year compared to last year.

UPDATE: Here are the figures.

Updated

The SNP’s Stephen Flynn said it was good to see Jacob Rees-Mogg in the Commons, instead of standing by a pile of rubbish. He asked Rees-Mogg to confirm that companies such as Amazon would benefit from the plan announced yesterday, and he said Scotland, which produced more oil and gas “than we can possibly consume”, had been let down by Westminster.

In response, Rees-Mogg said he was reminded of what PG Wodehouse wrote about it being “not difficult to discern the difference between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine”. He did not address the point about Amazon.

Updated

England fracking ban lifted – with limits on seismic activity to be raised

The ban on fracking in England has been lifted, after Jacob Rees-Mogg called the current limits on seismic activity “too low” and admitted they were likely to be raised. My colleague Aubrey Allegretti has the story here.

Updated

Labour says government's 'fantasy economics' is 'threat to British businesses'

Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business secretary, tabled the urgent question on the energy package. He said the government had failed to say how much the energy support package would cost. He went on:

This government says it can cut taxes, increase spending, increase borrowing and magically pay for that through higher growth that after 12 years in office has completely eluded them. This is fantasy economics and is a threat to British businesses and the financial stability of this country.

In the Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg, the business secretary, has just started answering an urgent question on the energy support package for non-domestic users he announced yesterday.

Before he began Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, said he was very disappointed that such an important statement was made to the media yesterday, and not in the House of Commons. MPs were in the Commons yesterday to swear oaths of allegiance to the new King. Hoyle said he would have allowed a statement.

Rees-Mogg says he did not think it was possible to have a statement on a day when MPs were swearing oaths of allegiance. That had not happened before, he said, and it did not happen in 1952, the last time there was a change of monarch.

Hoyle interrupted Rees-Mogg to point out that he could have asked. If they had had a conversation, Rees-Mogg would have found a statement was possible, he says.

The i’s Paul Waugh has the clip.

Updated

There are two urgent questions in the Commons this morning, before business questions and then the health statement from Thérèse Coffey.

Coffey refuses to say whether she thinks sugar tax has been successful

Here is a summary of the main things Thérèse Coffey said on health policy on her interview round this morning.

  • Coffey, the health secretary and deputy prime minister, said the target for patients being able to see a GP within two weeks was “an expectation”, rather than a firm guarantee. Asked on the Today programme whether this was a guarantee or a target or just an ambition, Coffey said it was “an expectation” that she was setting out on behalf of patients. Alastair McLellan, editor of the Health Service Journal, says the government appears to have over-briefed what was actually being announced.

Coffey’s clarification may come as a disappointment to readers of the Daily Express.

  • Coffey said GPs could meet the two week deadline by offering a telephone consultation. Asked if the pledge meant patients would see a doctor face to face withing two weeks, she told LBC:

That’s open to the relationship between the GP and the patient I’m not going to be overly prescriptive. I know that some people enjoy just having a phone call, but may need to go in and see the doctor, I know that other patients are very keen in that regard.

  • She said that forcing GPs to publish their appointment times data “may give some patients the opportunity to choose to use a different GP”.

  • She accepted that the NHS needed more doctors, but said the government had already set out a long-term plan to address this.

  • She sidestepped questions about whether the government is reviewing its anti-obesity strategy. (As Guardian readers will know, the strategy is being reviewed, on the orders of the Treasury; my colleague Denis Campbell revealed this last week.)

  • Coffey refused to say whether she thought the sugar tax – introduced to discourage people consuming soft drinks with a high sugar content – was working. There is evidence showing it has been successful, but Liz Truss is sceptical about government interfering with consumer choice, the cost of living crisis has made it harder to defend, and there has been speculation that her administration could axe the sugar tax too. When it was put to Coffey on the Today programme that most of her predecessors supported the measure, she said she had just been in the job for two weeks and was focusing on her plan for patients.

GP leaders say Thérèse Coffey’s NHS plan will make ‘no tangible difference'

Good morning. The House of Commons will be sitting properly again today and Thérèse Coffey, the new health secretary and deputy prime minister, will make a statement on plans to improve the NHS. Liz Truss has said that, at the start of her premiership, she wants to focus on three priorities: health, cutting taxes, and energy. During the Tory leadership contest Truss talked a lot about the second two topics, but she said almost nothing about her thinking on health policy. Her campaign sent out almost 50 press releases, but only one of them mentioned the NHS, and only three mentioned health.

Some aspects of the announcement have been briefed overnight, and Coffey will be setting out “her expectation that everyone who needs one should get an appointment at a GP practice within two weeks”. Older readers may remember that around 20 years ago the Labour government has a target for everyone being able to see a GP within two days, not two weeks – although it led to GPs refusing to book appointments more than two days in advance, and was later scrapped by the Tories.

My colleague Denis Campbell has a preview of the announcement here.

So far doctors’ leaders have been unimpressed – primarily because they say Coffey is not addressing the main problem, which is a shortage of staff for the workload they are facing.

Prof Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said:

Lumbering a struggling service with more expectations, without a plan as to how to deliver them, will only serve to add to the intense workload and workforce pressures GPs and our teams are facing, whilst also having minimal impact on the care patients receive.

And Dr Farah Jameel, chair of the British Medical Association’s GP committee for England, said in a statement:

The target of GPs now offering appointments within two weeks is simply another addition to a tick-box culture highlighting a tone-deaf government approach when it comes to those delivering the service on the ground.

GPs need to be freed up to deliver the care that we know patients so desperately need – that means we need a genuine strategy to address the workforce crisis. There simply aren’t enough GPs and staff to deliver the care our patients need and deserve.

Today’s GP workforce data shows that between August 2021 and August 2022 we lost the equivalent of 314 full-time GPs. We now have the equivalent of 1,850 fewer fully qualified full time GPs than we did in 2015, with 16% more patients per GP. We are losing more GPs than we can recruit and this combined with cost of living pressures is starting to spell the end of GP practices as we know them …

If the new health secretary had met with us before this announcement we could have suggested a workable strategy to address the unfolding crisis before us for this winter and beyond – instead we have in reality minor tweaks that will make no tangible difference to patients struggling to access care.

Coffey has been giving interviews this morning. I will summarise what she has been saying shortly.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: The Institute for Fiscal Studies holds a briefing on what is expected in Kwasi Kwarteng’s “emergency budget” tomorrow.

9.30am: Census data for Northern Ireland, including figures on religious affiliation, is published.

After 10am: Thérèse Coffey, the new health secretary, makes a statement to MPs about plans to improve patient access to the NHS.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

12pm: The Bank of England announces its decision on changing interest rates.

2.15pm: The CBI, the Resolution Foundation and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation give evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the cost of living.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com

Updated

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Sugarcane biodiversity disappeared as big plantations dominated the sugar trade in Hawaii, but now old varieties are making a comeback
The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
“I never learned any barre chords... all I’ve ever learned was ‘oompah oompah’. It drove me to either give up guitar or start writing music”: Josh Homme reveals how learning polka as a kid developed his off-kilter guitar playing style
Josh Homme reveals how learning polka in childhood gave way to his off-kilter guitar playing style
Guitar World
Guitar World
Most popular Tonies ever: 11 bestsellers, plus one we predict will be huge
From Igglepiggle to Encanto, these are the bestselling Tonies to help kickstart an epic audio character collection
GoodToKnow
GoodToKnow
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