John McDonnell MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, commenting on revelations that HMRC was instructed not to be “too hard” on Amazon over its enforcement of VAT law, said:

“These are deeply worrying revelations. If true, the Government has serious questions to answer over why it continues to let big corporations off the hook.

“It further suggests that the concerns about the cosy deal struck with Google over its tax bill only a few years ago was not in isolation. And it also explains why this Government continually refuses to truly clamp down on tax avoidance in our country.

“The next Labour government will implement thorough measures to crack down on tax dodging under our Tax Transparency and Enforcement Programme. Unlike the Conservatives, we will create a country and an economy that works for the many, not the few.”

Nia Griffith MP, Labour’s Shadow Defence Secretary, responding to reports that a new defence review will be launched, said:

“The decision to hold a separate defence review cannot simply be an excuse to kick the difficult decisions facing the defence budget into the long grass.

“Just this week we have had serious warnings from the Head of the Army about the threats that this country faces and there has been growing concern that the Government’s deep cuts to our nation’s defences have left us ill-equipped to respond to those threats.

“The true test of any defence review will be whether it delivers real investment in our nation’s defences and the resources that our Armed Forces so badly need. You cannot do security on the cheap and it is high time that the Government recognised this.”

Justin Madders MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, responding to the latest NHS vacancy data, said:

“Theresa May has overseen an unprecedented workforce crisis in our NHS, with over 100,000 vacancies across the system. These latest figures reveal in the starkest fashion how serious shortages have become, with new trainees put off from joining and existing nurses increasingly retiring early.

“Even in her own backyard, the situation is desperate. Thames Valley managed to hire just five nurses for 1,957 advertised posts - just one in 400. On the day her own Foreign Secretary has called for emergency funding, Theresa May must get an urgent grip of this escalating chaos in our NHS.”

Ends

Barbara Keeley MP, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Minister for Mental Health, commenting on the rise in Mental Health Act detentions, said:

“There is no doubt that severe Tory cuts to the community services that intervene before people’s mental health reaches crisis point, alongside cuts to other local treatments have contributed massively to the rise in detentions.

“The Tories have undone improvements seen under the last Labour Government in reducing detentions, achieved by building teams to intervene early in cases of psychosis and by providing crisis and home resolution treatment.

“It’s time the Tories faced up to the damage they have done to mental health services and immediately invest in and ring-fence mental health budgets, as Labour has pledged.”

Ends

Peter Dowd MP, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, responding to today’s public sector finance figures from the ONS, said: 

“Three years after the Tories promised they would close the deficit, the Government is still on track to borrow around £50 billion this year. And the national debt continues to increase, up by £62.3 billion on December 2016. 

“The failures of austerity are laid bare not just in the crisis in the NHS and across our public services, but in the failure to achieve its stated aim of eliminating government borrowing. 

“Only yesterday we saw the IMF’s forecast for global growth next year revised up yet the growth forecast for the UK revised down, which on top of our fiscal position says all you need to know about the failure of this Government’s economic policy.

“The next Labour Government will have a fully-costed plan to eliminate the deficit over five years and reduce government debt as a share of GDP over a Parliament, while investing for the long-term to build an economy for the many, not the few.” 

Tom Watson MP, Labour’s Shadow Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, responding to the decision by the Competition and Markets Authority to provisionally block Rupert Murdoch’s sky takeover bid, said:

“The CMA is right to say the proposed purchase of Sky by Fox would hand too much power and influence to the Murdoch family. Labour believes a greater number of companies should own our media to encourage a diversity of views.

“This announcement is a victory for the thousands of people who joined the campaign and forced the Government and the regulator to stand up to the Murdochs for once instead of simply waving this bid through. I hope the CMA’s provisional ruling today finally puts paid to this bid.”

Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, has today written to Jeremy Hunt to call for an “urgent investigation” into claims A&E performance figures have been inconsistently recorded this winter.

He has also raised concerns with the secretive manner in which changes to recording practice have been conducted, calling the lack of transparency “completely unacceptable”.

The letter from Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary calls on the Government to:

• Clarify if the NHS will now review and republish data from October, the month from which winter pressures intensified across the health service.
• Ensure Trusts understand how they should be recording their data to ensure they are all reporting the same activity on the same basis.
• Update Members as to whether this year’s winter crisis, as a result of these changes made to recording practice, is actually significantly worse than currently understood.
• Undertake an urgent investigation, reporting to Parliament, to clarify the full picture of what has gone on behind the scenes between Trusts, NHS England and NHS Improvement concerning the publication of A&E data this winter.

Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, said:

“It is appalling to imagine that this year’s unprecedented winter crisis, which has seen vulnerable patients stuck for hours on end in the back of ambulances or on trolleys in hospital corridors, could be even worse than currently feared.

“Jeremy Hunt must launch an urgent investigation to clarify what has gone on behind the scenes between Trusts, NHS England and NHS Improvement concerning the publication of A&E data this winter.”

• The full text of Jonathan Ashworth’s letter to Jeremy Hunt:

Dear Jeremy,

I am writing to ask for an urgent update concerning the BBC’s investigation into the recording of A&E performance figures.

As you know, the official target requires 95% of patients to be treated, assessed or discharged within four hours. However, the NHS has consistently failed to meet this target since July 2015 and it seems exceedingly unlikely that Trusts will all meet the 95% target by March 2018.

Indeed, the latest data from December 2017 demonstrated that just 85.1% of patients were being seen within four hours. This is significantly worse than the 94.8% level achieved in December 2010.

However, analysis of performance figures for December 2017 by the BBC suggests the picture may in fact be even worse than first thought. This is because of secretive changes to the recording of A&E data, which appear to inflate the performance of NHS Trusts this winter.

Emails sent by NHS Improvement, seen by the BBC, from October last year, note Trusts had marginally failed to make the required progress towards meeting the 95% target by March 2018 and that therefore:

If “there is an urgent activity undertaken by a walk-in centre or urgent treatment centre or other provider within your local delivery board that currently is not reporting activity- we can work with you to apportion the activity to the main provider.”

As you know, a hospital trust’s performance figures include the main accident and emergency department (known as Type 1) and minor injuries or care centres (known as Type 3). The latter tend to see and treat patients a lot more quickly than those needing emergency care.

This, and another email sent later in October by NHS Improvement, was likely viewed by Trusts as a request to add in data from walk-in centres not run by them and not on hospital grounds.

However, this is in direct conflict with clear guidance issued in November 2015 by NHS England, which says walk-in centre data can be included only if the trust has clinical responsibility for the service or if it is co-located on the trust’s grounds.

We therefore share the UK Statistics Authority’s concern that these changes could have left people reaching “misleading conclusions”, because the implication is that including these centres would help improve overall performance.

Indeed, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has confirmed that these changes do tend to pull up the overall performance of a Trust. It is thought some trusts have seen their four-hour performance improve by nearly 5%.

As a result, the data produced by NHS England for affected trusts is no longer directly comparable from October 2017 onwards with the corresponding months of preceding years.

This is profoundly concerning, because a nationally recognised and followed benchmark is critical in ensuring the accurate collation of winter pressures data.

Will you therefore urgently clarify if the NHS will now review and republish data from October, the month from which winter pressures intensified across the health service? And will you ensure Trusts understand how they should be recording their data to ensure they are all reporting the same activity on the same basis?

It is appalling to imagine that this year’s unprecedented winter crisis, which has been characterised by vulnerable patients stuck for hours on end in the back of ambulances or on trolleys in hospital corridors, could be even worse than currently feared.

Will you therefore also update Members as to whether this year’s winter crisis, as a result of these changes made to recording practice, is actually significantly worse than currently understood?

Finally, these changes made to recording practice have been conducted secretively and with a total lack of transparency, which is completely unacceptable. Will you therefore conduct an urgent investigation, to report to the House, to clarify the full picture of what has gone on behind the scenes between Trusts, NHS England and NHS Improvement concerning the publication of A&E data this winter?

On 8th February, NHS England will publish Combined Performance data for January 2018. This matter is therefore of the utmost urgency.

Yours sincerely,

Jonathan Ashworth MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Health

John Healey MP, Labour’s Shadow Housing Secretary, commenting on new figures showing that since the Grenfell Tower fire only three other tower blocks have had flammable cladding replaced, said:

“More than seven months after the Grenfell Tower fire, it should shame Ministers that only three tower blocks with dangerous cladding have been replaced.

“Ministers have been off the pace at every stage in their response to the terrible fire at Grenfell Tower.

“Only one in four Grenfell survivors have a new permanent home, the Government still can’t confirm how many high-rise buildings are unsafe and Ministers are refusing to help with any funding for essential fire safety work in the blocks they do know are dangerous. It’s simply not good enough.”

Debbie Abrahams MP, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, commenting on the Written Ministerial Statement announcing the Government will not appeal the High Court PIP judgement, said:

“The Government was wrong to bring in the PIP regulations last year and it was wrong to ignore time and time again the views of the courts.

“Labour supported the initial Tribunal judgment and pledged in our manifesto to reverse the PIP regulations.  

“Serious questions remain including; how many people have been adversely affected by the Government’s reckless decision to oppose the tribunal’s original judgment?  How much public money has been spent on lawyers, trying to defend the indefensible? And how quickly will people with severe mental health conditions receive the support to which they are rightly entitled?

“This is yet more evidence of the duplicity and disarray of the Tories’ social security policies.”