Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, responding to The King’s Fund’s latest Quarterly Monitoring Report, said:

“This comprehensive overview from the King’s Fund demonstrates again the enormous strain which the Government has created for the health service this winter.

“Cuts to social care have left people stuck in hospital when they’re well enough to go home, increasing pressure on A&E units. Hospitals are increasingly having to rely on short term measures like agency staff and outsourcing to balance the books.  

“NHS staff are working around the clock to keep the service running but their efforts are being undermined by the neglect of the Government. The King’s Fund make clear that without better support NHS finances will get worse and waiting times will increase. Theresa May urgently needs to set out a sustainable plan for health and social care so that patients never have to suffer a winter like this again.”

Ends

Diane Abbott, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, commenting on the HMIC’s PEEL: Police effectiveness 2016 report, said:

“The report shows that the police are doing their best despite this Tory Government’s actions.

“Her Majesty’s Inspectorate says that some forces are struggling to respond to shrinking resources. Some are artificially downgrading the severity of calls, others are not able to properly carry out their core functions of crime prevention, public security and apprehending criminals. Some are setting quotas for specialist police or failing to register organised gangs in their area, because that would require further action.

“We should be clear, the primary responsibility for this is not individual forces or officers. The fault lies with the Tory government who have cut 20,000 police officers and who are now cutting police budgets across the country.”

Ends

Peter Dowd MP, Labour’s
Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, commenting on today’s IFS
report, said:

“Today’s damning indictment
on the outlook for living standards is yet more evidence of the Tory
Government’s economic failure.

“The IFS concludes that ‘we
are in the middle of a historically weak period of growth in living standards’,
with median income set to be up to 16 percent lower in 2021-22 than it would
otherwise be if the Tory Government had continued long-run trend growth.

“With a dreadful record on
living standards, and inequality and poverty set to increase, it is clear that
after seven years of economic failure the Tory Government will continue to fail
working people.

“Only Labour will take
the action needed to end the Tories’ economic failure by introducing a Real
Living Wage of £10 an hour by 2020.”

Keir Starmer MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, on the Government’s Brexit Bill amendment defeat in the House of Lords,  said:

“This is a really welcome and important step forward. For months Labour has been urging the Prime Minister to end unnecessary uncertainty for EU citizens in the UK, and I am delighted our colleagues in the Lords have sent this clear message to the Prime Minister.

“Labour believe that EU nationals should not be used as bargaining chips in Brexit negotiations. There is a growing consensus that this must be resolved before Article 50 is triggered, and the Prime Minister is now increasingly isolated.

“Labour will continue to support this simple but effective amendment when it returns to the Commons, and urge MPs on all sides of the House to do so.”

Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, Shadow BIS Secretary, responding to the implementation of the Trade Union Act, said:

“This is the most unnecessary and anti-democratic assault on the rights of working people in a generation.

“For a Government elected by just a quarter of eligible voters to impose a 40% threshold on public sector workers taking industrial action, is a shameless example of double standards.  

“As all working people know, the decision to take industrial action is never taken lightly. But working people’s rights need to be protected.

“This will save our economy just 0.00002% of GDP, showing that the economic case for this is rubbish. The most effective way of boosting wages and people’s living standards is through them taking collective action in their trade union.

“This Act will perpetuate the chronic low pay in our economy which costs us all through lower taxes and a higher bill for in-work benefits”