Labour risks losing trust of voters with broken promises on hospitals and social care
Earlier this year, in February, the then Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting made an impassioned speech on Question Time about why voters should trust Labour.
Sir Keir Starmer had just announced that he was watering down the party’s Green Prosperity Plan, and had sent out his best media performer, Mr Streeting, to defend it. The Ilford North MP showed why he was trusted to deliver in these big moments.
In response to an audience question, on whether Labour should be trusted with their pledges, Mr Streeting said that actually this U-turn showed that voters should believe in his party.
“It is because we are making difficult choices and because we’re being honest about the fact that we can’t do all the things we’d like to, that you can place greater trust that the manifesto that you’ll see from Labour at the election is one that can be delivered and one that can be afforded,” he said.
“Every pledge that we have made is a pledge we can deliver and I think that’s the right thing to do,” he added. It was a convincing speech, and I’m sure led to a number of voters putting their trust in Labour.
Now, six months on, those words are looking quite hollow, as on a number of promises the new Health Secretary has U-turned already.
Before the election, Mr Streeting visited the Leeds General Infirmary and said it was “shambolic and outrageous” that the Tory government had not released funding for a new children’s hospital building and maternity centre as part of the New Hospital Programme.
He also recorded a video message assuring voters that Labour would rebuild the crumbling Airedale General Hospital outside Keighley. Labour’s supposedly fully costed manifesto included the New Hospital Programme.
On social care, in June, Mr Streeting said on the BBC that Labour would be bringing in the cap on costs in 2025 as he “wanted to give the system the certainty this side of the election of knowing we’re not planning to come in and unpick that and scrap that”.
Earlier this week, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, announced that they were indefinitely delaying bringing in the social cap to save £1 billion.
This was a project that Labour’s new York Outer MP Luke Charters hit out at Rishi Sunak for ignoring in place of funding for his own constituency in Richmond.
Labour’s claim is that the public finances are in a worse state than they expected.
The Chancellor says she has found a £22 billion black hole in the books that needs balancing.
While a source close to the Health Secretary told me: “We're not going to lead people up the garden path again only to let them down.”
This might be fair, but already reneging on promises risks destroying whatever smidgen of trust is left that the public had in politicians.
Mike Padgham, the chair of the Independent Care Group, said: “I had trusted a new Labour government was going to be different, and it is disappointing that they go and scrap their pledges.”
This, of course, was the reason why the Tories took such a hammering on 4 July.
No one trusted them to enact any of the promises. Voters were sick of being let down time and time again.
It was why there was a surge in anti-establishment voting for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and independents across the country.
This lack of trust in politicians and government was something that Mr Streeting acknowledged in his Question Time appearance.
“The challenge for the next Labour government,” he said, “is to rebuild public finances, family finances, to rebuild our country and services and also to rebuild trust in politics.”
The latter point is the most important if Labour wants to avoid being a one term government.
Sir Keir and his Cabinet have to show voters they can deliver on the promises from the election campaign.
Not breaking manifesto commitments a month into power would be a good way to start.