I call the shadow Minister.

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s plan for change, which will ensure that the Government are focused on delivery, not the dither we have seen for the past 14 years with the Conservatives.

I especially welcome the NHS target of 18 weeks; the last Labour Government were able to deliver that target and NHS satisfaction levels were at their highest in history. Fourteen years of the Conservatives running the NHS into the ground have left it in an appalling state. Does my right hon.

Friend agree with me that that must never be allowed to happen again?

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. When we came into office in 1997, we were also faced with an NHS that was in severe difficulty.

Let me be clear with the House: meeting that target is extremely challenging, but we believe that by setting it and driving the system towards it, we can make real progress towards reducing waiting lists. What a contrast in terms of what the public felt.

When we left office in 2010, the public satisfaction rates with the NHS were the highest ever recorded. When we came back into office in July, those satisfaction levels were the lowest ever recorded. That is what we are trying to turn around through the plan we have published today.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

I welcome the questions from the Liberal Democrat spokesperson. She is right to point out the Conservatives’ record, but I gently say that she too seems to support extra spending but oppose all the revenue-raising measures that go towards that. The truth is that if we are serious, we cannot do that.

The reason we have had to raise revenue was the appalling legacy that we inherited. We had to stabilise the public finances and fix the situation we were left with. Now that we have done that, we can look forward to delivering on these key goals. The hon.

Lady asks how the plans are to be paid for. There will be a spending review next year, as she knows.

However, we have already announced £22 billion extra for the NHS over the next couple of years, which is accompanied by the reforms that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has set out.

This Labour Government’s plans to make work pay will give thousands of workers in my constituency a much-needed pay rise after 14 years of failure by the Conservative party. Does my right hon.

Friend agree that plans to support low-paid workers in insecure jobs will be not only crucial but absolutely central to our plan for change?

I welcome what my hon. Friend said about pay. The Chancellor announced a significant increase in the minimum wage at the time of the Budget a few weeks ago.

Of course we want public sector workers and everybody who helps to deliver a plan to be rewarded well, but it also has to come with change in the way the state works, to make sure we get the best value for money and the best productivity and make the best use of technology.

We cannot have that just in the private sphere; we have to apply it to the public sphere to make sure we get the best bang for the taxpayers’ buck.

I welcome the hon. Member’s question. He referred to defence and security. I did deliberately mention that area in my remarks, because it is an absolute foundation of any Government that their first duty is to protect their people.

That is why there is a specific section on it in the document, and why it is an underpinning foundation for the goals that we have set out today.

I listened carefully to the shadow Minister’s reply, and it sounded to me like he welcomed much of the investment that our Government will deliver, but, funnily enough, he will not support any measures to pay for it. I was always taught that the Tories were against a something-for-nothing culture.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this will only compound the Tories’ reputation for economic recklessness?

I do think the Tories have a problem. The new Leader of the Opposition stood at that Dispatch Box a couple of weeks ago and said that she supported all the extra investments.

Therefore, every time the Opposition stand up and oppose the revenue measures that are designed to fund them, all they do is expose their own economic incoherence.

It is quite simple: if the Opposition support the investments, they have either to support the revenue measures that we have set out, or set out alternative revenue-raising measures to meet the investments that they support. So far, they have utterly failed to do that.

Five months in and after a Budget that the Office for Budget Responsibility says will lower growth over five years, increase inflation and reduce the number of people in jobs, it is extraordinary to see a document that has so many areas not covered. I want to probe the right hon.

Gentleman specifically on his goal of increasing disposable income for working people. What would he say to those 44,000 terminally ill older people who, in shocking news last week from Marie Curie, will not get their winter fuel allowance this year? Will he be judged by his governance actions?

Every Government are judged by their actions and by the legacy that they leave to their successors. We had to take that decision on winter fuel precisely because of the legacy that was left to us. We do want to see a rise in people’s living standards and in their disposable income.

Those stagnated under the previous Government, and let us not forget how unusual that was. This was the first Parliament in living memory that saw stagnated living standards across the whole population.

We aim to change that and make sure that people see rising living standards wherever they live in the country.

When I was a child in Denton Holme in Carlisle, PC Kevin Scott was a very familiar figure. He knew us and we knew his name.

Does the Minister agree that not only does society exist, but it is woven from thousands of communities such as Denton Holme, and that our commitment to reintroducing named community police officers will strengthen those communities, strengthen society and take back our streets?

My hon. Friend is right. Let me praise PC Kevin Scott and other officers like him who are known in the community. While I am here, Madam Deputy Speaker, let me mention Kenny, our police community support officer on Bilston high street, who helps to keep us safe.

We want to see more named officers like that, so that people know who is keeping their streets safe and can put a face to the name, and we can restore proper community policing to make our streets and our town centres safe.

However the Minister tries to dress this up, there is an unmistakeable whiff of panic about it.

One would have thought that a decade and a half of opposition would have been ample time to prepare a plan for change, rather than the relaunch of a Government whose five-year plan seems to have unravelled after just five months.

I was particularly interested, however, to hear about the Government’s commitment to reform of the state. He said that each time, they will ask, “Is power being devolved enough?

” Given that the Scottish Government have asked for powers on migration, employment law and the constitution to be devolved, when can we expect to see some action on that reform of the state, and that important commitment to devolution?

The hon. Member calls this a relaunch. I hate to break it to him, but the Government he supports in Scotland produce a programme for government every single year. Does that mean that they relaunch every year, or does he put that accusation only to us? He asks about devolution.

We were the party that created devolution because we believed in a powerful Scottish Parliament. We still do, and it has just received its biggest real-terms increase in funding since devolution came into being. He missed out his thanks to the Labour Chancellor who made that happen.

I welcome today’s statement, which is a real plan for change and hope. It is clear that the Conservatives do not like us talking about their record, but it had a real-world impact in constituencies such as mine, particularly when it came to bobbies on the beat.

For 14 years, the Conservatives stripped us of bobbies on the beat, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns) said, neighbourhood policing was stripped out of many local communities.

I particularly welcome the requirement in today’s plan for more neighbourhood policing, which will have a real-world impact on my constituents.

I welcome the Minister’s commitment to revitalising faith in democratic politics, and I agree that Government can be a force for good, but he will know that perhaps the biggest macroeconomic challenge that we face is productivity; indeed, he mentioned it today.

I am therefore disappointed to see in the plan no real mention of work- force skills or national economic resilience, in terms of growing more of the food that we eat and making more of the goods that we need.

Will he look at those two areas and set productivity targets, for which Ministers can be held accountable, so that what really counts is not just what we spend but what we get for what we spend?

The right hon. Member might have noticed that I said in my opening remarks that an old debate just about the size of the budget is not enough for the situation that we face.

Of course budgets, resources and investment matter, but so too does reform of the way the state works, the application of technology, and the balance between what is done centrally and what is done in devolved areas.

Alongside any delivery goals there has to be a real plan to make them happen that reforms the state. I am clear that that must go alongside the goals that we have set out today.

Waiting lists on the NHS have already been mentioned, but they need to be mentioned again, because the last 14 years have made such a difference to constituents in Truro and Falmouth. They have really struggled to work and to live, having to wait one or two years for orthopaedic operations.

Please will my right hon. Friend speak again about what has already been done to deal with those waiting lists, and how that will lead into the future?

This is a hugely important problem for the country, because the current levels are not just bad for those waiting a long time for NHS treatment; they are also bad for the economy, because we have so many people in that position.

That number has started to fall slightly since we came into office, but it will take a long and sustained effort and a combination of investment and reform.

I am glad that we were able to announce the biggest increase in NHS funding since 2010 outside the pandemic period, but that has to be used in a way that gets waiting lists down, helps the people waiting for NHS treatment and, crucially, helps produce the economic growth and productivity we need.

The truth is too many people are waiting in pain and too many people of working age are out of work on long-term sickness benefits, and we have to do something about both those things if we are to meet our economic growth targets and get the rising living standards we want to see.

If the hon. Member reads the document carefully, he will see that the growth target is very much in the document, but the document also says that it is not enough just to have economic growth; people have to feel it in their standard of living.

That should be an important lesson for all of us in politics. The hon. Member challenges me on accountability. Of course the targets are challenging, but let us look at the alternative.

We were not prepared to carry on with the thinking that announcements were something real, with no real focus on delivery and driving the system. In case he has not noticed, there is a crisis of faith in politics out there.

We have set out targets today that will make a real difference to people’s lives.

I accept that they are challenging, but if we have fewer people waiting in pain, more people able to own their own home, safer streets and a better chance in life for children starting school, that is change worth having, and that is why we published the plan.

I welcome the statement. Harlow is a town plagued by low-paid and insecure work and people being forced out of work due to waiting for operations. Will the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster describe how the plan will help tackle those issues for residents in my town?

I gently say to the Conservatives when they talk about metrics that they are the party that criticised schools during their tenure because apparently half the schools were below average.

My hon. Friend is right that when people do the right thing and they go out to work and try to earn a living, they should have a decent reward for what they do.

That is why Labour introduced the concept of a national minimum wage in the first place—opposed by the Conservatives, who said it would destroy jobs—and why the Chancellor announced at the recent Budget a significant increase in that wage so that when people do the right thing, they are rewarded and can get a decent living for the hard work they do.

Flexible affordable childcare is a critical part of our economic infrastructure. It gives parents more choice over how to organise their life, and it helps them return to work if they want to, as well as giving children a good start in life.

Yet nurseries in Marple in my Hazel Grove constituency have told me that the Government’s increase in national insurance charges will force them to increase costs to families.

The Government rightly say they are serious about fixing early years provision and tackling the attainment gap for disadvantaged children, so do they plan to exempt early years and nursery settings from their ill-advised hikes to national insurance charges?

Listening to Conservative Members, one would think we were left a golden legacy.

Despite that halcyon legacy, it is no wonder the Conservatives were resoundingly beaten in the last election—my constituents want an NHS that can be relied on, yet Lord Darzi’s report was clear that we have not sorted out the health service or social care.

Indeed, 13% of NHS beds are taken up by people who could be in social care. Will the Minister outline what he will do to ensure that we finally get to grips with that crucial issue?

The legacy of the Conservative Government was not just economic or in policy, but a loss of faith in government’s ability to do things. That is part of the backdrop to the plan that we are publishing today. I commend Lord Darzi’s report to anyone who has not read it.

It fully sets out the legacy in health.

We have put getting waiting lists down at the heart of the plan that we are publishing today because that drives the whole system; if we get them down, we will have a healthier population, more people ready to work, more people to contribute to the country and more people to contribute to our productivity.

That is why it is at the heart of the plan.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for taking the time to come to the House to set out where the milestones are—that is a positive move for a Government to make in order to give clarity.

However, it would also be incredibly helpful if he set out how he will keep the House updated—perhaps on a six-monthly basis—to track the plan’s development and the Government’s delivery of it.

There is a long time until the next general election, so it would be good to see how the plan is progressing throughout this Parliament.

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s welcome for the plan, which stands in marked contrast to the scepticism shown by his party’s Front Benchers. He will have plenty of opportunity, now that we have published the plan, to ask Ministers about these things as we move forward.

We know that they will be challenging to deliver. We have not yet followed the advice of the hon. Member for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber (Brendan O'Hara), who suggested that we do this every year, but I am sure that the Ministers in charge of these goals will keep the House regularly updated.

My constituency saw the highest price rises in the country back in August, as a direct result of the Conservatives’ opposition to building the houses that are clearly so desperately wanted and needed in my constituency.

Can the Minister assure young people in my constituency, who are desperate to buy their own homes, start families and get on with their lives, that Labour will deliver for them?

The Conservative Government brough the NHS to its knees. Theirs is a legacy of crumbling hospitals, of doctors and nurses working at burnout, and of patients being treated in corridors.

The Liberal Democrats welcome the extra investment in the NHS and support the ambition to get waiting lists down, but the Government cannot fix the NHS without first fixing social care.

At Winchester hospital—part of the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust—almost one in five beds are filled by someone who could be cared for through the social care package but is stuck in a hospital bed.

That has the knock-on effect of increasing A&E and ambulance waiting times, and of elective surgeries being cancelled.

Will the Government review the national insurance increase for social care providers and hospices, and will they commit to cross-party talks so that we can have a long-term plan to fix social care?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but there is a contradiction at the heart of it. He began by saying he welcomed the extra investment in the NHS, and ended by saying he opposed the national insurance increase that is necessary to fund these things.

As I have said before, people cannot support the extra investment we have announced, but oppose every revenue-raising measure that contributes to it—it simply does not work like that. If we want the extra investment, we have to support the revenue-raising measures that make it possible.

The plan for change is clear. This Government will restore order to the asylum and immigration system, clear the asylum backlog, end the use of hotels, increase returns and cut small boat crossings.

Does the Minister agree that this plan stands in stark contrast to the open borders policy that the Conservative party subjected the country to?

It is striking that when the Conservatives came into power, they began by promising to reduce net migration to under 100,000, and bequeathed us a situation where that figure was 10 times higher.

This happened on their watch with their policies, and now we are left to clear up the situation and restore some order to our migration policy. The country will always need migration, but the “Plan for Change” document sets out what my hon.

Friend said; we will reduce net migration and deal with illegal migration in the way she set out.

I appreciate the spirit in which the hon. Member has asked his question.

On farms, as the Chancellor made clear, a couple would have an allowance of £3 million before any inheritance obligation kicked in, and then it would be at half the rate that other people have to pay, so significant protections are built into the policy.

On pensioners, it is very important to remember that we have said we will protect the triple lock, which is reflected in the pension increase that has been announced for next year.

After 14 years of repeated broken promises, it is hardly surprising that many people are distrustful of politicians and the ability of government to do anything positive.

Does the Minister agree that in setting out a clear plan for change, the Government are offering the British people not just the hope of a better future, but clear, measurable metrics against which they can be held to account?

This question of distrust and loss of faith is really important, because after so much chaos in recent years, it is very easy for our constituents to turn off from politics—to think that no Government of any political colour can deliver for them.

We were determined not to allow that scepticism to set in and become the norm, so we have set out targets. I acknowledge, not for the first time today, that those targets are challenging.

They are not easy to meet, but progress towards them—with lower waiting times, more houses built, and the other things set out in the plan for change document—will show that the Government are trying to deliver for people and that politics can bring productive change. That is change worth having.

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson), I welcome these milestones, and I agree with what the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said about the need to restore trust.

How will Labour’s health policies in England differ from those that they pursued in Wales?

I am sure that in every part of the country, Governments who run the NHS want to see waiting lists fall. We put that at the heart of the plan for change today because it drives the whole system, and because the levels of satisfaction with the NHS that we inherited were the lowest ever recorded.

No Government can be content with that; I can tell the right hon. Gentleman honestly that no Labour Government are content with it. That is why it is an important part of the plan.

In West Brom, one issue dominates all else: the fact that people are working harder and harder, but can afford less and less. That is the record of the Conservative party, who crashed our economy and oversaw the worst cost of living crisis in a generation. Can my right hon.

Friend set out how the plan for change will make ordinary people better off and deliver exactly what people voted for in July?

I very much welcome that question from my parliamentary neighbour. We represent very similar communities, and I agree that when people go out to work and do the right thing, they want to be rewarded, rightly. That is why we protected people’s payslips in the Budget.

It is why we announced an increase in the minimum wage in the Budget. It is why we made sure in the Budget that carers could earn more before losing part of their revenue. We want work to be rewarded. We are the Labour party; we are the party of labour.

When people do the right thing, they should be treated fairly.

The Conservatives have always claimed to be the party of law and order, but they took police officers off the streets. Knife and youth crime, antisocial behaviour and local drug activity are some of the most common complaints in my constituency.

I welcome the Labour Government’s urgent action to recruit more neighbourhood police officers. My right hon. Friend knows my constituency well, because it adjoins his in Wolverhampton. Can he confirm that this action will make a real difference to my constituents?

I welcome the question from my parliamentary neighbour on the other side of my constituency. He is right that people in his constituency and mine care deeply about the safety of their community. They saw the cuts in policing after the Conservative party came to power.

They saw their neighbourhood officers being more and more stretched, trying to cover more and more area with not enough officers.

It is really important to restore a sense of community policing, so that people feel safe in their community and on their street, because that underpins the freedom that people need to live their life.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. When these achievements are reached, the impact on communities like mine will be profound. For too long, people have been told that government does not work. They need to understand that when government is done well, it can and will work.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the British people need these milestones for progress, after 14 years of milestones of failure?

The NHS has long been a top issue raised by local residents when I have been out knocking on doors across the whole of Filton and Bradley Stoke, so I welcome not only the investment, but the reform alongside that, and these clear milestones for change, which are what the country voted to see.

Will the Minister give a commitment, on behalf of the Government, that no matter the lack of support from the Conservative party, he will persevere with this, as that is what the country wants?

I can give my hon. Friend that commitment, and I can assure her of the passion that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care feels for this goal, for turning around the system and for reducing waiting lists and waiting times.

He knows how important that is for patients, and for our goal of growing the economy, and that is why the goal is part of the document.

I welcome each and every one of the milestones, and the real, tangible difference that they will make to the lives of my residents in Rossendale and Darwen. Each is a crucial step in the process of mission delivery.

I also welcome the recognition that to get them met, we need to do government differently.

Devolution and a move away from command-and-control government represents a real opportunity to enable more effective and efficient delivery, and perhaps even restore some of the trust in politics that was so broken and destroyed by the Conservative party.

In Lancashire, we have been held back by an outdated two-tier local government system. Does the Minister agree that it is time for Lancashire leaders to come together to grasp the huge opportunity that devolution offers?

As I said, if the goals are to be reached, it will require reform of the state itself, and part of that is about local delivery. There has been a lot of innovation in recent years.

We started devolution when we were last in power, and the Conservative party took it forward with the creation of a number of mayors around the country. There is further to go with that.

Having mayors and strong local leaders as partners can really help us to deliver the goals set out in the document.

I welcome the Minister’s statement. He has set out concrete, deliverable and measurable milestones against which the British public can judge us.

What a stark contrast to Conservative Front-Bench Members, who still refuse even to acknowledge the Liz Truss economic disaster that was the mini-Budget, and to apologise for it. Does my right hon.

Friend agree that any sort of U-turn that sees the Conservatives backing our steps to restore economic stability is unlikely, and that they will continue to cling to the idea of the magic money tree?

The legacy of 14 years of the Conservatives in government and a century of Tory complacency in Hexham is seen in how police numbers in Prudhoe fell under the last Government, and indeed in Callerton and Throckley. They have also fallen in our most rural communities.

Rural crime is unfortunately brought up with me regularly. That is an example of how the Conservative party has failed to understand the modern countryside. Will the Minister outline how this plan will make a measurable change for our rural communities, as well as towns like Prudhoe?

The goals in this document can make a real difference to rural communities. We know that many people in rural communities are worried about rural crime, so more neighbourhood policing can help them.

We also know that many young people in rural communities are wondering how they will ever have a home of their own. That is why we support more house building, as well as shorter hospital waiting lists and neighbourhood policing teams, as set out in the document.

Order. Supplementary questions should be short and not a speech. Perhaps the hon. Member would like to come to the conclusion of his question.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is always good to be guided by you. The Secretary of State set out how living standards will increase right across the UK, and Scotland is part of that. How will he work with the Scottish Government and the incoherent SNP Government to do that?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that the recent devolution financial settlements were the biggest in real terms since devolution was introduced, as a consequence of the announcements made by the Labour Chancellor at the Budget.

That provided the funding, and it is completely incoherent to welcome that funding—in fact, to run around saying that it will be spent on this and that—but then to vote against the revenue measures that contribute to it.

If we want increased investment and boosted services, we must support the revenue-raising measures that make that possible; and then we have to combine investment with the reform necessary to deliver. That is the next step.