Keir Starmer slammed the Tories – and Boris Johnson’s legacy – at PMQs today by recalling the party’s broken promise to build 40 hospitals.
Speaking in the Commons, the Conservative MP for South West Hertfordshire, Gagan Mohindra, asked why the government is cancelling funding commitments for new hospitals, and “spending billions of pounds giving pay rises to train drivers instead”.
Starmer swiftly replied: “Because the promise of 40 new hospitals didn’t involve 40, didn’t involve hospitals, they weren’t new, and they weren’t funded.”
His sharp response triggered a roar of support from those on the Labour benches.
Johnson famously promised to build 40 new hospitals by 2030 in his party’s 2019 manifesto, when he was still prime minister.
But the National Audit Office concluded in January 2023 that only 32 would be completed by the end of the decade.
According to fact-checking organisation FullFact in June this year, just one hospital, the Dyson Cancer Centre in Bath, has been completed.
Starmer also used PMQs to insist the Falkland Islands “will remain British” after the government handed a different British Overseas Territory, Chagos, to Mauritius last week.
The prime minister initially refused to say anything on the future of the archipelago in a press conference last week, sparking a furious row.
But on Wednesday he rejected worries about Argentina’s bid to claim sovereignty of the islands.
He said: “My uncle nearly lost his life when his ship was torpedoed defending the Falklands. They are British and they will remain British.”
He added: “And sovereignty in Gibraltar is equally not to be negotiated...I’ve been very clear about the Falklands. It’s personal to me.”