Keir Starmer wins two-child benefit cap crunch vote despite Labour MP rebellion – live

A review of plans for 40 new hospitals could delay projects, a shadow health minister warned, as the new Health Secretary vowed not to give patients “false hope” about when they can expect more up-to-date facilities.

Wes Streeting faced questions in the Commons about the Conservatives’ £20 billion New Hospital Programme – for new and refurbished hospitals by 2030 – and told MPs he has ordered a review into the scheme’s funding and timetable.

He said: “It’s painfully clear that the previous government’s New Hospital Programme, that said they would deliver 40 new hospitals by 2030, is not deliverable in that timeframe.

“I want to see the New Hospital Programme completed but I’m not prepared to offer people false hope about how soon they will benefit from the facilities that they deserve.

“That’s why I’ve asked officials as a matter of urgency to report to me on the degree to which the programme is funded, along with a realistic timetable for delivery.”

In May 2023, the Department of Health and Social Care claimed “the Government is on track to deliver the manifesto commitment to build 40 new hospitals in England by 2030”, in line with a flagship Tory manifesto pledge made in 2019, before former prime minister Boris Johnson led his party to an 80-seat majority.

Britain’s army is not as strong as it should be because of “historic underinvestment”, the head of the military has admitted, with “deficiencies in people, equipment, stockpiles, training and technology”.

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of defence staff, said there was a need for “humility” to recognise the limitations and “near-term financial challenges” faced by our armed forces.

But he said Russia, the main adversary of the West, has been hugely damaged by brutal losses in Ukraine and will take a decade or more to rebuild its military strength to the level it had at the time of Vladimir Putin’s invasion and rectify the shortcomings exposed. Our world affairs editor Kim Sengupta has the full story:

Councils are facing “unsustainable financial pressure” in dealing with record levels of homelessness, the public spending watchdog has said as it called for a long-term and cross-Government strategy to tackle the problem.

England remains an outlier in the UK as the only one of the four nations without a strategy or target for statutory homelessness, which the National Audit Office (NAO) noted is the case despite its recommendation for one seven years ago.

The NAO report, published on Tuesday, is its first since 2017 on the issue, which covers people considered homeless as they are in temporary accommodation provided by their local authority, rather than those rough sleeping.

The report acknowledged the rough sleeping strategy under the previous Conservative government, but said no such strategy had been formulated to tackle statutory homelessness – something each of the other UK devolved administrations has an overarching strategy or action plan for.

Funding for local authorities to meet their obligations under the 2017 Homelessness Reduction Act, extending local authorities’ statutory duties to include prevention and relief, is a major issue amid rising need, the NAO said.

The report stated: “Funding remains fragmented and generally short-term, inhibiting homelessness prevention work and limiting investment in good-quality temporary accommodation or other forms of housing.

“Until these factors are addressed across government, DLUHC (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) will not be able to demonstrate that it is delivering optimal value for money from its efforts to tackle homelessness.”

An increasing number of NHS bodies have been unable to break even, according to a new report on the financial management and sustainability of the health service.

NHS England is facing challenges on an “unprecedented” scale, the National Audit Office (NAO) warned, with its sustainability hinging on how well it manages future demand.

Concerns have also been raised that the health service “may be working at the limits of a system which might break before it is again able to provide patients with care that meets standards for timeliness and accessibility”.

The report is the ninth of its kind by the NAO, and the first to be published since February 2020. Experts said its findings depict “a picture of systemic failures and inefficient decision-making”. It warned that NHS England’s financial position is “worsening” due to a “combination of long-standing and recent issues, including failure to invest in the estate, inflationary pressures, and the cost of post-pandemic recovery”.

According to the NAO, NHS England is expected to spend £153 billion in 2023/24. It said “many NHS bodies failed to break even” during the period and in the previous 12 months, although the NHS calculates it underspent against its overall budget by about £30 million last year after additional cash from Government and reallocation of central funding.

The combined deficit of the 42 integrated care systems (ICSs) – which were introduced in 2022 to bring together the NHS, councils and voluntary sector to create services based on local needs – was £1.4 billion, the NAO said.

This deficit was initially planned to be £720 million for the year.

Nearly half, 47 per cent, name the health service as the most important issue – the highest since December 2019, just before the pandemic hit.

Immigration is also a growing issue, at the highest level since January 2017 and cited by 31 per cent of those asked.

The Government will end the use of the Bibby Stockholm barge for housing migrants off England’s south coast as part of an overhaul of the asylum system, the Home Office has announced.

The contract for the barge moored in Dorset will not be renewed past January as demand for such accommodation will be reduced by moves to clear the asylum backlog, the department said.

The vessel was one of several sites, including the military bases RAF Wethersfield in Essex and RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, used by the previous Tory government in a bid to cut the cost of housing migrants in hotels.

But the new Labour Government said continuing the use of the Bibby Stockholm would have cost more than £20 million next year, and that scrapping it forms part of the expected £7.7 billion of savings in asylum costs over the next 10 years.

Dame Angela Eagle, minister for border security and asylum, said: “We are determined to restore order to the asylum system, so that it operates swiftly, firmly and fairly; and ensures the rules are properly enforced.

“The Home Secretary has set out plans to start clearing the asylum backlog and making savings on accommodation which is running up vast bills for the taxpayer.

“The Bibby Stockholm will continue to be in use until the contract expires in January 2025.”

The Government’s efforts to tackle the UK’s asylum backlog include redeploying more than 100 Home Office staff from working on the now-scrapped Rwanda deportation scheme to focus on a “rapid returns unit” to send people with no right to be in the UK back to their home country.

In 2022/23, £2.4 billion was been spent on homelessness services, more than twice the amount spent in 2010/11, including £1.6 billion on temporary accommodation alone. The huge sums are putting a massive strain on local authority finances, according to the report published by the National Audit Office (NAO) on Tuesday.

The NAO said there was a £204.5 million gap in the funding local authorities received to cover the cost of providing temporary accommodation and the actual costs needed in 2022-23, up by more than £150 million in a decade.

A number of the councils that spoke to the NAO said they would likely have to issue a Section 114 notice due to the costs, similar to bankruptcy, much like authorities in Birmingham last year.

There is an “urgent need for action” to tackle soaring gynaecology waiting lists, top medics have said as they warned that some women are forced to “endure months of suffering”.

Long waits are resulting in emergency admissions due to worsening ill-health, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) said.

The waiting list for gynaecological care in England currently stands at almost 600,000, RCOG said.

Almost half (46%) had been waiting for longer than the target of 18 weeks and one in 20 (5%) had been waiting for more than a year as of April 2024, according to new analysis by the College.

The figures suggest that, as of April, 29,660 women had been waiting for more than a year.

Meanwhile, data on emergency admissions show that, in March 2021, there were almost 143,000 emergency admissions in gynaecology, rising to nearly 170,000 in March 2023 – the latest figures available.

The College has produced a new data dashboard showing the proportion of long waits around the UK.

Officials said the data, published with the help of LCP Health Analytics, reveal a “postcode lottery” of care, with some patients having to wait weeks longer, on average, compared with others in neighbouring regions.