The PM’s jab came as Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle was forced to intervene at Prime Minister’s Questions after the Tory MP Chris Philp heckled Keir Starmer in the Commons
PMQs: Keir Starmer aims Truss jibe at Chris Philp
Keir Starmer delivered a brutal jab at one of ex-PM Liz Truss’s ministers as he hit back at Tory MPs over delays to fix crumbling NHS hospitals.
It came as Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle was forced to intervene at Prime Minister’s Questions after the Conservative MP Chris Philp heckled Mr Starmer in the Commons over the issue. The Speaker told him: “Mr Philp I expect better from the front bench and I’m sure you’re going to show better.”
But the PM responded: “He was Liz Truss’s right hand man so I’m sure we wouldn’t expect anything else.”
Mr Philp, who currently serves as Shadow Home Secretary in Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s top team, was Chief Secretary to the Treasury in Ms Truss’s short-lived government.
The exchange followed the Liberal Democrat MP Luke Taylor raising the government’s announcement on Monday to delay a crucial programme to fix and build new hospitals. He said St Helier hospital in his constituency “will not survive the delay” warning patients could also die as a result and NHS staff “will break”.
The PM responded: “I’m not surprised their [constituents] are frustrated or even angry at the lack of delivery under the previous government – there was no credible plan”. Facing heckles from Tory MPs, he went on: “This is their record, they shouldn’t be chuckling.”
Earlier this week the Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced major delays to fix crumbling NHS hospitals across the country. Boris Johnson made the pledge to build “40 new hospitals” by 2030 in the 2019 manifesto but it later emerged that some of the “new” hospitals were just refurbishments and new wings.
But speaking in the Commons on Monday, Mr Streeting said the Tory plans were a “work of fiction”. Announcing a new timetable, he said: “I know patients in some parts of the country will be disappointed by this new timetable. They are right to be.
“They were led up the garden path by three Conservative Prime Ministers all promising hospitals with no credible funding plan to deliver them. We will not treat the British people with the same contempt.”
After a review of the project, he told MPs construction on seven hospital sites would begin in the next five years while nine would begin between 2030-2035.
Construction work on a further nine sites – including St Mary’s Hospital in London, Charing Cross Hospital and the Royal Preston Hospital – will not begin until 2035-2039.
