Kemi Badenoch backs Labour’s NHS plan – why will not she say how she’d pay for it?

Just over 2 weeks ago, Rachel Reeves delivered Labour’s first Budget in 14 years. It provided a much-needed cash boost for our NHS, more money for local councils, investment in state schools and building the homes of the future.

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor are taking the tough decisions needed to fix the foundations of our economy, plug the £22 billion black hole and tackle the dire economic inheritance the Conservatives left our country saddled with.

Our Labour Government is getting on with delivering for Britain – yet the Conservatives have shown once again this week that they haven’t listened and they haven’t learnt from their crushing defeat in July.

Kemi Badenoch claimed on Wednesday that she supports all the benefits of our investment but – here’s the catch – she won’t agree to the Budget measures that will let us deliver them.

She won’t tell us the choices she’d make to fund the vital investment we’re making.

Instead, she’s gone for the oldest trick in the book. After just two weeks in office, Kemi Badenoch has turned to the Tory magic money tree for advice.

It’s yet another sign that the Conservative Party have learnt nothing and are simply pursuing the same ideas that the British people rejected so comprehensively just over 4 months ago.

The Conservatives left this country with a mountain of mess to clean up.

Prisons bursting at the seams. Millions on NHS waiting lists. Pothole-ridden streets.

Sunday Mirror readers know the true cost of 14 years of Tory failure – and the long-term impact of their chaos and decline.

The Conservatives simply don’t care, and nothing could be more insulting than the sight of a Tory Party so oblivious to its own shameful legacy.

The last Labour government showed that it’s investment and reform that gets results for patients. The situation is worse than they inherited, and there’s less money. So we have to go further and faster than the last Labour government on reform.

And this Labour Government is already taking action to deliver the change the public voted for.

This week we announced plans to create league tables to reveal failing NHS trusts.

We want to boost trusts that aren’t performing, and encourage successful ones. And we want to see waiting lists reduce from 18 months to 18 weeks.

Poor performance is all-too-often tolerated in the health service.

No more. We will turn our NHS around.

We’ll attract top talent, be more transparent to the public, and run the NHS efficiently.

We will get on with delivering the 40,000 extra NHS appointments each week to cut waiting lists. The latest waiting list data this week has been promising and shows our plan is working – but we have to have the determination to see this challenge through.

Kemi Badenoch says she backs that investment, but she won’t say how she would pay for it.

That’s just not good enough. It’s a dereliction of duty, and an insult to the patients who rely on our NHS.

A few months ago the nation went to the polls. The public voted for change, turning their backs on fourteen years of Tory neglect, incompetence and failure.

This Labour Government is clear-minded, and we speak with one voice. We’re working hard every day to deliver the change that this country so desperately needs. What a contrast with Kemi Badenoch’s Tories who are still refusing to face up to the reality of the damage they’ve done to our country.