PRIME Minister Rishi Sunak has made five promises in a speech setting out his Government’s priorities for the year ahead, after keeping a low-profile in recent weeks.
The Tory leader had been accused of failing to be visible while the UK deals with the challenges of an overburdened NHS and strikes in several sectors.
He spoke in east London on Wednesday, pledging: “We will halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut waiting lists, and stop the boats.”
Taking questions from reporters, the Prime Minister said he had decided not to put a time-frame alongside his pledges.
"What I am being very clear about is what I am prioritising," he said, emphasising that the five pledges were "priorities".
“No trick … no ambiguity … we’re either delivering for you or we’re not. We will rebuild trust in politics through action, or not at all. So, I ask you to judge us on the effort we put in and the results we achieve," he said.
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However, Sunak suggested that the results of his apparent effort may not be achieved "overnight, or even in this Parliament".
Asked what he meant by "stopping the boats", if it would be an end to Channel crossings or simply a reduction, the Tory leader (below) was evasive.
“Ultimately the country will judge," he said. "The country will be the judge of whether we as a Government are straining every sinew to focus on their priorities and deliver meaningful progress and change on them.
“Now, when I made a statement in Parliament last month about small boats, you know I went out of my way to say this is not an easy problem to fix, and it’s not one that we can fix overnight and it requires lots of different things to be changed.
“Now we’ve made progress on that already,” he said, mentioning deals with France and Albania, adding: “But the most important thing we need to do is pass new legislation, and we want to make sure that that new legislation means that if you come here illegally to our country you will not be able to stay."
The SNP's Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, said Sunak had made “five flimsy promises” but what the Tories had actually delivered was “austerity, Brexit, and a denial of Scottish democracy”.
He criticised the Prime Minister for offering “no hope to those weighed down by the harsh figures that are preventing them from heating their homes, putting food on the table or paying their mortgages”.
"This speech was an opportunity for Rishi Sunak to fix the Broken Britain that Westminster has created – to mend a broken relationship with the EU, to pay public sector workers what they are worth and to protect those who need help the most. He did none of those things,” Flynn (below) added.
Labour said the Prime Minister was making promises he would "struggle not to keep".
The party highlighted how Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts already predicted inflation would fall to 3.8% in the final quarter of 2023, nearly two thirds lower than in the last quarter of 2022 (11.1%).
They also highlighted how NHS waiting lists were expected to fall after a winter peak, that lowering debt is already a government target which the OBR expects them to hit, and said it would be hard not to see growth in a stagnating economy lagging behind its peers.
READ MORE: UK economic outlook 'as bad as it gets' – and Tories made it worse, experts warn
On migration, Labour said that previous efforts to legislate to cut the number of small boats had failed, with a spokesperson adding: They said the Nationality and Borders Act would stop the boats – it didn’t work either. We need real action to stop the criminal gangs at source."
The Prime Minister further said he would not pre-empt the spring budget, but said that he would like to, when the time is right, to cut taxes.
“I think work provides people with purpose, provides them with dignity and confidence,” he told reporters.
“It’s something to be celebrated and rewarded, which is why as soon as we are able to I want to cut taxes on working people. That’s something that I think the Chancellor is also aligned on but right now we’ve got a set of challenges that we’re grappling with, and that’s the priority.”
He said the Government was looking a range of things to tackle inactivity.
“We need to look at how our welfare system is operating and is it operating in the way that we would like to make sure that we are supporting and incentivising people who can be, to be in work.”
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