Labour attack Tory ‘Backlog Britain’ as Government falls flat on delivery

Labour tomorrow (Tuesday 28 June) uses its Opposition Day Debate to urge government action on growing bottlenecks and delays – saying they’re both a symptom and catalyst of economic decline under the Conservatives.

The party also releases a dossier detailing Tory ‘Backlog Britain’ as delays on everything from driving licenses to major infrastructure projects bring Britain to a halt. 

With waits at the passport office leaving renewals taking ten weeks; queues at Dover; and holidaymakers spending hours and hours at airports, there are fears that ‘Backlog Britain’ will mar long-awaited family summers. 

Hold-ups are also hitting the NHS, with waiting times for A&E, cancer, dentistry and mental health services getting longer and longer. With a build-up in the courts, prosecutions and justice for victims are also on hold.

Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Pat McFadden, who will open the debate, has accused the Conservatives of being “a government without grip – it doesn’t function, it only campaigns.”

He has blamed the government’s inability to plan and their sticking plaster, low growth, high tax approach to the economy as the root cause of ‘Backlog Britain’. 

Pat McFadden MP, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said:

“Instead of providing some security for our economy and planning for the future of our country, the Tories are lurching from crisis to crisis, opting to focus on campaigning to keep Boris Johnson in Downing Street instead of getting on with the job at hand.  

“The Tories promised to level up Britain, but instead they’ve given us ‘Backlog Britain’. 

“They need to stop making new promises they know they can’t deliver, and concentrate on delivering those they’ve already made. The Conservatives have lost grip – they’re out of touch and out of ideas.”

Ends         

Notes

Draft Opposition Day Debate Motion: 

That this House notes that UK economic growth is forecast to grind to a halt next year, with only Russia worse in the OECD; further notes that GDP in recent months is down while inflation has risen to 9.1% and that food prices, petrol costs and bills in general are soaring for millions across the country; believes that the government is leaving Britain with backlogs such as long waits for passports, driving licenses, GP and hospital appointments, for court dates, at airports; and calls on the Government to set out a new approach to the economy that will end twelve years of slow growth and high taxation under successive Conservative Governments. 

Dossier of delays in Backlog Britain: 

Treasury:

• HMRC: HMRC temporarily shut its phone lines for callers at the end of last year to deal with huge backlogs.

Home Office: 

• Police: The police are facing rising delays in charging cases, with the median number of days between offence and charge tripling since 2016 (14 days to 44 days), and rising for rape cases from 282 in 2019 to 374 in 2021. Crime is up 18% and prosecutions down 18% since the last election. (December 2019)
• Asylum: The asylum backlog is at a record high, with Home Office decision-making collapsing (with the number of decisions taken halving since 2015)
  
  
• Passports: Delays at the passport office mean people are now being asked to leave ten weeks before renewing – with 35,000 people waiting over ten weeks in the first quarter of the year. 

Justice:

• Courts: By the end of last year 25% of cases had waited over a  year to come to court, with the backlog in crown courts increasing by 25% over the past five years. A third of all crown courts had seen backlogs rise by over 50%.
• Prosecutions: Delays in prosecuting suspected criminals have hit a record 708 days for the average time it takes to go from offence to completion of a case.
• Justice for rape victims: Labour research has found that the typical delay between an offence of rape and the completion of the resulting criminal case rose to 1,000 days in 2021 for the first time. In some areas, survivors are waiting more than three years for justice. Meanwhile, over the past four years, rape prosecutions in England and Wales have fallen by 70%
• Justice for victims of robbery: Some victims of robbery are reportedly waiting over two years for justice, with the time from offence to completion of a case rising to a record 708 days. 

 Health and Social Care:

• NHS: Record number of patients are waiting for NHS treatment and they are waiting longer than ever – the waiting list for planned NHS treatment stands at ~ 6.5 million. The total number of patients waiting over 18 weeks for treatment now stands at 2.48 million, while 323,093 patients had been waiting over one year for treatment.
• Mental health services: Over a third of children were turned away from mental health services last year alone, and right now 1.6 million people are waiting for mental health treatment.
• GPs: 840,000 patients were made to wait more than a month for a GP appointment in April. Despite promises to hire 5,000 more GPs in the 2015 Conservative manifesto and 6,000 more in the 2019 manifesto, Conservative governments have cut 4,500 GPs since 2013 and closed 300 GP practices since the last election.
• A&E: The number of patients waiting over 12 hours in for admission stood at 19,053 on the most recent data after reaching a record-high of 24,138 in the previous. This is 46 times the amount waiting this long pre-pandemic in May 2019. The government are overseeing a change in the NHS contract which removes ‘zero-tolerance for waits of more than 12 hours.’
• Children’s health services: The waiting list for children seeking medical treatment is now over 350,000 (350,969 ) after 100,000 joined the queue in just a year. 12,000 have been waiting for over a year. Only 65.4 per cent of under-18s are being treated within the 18-week target
• Cancer tests: There are now over 1.2 million people waiting for diagnostic tests and scans, a rise of 135,000 since the government started rolling out its diagnostic centres. 267,000 people have been waiting long that the NHS target of 6 weeks
• Dentists: People are finding it increasingly difficult to get an NHS dentist, as 12 years of Tory mismanagement of the health service is seeing dentists quitting in droves. 2,000 dentists quit the NHS last year, around 10% of all dentists employed in England. An estimated 4 million people can’t access NHS care and with some parts of the country now described as ‘dentistry deserts’, because remaining NHS dentists aren’t taking on new patients. 

Transport:

• Flights: Holidaymakers are queueing for hours at airports across the country, with Heathrow last week cutting a tenth of all flights leaving from two of its terminals. 
• Infrastructure: Major government projects worth nearly £200 billion are off track to be delivered according the Infrastructure and Projects Authority
• Ports: Queues at key ports such as Dover have stretched to over 30 miles at points this year, with lorry drivers waiting up to 12 hours. 
• Driving licences: People are waiting months to obtain or renew driving licences as the backlog at the DVLA is reportedly over 740,000, with over 400,000 people waiting to renew their licence. The backlog is reportedly particularly acute for drivers with long-term medical conditions who face waits of up to five months.