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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Yohannes Lowe

UK politics: SNP’s Swinney warns general election will be ‘the biggest challenge for years’ – as it happened

Sir Keir Starmer Yvette Cooper Daisy Cooper Diane Abbott United Kingdom Victoria Atkins Bridget Phillipson Liz Truss Natalie Elphicke ​​Rishi Sunak
John Swinney
John Swinney said: ‘voters are right to take nothing for granted’. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

Closing summary

John Swinney has been taking questions from reporters at the SNP’s campaign launch event in Glasgow. We are wrapping up the blog now. Here is a summary of today’s developments:

  • Labour has refused to set specific targets on how it wants to reduce net migration to the UK should it win the general election on 4 July. The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the party wants to see “significant changes” and is clear that net migration “must come down”. But she stopped short of setting a target. Cooper also declined to rule out offshore processing or sending asylum seekers to have their claims processed abroad. Keir Starmer’s migration plan will include passing laws to ban law-breaking employers from hiring foreign workers and to train more Britons. Last year’s net migration figure of 685,000 has “got to come down”, he told The Sun on Sunday, as he tried to encroach on traditional Conservative electoral territory.

  • The health secretary, Victoria Atkins, said the Tories’ pledge to build 100 new GP surgeries would bring “healthcare closer to communities” – and defended the party’s record on NHS waiting times in government. The Conservatives have also said they wanted to expand the Pharmacy First scheme, under which patients could seek help from a pharmacist instead of a GP for certain common conditions including earache, sinusitis, a sore throat, infected insect bites and shingles.

  • Labour saw its lead over the Tories widen to 20 points in an Opinium poll.
    It showed Sir Keir’s party on 45% – up four points since last weekend – while the Conservatives were down two percentage points on 25%.

  • Speaking at the SNP’s Westminster campaign launch, party leader and Scottish first minister John Swinney said that this general election will be “the biggest challenge for years”. Swinney pushed for independence, celebrated his party’s record in government and accused the Labour party of giving “an awfully good impression” of the Tories.

  • Faiza Shaheen, the candidate blocked by Labour from standing in Chingford and Woodford Green, told LBC that she is considering standing in Chingford as an independent. She had already announced she would challenge the decision in the courts, claiming she has faced “a systematic campaign of racism, Islamophobia and bullying”.

  • A Conservative candidate seeking re-election has been criticised for using social media campaign adverts that appear to make it look as if he is standing for other parties. Robert Largan, the Conservative candidate for High Peak in Derbyshire, posted a picture of his face on X superimposed on to a red background along with the slogan “Labour for Largan”. Largan also posted a similar advert in the colours of Reform UK, with the slogan “Reform for Robert”. Derbyshire police said they were reviewing claims of “election fraud” they received relating to “concerns around marketing material”.

Thank you for reading and all your comments today. Martin Belam will be running the blog tomorrow. You can read all of our politics coverage here in the meantime.

Updated

SNP leader John Swinney says general election will be 'the biggest challenge for years'

Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent

John Swinney tells over 200 SNP activists and politicians in Glasgow that this general election will be “the biggest challenge for years”. He adds that “voters are right to take nothing for granted”.

He tells activists that people want the SNP to demonstrate the “relevance” of independence to the cost of living crisis – he also promises to protect Scotland’s NHS, accusing Labour of supporting creeping privatisation.

Interesting moment at the start of media questions where BBC’s James Cook is booed by audience members – Swinney immediately reprimands them and says that media question will be heard without heckling.

Updated

The Scottish first minister, John Swinney, has started to speak at the party’s campaign launch event ahead of next month’s general election.

The SNP leader said Scots “want us to demonstrate the relevance of independence to their lives”.

Swinney said:

If we don’t then we are not likely to get much of a hearing in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis and, to be frank, nor would we deserve to.

So, when we talk about independence we need to demonstrate again, and again, and again, that we are talking about people’s core concerns like raising living standards and protecting the NHS.

That laser-like focus on the daily concerns of people is our guiding star. There are some people telling me to forget about independence at this election. But you know what?

After looking at Keir Starmer’s serial U-turns in the pursuit of power, I think people are crying out for political leadership that sticks to its principles.

Swinney told the crowd at the SNP’s Westminster election campaign launch that his party has abolished tuition fees, provided free bus travel for under-22s, has created 40% more affordable homes than in England and has improved literacy and numeracy.

He said: “Your SNP government has transformed lives in Scotland. And we have a record to be proud of.”

Updated

At the SNP’s launch in Glasgow, Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has told a crowd of activists that “for decades Westminster has squandered Scotland’s energy potential”. He adds that his party will hold Labour to its green energy commitments.

Flynn was quoted as saying:

What we have in Westminster is a status quo, it’s a desire as Sir Keir Starmer says for stability. But I’ll tell you what stability means.

It means £18bn worth of cuts to our public services, it means no access to the European single market. It means watering down our net zero potential.

It means denying the people of Scotland their right to democratically decide their future. Friends, we deserve so much more.

John Swinney, who is due to speak at the event, is a political veteran and former leader of his party. He took the helm again a couple of weeks ago after Humza Yousaf resigned following the collapse of the SNP’s power-sharing deal with the Greens.

Updated

British citizens living abroad have been urged by the foreign secretary, David Cameron, to register to vote before a deadline of 18 June.

An estimated five million British citizens living abroad continue to retain strong links with the UK and decisions taken towards a secure future on foreign policy, defence and trade will directly affect their lives, Cameron said.

Britons living abroad have this year regained their right to vote in parliamentary elections in the UK, after the Conservatives removed an arbitrary 15-year limit imposed by the last Labour government.

British people overseas can register at gov.uk/registertovote with their national insurance number and last UK postcode. Votes will be counted at the last UK address they were registered to vote at or lived at.

Cameron said: “With threats rising across the world, Britain needs a clear plan and bold action. We are living in a world more dangerous, more volatile, more confrontational than most of us have ever known.”

Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent

I’m here in a hotel conference hall in central Glasgow with 100s of SNP activists to “officially” launch the party’s general election campaign.

I use inverted commas because I’ve been to at least two other events advertised as launches, the first in January, with former leader Humza Yousaf, and the second two weeks ago with current leader John Swinney but which was dominated by questions about his former health secretary Michael Matheson’s astronomical iPad expenses.

Early speakers are pushing the message that independence supporters must not desert the party – polling suggests many are minded to support Labour this election because getting the Tories out of Downing Street is more important than independence right now.

Campaign director Stewart Hosie told activists that independence supporters who think they can “sit this election out or lend their vote to another party” needed to know they were jeopardising progress on independence.

And with same voters peeling off to the Scottish Greens or Alba, he emphasised that “there is no credible alternative independence vote in this election”.

Stewart Hosie, who is retiring as an MP for Dundee East at the general election, told the party’s election campaign launch in Glasgow that the SNP is “larger than all of our opponents combined”.

Hosie claimed that leader John Swinney is the SNP’s “secret weapon” and that his approval ratings have gone “through the roof while our opponents are languishing” in the weeks since he became first minister.

SNP formally launch party's campaign ahead of the general election

The Guardian’s Scotland correspondent, Libby Brooks, is at the SNP’s launch event, which has now started.

She said it opened with the party’s campaign director, Stewart Hosie, making a joke at Keir Starmer’s expense.

“John Swinney doesn’t have to hire a private jet to take a tourist trip to Scotland, he just has to step outside his front door,” he said.

Last week, Starmer, the Labour party leader, admitted he used a private jet to travel to a campaign rally in Scotland where he promised to create “tens of thousands” of clean energy jobs with a new publicly owned energy company in the country.

Hosie then said the SNP is the only “credible” pro independence vote, in what was seen as a dig at the breakaway nationalist Alba party, set up by the SNP’s former leader and the former first minister Alex Salmond, and the Greens.

Updated

The SNP are shortly set to formally launch the party’s campaign with John Swinney urging the electorate to “vote SNP to put Scotland’s interests first”.

Scotland’s first minister, who took over a party in turmoil last month, will reportedly stress his belief in independence as a way to ensure decisions about Scotland are made in Scotland and not Westminster.

Swinney, who was the deputy first minister to Sturgeon during the Covid crisis, is highly respected across the party and previously served as SNP leader from 2000 to 2004.

He faces the ongoing challenge of passing bills and budgets as a minority government, while polling suggests support for the SNP is slumping and heavy losses are likely at the coming general election at the hands of a resurgent Labour party.

James Mitchell, professor of public policy at Edinburgh University’s School of Social and Political Science, said the general election comes at a time when the SNP is in “damage limitation” mode.

“The SNP cannot even fall back on a competent record in government. They are not improving outcomes for people. All the great rhetoric, such as closing the attainment gap in education, just has not happened,” Mitchell said.

Updated

News that the police are examining campaign material used by Tory candidate Robert Largan comes as the Electoral Commission said it would encourage all candidates to consider how voters will understand their campaign materials.

The Electoral Commission said that it is responsible for ensuring that campaign material by parties and campaigners includes imprints to identify the person or organisation which has caused it to be published.

“Our remit does not extend to the content or style of campaign material. This is not subject to regulation by any UK body.”

It added: “We encourage all candidates to consider how voters will understand their campaign materials.”

A Conservative party spokesperson said: “The materials clearly carry imprints, as required by electoral law.”

Updated

A snap election, and the certainty that the Gaza crisis will not be resolved by polling day, means Keir Starmer already knows the first foreign policy challenge of his expected premiership.

Even if the peace proposal announced by Joe Biden on Friday is accepted by both Israel and Hamas, something a Labour-run Foreign Office would encourage, vast issues remain concerning the future role of Hamas and Iran in Middle Eastern politics, as well as Israel’s conduct in the conflict, and restoration of faith in the universality of international law.

Internal party pressure, Starmer’s background as a human rights lawyer and the way in which the international law has unexpectedly been thrust centre stage in the conflict have led Labour to slowly distance itself from its previous broad support for the government approach. How much this will translate into hard policy inside the Foreign Office is contested.

Read more

The ongoing dispute at the Tata steel plant in Port Talbot, South Wales, could be a headache for Labour if it wins the general election.

Unite has warned it is preparing to escalate industrial action over planned job losses at the plant and will already ban overtime and begin a work-to-rule later this month.

Unite said Tata is threatening to cut redundancy pay in response to the announcement of industrial action.

The union’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, said: “Unite and its members will not tolerate Tata’s bully-boy tactics and neither should Labour. The union is now preparing to escalate industrial action in direct response to the company’s threats. The company is trying to hold the country to ransom, while needlessly throwing thousands of workers on the scrapheap. If Tata is not prepared to do the right thing, then an incoming Labour government must ensure it does.”

A Tata Steel spokesman said: “Following the publication of our most generous employee support package to date and having shared assurances for the future of the UK business with our trade union partners, we had hoped they would put the revised offer to their members. It is therefore disappointing that Unite have decided on industrial action - we are now considering our legal options regarding the legality of their ballot.”

Derbyshire police reviewing 'election fraud' claims

Derbyshire police are reviewing claims of “election fraud” they have received relating to “concerns around marketing material”.

“An incident has been created and will be reviewed,” the force wrote in a statement on X.

It comes after the Conservative candidate for High Peak in Derbyshire, Robert Largan, posted on X in red Labour colours saying “Labour for Largan” on Saturday.

He wrote: “So many local Labour voters have told me they’re going to vote for me, because they want to keep me as their local MP. There have been so many that I’m launching a new Labour for Largan club.”

He also posted a similar blue advert which says “Reform for Robert” and uses Reform UK’s party colours.

A spokesperson for Mr Largan has denied wrongdoing.

A statement, as reported by Sky News, said: “As Mr Largan’s social media posts and website make abundantly clear, large numbers of traditional Labour voters have been contacting him to tell him they plan to vote for him, despite him being a Conservative candidate.”

Largan is defending one of the most marginal Tory-held seats, where he won with a majority of just 590at the 2019 general election.

You can read more on the story here:

Updated

The Conservatives have 'absolutely destroyed' Britain’s relationship with the EU, Scottish Lib Dems say

The Conservatives have “absolutely destroyed” Britain’s relationship with the EU, the Scottish Liberal Democrats have said.

Party leader Alex Cole-Hamilton told BBC One Scotland’s The Sunday Show of the Lib Dems’ hopes of getting Britain “back into the heart” of Europe.

He said the Liberal Democrats are “proud Europeans” and that his party would attempt to rebuild the country’s relationship with the EU and encourage free movement.

He said:

The Conservatives have absolutely destroyed our relationship with Europe, there is no trust there right now at all. We had one of the hardest possible Brexits and we’re still paying the price for that in terms of the goods that we buy in our supermarkets, but also the absence of the skilled workforce that we used to enjoy.”

“Lib Dems care passionately about removing the friction, rebuilding bridges, getting back into things like Interpol, moving forward to the free movement of people, reducing those pressures and the frictions that exist and getting us back into the heart of Europe – Lib Dems are passionate Europeans, always will be,” the party leader added.

Cole Hamilton said that voters on the doorsteps “don’t care” about a second independence vote, but care more about issues like access to GP or dental appointments.

Updated

A Labour MP has defended his party’s decision to parachute candidates into safe seats in Wales, insisting there was local input in the decision.

Concerns have been raised after thinktank chief and former Labour aide Torsten Bell and Alex Barros-Curtis, executive director of legal affairs for the party, were selected as candidates for Swansea West and Cardiff West on Friday.

Former Labour MP for Cynon Valley, Beth Winter, accused the party of “imposing candidates” after the expedited process, which she branded an “insult to Wales”.

Bell appears to have no connection to the country, while Mr Barros-Curtis went to school in north Wales, the PA news agency reported.

But Stephen Kinnock, who is standing for Labour in Aberfan Maesteg, has insisted the decision was taken with the local party’s input.

He told the BBC’s Nick Servini on Politics Wales:

There were constituency Labour party members on both of those selection committees. There was input from the local party membership in both cases. I know Torsten well, he is one of the smartest people on the scene in terms of understanding where we are on the public finances, in terms of developing policy that is going to take our country forward. He’s an incredibly talented person.

Kinnock did not answer when questioned if Bell had ever been to Swansea.

Blocked Labour candidate Faiza Shaheen 'considering standing in Chingford as an independent'

Faiza Shaheen, the candidate blocked by Labour from standing in Chingford and Woodford Green, has told Lewis Goodall, the LBC presenter and the News Agents presenter, that she is considering standing in Chingford as an independent.

“I have to do things for the right reason,” Shaheen told LBC when asked if she would consider standing for another party, or as an independent. “I don’t want this to change me, and make me a vengeful person,” she added.

Shaheen, who stood in the north-east London seat in 2019, had already announced she would challenge Labour’s decision to block her from standing as one of its candidates in the courts, claiming she had faced “a systematic campaign of racism, Islamophobia and bullying”.

“This campaign of prejudice, bullying and spiteful behaviour has finally been rewarded by Labour’s NEC [national executive committee] and my name has been added to the list of those not welcome in the candidate club. And it is no surprise that many of those excluded are people of colour,” she said in a statement.

Shaheen was presented with a dossier of posts that she had liked on X, some dating back to 2014. The most recent was by a US academic who used the trope of the “Israel lobby” in relation to a sketch on The Daily Show in the US. Shaheen’s “like” prompted a complaint from the Jewish labour movement.

You can see her reaction to receiving an email telling her candidacy had been blocked in this Newsnight clip:

Updated

Polling by Savanta has given the Labour leader Keir Starmer his biggest lead over Rishi Sunak in one of its polls.

When asked who would make the best prime minister, 44% of the 2,239 UK adults surveyed said Starmer (+4), 30% said Sunak (-1) and 27% said they did not know.

Toby Helm is the Observer’s political editor

A key New Labour adviser who worked for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in Downing Street says there is an “overwhelming economic and ethical case” for Keir Starmer’s party to impose higher taxes on wealth if it wins the general election.

Writing in the Observer, Patrick Diamond, professor of public policy at Queen Mary University of London, and his colleague Colm Murphy, a lecturer in British politics, say a Labour government will need to look at radical ways to raise money, not least because the plans for higher economic growth that the party is relying on may never materialise.

Their comments will stoke the debate over Labour’s economic poli­cies and its attitude to wealth creation after Starmer made an appeal to middle-class voters in an interview with the Times on Saturday, saying that his party’s “number one mission is wealth creation”.

Starmer said he thought it was a good thing for people to be “aspirational”, adding that his was no longer a “tribal” party. “I want it to be wide enough to accommodate people who would identify as Labour. They’d vote for Labour this time.”

You can read the full story here:

Wes Streeting says he no longer travels on public transport alone due to death threats

Wes Streeting has revealed he does not travel on public transport alone after receiving death threats over his stance on Gaza.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, the shadow health secretary said he has had to “change my movements, change my routine” over his position on Israel’s war in Gaza.

He said:

It means I don’t travel at the moment on public transport alone. It’s really upset me, not much the fear for my safety, but for the last nine years I have really prided myself on the fact people see me on the Central Line into work; that they can walk up to me in Tesco and have a chat.

The Ilford North MP also said that until now he has refused to change his approach, even after the murder of fellow Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016.

Streeting added:

I don’t mind scrutiny. I don’t mind disagreement. That’s democracy. But no one should be subjected to threats and intimidation. I’ve had a death threat since the war in Gaza broke out and I’ve had threats of violence. The irony is I’ve been highly critical of Israel. I have been a longstanding advocate for an independent Palestinian state. Where I draw the line is I don’t think that to be pro-Palestinian is to excuse or justify in any way the barbarity of 7 October.

Streeting is being challenged in his Ilford North constituency by pro-Palestine independent candidate Leanne Mohamad.

The 41-year-old said: “There will be some people in my constituency who don’t feel we’ve been strong enough on Gaza and may not vote for me. But I think there are many more who are voting Labour because they want to bring an end to the chaos.”

Labour backs a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, but not the end of arms exports. Keir Starmer has faced pressure from within the party to take a tougher line on Israel’s war on Gaza and faced a rebellion from dozens of his own MPs late last year on the issue.

Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said three of the party’s election candidates were “no longer going forward” after reports of inappropriate comments.

Ramsay told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme:

The Green party takes any suggestions of antisemitism, or indeed any form of racism, very seriously. Any suggestions that have been made of inappropriate comments in recent weeks are being investigated by the relevant people.

In the last couple of weeks, there were three candidates who had been selected who are no longer going forward.

I understand there’s a small number more who are still being looked at.

Ramsay said the Green party was planning to get at least four MPs elected “to push the new government to be bolder”. He said the party had a “fantastic chance of winning” the constituencies of Bristol Central, Waveney Valley, North Herefordshire and Brighton Pavilion.

Ramsay also confirmed that rationing is not set to be in the Green manifesto for this election, despite it saying on the party’s website it would “use rationing to reduce the amounts of meat and dairy food consumed in the UK” if it formed a government.

According to recent YouGov polling, the Green party is particularly strong among younger voters, coming in second place among under 30s, above the Tories and Liberal Democrats. Local elections showed voters moving to the Greens from the Liberal Democrats, and even from the Conservatives.

Updated

Cooper refuses to rule out off-shore processing or sending asylum-seekers to have their claims processed abroad

There are more lines from Yvette Cooper’s interview on BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme (see earlier posts at 09.20 and 09.27 for her other quotes).

The shadow home secretary declined to rule out off-shore processing or sending asylum-seekers to have their claims processed abroad.

She said her party would create a border security command “to clear the backlog and to end asylum hotel use, and to put another new returns and enforcement unit in place to actually get the proper returns where people have no right to be here”.

Cooper said:

So, your question was might there be other future arrangements and so on? Keir has always said we would look at what works and there are different kinds of, I think, the sort of offshore processing arrangements and things that have already been used at different times in the past.

For example, the Dublin agreement did mean that, under that scheme, some people were returned to France or to Germany or other countries.

When asked if Labour would send asylum seekers who are stuck in the system to another country to have their claims processed, Cooper said: “That’s certainly what used to happen as part of the Dublin scheme and we look at what works.”

Keir Starmer said last year that he would look at offshore schemes where migrants are processed in a third country “usually en route to their country of destination”, saying that other European countries were also considering this.

Labour’s decision to consider a range of options for offshoring caused alarm among charities and drew criticism from some of its political rivals.

Updated

Plaid Cymru leader: Starmer wants to 'act as the puppet master within all of the Labour party'

Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth has said Keir Starmer wants to “act as the puppet master within all of the Labour party” through his “parachuting of candidates last minute to Wales”.

He told Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips programme that his party would support a no-confidence motion in Welsh first minister Vaughan Gething next week. Plaid Cymru ended its cooperation agreement with the Labour-led government in Wales last month.

The Plaid leader had said he was deeply concerned that Gething had refused to hand back a £200,000 donation for his successful leadership campaign from a company whose owner was convicted of environmental crimes.

Ap Iorwerth told Sky News on Sunday:

We have no confidence in the first minister. More importantly than that, the Welsh public don’t have confidence in him. But it’s Labour who will decide – Labour members of the Senedd in that vote of no confidence, but crucially also Keir Starmer, who has shown through his parachuting of candidates last minute to Wales that he very much wants to act as the puppet master within all of the Labour party.

He added: “We have a Labour party that has converged so much with the Conservatives and offer so little for Wales.

Labour party members on Thursday accused the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, of orchestrating a “cull of leftwingers” after several high-profile figures were told they would not be selected as candidates for seats they held or had previously contested.

Members of the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) will meet next week to agree on Labour’s full list of parliamentary candidates at what is set to be a stormy meeting where the fates of several candidates will be in the balance.

Updated

Stephen Flynn said the SNP would call for an independence referendum vote if they win a majority of Scottish Westminster seats.

In Scotland, there will be a three-way contest between the SNP, which has 43 seats, the Conservatives, now on seven, and Labour, which has two.

He told Sky News’ Trevor Phillips: “Of course that is very much the case. But this election is worth so much more than just independence, it is about making sure that we have people in Westminster who put Scotland first.”

“The Westminster election could not be more important for Scotland’s future,” he said, adding that the policies of Labour and the Conservatives have “failed” Scotland.

Recent opinion polls suggest Labour leads the SNP in Scotland for the first time since before the 2014 independence referendum.

Scottish Labour under its centrist leader, Anas Sarwar, is better funded than ever. This is in contrast to the SNP, which has badly depleted cash reserves.

Updated

SNP accuses main parties of a 'conspiracy of silence' on austerity in Scotland

The SNP’s House of Commons leader, Stephen Flynn, has accused Labour and the Conservatives of a “conspiracy of silence” on austerity in Scotland.

Speaking with Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, Flynn said there has been £18bn in public sector cuts, with neither party “providing an answer” on the matter.

He said the SNP is the only party who would return the country to a single market, invest in net zero technologies and will not privatise the NHS.

John Swinney, the Scottish first minister, was recently told that he will have to make “significant” public spending cuts by the permanent secretary to the Scottish government, John-Paul Marks. The Scottish government had to plug a £1.5bn black hole in this year’s budget.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has said there will be “no return to austerity under a Labour government”.

In a separate part of the interview, Flynn said that a Labour government would be “extremely dangerous” for the country.

He highlighted ongoing speculation that Labour’s approach to its handling of net zero and a greener country would cost the oil and gas industry 100,000 jobs. Flynn said what Labour is proposing is “extremely dangerous” for all of Scotland and not just the north-east of Scotland, where the oil and gas industry is prominent. But he said there were no circumstances in which the SNP would support the Conservatives (if neither main parties have a majority at the general election in July).

Updated

Victoria Atkins was also on the BBC’s Sunday Laura Kuenssberg progamme. She said the government wants to build new GP practices and “bring healthcare closer to our communities”.

This followed an announcement from the Conservatives to build 100 new GP surgeries in England and increase the number of available appointments by allowing more treatment in the community if they stay in power after the general election.

The Tories said they wanted to expand the Pharmacy First scheme, under which patients could seek help from a pharmacist instead of a GP for certain common conditions including earache, sinusitis, a sore throat, infected insect bites and shingles.

Laura Kuenssberg puts it to her that over 450 GPs have been shut since 2013, with funding for pharmacies cut.

Atkins said there are more GPs working in the NHS than there were in 2019, with “record numbers working across primary care”.

Prof Kamila Hawthorne, who chairs the Royal College of GPs, said: “The only solution to the current crisis in general practice is more GPs – no other healthcare professional can do the complex clinical and leadership work that GPs do.”

The health secretary was also asked about Boris Johnson’s pledge to deliver 40 “new” hospitals, which was one of the major headlines of the former prime minister’s pitch to the electorate in 2019. However, only a fraction have been opened despite the crumbling state of many hospitals around the country. The National Audit Office said the government has used a “broad” definition of “new”, which included refurbishment of existing buildings. Atkins said the Covid pandemic affected construction. She said the government is aiming for two more hospitals to open by the end of the financial year.

Asked if the Conservative manifesto would contain a plan to fix social care, she added: “We already have a 10-year plan to improve and to provide the social care that we want our grandparents, our parents, to have.”

Updated

Conservatives accuse Labour of having 'identity crisis'

The health secretary, Victoria Atkins, has suggested Labour is having a “bit of an identity crisis”, referring to Natalie Elphicke’s controversial defection to the party and the infighting that erupted last week over issues around Diane Abbott’s selection.

Keir Starmer had spent three days insisting Abbott’s candidacy was not in his power, and it was a matter for the party’s ruling national executive committee (NEC), but the row was increasingly distracting from Labour’s election campaign. He then said she was free to stand.

Atkins said she would not comment on individual Tories who have defected to Labour, saying they will have had their “own reasons for going”.

She then told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News:

It’s a great surprise, I think, to everyone, including possibly to Natalie Elphicke herself, that such a hard-right Conservative politician should choose to join Labour.

But then we see this week from Labour that Sir Keir Starmer can’t work out whether Diane Abbott, one of his longest-standing and trailblazing Members of parliament, should in fact be a Member of parliament. He can’t work it out. So, it shows that there is a bit of an identity crisis within Labour.

We see today that Sir Keir is suggesting giving out peerages to solve the problem and, interestingly, inserting some of his own, his boys’ club, into those very seats from which he’s ejecting women. I have noticed that.

Labour wants to see a 'significant' cut in migration numbers, shadow home secretary says

Yvette Cooper is being questioned by Laura Kuenssberg on her BBC Sunday politics programme.

The shadow home secretary says that Labour is not setting a target for how many people should be allowed to come to the UK, as numbers vary from year to year depending on circumstances, but wants a “significant” change in net migration.

She said: “Also, because from one year to another, there are variations. So, for example, the pandemic means the net migration figures, of course, fell, but the homes for Ukraine visa rightly meant that the figures increased because of the war in Ukraine.”

Pushed for an estimation on how much Labour want to lower migration, Ms Cooper said:

We clearly want to see significant changes in place because we have seen the numbers treble. I know that you’re effectively trying to suggest I set a target or a broad target, I’m not going to do that. We are going to be clear, net migration must come down.

Echoing Labour leader Keir Starmer’s comments to the Sun on Sunday, she said: “We are going to be clear: net migration must come down.”

The shadow home secretary said sectors including social care and engineering need stronger recruitment, but refuses to be drawn on specific figures.

In terms of illegal migration, Cooper says Labour would not commit to the Rwanda scheme and instead focus on clearing the existing backlog for those who are waiting – often a lengthy amount of time – to have their claims processed.

Updated

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has said no party can “make those sorts of commitments” in response to allegations that veteran Labour MPs have been offered peerages to stand down at the election.

As we mentioned in the opening summary, The Sunday Times reported that several left-wing MPs claimed that since the 4 July general election date was announced, they have been told they would be raised to the House of Lords if they pass up their seats to allies of Keir Starmer.

Cooper told Sky News:

No party can do that, it’s not the way the system works. There’s a whole process with the independent committee that will vet nominations, there have to be processes in terms of the numbers of nominations, designated by the prime minister and so on. So, no party can do that or make those sorts of commitments.

Asked if Starmer had promised anyone a seat in the Lords, Cooper added:

That’s not the way the system works. The thing that we do know is we’ve seen a series of quite shocking Conservative resignation honours list from Boris Johnson to Liz Truss, and Keir has already said that he would change the way that he approaches all of those things.

Indeed, he’s said that he wouldn’t have a resignation honours list as well because it’s been so distorted by the way that the Conservatives have done that.

Updated

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper has said the government has “failed to fix our crumbling hospitals,” and that the party’s manifesto will feature a pledge to “reverse cuts to the Public Health Grant” for local authorities in an “invest to save” bid.

In a statement, the party pointed to research by The Health Foundation that found the Public Health Grant was cut 28% on a real-terms per person basis between 2015/16 and 2024.

According to the Liberal Democrats, £1bn of investment each year, paid for by a crackdown on tax evasion, would support communities’ ability to “improve their own health” and reduce NHS pressures.

PA Media reports the party described its pledge as the “second major pillar of the party’s plan to fix the health and care crisis, after proposals announced last week to boost GP numbers by 8,000 and give people the legal right to see a GP within seven days”.

Cooper said:

The Conservative party has decimated public health funding, leaving Britain with a ticking timebomb of health challenges. The public health crisis in our country has Rishi Sunak’s fingerprints all over it. He has slashed funding for vital local services that support children, failed to fix our crumbling hospitals and overseen a stark rise in health inequality.

Britain’s system of public appointments needs to be overhauled by an incoming government over alleged Tory cronyism that has seen dozens of former MPs, party supporters and donors given key public roles, campaigners have urged.

The public appointments system was reformed in the 1990s, but ministers still retain significant powers during the selection process. Experts say the current system in effect allows a party to “colonise” key parts of the state.

You can read the full story by my colleague, Jon Ungoed-Thomas, here:

Opening summary

Good morning and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the 2024 general election campaign.

Keir Starmer has pledged to cut levels of net migration to the UK if his party wins the general election, in another attempt by Labour to appeal to Conservative voters.

The Labour leader is putting the migration plan in his manifesto, and it will include passing laws to ban law-breaking employers from hiring foreign workers and to train more people from Britain.

Last year’s net migration figure of 685,000 has “got to come down,” he told The Sun on Sunday.

A Labour government would bar bosses who break employment law – for example by failing to pay workers the minimum wage – from hiring foreigners, the newspaper reported.

It would also legislate to link the immigration system to training, with businesses applying for foreign worker visas having to train Britons to do the jobs.

Starmer declined to name the target level for migrant numbers, or a timeline. We will give you all the reaction to the announcement throughout the day.

Health secretary Victoria Atkins, shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson and Green party of England and Wales co-leader Carla Denyer are among those doing the media round this morning.

Here are your other headlines:

  • The latest Opinium poll for the Observer on Sunday gives Labour a 20-point lead – the highest level it has recorded since Liz Truss was briefly running the country. Labour is on 45% – up four points on last weekend, while the Conservatives are down two points on 25%. Reform is up on one on 11%, the Lib Dems down two on 8%, and the Greens down one on 6%.

  • The Conservatives have said that 100 new GP surgeries and 50 community diagnostic centres would be built were they to remain in power, funded by slashing the number of NHS managers. They pledged to expand their Pharmacy First scheme, which allows patients to access some treatments via their pharmacy without having seen a GP first. Rishi Sunak said the proposals would make it “quicker, easier and more convenient for patients to receive the care they need and help to relieve pressure on hospital services”. The shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, said the public would not believe this “latest empty promise” as people are finding it harder than ever to see a GP.

  • A report in The Sunday Times that a number of left-wing MPs, including Diane Abbott, have been offered peerages in return for quitting. They have been told they would be elevated to the Lords if they made way for allies of the leadership team in their seats, according to the newspaper.

  • SNP leader John Swinney will formally launch the party’s general election campaign at a rally in Glasgow today.

  • The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, and the shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, will be in south west London at midday for a campaign visit focused on Labour’s proposed Growth and Skills Levy.

It is Yohannes Lowe here today. If you want to get my attention then please do email me on yohannes.lowe@theguardian.com. Comments on this blog will be open later given weekend staffing levels.

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