UK politics – live: Starmer to address Musk attacks in key NHS speech after billionaire turns on Farage

The PM has promised to cut waiting lists by shifting treatment away from centres and “deliver more care in people’s communities and their homes”.

Sir Keir Starmer promised to open more community diagnostic centres, open 12 hours a day seven days a week – something he said would avoid an extra 800,000 referrals each year.

“We will shift treatment away from centres and deliver more care in people’s communities and their homes”, he said.

“If you need a scan or an X-ray, you get it done much more quickly and at your convenience.”

This is the year that we roll up our sleeves and reform the NHS, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

“A new era of convenience in care, faster treatment at your fingertips, patients in control – an NHS fit for the future,” the prime minister said.

Sir Keir Starmer has outlined of the consequences of avoiding NHS reform, warning that working people “cannot be expected to subsidise current levels of care with ever growing taxes”.

“The NHS can’t become the sort of national money pit”, the PM told NHS workers and journalists at a speech in Surrey.

“Productivity can’t bump along 11 per cent lower than it was before the pandemic. Working people can’t be expected to subsidise the current levels of care with ever-rising taxes. That is the price of ducking reform – and I won’t stand for it.”

2025 is about rebuilding Britain, and rebuilding the NHS is the cornerstone of that aim, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

“That’s why I wanted to come here to make this speech this morning,” he said.

Vowing to protect the principle of free care at the point of use, and treatment according to need, the prime minister continued: “But to catapult the service into the future, we need an NHS that is reformed from top to bottom.

“Millions of extra appointments, signed sealed and delivered with the plan that we are launching here today. National renewal in action. People have long said we couldn’t do this … this sort of wallowing in a fatalism about the potential of this country … this plan we are launching today is a comprehensive rebuttal of that mindset.

“An NHS that treats patients more quickly. That is closer to their lives. That gives them the level of convenience that they take for granted in nearly every other service they use every day.”

Sir Keir Starmer has begun his speech on action to cut NHS waiting lists by thanking workers in the health service.

“This year of course is the 80th anniversary of VE and VJ day, and on the 8 May and 15 August we will all come together to celebrate the greatest victory of this country and the greatest generation that achieved it.

“And we intend to do them proud. But what that generation knew, what they realised and understood, is that the strength and prosperity of our nation rests on the security of working people. And that the fundamental job of government is to deliver that security.”

There is no institution more important for the security of the UK than the NHS, he said.

Elon Musk has made it clear that he is ready for attacks from Keir Starmer and on Sunday night warned his social media followers to be ready for a “cringeworthy” response from the prime minister.

Shortly before the speech was due to start he also appeared to suggest that the Trump administration should try to actively remove the Starmer government posting an inflamatory poll question on X: “America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government” – yes or no.

He quickly followed it up by claims that Donald Trump had saved civilisation.

Musk posted: “Had this election not been won by @realDonaldTrump, civilization would be lost.”

Health minister Karin Smyth has insisted that decisions on the future of social care need political consensus.

Asked why proposals for the long-term funding and major reform of social care in England may not be delivered until 2028, Ms Smyth told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “As we’ve been very clear, we need a political consensus around this now.

“There has to be a consensus about implementing though … the reason they’ve all failed is because they have been torpedoed by both parties.

“We still need to make sure that people are wanting to see the changes that will be needed, and Louise Casey is someone with great experience about making sure that happens.

“We’re not starting from scratch – all of those reviews and that work will form the basis of her work – but we do need to have a consensus across parties, across the country, for the scale of what’s needed.

“Families are living in misery with social care. It’s not just hospitals that are struggling with trying to discharge people – this is a miserable situation. Millions of people are trying to look after elderly and disabled people, and we have to get this right.”

In a surprise development, Elon Musk has suggested that Reform MP Rupert Lowe should replace Nigel Farage as the party’s leader.

Mr Lowe is one of the fledgling party’s five MPs, having won in Great Yarmouth in the July election.

A bsuinessman and former Reform MEP, Mr Lowe was chair of Southampton Football Club from 1996 to 2006, and then again from 2008 to 2009, when the company was placed into administration.

He previously came under fire for comments made during a 2020 European Parliament debate in which the former City trader said it was disappointing that climate change had been blamed as the primary cause of devastating bushfires in Australia, attacking what he called “the cult of climate change”.

And following the general election, he was criticised by education unions after stating that he had a list of schools in his constituency where he claimed teachers “were allegedly pushing their own aggressive personal views about Reform on young children”.

After suggesting on Sunday that Mr Farage “does not have what it takes” as Reform leader, Mr Musk was asked whether he thought Mr Lowe should replace him, saying: “I have not met Rupert Lowe, but his statements online that I have read so far make a lot of sense.”

Andy Burnham has said he would support a new national inquiry into grooming gangs if the government launched one after pressure from Elon Musk.

The Greater Manchester mayor pointed to an ongoing review into the scandal in Manchester which he launched after being elected in 2017.

“Nobody has turned away, we have faced up directly to the failings and, as a result of the review… there have been arrests, charges and convictions,” Mr Burnham said.

But, with the Conservatives, Reform UK and the Tesla tycoon all piling pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to launch a national inquiry into grooming gangs, Mr Burnham told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I wouldn’t stand against a further national review if that was deemed necessary.”

Critics of recent calls for a new national inquiry have said there already has already been one, conducted by Professor Alexis Jay, with none of the 2022 recommendations having been implemented.

Archie Mitchell and David Maddox have more details in this report:

Health minister Karin Smyth vowed that the government will meet the target of getting 92 per cent of people waiting for pre-planned care seen within 18 weeks.

Asked on ITV’s Good Morning Britain whether the target will be met, she replied: “We will. It’s an ambitious target, and that’s why the Prime Minister has made sure that we will all be working to deliver that. That’s our commitment to the British people.

“We know that those six million people waiting for those seven-and-a-half million appointments is one of the biggest issues facing people. It’s the biggest issue to come out of the election, and that’s why we’re able to secure that extra funding in the Budget.

“That’s why we’re announcing this plan today to have both more capacity through these surgical hubs and these diagnostic centres, so that people can have tests more quickly, but also, crucially, to improve the technology in the NHS app, so that those 30 million people (who have) already got the app use it much more.

“And that hospitals in particular make sure that they are giving information to people about where they are on that list. And we’re also looking at if there are quicker ways to get seen (and) more information to people about what they can do, perhaps when they’re on those lists.

“So it’s a really ambitious delivery plan, because, as you rightly say, we will be judged – we have said that we will commit to getting these waiting lists down to 18 weeks.”