Streeting resigns as health secretary but stops short of launching leadership bid – UK politics live

Here is some more reaction from other parties to the resignation of Wes Streeting.

From Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader

Perhaps now we’ll get a health secretary who will take on social care, rather than dodge it because it’s hard. Who will end corridor care, not preside over its worst ever year. Labour needs to get a grip.

From Seamus Logan MP, the SNP’s health spokesperson

This isn’t government, this is chaos. The eventual resignation of Peter Mandelson’s right wing pal Wes Streeting is a sure sign that Keir Starmer’s Labour party is preparing to go from bad to worse.

In the middle of a cost of living emergency, the Labour party are openly telling people that their focus will be on fighting amongst themselves instead of fighting to cut people’s energy and fuel bills.

It is important to be clear what Labour politicians mean when they talk about a long leadership timetable – it is a timetable for this chaos to go on even longer.

From Liz Saville Roberts, the Plaid Cymru leader at Westminster

After much speculation and rumour, there goes another one of Starmer’s team. His power and authority as prime minister has been further weakened today, raising a serious question of when rather than if. And so the chaos continues.

This is from Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt on the anti-Streeting briefing coming out this afternoon from Keir Starmer’s supporters.

Breaking: Wes Streeting is unlikely to be on Keir Starmer’s Christmas card list for some time. This is what a Starmer ally has told me:

“Wes has failed the most basic rule of politics: he can’t count. He never had the numbers. We counted and counted and counted and recounted. The highest number we got for Wes was 44. We could not see how he could get higher than that.

We knew that, Wes will have known that. So all that stuff from Wes about how he is resigning in the party interest to allow a broad debate is a load of old guff. He never had the numbers.

So what does Wes do when he doesn’t have the number? He seeks to brief his way out of a difficult position.

So his closest ally resigns from the government. Then he briefs that the cabinet are turning on Keir. No they’re not. So the government goes on. We will appoint a new health secretary.

The sad thing is we have a good story to tell today. Good growth. But nobody is talking about that.”

Reform UK has lost control of Worcestershire county council, the BBC reports. Reform had been running a minority administration on the council since the elections last year. But the Reform group split as a result of in-fighting, and the council is now run by the Conservatives working with the Greens, the Lib Dems and independents.

Steven Morris is a Guardian correspondent covering the west of England.

There has been an unusual outbreak of harmony in Bristol – two political parties building bridges.

In what they say is a first for England, Helen Godwin, the Labour mayor of the West of England, unveiled Cllr Tony Dyer, the Green leader of Bristol city council, as deputy mayor.

Godwin’s people say this is the first appointment by a Labour leader of a Green politician as deputy mayor of any combined authority in England.

Godwin said the pair were united over issues such as improving transport, building new homes and creating new jobs.

Dyer said working together across political parties was the way to make sure the west of England fulfilled its potential.

Voters in Ilford North may be disappointed to learn that Wes Streeting has not launched a leadership challenge today. Helena Horton went to the constituency to find out what people have to say about their MP, and she discovered that they are rather fond of him.

In his statement accompanying the release of NHS England waiting times figures this morning (see 10.42am), Wes Streeting said the NHS had delivered “the biggest cut in waiting lists in a single month in 17 years”. In his resignation letter, Streeting qualified this, saying today’s figure was “the biggest monthly drop outside of Covid since 2008”. (See 1.26pm.)

The Press Association has done a fact check on this claim. It says the qualified version is correct. It explains:

The most recent NHS England data show the waiting list stood at 7.11 million treatments in March, a fall of 110,073 treatments from February when it was 7.22 million.

Analysis of historical data shows this was the largest month-on-month decline since April 2020 when the waiting list fell by 335,009 treatments, and is also lower than March 2020 when it fell by 187,378 treatments. Both of these instances were during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Outside of the pandemic, March 2026 recorded the largest fall since the waiting list shrunk from 2.63 million in September 2008 to 2.47 million in October 2008, which was a decrease of 158,745 treatments.

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, has claimed in a social media video that Wes Streeting’s resignation shows that Labour has now “descended into civil war”.

Nigel Farage bought a £1.4m property in cash shortly after receiving a £5m personal gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, Ben Quinn and Rowena Mason report.

Farage has also given an interview to the Sun’s Harry Cole. In the past Farage has always defended the £5m donation he received from Harborne on the grounds that it was a personal gift to pay for his security for the rest of his life. Speaking to Cole, Farage gave a slightly different explanation, describing it as a reward for his Brexit campaign.

When it was put to him that getting a £5m gift was unusual, Farage replied:

It’s very unusual for someone to give up 27 years of their life to campaign for something. And this was given to me on an unconditional basis, completely unconditional basis. But frankly, it was given as a reward for campaigning for Brexit for 27 years.

The Labour MP Alan Gemmell was also on the World at One. He is a leading Wes Streeting supporter, and he was interviewed on the programme in effect as a quasi spokesperson for the campaign.

He claimed Streeting did have the support of 81 Labour MPs (enough to launch a leadership challenge). He said:

[Streeting] has the support of the right number, of more than 81 MPs in the party.

But he’s taken a principled decision today not to trigger that contest … It’s clear in conversations with MPs and with the unions that the party wants a discussion, a battle of ideas, an open contest, a broad contest for the direction that we should take and how we fix the problems that we’re in.

On the same programme, Stephen Bush, the FT commentator, said that Streeting does have more than 80 Labour MPs who would like to see him become leader. But he pointed out that some of those are in government, and reluctant to start a process that could lead to them leaving their jobs.

To nominate Streeting in a leadership contest, a minister would have to disclose their name to the party, and would have to resign.

The former minister Catherine West kicked off the Labour leadership speculation when she announced on Saturday that, if no cabinet minister launched a challenge, she would try to stand as a candidate herself.

Since then she has rather changed her tune. On Monday she said she was not standing as a candidate, but was urging Labour MPs to back calls for a contest.

Today, in an interview on the World at One, West said that she would not rule out voting for Keir Starmer herself. She said:

What I would like to see is the honest conversation and people coming forward, including the prime minister if he is going to be a candidate in this particular race.

Because, of course, many of us like Keir very much as a person. He has got excellent credentials on the international stage and he could well win a competition if he put his name forward.

If Keir Starmer decides he has got the bottle and he can come and fight – fight as if he is fighting for the working people of this country – then he could beat the others, because he is a very bright man.

Here is some commentary on the Wes Streeting letter from political journalists.

From my colleague Jessica Elgot

This letter from Wes Streeting reads awfully like the beginnings of an Andy Burnham deal… “a battle of ideas, not of personalities or petty factionalism. It needs to be broad, and it needs the best possible field of candidates. I support that approach and I hope that you will facilitate this.”

From Robert Shrimsley at the FT

So this is quite a cute way out. He does the brave thing but positions it as a move for the whole party by a) delaying the collection of names (which he may not have) and b) saying the contest must wait for Andy.

From Joe Pike at the BBC

The Streeting strategy now seems to be getting his supporters to pile pressure on the PM to quit, and avoiding a vote of Labour MPs on whether to challenge Keir Starmer.

“We wait and see what Keir does”, says one senior ally of the former health secretary. “There’s still a chance Keir goes of his own accord and sets a timetable and ends this chaos.”

Supporters of Wes Streeting claim he has the 81 MPs needed to mount a leadership challenge. They also suggest more ministers could resign from government later today, although not necessarily at cabinet level.

From Alex Wickham at Bloomberg

One thing is clear: Wes Streeting has accepted he is unable to trigger a contest now. We know he originally wanted a ‘swift’ contest because that’s what his allies said in their statements. Now he’s backed down and called for an orderly transition. So it’s over to Andy Burnham.

From Adam Bienkov at Byline Times

Streeting’s letter and the language about wanting a “broad” contest suggests he’s opening the door to a deal with Burnham.

He surely knows he can’t win the contest outright himself (see today’s Labourlist polling) but could still position himself for a top job

From Charlie Cooper at Politico

Streeting will know his odds of winning any contest against soft left are low But his letter appears (skilfully) written with an eye on senior Cabinet job in any future Burnham/Rayner govt Opened door to wide contest. Sympathised with left’s concerns eg. immigration rhetoric

From Dan Hodges from the Mail on Sunday

People totally missing the point about Streeting’s letter. The issue of whether he has the numbers is no longer relevant. All that matters now is all the main candidates, the bulk of the PLP, 2/3rds of the cabinet and the Trade Unions all agree Starmer has to set out a timetable for his departure leading up to September. That’s broken the logjam.

This is from Jonathan Brash, the Labour MP for Hartlepool, on Wes Streeting’s letter. Brash was one of the MPs calling for Keir Starmer to quit even before the May elections.

The call for a broad contest with the best possible field of candidates is absolutely right from @wesstreeting. The Prime Minister should now do the right thing for the country and set a timetable.

Wes Streeting’s letter today makes it a lot less likely that there will a Labour leadership contest soon with Keir Starmer as a candidate. Streeting seems to be working on the assumption that at some point in the future there will be a contest that won’t feature Starmer. (See 1.26pm.)

So polling by LabourList published a bit earlier may be less relevant than it was this morning. But it is still quite interesting. It is a poll of Labour members and it suggests, in a head-to-head contest, Starmer would lose to Andy Burnham (easily) and would lose to Angela Rayner or Ed Miliband (by a narrow margin), but would beat all other potential candidates (including Streeting) quite easily.

One problem with polling like this is that Labour leadership contests normally don’t boil down to a head-to-head between two candidates. It is more likely that members would choose between several candidates and, as Jessica Elgot points out, the preferential voting system used might help Starmer because he would be lots of people’s second choice.

The Green party has issued this statement in response to Wes Streeting’s resignation. A Green spokesperson said:

If Labour thinks Wes Streeting is the answer, they obviously don’t know the question the country is asking.

Last week’s elections show the country is crying out for a break from the failed status quo. Keir Starmer has been unable and unwilling to break with an economic model that has fuelled the affordability crisis, and this is why we have said he must go.

Wes Streeting would be more of the same, but even worse, a factional and divisive politician, a close ally of Peter Mandelson, who favours an economy even more tilted to the wealthy, and whose record as health secretary is more privatisation and more personal donations from private healthcare.

This reads like a statement drafted in anticipation of Streeting launching a leadership challenge which nobody could be bothered to re-write after it emerged that he’s not doing that (at least today – see 1.32pm.) What we’ve learned this afternoon is that Labour doesn’t think Streeting is the answer; if they did, he would have the MP backer numbers and would be launching a leadership bid.

Here is more on what Wes Streeting says in his resignation letter on his record as health secretary. He says:

The only question that matters in government is whether we leave our successors a better situation than we inherited. Ambulance response times for heart attacks and strokes are now the fastest in five years. A&E waiting times are improving, with four-hour waiting figures also the best in five years. We’ve recruited 2,000 more GPs and satisfaction has risen from 60 per cent to 74.5 per cent since we came to office. We hit our target of recruiting 8,500 mental health staff three years early. We’ve achieved this at the same as balancing the books for the first time in nine years and smashing the 2 per cent NHS productivity target by achieving 2.8 per cent, which means the investment we’re putting in goes further and that the public can have greater confidence that their money is being well-spent.

None of this would have been achieved without the brilliant leadership team of ministers, officials, and special advisers we have established in the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS – superbly led by Samantha Jones and Sir Jim Mackey, who has been a knight in shining armour and a brilliant leader of 1.5 million staff upon whom all this success depends.

The National Health Service is the embodiment of all that is best about Britain and our values. Thanks to our Labour government, it is on the road to recovery: lots done, but so much more to do.

Here are the key points from Wes Streeting’s resignation letter. And “resignation letter” is crucial; overshadowing the news that he has quit cabinet is the second revelation in the letter – that he is not launching a leadership bid, at least now. This will be seen as confirmation that he does not have the 80 MP backers he would need to force a contest.

• Streeting says he is resigning because he wants Labour to have a leadership contest with “the best possible field of candidates”. This implies that he wants Andy Burnham to be allowed to stand as a candidate, and that he does not favour an immediate contest. He does not suggest a timetable for when he would like to see a contest happen, but the implication is ‘not now, but reasonably soon, after Burnham has had the chance to fight a byelection’. He tells Keir Starmer:

It is now clear that you will not lead the Labour party into the next general election and that Labour MPs and Labour unions want the debate about what comes next to be a battle of ideas, not of personalities or petty factionalism. [See 9.45am.] It needs to be broad, and it needs the best possible field of candidates. I support that approach and I hope that you will facilitate this.

Serving as your secretary of state for health and social care has been the greatest joy of my life and, regardless of our differences this week, I remain truly grateful to you for the opportunity to serve and I am deeply saddened to be leaving government in this way.

• He accuses Starmer of failing to offer proper leadership, and of being at least in part responsible for the scale of Labour losses in the elections last week. He says:

There is no doubt that the unpopularity of this government was a major and common factor in our defeats across England, Scotland and Wales. Good Labour people lost through no fault of their own. There are many reasons we could point to: from individual mistakes on policy like the decision to cut the winter fuel allowance to the ‘island of strangers’ speech, all of which have left the country not knowing who we are or what we really stand for.

You have many great strengths that I admire. You led our party to a victory few thought possible in 2024 and I was proud to fight alongside you in the trenches of that campaign. You have shown courage and statesmanship on the world stage – not least in keeping Britain out of the war in Iran.

But where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift. This was underscored by your speech on Monday. Leaders take responsibility, but too often that has meant other people falling on their swords. You also need to listen to your colleagues, including backbenchers, and the heavy-handed approach to dissenting voices diminishes our politics.

These are all good reasons for me to remain in post, but as you know from our conversation earlier this week, having lost confidence in your leadership, I have concluded that it would be dishonourable and unprincipled to do so.

• He says the Labour defeats were unprecedented, and that the prospect of Reform UK winning the next election is “a threat to the values and ideals that have made this country great”. He says:

Last week’s election results were unprecedented – both in terms of the scale of the defeat and the consequences of that failure. For the first time in our country’s history, nationalists are in power in every corner of the United Kingdom – including a dangerous English nationalism represented by Nigel Farage and Reform UK. This represents both an existential threat to the future integrity of the United Kingdom, but Reform UK also represent a threat to the values and ideals that have made this country great. Progressives across our country understand this threat and our responsibility to confront it, but they are increasingly losing faith that the Labour party is capable of rising to our historic responsibility of defeating racism and offering hope that Britain’s best days lie ahead through social democracy.

As a member of your government, I know better than most that governing is hard. It should be, because it matters. There are enormous challenges facing this country. For the first time in our history the next generation faces a worse inheritance than the last. We have wars raging in Europe and the Middle East that are making our challenges harder, not easier. We are in the foothills of a technological industrial revolution that has huge implications for every aspect of our lives – not least the future of work. It is not clear whether democracy or tyranny will define the 21st century. After the financial crisis, austerity, the disaster of Brexit, Liz Truss, the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine and now the war in Iran, the country needs to believe again that things can be better than this and that politics is part of the answer, not the source of the problem. These are big challenges that require a bold vision and bigger solutions than we are offering.

I’ve delivered against the ambitious targets you set for me when I became your secretary of state for health and social care. Today’s figures confirm that we surpassed our waiting times target despite strikes, and that waiting lists fell by 110,000 in March – the biggest monthly drop outside of Covid since 2008 – meaning that we are on track to achieve the fastest improvement in NHS waiting times in history.

Wes Streeting has resigned.

Here is Heather Stewart’s explainer on the HMRC investigation into Angela Rayner’s stamp duty error.

It is worth clarifying the HMRC finding about Angela Rayner’s stamp duty error; her mistake was in the least serious category.

HMRC has three categories of error: errors made despite taking reasonable care; careless errors; and deliberate errors. (Within deliberate errors, there are two categories: deliberate and concealed; deliberate but not concealed.)

Rayner’s mistake was in the “despite taking reasonable care” category.

Speaking to ITV about the HMRC ruling, she said:

They’ve said that there wasn’t any wrongdoing and that I didn’t try to avoid paying tax or I wasn’t careless in the way in which I conducted myself at the time when I was in government.

HMRC says:

Where the error was made despite taking reasonable care, and is adjusted under the error correction regime in the return for the period of discovery, we treat the person as having taken reasonable steps to inform us of the inaccuracy and no penalty will be due.