HEALTH Secretary Wes Streeting has said that Labour needs to take a tougher line on immigration after plans for possible visa restrictions on countries refusing to take back migrants were announced by the Home Secretary.
Speaking on GB News, Streeting said: “I think it reflects the Home Secretary’s determination to grip this problem and to secure our borders, and I’m afraid we do have to take a tougher line on this.
“We have seen a whole range of approaches taken by our predecessors that simply haven’t worked, haven’t been effective enough, and it’s led to people losing confidence in the immigration system.
“And when I say losing confidence, of course, we’ve had the high-profile issue of the boats. But also, people need to have confidence that the legal system, the visa system, is also working as well.
“Shabana Mahmood is as hard as nails, and whether it is tackling disorder and lawlessness on our streets or tackling the insecurity at our borders, you can expect a tough and effective approach from this Home Secretary.”
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On plans to re-introduce hospital league tables, he said: “There is nothing more demoralising than going to work, slogging your guts out, doing your best and going home at the end of a long shift thinking, ‘my best wasn’t good enough’, ultimately, because our hospital is poorly led, or we’re not given the right tools to do the job, and all of the other factors that can really impact on doctors, nurses and other NHS staff’s ability to give patients the experience that all of us would want for ourselves.
“So whenever I’ve talked about the challenges in the NHS, whether it’s patients, whether it’s NHS staff, I think people have just been grateful that someone’s come in and has actually firstly noticed and secondly, been prepared to be honest about it, and sometimes I’ll be making a rod for my own back.
“For example, we’re shortly going to be publishing the data for the first time on the number of patients being treated on trolleys in corridors. Now that’s not been published before, I think, largely to spare the political blushes of my predecessors, and to spare the blushes of NHS leaders.
“That approach isn’t the right one. I think sunlight is the best disinfectant. If we are measuring the problem, we can measure progress against the problem, and your viewers can hold me to account for results.”
