MP's frustration at Labour for launching consultations and reviews

A minister says she understands criticism of Labour for launching a blizzard of consultations and reviews since it came to power 152 days ago.

Jess Phillips admitted she feels frustrated because she wants to ‘crack on’ with implementing policies.

But she insisted the new Government could not simply ‘kneejerk into things’ without gathering evidence beforehand.

Ms Phillips, who is a parliamentary under-secretary, was put on the spot yesterday after the Mail revealed the huge number of ‘talking shops’ set up by Labour since it took power in July. At least 67 reviews, consultations and taskforces have already been launched – on everything from the future of Britain’s armed forces to taxes on milkshakes.

Many others, including crucial reforms to get people off sickness benefits, will not even begin work until next year.

Asked yesterday by LBC radio if so many reviews were needed, Home Office minister Ms Phillips said: ‘We’ve come into government after 14 years of Conservative [government], and what I don’t want to do is just say, oh well, this is absolutely the solution.’ She said the new policy she was announcing – giving victims the right to know the identity of the person stalking them – had been based on two years of work by police watchdogs.

‘What I don’t want to do is just knee-jerk into things without the proper evidence because that’s what the country has lived through for the last 14 years, and what it has led to is it a failure in our public services.’

She added: ‘I’m a doer though, I do love to crack on with things, so I get the criticism.’

Told Labour could have developed its policies during 14 years in opposition, Ms Phillips replied: ‘To change something nationally, for the entire country has a million moving parts that have to be put into place. It’s very easy to think simple solutions can just be done overnight, and I get it, I feel as frustrated as others. But actually, there is a huge number of moving parts to things, we live complicated lives.’

Criticism of Labour’s reviews and taskforces is growing as Sir Keir Starmer prepares to announce new targets for the Government in what is being seen as a relaunch of his premiership after less than half a year.

A former Whitehall mandarin said it suggested Labour was not as prepared as it should have been for government. Former Cabinet Secretary Lord O’Donnell told LBC: ‘I think we’re to make of the fact that they may well not have been as prepared as they should have been, let’s be perfectly honest... They’ve been out of power a long time, this happens with new governments.

‘It’s hard to get these things going really quickly... the good thing is recognising it’s not working, there are things that are going wrong, and let’s make it better.’

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart said: ‘This litany of reviews shows Labour has no plan. Rather begs the question of what they’ve been doing for 14 years. Britain deserves better than this clueless can-kicking Government.’