Keir Starmer must cut NHS waiting times and reform welfare to improve sluggish economy

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Keir Starmer will be judged as Prime Minister on whether he gets the UK’s sluggish economy motoring.

Creating the conditions for growth and incentivising businesses to hire more people is essential to his agenda. Another critical aspect, particularly post-Brexit, is ensuring workers are able to fill the opportunities firms will offer.

The UK’s record in equipping its citizens to compete in the global economy is a national disgrace. A scandalous legacy of the last Tory Government is over nine million people economically inactive across the UK.

Nearly three million folk are out of work due to long term sickness. The aim of Starmer’s welfare policies is to ensure social security is a bridge to work for people who can take a job, rather than a trap.

It is about instituting a system based on rights and responsibilities. The rights come with the Government recognising the duty of Ministers to provide those out of work with training or employment opportunities.

But with rights come obligations and Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall’s new system is a two-way street. If young people on benefits are offered paid work or training, the opportunities must be seized or sanctions will be applied.

The complication of a benefit system that is part-reserved, part-devolved Holyrood shows the need for cross-Border cooperation. Starmer has been aqccused of lacking a Blair-style narrative about the UK’s future – a criticism not without merit.

Reforming welfare and slashing NHS waiting times would be huge steps towards turning round the economy and securing a second term.

Get to bottom of fat cat payoffs

Glasgow City Council is so strapped for cash it is in the process of axing hundreds of teaching posts.

The local authority is also frequently on the receiving end of angry complaints from residents over the poor condition of roads and pavements. And yet a handful of senior council officials have still managed to secure early retirement deals worth six figures.

Council leaders have now called in a top lawyer to examine the legality of the payoffs and the decision-making involved in awarding them. None of the senior council officials involved was on a low wage. These were well-remunerated individuals facing a comfortable retirement.

The size of the pay-outs will deepen suspicion among some residents that the council is too busy looking after itself at the expense of the city itself. Full transparency is needed to get to the bottom of why exactly these pay-offs were agreed to in the first place.

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