Justin Madders MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, responding to the Care Quality Commission’s decision to suspend routine inspections because of winter pressures, said:

“Another day, another example of Tory failure to suitably prepare our NHS for the predictable winter spike in demand. This incredibly serious decision must act as a wakeup call to a Government which remains in denial over the worst winter crisis on record.

“Gaining a full picture of winter pressures is critically important and the CQC’s decision leaves a serious deficit of quality regulation.

“Coming off the back of the cancellation of 55,000 elective operations, Ministers must now back Labour’s call for immediate additional funding to stabilise this appalling winter crisis.”

Keir Starmer MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, responding to the Government’s recent amendments to the EU withdrawal bill, said:

“This is a deeply flawed and damaging piece of legislation. The Government’s piecemeal changes are woefully inadequate meaning once again nothing has changed.

“There is nothing to address the fundamental concerns that MPs across Parliament have about watering down workers’ and environmental rights, the extreme scope of Henry VIII powers and the disregard of the devolution settlement.

“The bill in its current form would also block any sensible transitional deal with the European Union, and it contradicts the policy laid out in the Prime Minister’s Florence Speech.

"Theresa May must rethink her approach or face legitimate opposition from Labour and some of her own MPs.”

Ends

Dawn Butler MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, responding to Toby Young’s resignation, said:

“The Toby Young saga has further exposed Theresa May’s total lack of judgement in appointing him and her weakness in refusing to sack him. She should have removed him from his post, not personally backed him at the weekend and sent a minister out to defend him in Parliament yesterday.”

Jon Trickett MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, responding to Theresa May’s reshuffle today, said:

“With the NHS in crisis, working people worse off and Brexit preparations in turmoil, Theresa May is leading a failing Government.

“By simply rearranging the deckchairs in her reshuffle, Theresa May has shown that her floundering Government is out of fresh ideas. It takes more than re-naming departments to erase seven years of failure.

“What the country desperately needs is a new approach. With Jeremy Corbyn, that’s what Labour offers: a new Britain, run in the interests of the many, not the few.”

Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, commenting on the loss of a further 250 jobs at Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port plant, said

‘’When PSA Group took over Vauxhall last year the Government promised it would do the utmost to protect workers, but since then a third of jobs at Ellesmere Port have been cut.

“The Tories are failing to give businesses and workers the security they need to navigate Brexit, which has been demonstrated again in today’s EEF report on manufacturer’s expectations for 2018.  

“The Government must set out how it will support the plant and urgently provide certainty for the sector as a whole after Brexit.’’