Naming and shaming GPs who don't offer enough face-to-face appointments will give power back to the patient, Sajid Javid has said.
The Health Secretary defended the Government's decision to publish league tables for family doctors, saying providing "more data, more transparency" would help drive up standards at GP practices across the country, while the additional ￡250 million would provide support for GP practices.
"It is important that patients have this information because I want to see a levelling up of healthcare throughout the country. We do need to understand what the differences are in healthcare provision throughout the country," he told Sky News.
"This whole package today is about support. This is all about helping GPs so that they can do what they do best, which is seeing their patients," he said.
Challenged about the name and shame plans, he insisted: "I believe in choice - patients want to see their GPs and the vast majority of GPs say if you can help us increase capacity, that is what they want too."
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The number of people in England waiting to start routine hospital treatment has risen to a new record high.
A total of 5.7 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of August 2021, according to figures from NHS England. This is the highest number since records began in August 2007.
The number of people having to wait more than 52 weeks to start treatment stood at 292,138 in August 2021, down slightly from 293,102 in the previous month, but more than double the number waiting a year earlier, in August 2020, which was 111,026.
Nearly 370,000 patients in England had been waiting more than six weeks for a key diagnostic test.
It comes as Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, vows to name and shame GPs who do not offer sufficient face-to-face appointments.
One in six people are working from home because they cannot buy enough fuel for their daily commute, new research suggests.
A survey of almost 450 workers by HR firm Randstad found one in six said they cannot get to work unless they can use public transport, cycle or walk.
Around one in 20 also said they had gone to their office to avoid racking up a hefty gas bill at home amid rising heating costs.
Maros Sefcovic has called on the UK Government to "do the homework, which is long overdue" if its proposals for resolving border controls issues are to work.
In an article for the Belfast Telegraph Lord Frost's opposite number at the European Commission insists Brussels has listened to their concerns, but stressed that the role of the ECJ has no impact on the people of Northern Ireland's daily life.
"To put it plainly: the protocol has no impact whatsoever on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. This is made clear in the very first article of the protocol," he writes.
"For our proposals to work, however, the UK Government will have to do the homework which is long overdue – for instance, to ensure that permanent border control posts are up and running and that our officials have real-time access to the relevant UK databases."
A solution is possible but "not a given", Mr Sefcovic adds. "Effort will be required. But my attitude is: Let’s make it happen."
The first major report into the UK’s early Covid-19 response is 144 pages long, but according to Telegraph columnists and hosts of the weekly Planet Normal podcast, Allison Pearson and Liam Halligan, it contains very little balance.
“There is this striking failure to weigh up any of the disadvantages of lockdown,” Pearson tells this week’s podcast, which you can listen to using the audio player above. “It's a complete given that this was what we should have done, but we should have done it earlier.”
The report is part of a movement that “accuses the Government always and everywhere of not locking down soon enough”, rather than carrying out a cost-benefit analysis of locking down, according to Halligan. “And there will be more people screaming for lockdowns going forward,” he warns.
Listen to the podcast in full above
Emily Thornberry has called for "a bit of grown-up politics" in ongoing Brexit negotiations, as France gears up to new retaliatory measures over the Jersey fishing row.
Asked about further potential supply problems, stemming from disagreements over fishing licences, she told LBC: "We need to take the heat out of this and we need to make sure we are actually talking to each other and not shouting at each other across the Channel.
"All this talk of vetoes and blockades and wars and everything else is completely inappropriate; we need a bit of grown-up politics and a bit of pragmatism.
"Stop the dogma, sort out some realistic answers to these problems."
Britain could compromise over the European Court of Justice's role in Northern Ireland after Lord Frost suggested he would enter negotiations with Brussels without "red lines".
Last night Government sources acknowledged the EU had "clearly" gone further than the UK had expected, with the two sides now expected to enter into intensive talks imminently.
"We were taken by surprise by the amount that the EU has moved," one Whitehall insider told The Telegraph. "We genuinely weren’t expecting movement of that sort."
They added the threat of the UK triggering Article 16 - enabling it to suspend parts of the protocol - would now be put off while the negotiations played out through to November.
"We are quite far away now from Article 16. It's still to play for."
Read more here.
Shadow international trade secretary Emily Thornberry said it is "shameful" for the UK to start playing "fast and loose" with other countries in regard to international law.
The Labour MP sighed comments made by former Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings about the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement were put to her.
She told Sky News: "I think we step down as a country, we don't have the same international reputation, if our word isn't our bond.
"I think it's appalling that people would even think of representing our country as signing up to an agreement knowing that they weren't going to implement it - I think it's appalling."
Sajid Javid has defended his calls for more emphasis to be put on economic needs during the pandemic as a backbench MP.
The Health Secretary, who has apologised for " the loss that people have suffered and how they have been affected", told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he was not "in a position yet to go back and look at every decision that was made and how we can for that."
Asked if he thought he had been wrong to prioritise the economy, the former chancellor said: "No, I don't, based on the information that I have had and also from what I know. .. I was out of government when a lot of those crucial decisions were made. I was a humble backbencher."
Mr Javid admitted he has yet to read the report of the Commons Science and Health Committees into the pandemic in full.
"It is one report and I welcome the report. I haven't had the opportunity to study every word of the report. I will study it properly this weekend," he said.
Sajid Javid has signalled a willingness for the UK Government to consider a long-term approach to removing oversight of the ECJ from the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The Health Secretary welcomed the restart of talks following Maros Sefcovic's presser last night, saying it was "important these discussions continue to see if sensible changes can be made".
Asked if the ECJ was a deal breaker, Javid again echoed comments by Dowden yesterday - stopping short of describing it as a red line. But he also implied it was something that could take place over a period of time - paving the way for a Swiss-style system to be brought in.
He said: "Looking forward there should not be a role for ECJ in any part of the UK - that includes Northern Ireland."
A Labour frontbencher has said there are "all kinds of holes" within the Brexit deal that must be grappled with after the Northern Ireland Protocol has been resolved.
Emily Thornberry, the shadow international trade secretary, told Sky News: "I'm glad to see that attempts are being made to make it more workable and I want to see that on both sides.
"I think once we have sorted out the issue of Northern Ireland, then there are all kinds of issues with our trade with the rest of Europe, all kinds of holes within the agreement."
She added: "I acknowledge that they are doing a good job in terms of continuing to negotiate. Let's make sure that they do actually agree something so they patch the holes in the agreement that they signed that wasn't really fit for purpose in the first place."
The Government's plan to name and shame GPs who don't offer enough face-to-face appointments will drive "even more doctors away", the Liberal Democrats have said.
Munira Wilson, the health and social care spokesperson, said: "These changes are a sticking plaster which won't address the GP shortage crisis that is leaving patients struggling to get appointments.
"The Conservatives have already missed their own targets to recruit and train more GPs. Now they are coming up with plans to name and shame GPs, which risks driving even more doctors away from the profession.
"The government should focus on meeting their own target of hiring 6,000 more GPs, instead of attempting to shift the blame onto doctors for their own failings."
Mark Drakeford has criticised Lord Frost for making "hardlined speeches" about Brexit.
Following a meeting with Joao Vale de Almeida, the EU ambassador to the United Kingdom, Mr Drakeford said announcements by the Union show "practical attempts to deal with the problems" that have occurred at the Irish border.
The First Minister of Wales told Sky News: "I don't think it's helpful when UK ministers make hardlined speeches drawing red lines criticising the deal that they themselves had signed.
"So from a Welsh point of view, what we've always asked for is for people to be around the table, for people to be pragmatic, for people to be looking for where they can agree, rather than constantly setting out red lines about where they are not prepared to agree."
Sajid Javid has called on the Mayor of London to reconsider his decision to cancel the capital's NYE fireworks for the second year in a row.
Yesterday City Hall said it has been axed this year due to "uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic".
However, a spokesman for Sadiq Khan promised the New Year celebrations in the capital will still be "spectacular".
This morning the Health Secretary told LBC: "I can't understand why that can't happen. It's a mayor's decision and I hope he can reconsider it... I see no reason why it can't happen safely."
Comments made by Dominic Cummings, the former chief adviser to the Prime Minister, "real damage" to the UK's reputation, the First Minister of Wales has said.
Mark Drakeford told Sky News: "A country that behaves in that way will never find partners in the rest of the world prepared to do serious business with them.
"When the UK puts its name to a treaty with other parts of the world, then it's absolutely incumbent on us to act in good faith with that agreement.
"The deep cynicism of the sort that you heard from Mr Cummings does real damage to the reputation of the United Kingdom and our ability in a post-Brexit world to strike agreements with countries elsewhere."
The First Minister of Wales has said he is "frankly baffled" by the comments the UK Government has made regarding the Northern Ireland Protocol and Brexit.
Mark Drakeford told Sky News: "It's a very important issue for Wales because our ports face the island of Ireland and trade through our ports is significantly down following Brexit.
"I am frankly baffled by some of the things we hear from the UK Government. The deal is the deal that they themselves signed up to.
"It is their deal, yet so often we hear UK Government ministers talk as though the deal was entirely somebody else's responsibility."
Sajid Javid has said he is "sorry" for the losses and suffering which have occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Fellow Cabinet minister Steve Barclay refused multiple times to apologise after a damning report was published on Monday.
However the Health Secretary today told BBC Breakfast: "Of course I'm sorry.
"Obviously I am new in the role but on behalf of the Government I am sorry for, during the pandemic, anyone that suffered, especially anyone that lost a loved one, a mother, a dad, a brother, a sister, a friend. Of course I am sorry for that.
"Also all those people that may not have lost someone but they are still suffering - there are many people sadly suffering from long Covid, we still don't know the impact of that. Of course I am."
Claudia Webbe, the former Labour MP, has been warned she faces a possible prison sentence after being convicted of harassment over a series of threatening phone calls she made to a former girlfriend of her partner.
Webbe, who now sits as an independent for Leicester East, was found guilty of the charge after a court heard how she had threatened Michelle Merritt with acid and told her she would send naked pictures of her to her daughters.
The MP, who received character references from Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, and fellow MP Dianne Abbott, had claimed her phone calls had merely been intended to warn Ms Merritt not to break Covid rules by meeting her boyfriend during lockdown.
However, Paul Goldspring, the chief magistrate, rejected her defence and warned her she faced a possible prison term when she is sentenced on November 4.
He said: “I do not find the defendant to be cogent, compelling and truthful in all aspects of her evidence... In short, I find Ms Webbe to be vague, incoherent and at times illogical, and ultimately I find her to be untruthful.”
The EU has gone to the limits of what it can do to resolve the problems of post-Brexit trade in Northern Ireland, the bloc's ambassador to the UK has said.
Although previously Maros Sefcovic has said it was not a "take it or leave it" offer, Joao Vale de Almeida told BBC's Newsnight Brussels cannot go beyond what it has put on the table.
"Today we went to the limits of what we can do to address the problems of Northern Ireland because we care for Northern Ireland. These problems were caused by Brexit," he said.
"There is no single market without the European Court of Justice. It's the referee of the Single Market," he said.
There will be a "good amount of Christmas presents available" this year despite supply chain issues, Rishi Sunak has said after a key meeting in Washington to deal with the issue.
The Chancellor sought to reassure Britons as people begin to think about shopping for Christmas, saying despite the challenges he was "confident there will be good provision of goods for everybody".
Mr Sunak chaired a meeting of finance ministers yesterday as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank convene in the US capital.
Hesaid: "Supply chain issues are being felt globally - and finance leaders from around the globe must collaborate to address our shared challenges.
"Today we have collectively agreed to work closely over the coming months - and together we will build a strong and resilient recovery."
Brussels negotiators have travelled to London promising to bend and break their own rules with new proposals to cool tensions over the implementation of Northern Ireland Protocol.
The talks, due to start on Thursday, could end months of post-Brexit bickering between the bloc and the British Government.
The four key ways the EU plans to reform the Protocol, which officials insist go "far beyond tinkering at the edges", include changes to customs, sanitary requirements, medicines and democratic oversight.
The Government has today launched a new plan to 'name and shame' GPs who don't offer sufficient face-to-face appointments.
But are ministers right to target doctors after months of dealing with a pandemic? Sajid Javid this morning has praised those who have worked throughout the last 18 months - but will it wash?
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