I am astonished at Central Devon MP and Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride's audacity when he recently criticised the Labour Government's proposals 'Get Britain Working'.

He was reported as saying “It all begs the question, what were Labour doing before they came into government? Clearly, they were not doing much thinking about what they actually wanted to do.”

Labour has proposed a plan after five months in government whereas Mel Stride's own plan, which he announced late last year, came about after the Conservatives had been in government for over 13 years.

He claims that his plan would have taken 400,000 disabled people off long-term benefits, saving billions from the welfare bill. He does not mention the internal Department of Work and Pensions figures, released in a recent High Court case regarding the legality of the scheme's consultation process, which predicted that his proposals would throw 100,000 people into absolute poverty.

He mentions 'the worrying trend' of 'people falling out of the workplace due to health problems or disability'. In fact, the number of people inactive for health reasons was 2.8 million at the end of 2023 – a rise of more than 200,000 on the year and a jump of 700,000 since before the Covid pandemic.

Worryingly, Britain has gone from being the G7 country with the lowest levels of [economic] inactivity to the one where, uniquely, the workforce has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. Could it be that the reason for this is the dire state of the NHS? This is a health service starved of funds particularly from 2010-2020 when the average growth was only 1.5 per cent, whereas the average growth of the NHS since its inception has been 3.3 per cent and growth under the previous Labour government was 3.6 per cent. Relative to similar countries, this resulted in fewer doctors and nurses, the second worst life expectancy, higher than average fatality rates for heart attacks, below average survival rates for commonly occurring cancers, fewer CT and MRI scanners than the other countries, and the second lowest number of hospital beds.

This and the strikes by consultants, junior doctors, nurses and paramedics has resulted in a waiting list of 7.6 million people. Is it any wonder that with a waiting list of this size, 2.8 million people are 'inactive'? To paraphrase Mel Stride, surely all this begs the question what were the Conservatives doing when they were in government? Clearly, they were not doing much thinking about what they actually needed to do.