Hospital waiting list in England at record high despite progress on clearing backlog of longest waits – UK politics live

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Philp says changing rules on how police record crimes should free up 443,000 officer hours per year

Chris Philp, the policing minister, has published an article in the Telegraph today explaining the changes being introduced to the way that police record crimes in England and Wales. The changes are being introduced following recommendations from the National Police Chiefs’ Council.

Philp says:

Firstly, we are dropping the requirement for police to record some crimes twice or more, reintroducing the previous “principal offence” rule. This will remove multiple entries on the database which effectively re-record the same incident many times.

Accurate crime recording is vital, and these changes will better reflect victims’ experience. Recording crime does not equate to investigating crime and the police will continue to pursue all offences involved in the incident.

We are also ensuring police do not waste time on trivial reports of people offended by a rude text message or social media post, or recording public disturbances that have already been dealt with, such as a neighbourly dispute which has been resolved by the time the police arrive at the scene. Creating hurt feelings or offence should not generally be treated as a criminal matter, except in very specific and limited circumstances.

The rules are also being changed to make it easier for officers to cancel the recording of a crime if there is sufficient evidence none was committed.

Philp says the changes will “not come at a cost to standards or transparency”. He says:

Accurate records of crime must be kept, and crimes will be recorded. These changes to the crime-recording rules will enable police to target and focus investigations and provide victims the service they deserve.

In its news release on the changes, the Home Office says they will free up 443,000 hours of police time that would otherwise have been spent filling in forms, and that this is the “equivalent of attendance at 220,000 domestic abuse incidents, 270,000 burglaries, or almost 740,000 antisocial behaviour incidents”.

Hospital waiting list for England reaches record 7.22m, but 18-month waits down 35%, figures show

The number of people in England waiting to start hospital treatment has risen to a new high, though times for the longest waits are continuing to improve, PA Media reports.

PA says:

Ambulance response times for all types of emergencies have got longer, including for life-threatening illnesses and injuries, but remain below record levels.

Meanwhile around one in 10 people arriving at major A&E departments are having to wait more than 12 hours before being admitted, transferred or discharged – the first time data of this kind has been published.

An estimated 7.22 million people were waiting to start routine hospital treatment at the end of February, up slightly from 7.21 million in January and the highest total since records began in 2007, according to figures from NHS England.

The number waiting more than a year-and-a-half for treatment has dropped from 45,631 to 29,778, a month-on-month fall of 35%, in fresh evidence that progress is being made on clearing the backlog of longest waits.

The government and NHS England have set the ambition of eliminating all waits of more than 18 months by April 2023, excluding exceptionally complex cases or patients who choose to wait longer.

Waits of more than 52 weeks are down from 379,245 in January to 362,498 in February, with a target for eliminating them completely by March 2025.

Around one in 10 (10.6%) arrivals at hospitals with major A&E departments in February had to wait more than 12 hours before being admitted, discharged or transferred – the equivalent of 125,505 people.

It is the first time data has been published for waits of over 12 hours from the point of arrival, which is one of the commitments agreed by NHS England with the government as part of the recovery plan for urgent and emergency care services.

Until now, figures have been available only for the number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E from a decision to admit to actually being admitted.

This figure stood at 39,671 in March, up 13% from 34,976 in February but below the record 54,532 in December 2022.

The number of people waiting at least four hours from the decision to admit to admission has also risen, from 126,948 in February to 144,292 in March, up 14%.

Joe Biden confuses All Blacks with Black and Tans during Ireland trip

The White House has corrected a gaffe by Joe Biden that confused New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby team with the British military force known as the Black and Tans that terrorised Ireland, Rory Carroll and Lisa O’Carroll report.

Joe Biden will set out a “shared vision” for the future US-Irish relationship when he addresses the Irish parliament, PA Media reports.

PA says:

The visit by the US president to the island of Ireland continues today, and he will address both houses of the Oireachtas as part of a series of engagements.

Biden, who the White House said had the “time of his life” as he toured County Louth on Wednesday, is also visiting the Irish president, Michael D Higgins, at his official residence in Phoenix Park, and having a meeting with the Irish premier, Leo Varadkar, at nearby Farmleigh House.

At Farmleigh, the president will be invited to watch a sports demonstration by young gaelic games players.

The US national security council senior director Amanda Sloat told reporters Biden would have a “good discussion” with Higgins and the taoiseach about Northern Ireland.

She said Biden’s address to TDs (MPs) and senators will refer to areas of close partnership between both countries and “setting out a shared vision for the future”.

A worker vacuuming the red carpet ahead of the arrival of Joe Biden at the official residence of the Irish president in Dublin. Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP

UK economy flatlined in February amid impact of strikes

Britain’s economy recorded growth of 0.0% in February as a wave of public sector strikes weighed on activity, offsetting a recovery in consumer spending despite the cost of living crisis, Richard Partington reports.

Lord Sumption, a former supreme court justice, has said it will be “very difficult” for the Scottish government to win its legal case against the UK government’s decision to block its gender recognition reform bill.

In an interview with the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland, Sumption said:

Section 35 [of the Scotland Act] empowers the UK government to stop a Scottish bill becoming law if it modifies the law relating to a matter reserved to Westminster in a way that adversely affects how the law works.

One of those matters is equal opportunities, and what the UK government says is the Scottish bill modifies the law relating to equal opportunities in a way that adversely affects how it works.

Sumption claimed the bill, which would simplify the process for applying for a gender recognition certificate in Scotland, could create “serious problems” because, if it became law, it could lead to some people having “a different legal gender in different parts of the UK”.

He said Lord Hope, a former deputy president of the supreme court, had described the Scottish government’s legal case against the UK government as “hopeless and a waste of public money”.

Sumption went on:

I wouldn’t go that far. I think that the Scottish government’s legal position is arguable, but I think it is weak.

Their basic problem is that gender reassignment is a protected characteristic and the bill alters the way the law works as applied to those.

The whole scheme of the Scotland Act is that matters that affect only Scotland are devolved to Scotland, matters that affect the whole of the UK remain in the jurisdiction of Westminster. That is the way the Scotland Act works.

The UK government is arguing that this is something that affects the way that UK-wide legislation works.

UK accused of ‘backward step’ for axing top climate diplomat role

The UK government has axed its most senior climate diplomat post, Damian Carrington reports.

Home Office to announce changes by end of May to make it easier to sack rogue police officers, Philp says

Chris Philp, the policing minister, said that by the end of next month the Home Office will announce changes that will make it easier for police officers accused of misconduct to be sacked.

Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has complained that under current rules he cannot sack officers even when they have broken the law. The current rules were “crazy”, he said in January, and called for change.

Philp said this morning that he and the home secretary, Suella Braverman, would get a report with recommendations within the next two weeks and that “our intention is to make some announcements, certainly before the end of May, in relation to that”. On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme he went on:

So I think we’re acting quickly on that issue and I’m very sympathetic to the points Sir Mark Rowley has raised … to lead an organisation you need to have the capacity to remove people who work for you who have committed misconduct, or who are simply not performing, or in the case of police who have failed a re-vetting process.

I think it is a reasonable request and we’re working on it extremely quickly.

Policing minister Chris Philp says he's 'deeply concerned' about extent of mobile phone theft

Chris Philp, the policing minister, has been giving interviews this morning, and he told LBC he was “deeply concerned” about figures showing one mobile phone is reported stolen in London every six minutes. He said:

I’m concerned, deeply concerned, by those figures as a Londoner. As you say, it probably applies in other cities as well. That’s precisely why we’re recruiting all these extra police officers locally, so once they’re all through their training, being able to protect the streets to prevent these crimes in the first place and then follow up afterwards.

Asked whether he thought police follow-ups now are sufficient, Philp replied: “I think there’s more we can do, to be absolutely honest.”

Philp was speaking before a speech he will give later in which he will announce changes to the way the police have to record crime. He told LBC the changes would free up almost 500,000 police hours per year.

Rayner defends 'hard-hitting' anti-Sunak attack ad - but claims she did not retweet it herself because she was on holiday

Good morning. If the success of an advertising campaign is judged by how long people keep talking about it, then Labour’s attack ad against Rishi Sunak claiming falsely that he does not believe adults convicted of sexually assaulting children should go to prison has been a triumph. It was released a week ago, but it is still being talked about by the media, and Labour politicians are still being asked to defend it. Angela Rayner, the deputy leader, is the latest, being asked about it on her interview round this morning.

On Sky News Kay Burley asked Rayner, an enthusiastic user of social media who has never been shy when it comes to saying harsh things about the Tories, why she had not retweeted the ad. Many members of the shadow cabinet haven’t – almost certainly because they realise the central claim is not true (although the ad also contains perfectly valid criticism of sentencing policy under the Tories).

Rayner defended the overall tone of the advertising campaign (the sexual assault sentencing one was just the first of several the party has put out in the past week, some of which have also contained generalised, false claims about Sunak not being in favour of punishment). She told Burley:

I think they’re really hard-hitting, and I think there’s a reason why. It has caught the public’s attention, and that’s what our intention was – to ensure the public do see that the prime minister, and the Conservatives for the last 13 years, have failed to tackle serious crime and have let criminals off the hook. I make no apologies for that. I’m somebody who’s known to not hold my punches. I think that this is an issue that most people will be disgusted by. And I think it’s right that we’ve highlighted that.

But when pressed why she had not retweeted the adverts, Rayner said she was away with her children on holiday last week “and not necessarily on my social media as much as I normally would be”.

Burley put it to Rayner that she has not retweeted the ads because she was “holding your nose because you think they are going a bit far”. Rayner replied: “Not at all.” They were “hard-hitting ads about the government’s failure on crime”, and Labour was right to highlight that, she said.

Yesterday, George Grylls from the Times pointed out that the Labour ad has only run on Twitter, the social media platform most used by journalists. On Facebook, which is a much more important platform for actual voters, other ads are running.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: NHS England publishes its latest monthly performance figures.

11am: Chris Philp, the policing minister, gives a speech to the Law Society on reducing burdens on police time.

1pm: Rishi Sunak gives a live, online interview to Paul Goodman, editor of the ConservativeHome website, who will also be posing questions from the website’s readers.

3.45pm: Joe Biden, the US president, gives a speech to both houses of the Irish parliament.

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