Jeremy Corbyn accuses Keir Starmer of ‘betraying’ NHS with massive expansion of private sector
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Exclusive: Former Labour leader hits out, accusing prime minister of ‘broken pledges’ on the two-child benefit cap, winter fuel and ‘selling off’ the health service. Jeremy Corbyn has accused Keir Starmer of “betraying” the health service with a much greater role for private sector, which he warns will hollow out the NHS.
![[Health Secretary Wes Streeting has defended the use of the private sector to bring down waiting lists (Jonathan Brady/PA)]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/07/13/4c72f5a89b732a378caa3b65345bfe1aY29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzM2MzQxMzMz-2.78618786.jpg)
In one of his first major interventions on an issue outside of the crisis in the Middle East, the former Labour leader also accused Sir Keir of “abandoning” working class voters with a series of broken pledges, in an article for The Independent. It comes after the Labour leader announced on Monday that private hospitals will provide up to a million extra appointments, scans and operations a year as the government scrambles to cut sky-high waiting lists.
The move is a significant expansion of the independent sector’s role in tackling long delays that have built up in part because of the Covid pandemic. Under the plans, unveiled by the prime minister in a major speech, private operators will receive an extra £2.5bn a year, as ministers try to hit a target that no patients will have to wait longer than 18 weeks by 2029.
But Mr Corbyn, who is now an independent MP, said that with greater privatisation the Labour government was “repeating the mistakes of the last” when Tony Blair’s administration also controversially made use of the private sector. Expanding its role “hollows out a service that is meant to guarantee a comprehensive service for all”, Mr Corbyn writes.
