Former health secretary Sajid Javid has warned that the NHS “won’t survive many more years” without “fundamental reforms”, urging the country to have an “honest debate” about the service.
In his only broadcast interview since announcing he would stand down at the next general election, the MP told the Beth Rigby Interviews programme that tackling the NHS was his unfinished business in politics.
And he admitted the Conservatives faced a “tough” battle to stay in power at the general election, adding: “The odds are stacked against us.”
Mr Javid ran the Department of Health between June 2021 and July 2022, having replaced Matt Hancock after his resignation for breaking COVID guidance.
But he quit himself over the summer, having lost confidence in the then-prime minister Boris Johnson – leading to a wave of resignations that ultimately resulted in the leader’s downfall.
Speaking to Beth Rigby, Mr Javid said he would have “liked to have more time” as health secretary to look at the reforms he believes it so desperately needs.
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“I don’t think the model of the NHS as it was set up some 70 years ago is sustainable for the future,” he said.
“You know that the world has changed and the NHS has not moved on with that.”
The ex-minister said “a starting point” for reform would be to look at the universal health care systems in other large European countries.
He added: “If you speak to any German you might know or French person, Italian, they have good health care systems that were also challenged by the pandemic, but they seem to all be doing better than we are.
“They are mostly funded by the taxpayer but they also have some different models.”
Mr Javid would not go as far to say he backed a particular model, like health insurance or those who can paying more for their care, but he welcomed “having that kind of discussion, because we need to have this honest debate as a country”.
“The moment a politician of any party says something that is obviously correct about the NHS and the challenges it faces, someone else will just jump down their throat and turn it into something else, you know, turn into the big negative,” he added.
“We all want the NHS to be there. I rely on the NHS, my family, all our loved ones, your loved ones, your viewers.
“The pressures are so immense, and the pandemic has made it doubly so, that if we as a country, if we neglect this debate now, I am afraid in my opinion after the experience I’ve had I don’t think the NHS will survive many more years on what it says on paper it has to deliver unless we start making fundamental reforms.”
‘Odds are stacked against us’
In a wide-ranging interview, the former cabinet minister also reflected on how recent political turmoil had hurt the Conservatives.
He said external issues like the war in Ukraine and the pandemic would be challenging for any government to come through.
But he also pointed to the revelations over COVID lockdown parties in Number 10, saying: “The rules were broken in Downing Street and people didn’t like that, and rightly they didn’t like that, and it hurt Boris Johnson in particular but it hurt the government at the time”.
“If you look at the current polling it is obvious the odds are stacked against us,” added Mr Javid. ” I think anyone would admit that, it looks tough.”
However, despite not initially backing Rishi Sunak to replace Mr Johnson – instead getting behind Liz Truss – he said Mr Sunak offered the Tories the best chance at the ballot box.
“We’ve got a fantastic prime minister in place that really gets it, is one of the smartest people, one of the most capable I have ever come across,” said Mr Javid.
“We’ve now come out with the right result and amongst all Conservative MPs we have the best possible leader we could have right now.
“[At the next election] it will be a choice between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, and I think when the country is presented with that choice, people will come to the conclusion that Rishi Sunak is the right person to take us forward.”
‘Truss wasn’t up to the job’
So why did he back Ms Truss first time round?
The former chancellor said he wanted to see tax cuts, but claimed “what she actually did and how she did it were very different” to what he expected.
“I think it was obvious right from the start really she wasn’t going to be up to the job,” he said.
“The biggest challenge was the economy and if you look back… in the run up to that mini-budget the sort of fighting that was going on behind the scenes with the Bank of England I think was completely wrong.”
Mr Javid also said it was “completely wrong” to sideline the Office for Budget Responsibility when it came to her economic plans, and to fire the permanent secretary to the Treasury as soon as she took office.
“This was the gentleman, Sir Tom Scholar, who had been serving the government for three decades,” he added.
“He was my permanent secretary, he is one of the best civil servants we have in this country, and I think just treating someone like that in that way was unacceptable.
“And that is before the mini-budget and then it just got worse and worse at that point. So I think it is something that was a very bad period for our country.”
But the MP said: “I don’t think that that period, that six-week period, is going to cost us the election.”
‘A personal toll’
Asked about why he was standing down at the next election, Mr Javid told Beth Rigby “there comes a time for everyone to move on”.
But, he added: “It feels like in the last decade that politics has been on some kind of fast forward, one crises after another, one international challenge after another.
“Politicians, I think cross-party, are trying their best in that but it does take a personal toll on you as well, as me as an individual, but of course also on my family.”
Watch Beth Rigby Interviews with Sajid Javid at 9pm tonight on Sky News.
Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.
Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.
After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.
Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.
The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.
Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.
“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.
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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.
“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”
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Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”
The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.
This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.
Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.
Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.
A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.
Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.
He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”
“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.
Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.
The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).
A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.
The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.
Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.
US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.
Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.
It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.
In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.
Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.
“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”
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He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”
Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.
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General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.
Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”
Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.
NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.
Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.
EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’
Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.
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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?
Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.
At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.