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Rishi Sunak's five promises: What progress has he made?
7 days ago
By Anthony Reuben,
BBC News
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PA Media Rishi Sunak next to a list of his prioritiesPA Media
On 4 January 2023, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak set out his five priorities.
"I fully expect you to hold my government and I to account on delivering those
goals," he said.
What progress has he made?
Rishi Sunak: Key pledge targets missed so far
Halving inflation
The government's top priority was halving inflation - the increase in prices over
time - by the end of 2023.
Inflation was at 10.7% in the three-month period between October and December 2022,
so the aim was to reduce inflation to 5.3% or lower in the last three months of
2023.
The government is using a measure called the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), which
tracks the price of a typical basket of goods.
The CPI for the last three months of 2023 was 4.2%, comfortably below half the rate
it was the year before - so the government has met this pledge.
Chart showing CPI inflation vs the government's pledge (December 23) Inflation fell
below the pledge in October.
Can government claim credit for fall in inflation?
What a falling inflation rate means for your finances
Growing the economy
The government has never publicly said what measure should be used to assess if it
had met the prime minister's pledge to "grow the economy", despite repeated
requests.
In some private briefings to journalists, sources said it would be if the economy
was bigger in the three-month period of October to December 2023 than in the
previous quarter (July-September).
That was not achieved - the economy shrank 0.3% in the last three months of the
year, sending it into recession.
Overall the economy grew by only 0.1% in the whole of 2023.
Growth in the economy is measured using GDP (or Gross Domestic Product), a measure
of all the activity of companies, governments and individuals.
On 28 March 2024, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt was asked if the government had failed in
its pledge to create growth. He said that the promise had been to halve inflation
but that the prime minister: "then said we would grow the economy. I don't think
any of us were expecting the economy to actually grow last year."
UK economy fell into recession at the end of 2023
What is a recession and how could it affect me?
Chart showing UK economic growth since the start of 2021. There has been almost no
growth in the last two years
The pledge to grow the economy was made more difficult by the government's promise
to halve inflation.
The Bank of England put up interest rates 14 times to stop prices rising so
quickly.
However, this also reduced spending, and slowed economic growth.
Reducing debt
When governments talk about reducing debt, it almost always mean as a proportion of
GDP.
The idea is that debt is coming down if it is growing more slowly than the economy.
In December, the statistics regulator criticised the prime minister for saying debt
was falling when it was actually rising, as BBC Verify also pointed out.
The latest figures for February showed that government debt stood at 97.1% of the
size of the economy.
That was 2.3 percentage points higher than February 2023 and, as the Office for
National Statistics pointed out, "remains at levels last seen in the early 1960s".
Chart showing debt as a proportion of GDP. In February 2024 it was 97.1%, which is
up 2.3 percentage points from the same month last year
But the government pledge was not about how much debt is now - it was that debt
would be forecast to come down in five years (2028-29).
In the Budget in March, Jeremy Hunt claimed to be on track to meet that pledge
because the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) predicted a fall in 2028-29.
But it is going to be tight and will involve challenging spending restraint for
some government departments.
When will we know? The next debt forecasts will be published at the next fiscal
event, probably in the autumn of 2024.
Fact-checking Treasury minister's claim on debt
Warning public debt could soar as population ages
How does government borrowing work?
Cutting NHS waiting lists
Mr Sunak said: "NHS waiting lists will fall and people will get the care they need
more quickly."
His pledge only refers to waiting lists in England, because Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland manage their own health systems.
The overall number of waits for non-emergency treatment in England was 7.5 million
in February. This was the sixth monthly fall in a row and about 200,000 down from
August, but about 600,000 higher than it was when Mr Sunak came to office.
Chart showing waiting list with data up to February 2024 - there were 7.5 million
waits for non-emergency care at the end of February.
The prime minister was asked in an interview on TalkTV on 5 February 2024 whether
his government had failed to achieve his pledge, Mr Sunak said: "Yes, we have."
He highlighted the level of NHS spending and said: "All these things mean the NHS
is doing more than it ever has but industrial action has had an impact."
Research by the Health Foundation think tank suggested that industrial action by
consultants and junior doctors had lengthened the waiting list by around 210,000.
When will we know?: Monthly waiting list figures are published about six weeks
after the end of each month.
Stopping small boats
The final priority was to "stop the boats" which bring people across the English
Channel, after 45,755 migrants crossed over from France that way in 2022.
The prime minister proposed to do this through new legislation.The government
finally passed its Illegal Migration Bill on 17 July, giving the home secretary a
legal duty to detain and remove anyone entering the UK illegally.
The plan included sending some asylum seekers to Rwanda but this was blocked by the
Supreme Court.
In response, the government signed a new treaty with Rwanda and proposed new UK
laws declaring that Rwanda is a safe country. The new legislation passed through
the House of Commons and moved to the House of Lords at the end of January 2024.
Rwanda Bill criticised by peers at first stage in House of Lords
Rwanda plan is fundamentally flawed, parliamentary report warns
Chart showing the number of people crossing the channel in small boats 2018-2024 (8
February 2024)
Mr Sunak has said that his plan to tackle small boat crossings is "starting to
work".
In the whole of 2023, 29,437 people were detected crossing the English Channel,
according to the Home Office, which is down more than a third from the previous
year.
In the first three months of 2024, 5,435 people crossed the English Channel - a new
record for arrivals between January and March.
Since then another 82 people made the crossing, bringing the total this year to
5,517.
When will we know? Figures on arrivals in small boats are collected daily.
How many people cross the Channel in small boats?
Why record numbers are suddenly being given asylum
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