Thousands of jobs to be cut after Keir Starmer announces NHS England will be abolished to "cut bureaucracy" and bring management of the health service "back into democratic control"
Speaking in Hull, the prime minister says the state is "overstretched" and "unfocused"
The move partially reverses a Conservative-led reorganisation of the health service in 2012, which created NHS England, which to handle its day-to-day running
But the government says NHS England has "burdensome layers of bureaucracy without any clear lines of accountability"
Shadow Health Minister Caroline Johnson has asked if Labour is up to the task of finding NHS savings given its "failure" to run the health service in Wales
It's hardly surprising ministers want more direct control of the NHS, given its importance to voters, our political correspondent Henry Zeffman writes
Chris Mason on why scrapping NHS England matters
Starmer now says the country is not strong "if you lose control of your public finances".
He says he will be focusing on "national renewal".
The PM says the government is already delivering on priorities including NHS waiting lists, which he says have come down for five months in a row.
Image source, PA MediaStarmer continues speaking about Ukraine and talks for a ceasefire.
He describes this insecurity as a "chokehold on our future".
Starmer says this is why his government raised defence spending, adding that the task of politics is to "take tough decision".
Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent
It’s striking that the prime minister is beginning what was billed as a speech on civil service reform with a passage about the war in Ukraine – trying to make the argument that all the work he has been doing on the international stage has a domestic effect.
Expect much more of this over the coming weeks and months.
In Downing Street, they know that whatever good reviews Starmer might be getting for his international leadership, that is no substitute for domestic delivery.
So expect those two words which he has already used several times – “security” and “renewal” – to recur again and again in the prime minister’s public appearances, but also with more emphasis on what he sees as the links between the two.
Starmer continues to reference the pledge Labour made during the election campaign last year of "change".
He explains that wasn't just an offer to the British people, but a statement about the "world we now live in".
He references the situation in Ukraine, and the global instability that "hasn't been there for years" and which is developing before our eyes.
Without a "just" and "lasting" peace in Ukraine the insecurity will continue, he says.
Keir Starmer thanks everyone in the room, and mentions the history of the Hull-based business he's speaking from today.
And, he says he'll be announcing today how the government is playing its part in advancing science technology.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer is now up and has just started delivering a speech on reforms to the civil service and the way the government works.
We'll be bringing his latest lines here - press watch live above to follow along.
Simply put, the civil service serves the government in implementing and carrying out its policies.
It is politically impartial, and doesn’t include elected officials like politicians, or public sector jobs such as teachers, social workers and police officers. Civil servants - employees of the state - are hired just like any other job but are accountable to the public as their work is funded by the taxpayer.
Examples of day-to-day roles can involve analysing policy options, for instance by checking the maths and helping outline the most cost-effective choices, or offering frontline support to people using public services.
Over the past decade, their number in the UK has steadily risen. The Institute for Government (IfG) think tank in 2024 calculated the headcount to stand at 515,085 - for comparison, civil servants numbered 384,000 in 2016.
Chris Mason
Political editor
Image source, Getty ImagesIt is a comparison neither would likely welcome, but look closely and the arguments of Sir Keir Starmer and former Conservative PM Liz Truss about why government doesn't work well enough are remarkably similar.
Perhaps the person the prime minister has to thank the most for his whopping majority has been making the case he is now making for a while.
Their language and emphases may be different, but the diagnosis is the same.
Starmer says the state has become "overcautious" and "flabby", external and government has become bigger, but weaker. By weaker, he means a growing inability to make stuff happen and a big reason for that, he reckons, is the proliferation of arm's length bodies.
There has been a growing sense in Downing Street, as the PM and his team have adjusted to life in government, that organisations dreamt up as a wheeze by previous governments so they don't get blamed for this or that all too often now stand in the way of a minister being able to do what they want.
Today, Starmer's speech is both a symptom of his early frustration at the capacity of government to get stuff done - and an acknowledgement of the urgency to do just that.
In the piece he’s written for the Daily Telegraph, Starmer says he believes in “the power of the state”, and he “simply want(s) it to work”.
“In such uncertain times, people want a state that will take care of the big questions, not a bigger state that asks more from them,” he writes.
The prime minister argues that although the civil service has grown in the last years, “frontline services have not improved”.
He pledges to equip civil servants for the “challenges of the modern era”, bringing them “closer to communities”, and freeing them from bureaucracy to “provide the right incentives for success”.
The PM also highlights the government’s ambition to “harness the power of AI to make every department more innovative and efficient”.
Almost 60% of day-to-day government spending is channelled through quangos, with 90% of this going to the largest 10 bodies.
The total budget for quangos in 2022/23 - the latest published figures - was £353.3bn.
Campaign groups like the TaxPayers' Alliance, which supports cuts in taxes and spending, have long criticised quangos, claiming they allow ministers to dodge responsibility for mistakes and can be inefficient and costly.
The Institute for Government think tank says in some cases scrapping public bodies can save money and improve how services are delivered.
But it argues abolitions also cost money and time in the short term, with services disrupted when powers are transferred.
Asked earlier this week about cuts to quangos, Downing Street said the PM wanted to see a more “active and agile state”, rather than “outsourcing” decisions to other bodies.
Image source, PA MediaPart of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s announcement today is expected to include a plan to reduce the role of Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisations – also known as quangos.
These are funded by taxpayers but not directly controlled by central government, and include regulators, cultural institutions and advisory bodies. The government also calls them “arm’s length bodies”.
They range from huge organisations like NHS England to smaller bodies like the Gambling Commission and the British Film Institute.
Their number has fallen by more than half since 2010 but there are still more than 300 across the UK.
Under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition nearly 300 were axed - dubbed the "bonfire of the quangos" - in an attempt to improve accountability and cut costs.
Despite Starmer indicating he would also like to reduce the role of quangos, the new Labour government has set up more than 20.
These include Great British Energy, which will invest in renewable energy to help meet the government's clean power goals.
Adam Goldsmith
Live reporter
Image source, Getty ImagesPrime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will promise to slash red tape this morning when he announces major reforms to the way the government works.
In an “era of global instability”, he will vow to modernise the civil service; its work has become obstructed by functioning in an “overcautious flabby state”, he says in a piece for the Daily Telegraph.
This will mean cutting regulation, for instance by encouraging ministers not to refer decisions to “quangos” - we’ll explain what these are as we wait for Starmer to appear.
Also key to the PM’s proposed revolution of the state will be an increasingly prominent role played by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Starmer announced an AI Opportunities Action Plan in January - he’s likely to follow up on this today by describing how AI teams will be sent into public sector departments to make services more efficient.
We’re unsure at this point exactly what this might mean for civil servants’ jobs - and whether any might be cut as a result - though Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden vowed reforms would be “radical” when he spoke to Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday.
The PM’s speech should begin in the next half hour. In the meantime, we’ll bring you up to speed with some background on the civil service, as well as reaction and analysis to Starmer’s plans.