• NHS waiting lists rise to new record high as Sunak breaks pledge
• Fly-tipping “effectively legalised” as just one in 500 incidents lead to a prosecution

NHS waiting lists rise to new record high as Sunak breaks pledge

The number of people waiting for NHS treatment has risen to a new record high of 7.22 million, new figures reveal today, despite Rishi Sunak’s New Year pledge that “NHS waiting lists will fall”.

Three million people have been waiting longer than the Government’s target of 18 weeks, while 360,498 have been waiting more than a year.

The Liberal Democrats are calling for an NHS rescue plan to relieve the burden on hospitals and bring down waiting lists, including recruiting more GPs to guarantee patients an appointment within a week and raising the minimum wage for care workers to fill the vacancies in social care.

Responding to the figures, Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care Spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said:

Rishi Sunak’s NHS pledge is already turning out to be yet another broken Conservative promise.

The Conservatives are letting patients and their loved ones down badly, leaving far too many people waiting in pain for the treatment they need.

They have let the NHS crisis spiral out of control, failing to deliver the new hospitals they promised and making people wait months or even years for treatment.

We need an urgent rescue plan for the NHS. If patients could see their GP when they need to or get the care they need at home, it would free up hospital resources to treat people far more quickly.

Fly-tipping “effectively legalised” as just one in 500 incidents lead to a prosecution

• Fewer than 2,000 of the one million fly-tipping incidents last year led to someone being prosecuted

• Lib Dems call for Fly-tipping Fighting Fund through increased fines to end scourge of rubbish being dumped on Britain’s streets

The Liberal Democrats have warned that fly-tipping has been “effectively legalised”, after analysis revealed fewer than one in 500 incidents last year led to a prosecution.

The figures show England had over one million incidents of fly tipping in 2021-22, but just under 2,000 or 0.018% of these led to a prosecution.

London was the hardest hit region, with just 0.05% or one in 2,000 fly-tipping incidents leading to a prosecution. This was followed by the South West (0.09%), West Midlands (0.1%) and East Midlands (0.13%).

The figures also show only 1,798 fines were issued by courts for fly-tipping incidents last year, with a total value of £837,000. This amounts to an average of just 77p in fines being issued for every fly-tipping incident in the country.

Liberal Democrats are calling for the Conservative Government to crack down on illegal rubbish dumping, by increasing court fines and putting the money raised into a “Fly-tipping Fighting Fund” to give greater support to local authorities.

Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for the Environment, Tim Farron MP, said:

The fact that fly-tipping is going unpunished is simply appalling. If people aren’t being fined, it’s no wonder that they think they can dump their rubbish on the streets without consequence.

Brits do the right thing with their waste, but a badly behaved minority is spoiling our environment.

The lack of action on this issue from the Government sends out the message that they do not take it seriously enough. They have effectively legalised littering through their inaction.

The Lib Dems take more action against fly-tippers by increasing the cost of the fine and using the profits to crackdown on fly-tippers.

With local elections around the corner, communities must vote to clean up the mess that the current government has created.