Starmer says brother's school struggles ‘shaped my life'
The Prime Minister said his younger brother's story had 'shaped' his life as he welcomed Sir Lewis Hamilton to Downing Street for a roundtable discussion on supporting young people in education.
Nick Starmer, who had learning difficulties because of complications at birth, died aged 60 last year, after being diagnosed with cancer.
Sir Keir said he knew from his brother how much 'resilience and personal courage' was required to deal with struggles at school.
'(My brother) really struggled at school — and had difficulties learning, not because of a learning difficulty, but because then in his time he was pushed to one side and treated as someone who would never learn,' he said.
'He struggled a lot as a result of that. You might think someone who sits here as Prime Minister has no idea what it's like to struggle at school, but I know from my own brother what it was like, and how much resilience and personal courage he had to have.
The Prime Minister made the remarks during a roundtable discussion with a group of young people and charity leader and F1 driver Sir Lewis Hamilton (Bradley Collyer/PA)
'That shaped his life, and shaped my life as well'.
In discussion with a group of young people and the Formula One racing driver, whose Mission 44 charity aims to make the education system more inclusive, Sir Keir said he would keep them in 'our mind's eye' when formulating policy.
'As I said to some of you earlier, sometimes politics is about big decisions, policies, data analysis, and speeches,' he said.
'But, most of the time, it's about who do you have in your mind's eye when you make a decision?'
The Prime Minister added: 'I will take away the work that Lewis is doing. The importance of your discussions — whether in this advisory or elsewhere — so that we have got you in our mind's eye when we make decisions about what to do, so let's get on with it.'
As part of the talks, Sir Keir said the Government would develop a 'best practice framework' to 'help schools increase pupil engagement', Downing Street said.
The meeting came as the Department for Education expanded its free school meals programme to ensure all pupils in England whose families claim Universal Credit will be eligible for the scheme.
Campaigners and education leaders had argued the move was necessary to ease pressures on young people living in poverty.
Labour has also been facing pressure, including from within party ranks, to abolish the two-child benefit cap amid record highs in child poverty.
Sir Keir has indicated he is considering scrapping the limit amid the prospect of a backbench rebellion, but declined to give further details ahead of the publication of the Government's flagship child poverty strategy in the autumn.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
10 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Walking wounded told not to go to A&E as Labour plots £450m shake-up to end 'corridor care' in hospitals
The walking wounded will be told to avoid visiting A&E amid a major NHS shake-up revealed today which aims to divert them to a series of new urgent care centres. The Government has come up with the plan in an attempt to ensure hundreds of thousands fewer patients face long A&E waits in a bid to end 'corridor care'. Almost £450million will be put into creating better care and more facilities with an emphasis on caring for people closer to their homes, according to officials. Some 40 new same day emergency care and urgent treatment centres will also be established across England to treat and discharge patients the same day. The centres will deal with all but the most serious cases, with millions of patients urged to visit them instead of A&E to avoid unnecessary hospital admissions. Units located next to A&Es are likely to be within the network, focusing on patients with issues that are not life threatening who can be discharged the same day. Deteriorations in chronic illnesses and wound infections are among the issues that medics will be able to deal with at the new centres, reported The Telegraph. It is hoped the plan will result in 800,000 fewer patients each year waiting more than four hours at A&E and free up space for genuine emergencies to be dealt with. There are also proposals for 15 mental health crisis assessment centres, which are designed to ensure mentally ill people do not have to wait in A&E for hours for care. It comes after the NHS experienced a crisis over winter, with patients waiting hours for beds and regularly being treated in corridors - so-called corridor care. A&E waiting time targets have not been met for more than a decade, while the 18-minute target for category 2 ambulance calls - such as those suffering stroke, heart attack, sepsis or major trauma - has never been hit outside the pandemic. The new Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for England says more needs to be done to drive down long waits, cut delayed discharges and improve care for patients. An earlier version of the document said NHS trusts would need to show how, by this winter, systems will 'improve flow through hospitals, with a particular focus on patients waiting over 12 hours, and eliminate corridor care'. But the later version does not commit to a timescale for ending corridor care, instead saying systems must 'improve flow through hospitals, with a particular focus on reducing patients waiting over 12 hours and making progress on eliminating corridor care'. Ministers have also set an ambition for a minimum of 78 per cent of patients who attend A&E (up from the current 75 per cent) to be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours, meaning 'over 800,000 people a month will receive more timely care'. There will also be a focus on seeing more children, according to the Department of Health and NHS England. The Government wants to slash the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours for a hospital bed - or to be discharged from A&E - so this occurs 'less than 10 per cent of the time', according to the new document. Around 1.7million attendances at A&E every year currently exceed this time frame. Further measures in the plan are intended to drive down delayed discharges from hospital, which occur when people are medically fit to leave but care in their homes or community has not yet been put in place. Local performance targets will be set to improve patient discharge times, and 'eliminate internal discharge delays of more than 48 hours in all settings', the plan said. Experts said A&E 'league tables' will be published to drive up performance. Those patients who need an overnight emergency admission will also have their overall stay reduced where appropriate - the average is 'currently nearly a day longer than in 2019'. The plan further sets out how ambulance waiting times for category 2 patients will be cut by more than 14 per cent, from 35 to 30 minutes. A previous target of 18 minutes has been repeatedly missed. In the document, there is an aim to 'eradicate' last winter's lengthy ambulance handover delays by meeting a maximum 45-minute target for patients to be handed over to A&E. This should help 'get 550,000 more ambulances back on the road for patients', it says. According to the document, almost 500 new ambulances will also be rolled out across the country by March 2026. Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: 'No patient should ever be left waiting for hours in hospital corridors or for an ambulance which ought to arrive in minutes. 'We can't fix more than a decade of underinvestment and neglect overnight. 'But through the measures we're setting out today, we will deliver faster and more convenient care for patients in emergencies. 'Far too many patients are ending up in A&E who don't need or want to be there, because there isn't anywhere else available. 'Because patients can't get a GP appointment, which costs the NHS £40, they end up in A&E, which costs around £400 - worse for patients and more expensive for the taxpayer. 'The package of investment and reforms we are announcing today will help the NHS treat more patients in the community, so they don't end up stuck on trolleys in A&E.' Under the plans, paramedics will play a bigger role in the community, with patients given 'more effective treatment at the scene of an accident or in their own homes from ambulance crews'. More patients will also be seen by urgent community response teams in their own homes to try to avoid hospital admission. The NHS is also pledging better use of virtual wards, where patients are monitored by hospital staff from their home, and there are plans to drive up vaccination rates among NHS staff to help protect patients. Royal College of Emergency Medicine president Dr Adrian Boyle said: 'There is some good and some bad - but we wholeheartedly welcome the commitment to publish A&E performance data for each and every hospital and we thank NHS England and the Department of Health for heeding our recommendation. 'In this plan, for possibly the first time, NHS England acknowledges the shameful situation being experienced by patients and clinicians across the country's emergency departments - and that must be commended. 'However, some parts lack ambition - for example accepting that 10 per cent of people will face A&E waits of more than 12 hours, when no patient should. 'Also maintaining the four-hour standard at 78 per cent when the stated aim is that 95 per cent of patients should move through the emergency department within this time - something which hasn't happened for a decade.' He said there were also concerns about how the maximum 45-minute ambulance handover will be achieved 'without exposing patients to risk and increasing overcrowding in our departments'. Association of Ambulance Chief Executives managing director Anna Parry said: 'We are particularly heartened to see the plan's emphasis on the reduction and improved management of hospital handover delays. 'Handover delays have the greatest detrimental impact on ambulance resources and create unnecessary delays and additional harm for thousands of patients each year. 'The elimination of corridor care and the focus on reducing 12-hour waits at emergency departments is also welcomed.' The Liberal Democrats claimed the Government had listened to their calls to end corridor care, but called on ministers to follow through on their promises. Lib Dem health spokesperson Helen Morgan MP said: 'Patients have heard these kinds of promises before only to be led up the garden path. 'We can't bear any more of the shameful neglect and failed delivery that we saw for a decade under the Conservatives. 'It's good to see ministers finally listen to Liberal Democrat demands to end corridor care but the misery in our A&Es will only be prolonged if they continue to move at a snail's pace on social care. 'Until they grasp this nettle, millions are at risk of dangerously long waits in A&E. They must see sense and conclude their review into social care by the end of this year.'
Daily Mirror
31 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Mandatory ID cards on your phone being weighed up - what it would mean for you
Proposals for new 'BritCards' - which would prove whether someone has the right to live and work in the UK - are being looked at by ministers amid claims it will help tackle illegal migration Ministers are looking at plans to bring in mandatory digital ID cards for every adult in the UK. Backers say the new "BritCard" - which would be linked to Government records - would help tackle illegal migration and rogue landlords. A new report says the ID, which would be stored on smartphones, would make right-to-rent and right-to-work checks quicker and easier. Former PM Tony Blair has long called for ID cards, but the Government previously said it was not planning to bring them in. However a new report by think-tank Labour Together has been passed to No10's policy unit. Backbench MPs Jake Richards and Adam Jogee say the ID cards would be a "full, country-wide effort" allowing people to prove their right to be here. The think-tank said in a report that a "mandatory, universal, national identity credential" can help the UK secure its borders. BritCards would be issued free of charge to everyone with the right to live and work in the UK, Labour Together says. It estimates it would cost between £140million and £400million to set up. Mr Richards and Mr Jogee wrote that digital ID "will help improve the enforcement of our rules dramatically". They continued: "But it is also progressive because it gives our residents and citizens thecast iron guarantees they have not previously had. This is your have a right to be here. This will make your life easier." Supporters argue the move would help prevent a repeat of the Windrush scandal, which saw hundreds of people wrongly deported or threatened with deportation. Morgan Wild, Chief Policy Adviser at Labour Together said: 'The state makes everyone, whether they are a British citizen or not, prove their right to work or rent. "But we don't give everyone with the right to be here the ability to prove it. That leads to discrimination, unjust deportation and, as happened in the worst Windrush cases, dying in a country that is not your own. Through a national effort to provide everyone with proof of their right to be here, BritCard can stop that from ever happening again.' The think-tank's paper argues that BritCards should initially be rolled out for right-to-rent and right-to-work checks. It says this would support the Government's clampdown on irregular migration and those living in the UK illegally. Polling for Labour Together suggests around 80% of Brits support the idea for the specific purpose of tackling illegal migration. The paper says it will help tackle forgery and discrimination by landlords. Kirsty Innes, Director of Technology at Labour Together said: 'A progressive society can only work if we have meaningful borders. BritCard would make it far harder to flout the illegal work and illegal rent rules, and far easier to identify and punish exploitative illegal employers and landlords.' Introducing ID cards was a pet project of Tony Blair's. He tried to bring in compulsory identification documents when he was PM. Last year he said: "We need a plan to control immigration. If we don't have rules, we get prejudices. "In office, I believed the best solution was a system of identity so that we know precisely who has a right to be here. "With, again, technology, we should move as the world is moving to digital ID. If not, new border controls will have to be highly effective." But at the time Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: "It's not in our manifesto. That's not our approach."
North Wales Chronicle
an hour ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Llinos Medi MP presses Government on Gaza healthcare system
Ms Medi, of Plaid Cymru, has also signed a cross-party letter calling for an inquiry into the UK's involvement in Israel's military assault in Gaza. At Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday (June 4), Keir Starmer labelled matters in Gaza "appalling and intolerable", and reiterated calls for a ceasefire. Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, Ms Medi said: 'We can all see that a genocide is happening in Gaza. It is time the Government called this for what it is. 'We are witnessing the systematic dismantling of Gaza's healthcare system, with Israel recently destroying the only kidney dialysis facility in northern Gaza. 'What is the Government doing to prevent Gaza's healthcare system from being decimated further and to re-establish hospitals and lifesaving medical services?' In response to Ms Medi's comments, the minister for the Middle East, Hamish Falconer, said: 'While the blockade remains in place, there is very little that any outside partner can do to try and ensure proper health services in Gaza. 'I will not mislead the house by suggesting otherwise. 'The aid that has come in from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is far too little and far too geographically concentrated to be able to provide the kind of provision that Gazans are entitled to and that they should have, and is a clear necessity under International Humanitarian Law.'
