We won't pretend we can fix things straight away with just tax and spend, writes shadow health secretary WES STREETING

One in every five people you walk past on the street are waiting for NHS care. Millions with injuries and illness that are holding them back from living their lives to the full.

They are also being held back from contributing to the economy. A record three million people are out of work due to ill-health.

They are manual workers in their fifties, quitting their jobs because they can’t stand the pain. Young people still bearing the scars of lockdown, without any mental health support to get back on their feet and start their careers. That three million list doesn’t count the middle-aged people forced to quit their jobs to look after their parents, because there is no alternative available.

Our sick society is holding back Britain’s prosperity. It is a major cause of our country’s economic malaise under the Conservatives. You can’t create wealth without health.

Today, Labour’s manifesto will make growth the priority for the next Labour government. Key to that mission will be our plan to cut NHS waiting lists to get Britain back to work.

It’s a plan for investment and reform. We will deliver an extra 40,000 appointments, scans and operations every week at evenings and weekends. According to the Health Service Journal, doing so could ‘comfortably’ clear the backlog of patients waiting more than 18 weeks for treatment over the next five years. That will mean millions off waiting lists, back to work, and helping get growth back to Britain.

The plan will cost £1billion, paid for by clamping down on tax dodgers – money which will go directly into the pockets of NHS staff. But the cure to the NHS’s ills can’t just be to pour more money in – we will change the way the NHS works. We’ve taken the idea from Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital, where staff developed weekend clinics that work like Formula One pit stops, allowing them to do a week’s worth of procedures in one day. Half of NHS operating theatres lie empty on weekends – Labour will put them to use.

Every other plan for investment in Labour’s manifesto will come alongside reform. This is a reforming manifesto.

We know now why Rishi Sunak called the election when he did. It wasn’t just to avoid giving the Rwanda gimmick time to fail. The growth figures out yesterday revealed that, far from turning a corner, the economy is flatlining. There’s no slack in the public finances. Nor in the taxes people can afford to pay: we have the highest tax burden in 70 years, working people are already being squeezed until the pips squeak, they cannot afford to pay anymore.

In the past, the Labour Party would have stuck its fingers in its ears, pretended that we will be able to wave a Labour magic wand and fix everything straight away, simply by taxing and spending more.

We recognise it will take time to get the country and the public finances out of the mess they are in, and the only route out is growth. This manifesto demonstrates just how fundamentally Keir Starmer has changed the Labour Party.

On health, Labour is committing to use the private sector to cut waiting lists, to reform the health service, and to partner with pharmaceutical companies to develop the medicines of the future. That’s the reforming message of every chapter.

Rachel Reeves has made clear that everything the next Labour government does must be built on the rock of economic stability. She’s a former Bank of England economist who will never spend money that isn’t there. Every line of our manifesto had to pass two tests. First, can we deliver it? And second, can the country afford it? If the answer to either of those questions is no, then it hasn’t made it in.

We have made tough choices about what to prioritise in our public services – NHS waiting times, teachers in our schools, police on our streets, and a new Border Security Command to protect our borders. There are lots of worthy, important things I want to do as shadow health and social care secretary, but we can’t afford to do straight away.

It is because we have made tough choices that Mail readers can trust that the promises we make are promises we can keep. Labour is offering the country change, and it’s change you can believe in.