Rishi Sunak faces uphill battle in achieving his five pledges

Six months after the Prime Minister asked the electorate to judge him on his aims, he risks failure in all of them.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak unveiled his five pledges half a year ago (Yui Mok/PA) (PA Wire)

Nearly half a year after Rishi Sunak set out five pledges he said would address “the people’s priorities”, the Prime Minister’s ability to achieve them looks in doubt.

Tuesday will mark six months since he invited the public to judge him on his targets – to halve inflation this year, cut NHS waiting lists, get national debt falling, grow the economy, and “stop the boats”.

With a general election due by January 2025, Mr Sunak faces an uphill battle to keep his promises to the electorate and turn around his party’s polling slump.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said “these are rightly ambitious targets” that were “never going to be easy”.

“It will be for the public to judge at the appropriate time, obviously not least at the next election,” the official said on Monday.

Here the PA news agency looks at Mr Sunak’s progress on each one.

– Stop the boats

In perhaps the most controversial of his much-repeated pledges, the Prime Minister vowed to prevent migrant boats from crossing the Channel, though he refused to set a timescale for achieving this.

Mr Sunak last month insisted his plan was “starting to work”, saying the number of people making the journey had reduced compared with last year and playing down suggestions this was linked to poor weather conditions rather than policy decisions.

However, migrant crossings have set a new record for the month of June, Government figures on Monday showed.

Some 3,824 migrants arrived in June, compared with 3,140 in the same month last year.

This pushes the total number of people detected making the journey so far this year to 11,434.

Last week saw a series of further setbacks to Mr Sunak’s bid, when his flagship plan to send migrants to Rwanda was dealt a blow by an appeal court ruling.

This decreases the likelihood of deportation flights taking off any time soon, despite the asylum policy being key to the Government’s Illegal Migration Bill working in practice.

The Bill – aimed at beefing up powers to tackle the problem – also suffered a series of defeats during its passage through the House of Lords.

Meanwhile, the Bibby Stockholm accommodation vessel, which will house around 500 asylum seekers, is not yet in Dorset’s Portland Port, despite Home Secretary Suella Braverman promising MPs it would be in the dock two weeks ago.

– Halve inflation this year

Once seen as the most achievable of Mr Sunak’s pledges, it has proved more difficult than forecasters expected at the start of the year as inflation remains stubbornly high.

The Bank of England added to mortgage misery by again hiking interest rates in June in a bid to tackle inflation which stuck at 8.7%.

Mr Sunak needs to get it to around 5% to live up to his promise, but his means of achieving this are limited other than supporting the central bank’s rate hikes and seeking to constrain spending.

– Reduce national debt

The UK’s debt pile reached more than 100% of economic output for the first time since 1961 as Government borrowing more than doubled in May, according to the latest figures.

The impact of higher interest rates on the cost of servicing that debt further imperils the Prime Minister’s chance of fulfilling his goal.

Efforts to cut debt will also make it less likely that Mr Sunak will have the scope to give in to Tory MPs clamouring for a pre-election tax giveaway.

– Grow the economy

The economy is flatlining and higher interest rates, which increase the threat of the UK tipping into recession, also make this pledge more challenging to achieve.

We were predicted to fall into a recession. That has not happened

Rishi Sunak's spokesman

But Downing Street pointed to the economy as an area where “we have made ground”.

“We were predicted to fall into a recession. That has not happened,” Mr Sunak’s spokesman told reporters.

“Avoiding recession by any government, particularly when you’re seeing countries like Germany not be able to maintain that path, is good to see, but clearly there is still a great deal of work to be done.”

– Cut NHS waiting lists

Since Mr Sunak pledged at the start of the year that “lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly”, numbers have soared to new record highs.

When he made the promise in January, 7.2 million people were waiting for routine hospital treatment.

Now there are an estimated 7.4 million, and reversing the trend will be more difficult amid strikes, staff frustration at pay and conditions and workforce shortages.

Mr Sunak admitted industrial action by doctors and nurses has made it “harder” to achieve his aim, but said long waits are being eliminated “steadily but surely”.

The Government’s workforce plan published last week promises thousands more workers, but the benefits will not be felt in time to boost the Tories’ chances at the next national poll.