Jeremy Hunt to vote no confidence in Boris Johnson

Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt said he will be voting against Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the vote of no-confidence later today.

The threshold of 54 letters from Conservative MPs requesting Mr Johnson’s departure needed for the vote was reached over the weekend.

Mr Hunt, who is now chair of the Commons Health Select Committee, said on Twitter: ‘Today’s decision is change or lose. I will be voting for change.’

He said that Conservative MPs ‘know in our hearts we are not giving the British people the leadership they deserve’, adding ‘we are not offering the integrity, competence and vision necessary to unleash the enormous potential of our country’.

Mr Hunt is seen as one of the forerunners for leadership if Mr Johnson is removed.

Asked by Pulse editor Jaimie Kaffash at Pulse LIVE in April if Mr Hunt would be interested in running for Conservative party leader again, Mr Hunt said: ‘I haven’t ruled out going back into frontline politics in the future… who knows what’s around the corner.’

Since taking his role as chair of the health committee, Mr Hunt has positioned himself as a champion for general practice.

He is one of the founders of the Rebuilding General Practice campaign, and has admitted that he failed in his aims for general practice while health secretary.

He told GPs at Pulse Live this year he wanted to do it because he ‘really do[es] believe in general practice’, which he said is the ‘best thing about the NHS’.

Meanwhile, current health secretary Sajid Javid defended Mr Johnson this morning on Sky News.

He said: ‘Certainly on the doors that I knocked, there was there was lots of support, especially because they were chatting to me as the health secretary around our vaccination programme which has been world-leading, the record investment that we’re making in the NHS, the record increases in the NHS workforce, the adult social care plans came up and how we’re tackling those for the first time we have a Prime Minister who’s willing to tackle that.’

Mr Javid told broadcaster Kay Burley: ‘We’re making some good progress, I think it’s fair to say, on dealing with waiting times. Those waiting the longest have halved in the last four months so thanks to the plans that we’ve got. 

‘But thanks most of all to the efforts of all the staff that are working across the NHS and I want to take this opportunity to thank them again for everything that they are doing, working day in day out, to deliver for patients across England.’

He added: ‘We’ve also added over 4,000 doctors, so we are increasing the NHS workforce. It is challenging. We need more doctors and nurses and we are recruiting at the highest levels ever. We’ve got more people working in the NHS than ever before. And we’ve got more nurses in training doctors in training than ever before. We’re pulling every lever to get the workforce that we need.’

A recent BMA survey found that one in eight GP trainees will choose not to become GPs in future.

The number of fully-qualified, full-time equivalent GPs in England is continuing to drop, with the BMA saying that its warning calls are being ‘systematically ignored’.