Boris Johnson: How did the Prime Minister's manifesto pledges affect Wakefield?

Mr Johnson will leave office this week less than three years after his landslide election victory in 2019.

He made a swathe of major pledges in his manifesto, so here we’ve taken a look at whether he has delivered on just some of his promises and how they have impacted Wakefield.

Police officer uplift

Mr Johnson promised to recruit 20,000 new police officers across England and Wales in his 2019 manifesto.

The Home Office then launched the police officer uplift programme in April 2020, with the aim of achieving the 20,000 target by March 2023.

The latest Home Office figures show 13,790 extra officers had been recruited via the uplift programme as of June. It means the Government is two-thirds of the way to its target with six months to go.

Of them, 627 have been recruited to West Yorkshire Police.

There were 5,186 police officers in West Yorkshire in November 2019, just before Mr Johnson became Prime Minister – this rose to 5,813 in June this year.

But Ché Donald, national vice-chairman of the Police Federation, said "long-term recruitment and sustainable funding" is required so that police leaders can also focus on the retention of staff.

The Home Office said the uplift programme has brought policing numbers to a 10-year high.

Housing

Mr Johnson also pledged to create an additional 300,000 homes per year in England by 2025.

However, this target has not been met yet, and Mr Johnson conceded earlier this year that he could not give a "cast-iron guarantee we are going to get to a number in a particular year".

Latest figures show 242,700 homes were built in 2019-20, while just 216,489 were built the following year – the lowest number in the last five years, as the coronavirus pandemic hampered building activity.

Of these, 1,227 additional dwellings were created in Wakefield in 2020-21 – down from 1,758 the year before.

Brexit

Perhaps most famously, Mr Johnson promised to "get Brexit done" – and on January 31 2020 at 11 pm, the UK ceased to be a part of the European Union.

That will have pleased the majority of people in Wakefield as 66% of people in the area who voted in the 2016 referendum opted to leave the EU, while 34% voted to remain.

Nursing recruitment and GP appointments

Mr Johnson promised to recruit 50,000 more nurses across England by 2024 and provide 50 million more GP appointments annually by the same year in his 2019 manifesto.

The latest NHS Digital figures show the equivalent of 320,000 full-time NHS nurses and health visitors were employed in the NHS in May 2022 – up by 24,000 from 296,000 in December 2019.

Despite a rise in nursing staff, the Royal College of Nursing said workers are "burnt out and simply not valued by their employers and the Government".

The Department for Health and Social Care said it is on track to recruit 50,000 more nurses by 2024. A spokesperson said it has commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term workforce plan to recruit and retain more NHS staff.