Adding to the Prime Minister’s woes, the number of MPs to have publicly revealed that they have submitted a letter of no confidence in his leadership or called for him to stand down has reached 15.
Five Number 10 aides also resigned in recent days in the wake of the “partygate” scandal.
One NHS leader at the weekend suggested that the Treasury may be reluctant to sign off big spending plans amid uncertainty over how long Mr Johnson will remain in office.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS confederation, tweeted on Sunday: “Increasingly getting the sense that Johnson now faces the same (but more intense and short term) challenges Tony Blair had in his third term, namely that HMT is loath to agree to any No 10 plans involving money, as the chancellor sees these as opportunistic and wasted on a dying administration”.
However, a senior source insisted the delay was down to disruption caused to the NHS by the omicron surge, which meant hospitals would not now be “able to deliver quite as much as quickly as it was thought it could three months ago before the variant arrived.”
“That needs to be reflected in the national recovery plan. I am sure the Treasury would wish to double check whether the NHS was sufficiently up to the mark. So it’s less political, more the Treasury doing its job of holding the NHS to account.”
‘We want value for taxpayers’ money’
A Government spokesman said: “We of course want value for taxpayers money and any delay is a working through of final details.”
The Government has already provided an extra £5.4 billion to the NHS to Combat covid up to April.
The spending Review proposed an extra £5.9 billion of capital to support elective recovery, diagnostics, and technology over the next three years. This includes £1.5 billion towards elective recovery by expanding capacity through new surgical hubs.
On Thursday, Mr Sunak repeatedly refused to rule out a leadership bid if Mr Johnson were to be toppled by Tory MPs.
The next day, Mr Sunak used an article in The Sun to argue that the Conservative Party had always been “the party of sound money” and would “always continue to be on my watch”, adding: “that’s the only kind of party I’m interested in.”
Downing Street later insisted that relations between Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak were “good”.
