What are the opposition parties and experts saying?

“The Conservatives’ claim on nurses is frankly deceitful,” said the shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth. “First we had Johnson’s fake 40 new hospitals, now we have his fake 50,000 nurses.”

The Liberal Democrats described it as a “dishonest” promise that there will be tens of thousands of more nurses under a Boris Johnson-led government.

“It is insulting to the public and all those who work in the NHS for Boris Johnson to celebrate the return of nurse bursaries. It was the Tories who scrapped them in the first place,” said Luciana Berger.