Boris Johnson will avoid the economic forum in Switzerland to focus on ‘priorities’ in Britain

Boris Johnson has banned ministers from attending the World Economic Forum in Davos next month as he seeks to consolidate the party’s position among working-class voters.

The prime minister, who will also stay away from the annual gathering of national and business leaders, wants to “get on with delivering the priorities of the British people”, a Downing Street source said.

“The emphasis will be upon delivering [the exit deal for] Brexit by 31 January and the NHS. That is what we we promised, not going to Davos,” a source said.

Prime ministers and senior ministers have in previous years descended upon the Swiss ski resort in January where the global elite gather to network.

But the opulent surroundings would have clashed with an attempt to rebrand the party as “blue-collar” Conservatives.

As MPs gathered for their first parliamentary sitting following last week’s Tory landslide, Johnson told his first cabinet meeting that ministers would be expected to work “24 hours a day” to create a “people’s government”.

At the gathering around the cabinet table in Downing Street, Johnson told ministers they must work to repay voters who gave them their support at the ballot box. He said: “We must recognise people lent us their votes at this election. It was a seismic election but we need to repay their trust. And work 24 hours a day, flat out, to deliver.

Play Video 'You ain't seen nothing yet': Boris Johnson holds first cabinet meeting since election win – video

“The first 100 days were very busy. You may remember it was a very frenetic time. But you ain’t seen nothing yet folks. We’re going to have to work even harder because people [have] a very high level of expectation and we must deliver for them.”

After drumming on the table by cabinet members to welcome the appointment of the new Welsh secretary, Simon Hart, Johnson said that they should not be embarrassed to say they were the “people’s government and this is a people’s cabinet”.

Johnson also asked his colleagues “how many new hospitals are we going to build?” with the cabinet answering back in unison “40”. He then asked: “How many more nurses are we going to hire?” They chanted back: “50,000.”

Both of these commitments were criticised during the election with the hospital pledge exposed as providing immediate funding for six hospitals, and that some of the hospitals will not be new builds but refurbishments. On the nurses promise, only 19,000 will be new nurse trainees.

The prime minister marked the return of MPs to the Commons by hailing the new parliament as a “vast improvement” on its predecessor.

Play Video 1:26 Johnson claims newly elected parliament 'vast improvement on its predecessor' – video

He said this was due to its diversity and also because it was “not going to waste the time of the nation” over Brexit, with the withdrawal agreement bill expected to be brought back on Friday.

Jeremy Corbyn said: “I want to pay tribute to those members from my party particularly who sadly lost their seats in the election and therefore will not be here – there are many we remember, but obviously Dennis Skinner is somebody that comes very much to mind on this occasion.

“The prime minister in the campaign made many, many promises and therefore has tremendous responsibilities to live up to.

“He will be judged on whether he keeps those promises or not by the communities that he has made them to,” Corbyn said.

• This article was amended on 18 December 2019. An earlier version incorrectly referred in the subheading to the WEF being “in Geneva”.