Tories Attack Brown's Pre-Budget NHS Pledges

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

29 November 2001

Reactions to the UK Chancellor Gordon Brown'e pre-budget report yesterday have been mixed, and the revelation that income taxes may have to increase in order to fund greater commitments to the ailing National Health Service have caused consternation in the Conservative Party.

In parliament on Wednesday, Mr Brown affirmed the government's commitment to creating a 'world class health service that meets the needs of the people of Britain and puts patients first,' and to this end, announced that the NHS would receive a £1 billion increase in funding next year, along with a 'significantly higher share of national income' in the future. Speaking to the Today Programme on Radio 4 after his pre-budget report speech, he confirmed this: 'We as a country will have to put more money in,' he said, adding 'I don't rule out tax rises for the future.'

Mr Brown's decision on the health service was informed by a 220 page report compiled by former NatWest chief Derek Wanless, entitled 'Securing Our Future Health...Taking a Long-Term View'. The report concluded that public taxation was the fairest and most effective way to finance the NHS, and dismissed the option of social insurance schemes which are used in many countries, and are currently under consideration by the Tory party, as making too great a demand on employers to be considered as a viable alternative.

'There is no evidence that any alternative financing method to the UK's would deliver a given quality of health care at a lower cost to the economy. Indeed other systems seem likely to prove more costly,' said the report.

However, the Tory Party have rubbished the Wanless report, arguing that it 'completely missed the point', and that what the NHS needs is major structural reform, not just more money. Shadow Chancellor Michael Howard said yesterday that he welcomed Gordon Brown's calls for the opening of a debate on the topic, but observed wryly that: 'It's not much of a debate if at the outset he says that this is what I am going to do.'

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