Johnson ready to fast-track health funding to meet pledge

LONDON: Prime Minister Boris Johnson will fast-track funding for Britain’s public health service, announcing £1.8 billion ($2.19 billion) to upgrade 20 hospitals, part of the new leader’s push to meet his Brexit pledges.

Johnson, a figurehead for the “Leave” campaign in the 2016 referendum, promoted the idea emblazoned on a bus that Britain could spend £350 million a week on the National Health Service if it left the European Union.

Britain’s new prime minister is moving quickly to meet that and other Brexit pledges, a bid to restore some of the trust in politicians that has been eroded in the three years since the referendum that deeply divided the country.

But by ushering in a spending spree on health, education and policing after years of economic austerity, Johnson has fuelled expectations of an early election — something his team says will not happen before Britain leaves the EU on October 31.

Writing in the Sunday Times newspaper, Johnson said he wanted to get more funding to the frontline of the NHS to try to stop the “the delays, the cancellations”.

“Which is why I am so determined to deliver now on the promises of that 2016 referendum campaign: not just to honour the will of the people, but to increase the cash available for this amazing national institution,” he wrote.

“It is thanks to this country’s strong economic performance that we are now able to announce £1.8 billion more for the NHS to buy vital new kit and confirm new upgrades for 20 hospitals across the country.”

A source confirmed the government was planning to bring forward a commitment made by his predecessor Theresa May to give the NHS an additional £20 billion by 2023 to boost a service that is one of Britain’s most beloved institutions. NEW ELECTION? Johnson has said he is willing to funnel more money into public services, using the previous government’s so-called “fiscal headroom”, which had been earmarked to support the economy through a no deal.

But on Thursday, the Bank of England lowered its growth forecasts, showing a one-in-three chance that the economy would be shrinking in annual terms by the end of the first quarter of next year, even without a disruptive Brexit.

Asked where the money would come from for the NHS, James Cleverly, chairman of the governing Conservative Party, said the funding would come from “economic growth”.