Brexit savings will boost health funding: Johnson

geneva — British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Monday that government plans for a boost to spending on the state-run National Health Service (NHS) would come in part from savings generated by leaving the European Union.

Prime Minister Theresa May pledged on Sunday to increase funding for the NHS by $26.57 billion after Brexit, though critics say the plans lack detail.

Johnson, who was visiting Geneva to address the UN Human Rights Council, dismissed the idea that many people thought relying on a “Brexit dividend” was nonsense.

“The important point is that you can only afford to fund the NHS well if you have a strong vibrant and dynamic economy where the government is focused on enterprise and growth, so that’s why I

We are absolutely confident that we will deliver a Brexit deal that will... be good for the UK, good for our European friends and partners. Boris Johnson, British Foreign Secretary

think we’re able to do it,” he told reporters.

“And the second thing is, I think, as the PM (Prime Minister Theresa May) rightly said, it’s a downpayment on future receipts that will come to this country — come to the UK — as a result of discontinuing payments to Brussels.”

He declined to comment on whether budget cuts would need to be made in other areas of government or whether taxes would need to go up. —

AFP Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May signs the plaster cast of 15-year-old Jade Myers, who broke her leg falling off a wall, during her visit to the Royal Free Hospital in London on Monday. Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday promised a major funding...