Ruth: ‘A choice of cash for the NHS or more tax cuts? I choose the NHS’
RUTH Davidson has demanded that Theresa May ditch plans for any ‘further tax breaks’ in a bid to provide more funding for the UK’s struggling NHS.
The Scottish Conservative leader yesterday warned the Prime Minister that the country would ‘not forgive us’ if the party continued to cut taxes while the health service faced cash shortages.
Miss Davidson, who made the controversial intervention following renewed speculation that she could make the move to Westminster, also squared up to Mrs May over immigration.
She was speaking last night at Glasgow University, where she addressed concerns surrounding the NHS, Brexit and immigration.
In a bid to drag her party back to the centre ground, Miss Davidson told students that a ‘rapidly ageing population’ was ‘piling extra demand on services’, meaning costs for medics were soaring.
She warned the audience that she was ‘going to stray out of my brief as a politician of a devolved parliament’ and speak about a UK-wide issue.
Miss Davidson said: ‘Year by year, costs in the NHS, in the form of drugs and technology, are rising rapidly. The obvious question is, where should this money come from?
‘My view is this: the UK Government has acted to reduce the tax burden on working families. It has honoured its promise to do so.
‘Raising the income tax threshold has reduced taxes for millions of UK workers and has taken thousands out of taxation altogether. But the UK government has a choice to make.
‘And, if the choice is between extra spending on the NHS or introducing further tax breaks beyond those already promised, I choose the NHS.’
Middle earners in England and Wales have been given income tax cuts in recent years, and the 40p higher-rate threshold is to rise to £50,000 by 2020.
The SNP Government has frozen the threshold at £43,430 in Scotland – meaning cuts have not been passed on to hard-working Scots. However, an increase in personal allowance has been, with plans for this to rise to £12,500 by 2020.
According to sources, Miss Davidson is supportive of the tax cuts up until 2020 – but she believes that there should be no further announcements, with savings handed to the NHS.
It is understood she raised her views with Chancellor Philip Hammond in a recent meeting.
Explaining her views, Miss Davidson added: ‘Either way we should have the honesty to recognise that this is a moment where we as a country have to choose one way or the other.
‘My view is that people across the UK would not forgive us if we allowed this moment to pass.’
In her speech, titled Building a Stronger Britain, Miss Davidson said that the NHS had ‘dealt brilliantly’ with increasing pressure but she said extra funding would help on wards and in GP clinics across the country.
She also claimed a policy shift would help ‘tackle the wider crisis of trust we face in this country’. She said this would ‘restore faith in those centre-ground values, shared by both Conservative and Labour moderates, that are without question under threat right now’.
Miss Davidson also used her speech to raise concerns about the UK Government’s aim to cut net migration to below 100,000.
The target has not been met since it was introduced in 2010, with the latest figures showing 244,000 more people came to live in the UK than left last year.
Miss Davidson has called for a review of the target, and last year questioned whether it ‘continues to be the right one’. She said: ‘I
‘Costs are rising rapidly’
see neither the sense nor the need to stick to an immigration figure devised nearly a decade ago, which has never been met and does not fit the requirements of the country. Setting an immigration target reduced to the tens of thousands is one thing when unemployment is running at 8 per cent.
‘Refusing to review it when the country nears full employment and sectors are reporting skills shortages is quite another.’
Miss Davidson’s speech is her latest intervention in UK business since securing Downing Street for Mrs May last year – delivering 13 MPs in the general election.
Despite speculation she could be eyeing a move to Westminster, and some claiming she is a future Tory leader and Prime Minister, Miss Davidson says she intends to remain in Scotland and become First Minister.