Labour refuses to say how it would fund £37bn health spending
Leader accused of relying on ‘imaginary’ tax rise to pay for pledge to increase health service funding
JEREMY CORBYN is facing new questions over a “black hole” at the heart of his spending plans after committing £37 billion to funding the NHS over the next five years.
The Labour leader will today pledge to take a million people off NHS waiting lists by the end of this parliament and guarantee that patients will be seen at A&E within four hours.
He is planning to fund his new NHS spending pledge by increasing taxes on those earning over £80,000, raising corporation tax by 40 per cent and increasing insurance premium tax for private healthcare.
Labour insisted that the plans were “fully costed” but refused to say exactly how they would be funded. The commitment appears to be significantly higher than the £6 billion a year of NHS funding in Labour’s draft manifesto, which was obtained by The Daily Telegraph last week.
A Conservative spokesman said: “Labour continue to rely on a nonsensical endless stream of money from imagined tax increases that they are spending over and over again. Jeremy Corbyn can’t deliver any of this because his nonsensical economic policies would damage our economy and mean less money for the NHS, not more.”
Labour’s draft manifesto includes up to £90 billion worth of spending commitments that would cost every household the equivalent of £4,000 each.
However, economists suggested that Labour’s plans for borrowing and tax rises would only raise £60 billion, leaving a huge gap in spending plans.
There would be a “huge” rise in tax and borrowing to fund the spending, which includes renationalising industries, investing £35 billion a year in infrastructure and a significant rise in funding for schools and the NHS.
Mr Corbyn said that under Labour’s plans the £37 billion of extra spending on the NHS will include £10 billion of spending on buildings and IT. He also said that he would create a new £500 million fund to help support the NHS during the winter and avoid a crisis.
Mr Corbyn told the Royal College of Nurses conference in Liverpool: “In the past seven years the Tories have driven our National Health Service into crisis… Only Labour will put the NHS back on its feet.”
John Mcdonnell, the shadow chancellor, threatened to axe government contracts worth billions of pounds if companies refused to reduce the pay of senior executives to no more than 20 times the salary of the lowest earner.
On BBC Radio 5 Live, Mr Mcdonnell was asked how the policy would hit Charles Woodburn, the new boss of the defence giant BAE Systems, who stands to earn a reported £7.5 million in pay and perks. He replied: “We want to get to equitable pay. We want to address the grotesque inequalities that there are within our society, that actually do undermine in many ways the standing of those particular companies.”
‘In the past seven years the Tories have driven our National Health Service into crisis. Only Labour will put the NHS back on its feet’