May bid to break Brexit impasse

PM to tell Brussels she is prepared to increase divorce bill offer to get trade talks moving

THERESA MAY will today tell Donald Tusk she is prepared to give ground on the Brexit divorce bill as Brussels demands a written guarantee of more money to unlock trade talks.

The European Council president will make it clear to the Prime Minister that Britain must give a “no strings attached” promise of paying substantially more than the €20 billion

(£17 billion) on offer.

Mrs May, who this week won the backing of senior Cabinet ministers to make an offer that could run to €40billion, has not ruled out giving the European Union a written breakdown of what Britain sees as its financial obligations, but will insist on a written guarantee of trade talks in return.

The EU will not expect Mrs May to name a figure at this stage, but wants detail on exactly what Britain is prepared to pay for. EU sources said Brussels would refuse point-blank to say in writing that a better financial offer would guarantee the start of trade talks. However, Mrs May has made it clear Britain and the EU must “step forward together”, meaning any written offer from her must be matched with a written offer from Brussels.

Brexiteers in the Cabinet, including Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, are adamant that any enhanced financial offer must be conditional on Britain getting a good Brexit deal from the EU.

The Prime Minister is meeting Mr Tusk in Brussels to lay the groundwork for talks with Jean-claude Juncker, the European Commission president, and Michel Barnier, the EU’S chief Brexit negotiator, in 10 days’ time that will decide whether the European Council gives the green light to trade talks next month.

Mr Juncker gave Mrs May grounds for optimism yesterday when he said the EU and the UK had now got through the toughest parts of the first phase of negotiations, covering the divorce bill, citizens’ rights and the Irish border.

He said: “I am not yet in a position to be able finally to say that sufficient progress has been made to move on to the second phase of negotiations, dealing with the future relationship. We will see about that in the next few days.”

Mrs May is desperate to end the year on a positive note and EU leaders are likely to exploit her need to move on to trade talks when the European Council meets in December. Failure to reach an agreement would mean talks do not begin before March, a full year after Article 50 was triggered and just 12 months before the date of Brexit.

EU sources said the commission and the EU-27 leaders would rebuff any attempt to link an enhanced divorce bill offer with agreement on trade talks.

Meanwhile, Mrs May told Philip Hammond he had done enough to stay on as Chancellor after he delivered what she called a “very good” Budget.

‘£350m sounds like a lot, but it is a day’s running costs for the NHS’

THE NHS could still get the £350million a week funding boost promised on the Brexit bus, the Chancellor’s aide has claimed, following warnings that the latest cash injection will be spent in one day.

Health officials will meet next week to discuss rationing measures, after expressing disappointment at the funds awarded in Wednesday’s budget.

The health service will receive an immediate payment of £350 million to tide it through the winter, as part of a £2.8billion increase to revenue funding over three years.

NHS chiefs say the funding is not enough, and compares poorly to the pledge of an extra £350million a week made by the Vote Leave campaign.

Yesterday Kwasi Kwarteng, Philip Hammond’s parliamentary private sec- retary, insisted that pledge could still be met after Britain leaves the EU. The MP said he believed that the promise on the side of the Vote Leave bus, to deliver £350million a week for the NHS, still held good.

“That’s what was said on the side of the bus. And I think actually that we could deliver that.

“That’s my own view. That’s a personal view,” he said, in a BBC Radio 5 Live interview.

“We spend £350million a week now for our EU contributions. Now when that ends, we will have that money. And it would be possible, if you were a chancellor or someone leading a government, to use that money on the NHS.

“All those things are incontestable. That is the truth,” Mr Kwarteng said.

Health chiefs will meet next week to discuss the introduction of deeper rationing measures, having already warned of an “inevitable” lengthening in waiting lists.

Yesterday think tanks suggested the immediate cash injection, aimed at averting an NHS crisis this winter, may do little to help it withstand growing pressures. Prof John Appleby from the Nuffield Trust told a BMJ debate: “£350million sounds like a lot, but is a day’s running costs for the NHS.”

And Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst for the King’s Fund, suggested that the funding had come so late that the NHS would be forced to pay bumper rates for extra help.

“It’s already November; it’s hard to see how you are going spend that money in a value-for-money way,” he said.

“You can buy extra capacity for operations from the independent sector, you can get more staff on temporary contracts at premium payment. But all of this would have been more effective if the money had been given earlier in the financial year.”

Yesterday a report by the European Commission said hospitals in the UK were working at “near-full capacity” with the second-highest levels of bed occupancy in Europe. Only Ireland had higher levels of crowding.

The study also shows Britain has the third-lowest number of beds and doctors in the EU for the size of its population. The analysis of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data also warned of a sharp drop in nursing levels, and said the average length of stay is now a full day shorter than the EU average.

Earlier in the day Mr Hammond suggested NHS leaders complaining about the funding should focus on cutting waste in the NHS. The Chancellor said the Treasury would work closely with Simon Stevens, head of the NHS, to improve health service productivity.

“Simon Stevens set out a five-year plan for the NHS in 2014 which we funded in full, and that five-year plan has not yet been delivered,” he told ITV’S Good Morning Britain.

“The NHS have come back and said, ‘look, demand has been higher than we expected; we need some more money’, and we have put some more money in.

“We will continue to work closely with the NHS management and the Department for Health to make sure that we cut out waste in the service, that we focus the money that is available on the front line on delivering for patients and we get the outcomes that the NHS fiveyear plan said it could deliver over that period of time,” he said.