This cash is vital – spend it with care

SOMETIMES, in the midst of the Brexit controversy, we forget that the country still needs to be governed. Even while she tries to craft a wise and prudent departure from the European Union, the Prime Minister has many other major tasks to tackle.

So today let us cautiously welcome her decision to announce an ambitious and much- needed boost for the National Health Service as it approaches its 70th birthday.

The sums involved, like the NHS itself, are huge. The commitment stretches out for many years ahead.

The Mail on Sunday has supported the idea of taking the NHS out of political controversy, perhaps through a Royal Commission. It is still a good idea. Constructive politicians from all parties will want to applaud what is undoubtedly a major commitment to this valued and much-loved national institution.

The Government has a clear and well worked- out idea of how to spend the huge resources it intends to deploy on the NHS between now and 2023. Early diagnosis and treatment of cancer, overcoming the neglect of mental health, and more resources for social care – all urgent and important – seem most likely to benefit from this.

But the Prime Minister and her colleagues must be careful not to be carried away by these laudable desires into uncontrollable spending. Better to be cautious, and to be sustainable over the long term, than to overdo it and then be forced to slam the brakes on later.

Mrs May’s concern for the hard-pressed, hard- working citizen i s one of her strongest points as a politician. So is her sensibly Tory dislike for placing too much of a tax burden on productive individuals and businesses. She must remember that her ultimate duty is to keep the national books balanced and to keep taxes as low as reasonably possible.

The supposed ‘Brexit Bonus’ is highly unlikely to square that circle.

In the end, only a prosperous economy can pay for a first-rate health service. And it is vital to remember now that such an economy cannot easily survive unless we take a sensible and cautious route out of the EU. This means that those who care about the NHS, about our schools and about our national defences, all have a stake in ensuring that we negotiate a pragmatic Brexit.

The best way of achieving that is for Tory MPs to resist calls to rebellion and ensure that the Prime Minister stays firmly in control in the turbulent months ahead. All other roads lead to chaos and, worse still, the danger of chaos with Jeremy Corbyn in charge of it.

Another press success

ONCE again persistent and well-informed campaigning by a free press has produced a good outcome for the nation as a whole. All the indications are that the HPV vaccine is to be made available to boys as well as girls, so protecting them from needless disease and saving the nation badly needed money.

The Mail on Sunday marshalled the facts and arguments. The long-serving Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, studied the research carefully.

Now it seems certain that the right decision will soon be taken. That is democracy and free speech in action.