06.01.15
Lib Dems pledge to meet the funding targets in the Five Year Forward View
The Liberal Democrats have promised to plug the NHS funding gap in England, increasing real terms spending by at least £8bn a year by 2020, as part of their manifesto for the general election.
Deputy PM Nick Clegg said they are the only party who could meet “in full” the extra funding laid out by NHS England chief Simon Stevens in his Five Year Forward View.
“We will set out in detail in the coming days how we will meet the funding gap that Simon Stevens set out in his excellent report a short while ago, which amounts to about £8bn by the end of the next parliament – and assumes very significant continued efficiencies,” he said.
The Conservatives have promised an extra £2bn while Labour have pledged £2.5bn, which would be paid for in part by a levy on cigarette companies.
Clegg said his party would find the extra funding through “very significant continued efficiencies” and by linking the amount of money going into public services to economic growth.
Under their plans, the £2bn extra funding for the NHS announced in the Autumn Statement would be repeated every year over the next Parliament.
A further £1bn a year from 2016-17 would come from capping pensions tax relief for the richest pensioners and aligning dividend tax with income tax for those earning more than £150,000 while also scrapping the Conservatives’ “shares for rights” scheme.
The rest of the extra funding would follow after eliminating the structural deficit in 2017-18, from which point health spending would increase in line with growth in the economy.
“The big, big difference between ourselves and Labour and the Conservatives is that we have said that once we have dealt with the structural deficit, once we have dealt with it in 2017-18, we will link the amount of money going into public services – including the NHS – to the growth of the economy,” the Lib Dem leader said.
“The Conservatives have not done that at all – they actually want to see the proportion of money going into public services remorselessly decline as a proportion of our national wealth for ideological reasons.
“Labour will still be paying off much, much more interest on our accumulated debts because they haven’t committed to the timetable by which we would deal with the deficit. Money which instead could be spent on hospitals. So we are the only party that, by managing things responsibly and in a balanced way…can meet the Simon Stevens’ challenge and meet it in full.”
The Lib Dems also want to commission a non-partisan ‘fundamental review’ of NHS and social care finances in 2015 before the next spending review, in order to assess the pressures on NHS budgets.
(Image source: Liberal Democrats)
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