Theresa May today said that taxes will have to rise to help bankroll her £380million-a-week funding boost for the NHS.
The Prime Minister said some of the extra money will from Britain’s ‘Brexit dividend’ as the UK stops sending vast sums of money to Brussels after the country quits the EU.
But she that ‘we as a country will contribute a bit more’ to pay for the £20billion pledge – after being asked directly if income tax will have to rise to pay for it.
In what is her biggest and boldest policy announcement since her election disaster last year, the PM announced the extra money for the NHS to mark its 70th birthday.
She has come under huge pressure to find extra money for the NHS amid warnings the service is at breaking point with waiting times spiraling and operations cancelled.
The move will delight Brexiteers including Boris Johnson who have urged the PM to make good on the Vote Leave pledge to put an extra £350million a week into the NHS after Brexit.
Asked if her plans meant income tax rises, she told LBC ‘It is right, I think, that we say to people that because the NHS is so important to us that we do look at asking for the country to contribute more, but in a fair and balanced way.’
Theresa May, pictured on the BBC’ Andrew Marr show today, announced an extra £20 billion-a-year boost for the National Health Service
She added: ‘So yes, we take the advantage that we’ve got of the money we’re no longer sending to the European Union.
‘But also in putting the amount of money we want to put into the NHS for the future, I think we do have to look at contributing more.’
But Tory MP and chairwoman of the health select committee Sarah Wollaston said talk of a Brexit dividend is ‘tosh’ and the money falls short of what is needed.
She said Chancellor Philip Hammond will spell out what tax rises or borrowing will be done to bankroll the funding boost later in the year.
She insisted the cash must be spent on frontline services for patients – and not be swallowed up by the NHS’s massive bureaucracy.
And she also told how she was moved to find the extra cash from her own experience of getting NHS treatment as a Type 1 diabetic.
She said: ‘I personally owe a lot to the NHS. I’m a Type 1 diabetic. The NHS was there for me both in diagnosing that and in supporting me ever since, so day in and day out, I am grateful personally to the NHS.
‘But we need to work with the NHS to make sure that what we’re delivering is something that is really going to secure its future and is going to improve the outcomes for patients.’
The PM will hope the extra money will help silence her critics in the Tory party who have accused her of dragging her feet when it comes to domestic policies.
But it faced immediate criticism from her critics who said the PM’s claim tat a Brexit dividend will boost money for the NHS’s coffers are ‘tosh’.
Dr Wollaston tweeted: ‘The Brexit dividend tosh was expected but treats the public as fools.
‘Sad to see Govt slide to populist arguments rather than evidence on such an important issue.
‘This will make it harder to have a rational debate about the ‘who & how’ of funding & sharing this fairly.’
Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Paul Johnson, told BBC1’s Sunday Politics: ‘There isn’t a Brexit dividend.’
He said that in the short term Britain has signed up to continue to pay a lot of money into the Brussels budget.
He added: ‘If you look further down the road, yes well stop paying money to the European Union, but the economy’s already shrunk a bit as a result of the vote; the Government has accepted that.
‘Actually the public finances will be £15 billion or so worse off, not better off, so there really just isn’t money there for a Brexit dividend.
![Theresa May (pictured on her way to church this morning with her husband Philip in Maidenhead) has come under huge pressure to find extra money for the NHS amid warnings the service is at breaking point with waiting times spiraling and operations cancelled.](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/17/11/4D545F5B00000578-5853057-image-a-22_1529231233244.jpg)
Theresa May (pictured on her way to church this morning with her husband Philip in Maidenhead) has come under huge pressure to find extra money for the NHS amid warnings the service is at breaking point with waiting times spiraling and operations cancelled.
![Tory backbencher and chairwoman of the health select committee Sarah Wollaston said the extras cash will fall short of what's needs to improve patients caare](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/17/11/4D54E0CC00000578-5853057-image-a-20_1529230451197.jpg)
Tory backbencher and chairwoman of the health select committee Sarah Wollaston said the extras cash will fall short of what’s needs to improve patients caare
![Ms Wollaston said talk that a Brexit dividend will fund the NHS uplift is nonsense](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/17/11/4D54E0D300000578-5853057-image-a-21_1529230470709.jpg)
Ms Wollaston said talk that a Brexit dividend will fund the NHS uplift is nonsense
The Prime Minister promised an extra £20 billion in real terms by the 2023-24 financial year – or £384 million a week.
During the 2016 referendum, the Vote Leave bus used by Mr Johnson and his fellow Brexiteers declared: ‘We send the EU £350 million a week, let’s fund our NHS instead.’
The claim is believed to have been a significant factor in the campaign’s victory.
Last night a senior Tory source said the spending pledge showed Mrs May was signalling the end of the Government’s decade-long austerity drive.
Out of the extra £20 billion a year for the NHS, no more than £9 billion is expected to come from money we will no longer pay to Brussels.
![Philip Hammond (pictured in Downing Street last week) will unveil the details of how the funding pledge will be paid for later in the year, the PM said](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/17/08/4D26C92500000578-5853057-image-m-2_1529219743425.jpg)
Philip Hammond (pictured in Downing Street last week) will unveil the details of how the funding pledge will be paid for later in the year, the PM said
The remaining £11 billion, which will have to come from tax rises or extra borrowing, is the equivalent of adding about 3p on the basic rate of income tax.
In an article for the Mail on Sunday today, Mrs May declared that ‘nothing matters more to the British people than our NHS’ and that she is ‘determined to take action to secure it for generations to come’.
She wrote: ‘In that moment, the NHS was there for me, just as it has been for millions of others over seven decades.
‘It helps me every step of the way. With the NHS on my side, I can manage my condition, live a normal life and get on with my job.’
Mrs May said that by 2023 inflation and growth are forecast to take the cash boost to more than £600 million extra a week.
It is the first significant spending boost by the Government since the 2008 financial crisis led to budget cuts and the freeze in public sector wages.
Earlier this year, Mr Hammond declared there was ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ on public finances.
Raising taxes to fund healthcare is a sensitive issue for Mrs May, whose 2017 Election campaign started to implode after the Tory manifesto proposed a ‘dementia tax’ to meet social care costs.
![In her boldest move since calling the last General Election, the Prime Minister vows to beat Boris Johnson’s infamous pledge to invest a £350 million-a-week ‘Brexit dividend’ in the Health Service](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/16/21/4D2E2C1100000578-5852233-In_her_boldest_move_since_calling_the_last_General_Election_the_-a-33_1529181558754.jpg)
In her boldest move since calling the last General Election, the Prime Minister vows to beat Boris Johnson’s infamous pledge to invest a £350 million-a-week ‘Brexit dividend’ in the Health Service
Mrs May hopes to assuage criticism from spending hawks by also announcing that she is forcing NHS chiefs to draw up a ten-year ‘efficiency plan’ designed to prevent waste.
And a No 10 source insisted last night that ‘the purse strings are not about to be relaxed’ for other departments, adding: ‘The NHS is a special case.’
No 10 denies that any deal has been cut with Mr Johnson and his fellow Brexiteers in return for them to be more ‘flexible’ in Cabinet discussions over Brexit negotiations with Brussels, such as the UK agreeing to remain aligned with certain rules after we leave the EU.
The NHS announcement also represents a political triumph for ambitious Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who has been pushing for greater funding.
And it is a blow for Mr Hammond, who has privately objected on the grounds that it could jeopardise the Tories’ reputation for financial prudence.
The extra money will be used to recruit extra doctors and nurses, greater investment in cancer care and support for mental health services.
It will also be seen as an attempt by Mrs May to steal political ground from Labour.
No 10’s thinking has been influenced by polls showing that nearly 90 per cent of adults believe the NHS faces a severe financial crisis, and more than six in ten people back tax hikes to avert it.
The cash injection would boost the NHS budget from £116 billion a year currently to the post-inflation equivalent of £136 billion by 2023.
May hopes NHS cash injection will shore up support ahead of crunch Brexit vote
By Glen Owen and Brendan Carlin
Theresa May will hope the massive boost to the NHS will shore up her leadership ahead of a crucial Brexit vote on Wednesday.
Allies hope that the move will not only restore Mrs May’s fragile authority, but also help to neutralise Labour’s traditional advantage as the ‘party of the NHS’.
The move – which more than matches the £350 million pledge on Boris Johnson’s campaign bus during the referendum – comes on the eve of a parliamentary showdown which could determine her fate.
Remain peers are tomorrow expected to vote once more to give Parliament the final say on the Brexit negotiation process – setting up a critical Commons clash two days later when it is debated by MPs.
Brexit Tory MPs, already angry at ‘concessions’ to the Remain camp, will vent their fury if the Prime Minister loses the key vote and gives MPs the power to order Mrs May back to the negotiating table with Brussels if they are unhappy with the proposed exit deal.
![The move – which more than matches the £350 million pledge on Boris Johnson’s campaign bus during the referendum – comes on the eve of a parliamentary showdown which could determine her fate](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/17/10/04147F9B000003E8-5853057-The_move_which_more_than_matches_the_350_million_pledge_on_Boris-a-5_1529228805185.jpg)
The move – which more than matches the £350 million pledge on Boris Johnson’s campaign bus during the referendum – comes on the eve of a parliamentary showdown which could determine her fate
In a sign of the febrile atmosphere within the party, Deputy Chairman James Cleverly revealed he would stand to be leader if Mrs May stepped down.
As Downing Street was preparing the final details of the spending plan this weekend, Remain Tory MPs were plotting their ambush. The Government’s NHS ‘Brexit dividend’ is designed to head off the anger of Mr Johnson and his pro-Brexit allies if they defeat the Government.
Mr Johnson’s claim that the UK sends £350 million a week to the EU was hotly disputed throughout the campaign – with the Remain camp claiming the Foreign Secretary was wildly exaggerating the sum.
But Mrs May has faced growing pressure to dispel mounting pessimism over Brexit and show the process can benefit the country.
Pro-Brexit Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns reveals in today’s Mail on Sunday that she personally urged Mrs May at a meeting this week to provide a more ‘positive vision’ of Britain’s future under Brexit.
But yesterday, Solicitor General Robert Buckland appeared to warn leading Tory Brexit rebel Dominic Grieve and allies that whatever their intentions, the Prime Minister could fall if she lost this week’s vote.
He even appeared to compare Mrs May’s position to that of wartime Conservative leader Neville Chamberlain who was replaced by Winston Churchill after a simple Commons vote on adjourning for the day turned into a confidence motion.
Mr Buckland, who last week acted as the Government’s go-between with the rebels, said: ‘There’s a political effect to motions in Parliament. When Neville Chamberlain fell as Prime Minister and Winston Churchill became PM in the Norway debate, do you know what the motion was? That this House do now adjourn.’
This week’s votes come amid claims from anti-Brexit Tory MPs that the Government had ‘welched’ on a deal promised by Mrs May in a private meeting last week to ensure the Commons had a proper ‘meaningful’ vote on the final exit settlement.
![Allies hope that the move will not only restore Mrs May’s fragile authority, but also help to neutralise Labour’s traditional advantage as the ‘party of the NHS’](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/16/21/3A28028100000578-5852233-image-a-44_1529182174363.jpg)
Allies hope that the move will not only restore Mrs May’s fragile authority, but also help to neutralise Labour’s traditional advantage as the ‘party of the NHS’
Remain Tory MP Antoinette Sandbach warned that the Government’s handling of talks with the rebels last week had ‘actually strengthened resolve [on the rebellion] rather than weakened it’.
Leading Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg raised the stakes by accusing the Remainers of trying to engineer a ‘Brexit veto’ or a mechanism to rejoin the EU by using parliamentary procedure to allow the courts to intervene. Mr Rees-Mogg warned the Tory rebels’ real agenda was to ‘provide a legal backdoor’ to return the UK to the EU.
The renewed fears over Mrs May’s future came as Tory Deputy Chairman Mr Cleverly declared his own leadership ambitions.
Asked if he wanted to lead the Tories into the next election if the PM stood down, former Army Officer Mr Cleverly, said: ‘Yes, yes, yes. And I make no apologies for that. When I was a soldier if anyone asked would I like to be Chief of Defence staff, I’d say, ‘Of course.’ ‘When I played rugby if anyone asked if I would I like to be captain, I’d say the same.
‘I see nothing strange that someone who is in the first XV of Conservative politics saying he’d like to captain that team,’ he told a private event in Oxfordshire on Thursday, adding he remained loyal to Mrs May. Mr Cleverly, whose mother is from Sierra Leone, is the third Tory with an ethnic minority background to reveal his leadership ambitions, along with Home Secretary Sajid Javid and ex-Cabinet Minister Priti Patel.
Last night, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt hailed the boost to the NHS budget as an ‘historic’ gift in its 70th year and a recognition of the ‘superhuman efforts’ of doctors, nurses and other staff. He said: ‘This long-term plan and funding boost is a fitting birthday present for our most loved institution.’