Conservatives’ pledge to protect NHS ‘entirely disingenuous’ – that means it was a lie

Last Updated: March 20, 2016By

It seems Labour was right to say the Conservatives could not be trusted to fund the National Health Service properly – if you can believe an expenses cheat.

It should come as no surprise that This Writer does believe him. The two matters are not connected and David Laws will make no political gain from the accusation.

Would the NHS be in financial meltdown if the Conservative Party had devoted the full £16 billion (above inflation) to it?

Would the NHS be in financial meltdown if the Conservative Party had devoted the full £16 billion (above inflation) to it?

The Conservatives’ key pre-election pledge to protect the NHS with £8bn extra spending a year was entirely disingenuous as the government had been told the service required at least double that amount to keep going, according to a book by a former minister.

Downing Street was informed by an official report that to stay afloat the NHS would need £16bn a year extra in government spending above inflation by 2020, but dismissed this as “mad” and ordered the figure to be halved, according to David Laws.

The book by the former Lib Dem MP, who was chief secretary to the Treasury for little over a fortnight in 2010 before resigning over wrongly claiming £40,000 in expenses and was later a junior minister in the coalition, is being serialised in the Mail on Sunday.

The £8bn a year pledge was a primary plank of the Conservatives’ 2015 election campaign, and designed to ward off Labour claims that the party could not be trusted to properly fund the health service. The figure was explained at the time as being arrived at after a report by Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, found there would be a £30bn a year funding gap for the service by the end of the decade. Stevens said this could be made up from £22bn a year in efficiency savings, leaving £8bn a year for the government to make up.

Source: Conservatives’ pledge to protect NHS ‘entirely disingenuous’ | Politics | The Guardian

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4 Comments

  1. chriskitcher March 20, 2016 at 10:33 pm - Reply

    But we all know that any Tory is a liar, they have to be to get through the selection process. NEVER TRUST A TORY.

  2. jeffrey davies March 21, 2016 at 7:41 am - Reply

    wasnt it shown that 19 billion was not given to the nhs starving it of funds ready for the sell off yet a few yrs down the line it must be alot more ready for their parasitic companies to take over

  3. mohandeer March 21, 2016 at 12:30 pm - Reply

    Did anyone actually believe the lies of the Conservatives back in May 2015. It was only after Labour committed to NHS funding that a bidding war started as to who would fund it the most. As it turns out, the Tories WERE lying and had no idea how they were going to find the funds, and didn’t.
    No-one who voted Tory then, could have been that gullible or naive.

  4. Terry Davies March 21, 2016 at 7:50 pm - Reply

    dont forget the money never funded frontline care. if truth be known most went to trust managers, agencies and some went to fund tory party privatisation plans.

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