WATCH Tory minster admits no Brexit dividend to fund NHS boost for at least two years
2 min read
A Conservative minister has been forced to admit a major funding boost for the NHS will at least initially come only from taxes and borrowing rather than a so-called Brexit dividend.
Mental Health minister Jackie Doyle-Price accepted that for at least the first two years after Brexit the UK would see no cash coming back from Brussels.
Theresa May has been condemned for insisting the £20bn-a-year increase for the Health Service will be at least party funded by cash that will no longer be sent to the EU.
During the EU referendum, the official Vote Leave campaign peddled the claim that the UK would take back control of some £350m a week it sends to Brussels.
The IFS thinktank has argued the so-called Brexit dividend cannot exist since existing spending commitments, the Brexit divorce bill and an expected economic downturn will swallow the cash.
Ms Doyle-Price appeared to accept any dividend was impossible, at least while the UK remains tied to EU institutions immediately after Brexit, when she appeared on the BBC Daily Politics today.
When presenter Andrew Neil noted that the UK would still be paying into EU coffers during the Brexit transition period for two years, she said: “Indeed.”
But she added: “This funding settlement looks to give certainty to the NHS for the future. We have said it will come from the Brexit dividend and from taxes. We are looking at a five-year plan.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also tried to press the Prime Minister on the issue when he faced her at PMQs today.
He said: "Mr Speaker, her figures are so dodgy they belong on the side of a bus. We do expect that from the Foreign Secretary but why is the Prime Minister pushing her own Mickey Mouse figures?”
But Mrs May shot back: “We have set a five-year funding settlement that will be funded. There will be money that we are no longer sending to the EU that we will be able to spend on our NHS…
"But perhaps I can tell them what another Labour member said a few weeks ago?
“He said: ‘We will use returned from Brussels after Brexit to invest in our public services.’
“It was him - the Right Honourable Gentleman, the Leader of the Opposition."
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