Ed Balls has hardened Labour’s commitment to funding the NHS, saying an extra £2.5bn in revenue would be in his first budget this summer.
The shadow chancellor said if Labour forms the next government after the 7 May general election it would be capable of raising the full extra income by 2016-17.
Labour at its annual conference last autumn said it would raise extra funds for the NHS from a mansion tax, a levy on the profits of tobacco companies and a crackdown on hedge funds.
Labour campaigning on health has been criticised for failing to provide the full extra £8bn funding proposed by the NHS chief executive, Simon Stevens. It was also not clear precisely when the three revenue streams would be capable of providing the extra £2.5bn, but speaking in south London at a Labour NHS event on Monday, Balls said the money would be fully on stream by the second financial year.
He said “Our first budget will put the revenue streams in place. It is our intention to have the full revenue stream up and running in the first full financial year, and we will make a start in the financial year that is under way when we get elected.”
He insisted that Labour, unlike any other political party, had provided a reliable, identifiable and credible source of extra revenue and said by contrast the Tories were providing incredible uncosted and reckless pledges on extra spending that lacked any visible revenue stream.
The NHS is seen as the number one issue for most voters, and is one of Labour’s strongest suits, but it is struggling to put the NHS at the top of the election campaign agenda as the Conservatives and SNP focus on the power relationships at Westminster after 7 May.
Andy Burnham, the Labour shadow health secretary, latched on to reports showing some NHS managers were being given huge pay increases worth £35m, saying if the figures proved to be true he would work to claw them back.
“It cannot be right at at a time when NHS staff have been asked to accept years of freezes to see this level of excess at the top,” Burnham said on Monday. “They promised to take action on executive pay in the NHS. They have failed to do it. We need fairness in pay from bottom to top.”
An investigation by the Daily Mail found the average NHS trust chief executive in England takes home a salary alone of £185,255 – far higher than the prime minister’s salary of £142,500. The Mail said the pay packages, which include salaries, bonuses and pension contributions, are “buried” within the small print of NHS records.
Politicians have vowed to tackle the pay schemes and have called for an investigation into how public money is spent.
Burnham highlighted waiting times, broken promises and the state of the NHS reorganisation introduced by the coalition, saying the 2012 changes had put the the wrong values at the heart of the NHS including privatisation and fragmentation over cooperation.
“As the country gets ready to go to the polls, the NHS is on the brink, its future hangs in the balance at this election,” Burnham said.
He denied his plan to repeal the Health and Social Care Act would require an expensive reorganisation, claiming he “will work with the organisations I inherit, I will simply give them a new job to do and that is whole-person care”.
He added “we will remove the rules of the market I will make no apology for that”, saying the cost of requiring to put contracts out to tender was £100m.
Balls added the Tories were claiming the NHS cuts planned for the next five years would be the same as in the last parliament, but he said in reality the planned cuts over the next three years were double the pace of the previous parliament and might reach £7bn.
He said cuts at this level would require charging, adding it was dishonest for the Conservatives to claim they were making such general spending cuts and not identifying the NHS as a key target.
He claimed senior Tories had been asked as many as 60 times in the last week about where the cash for the NHS is to be found.
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