Tories ringfence two areas of spending

Following the Tory decision yesterday to unshackle themselves from Labour's spending committments in 2010-11, it emerged that two areas of spending have already been ringfenced. George Osborne outlined them yesterday, and they were later confirmed by his office.

The first area is the real terms health spending increases on the NHS. Lansley faced a furious row earlier this year when he said in an interview:

"I think we are bound to have rising real-terms health expenditure," he said. "That means that health expenditure is going to be a rising proportion of total public expenditure."

Yet this is still on the cards. The second area is - perhaps counterintuitively - international development spending, which Osborne said yesterday was still important despite the downturn. They are committeed to meeting 0.7% on Dfid.

The decision to make public these two committments is an interesting one, since it demands the question why haven't other areas - health, defence - been the subject of similar promises. Many Tories will no doubt suggest plenty of savings can be made on the NHS.

Interesting how this emerged though: one participant in yesterday's shadow cabinet suggested they were unaware that any ringfencing had taken place, despite being present during the many discussions on the subject....

Comments

[dave]

labour has become obssessed with facts and figures for everything in this country. problem is, its cost the taxpayer billions of pounds. you go to any hospital these days, theres more office workers there then are doctors and nurses.

[Louise]

Dave - I think that is a hangover from the Tories. You may have selective memories, but you can cure yourself any time by watching Drop the Dead Donkey.

[will]

the NHS is the biggest blight on britain since who knows when. when the french and the germans dont even have a monolithic health thing, you must start to realise that there is an element of insanity in having something that monolithic and that left wing to do such an important job.
the NHS should be what the welfare state in of itself should be, a safetynet and nothing more. the nhs should be something that gurantees health treatment for the unemployed rather than something that forces farily well off people to have inferior treatment to what they would get privately and forcing the poor to share resources that would be more efficiently distributed if there wasnt a monolithic bueurcoratic organisation trying to look after 60,000,000 people.
surely its fair to say anybody in full time employment should have mandatory health insurance, just like anybody who drives a car has to have mandatory car insurance.

[Frank Upton]

It's not what you spend, it's how you spend it. Any fool can spend money.

[Chris Richmond]

Well, firstly, Will, your post is a little confusing, as firstly, I am not sure how many more times you could have fit in "monolithic". But moreover, it is clear that you see people as "forced" on to the NHS. Case in point, people are not forced and private options for higher quality of treatment are readily available at private hospitals, should you choose to opt for that (however, I recognise this is not plausible in since sense, i.e. A&E.).

But look at Dentists. Privatised, no one basically does NHS, the lists are full. Why? Cost. Cost. Cost. (and still a lack of dentists!)

Honestly cheaper to fly to Poland, get your fillings, have a nice lunch in Krakow and come home.

That your vision for quality healthcare in the UK too?

[Derek Bevan]

There should not be a two tier system,do away with the PFIs,if it aint "Broke" dont try to fix it ! pity that didnt apply in the 60s.Where has all the Money gone that has been collected from Cancer Relief,still no adequate cure,another "Con" ! as with Aids,etc,etc.