5.22am EDT
05:22
Javid defends bogus claim that Brexit released GBP350m per week for NHS
Here are some more lines from Sajid Javid’s interviews this morning relating to yesterday’s announcement.
Javid, the health secretary, said he could not guarantee that the GBP12bn tax increase announced yesterday would be enough to clear the backlog for NHS operations. He told Sky News that he thought there was “enough money” for the NHS and for adult social care. But when he was asked if the money would clear the backlog, he replied:
No responsible health secretary can make that kind of guarantee. What I can be absolutely certain of is that this will massively reduce the waiting list from where it would otherwise have been.
When asked about the same issue on the Today programme, Javid said that waiting lists would be “a lot, lot lower” because of the extra money going into the NHS. But he said he could not say exactly how they would be cut because the NHS did not know how many people would come forward seeking treatment that they postponed during the pandemic. He explained:
I can’t tell you exactly how much lower it will be because, for example, I don’t know how many of [the 7 million people estimated to have avoided going to hospital during the pandemic] are going to come back. That’s what the NHS refers to as the bounce back. What’s the assumption?
The NHS has never been through anything like this before. We don’t know that. We have to make an assumption.
What I can say though is I want as many of those people to come back as they can, I want them to know that the NHS is there, it’s open for them. I don’t want anyone to suffer out there.
This chart, from the Spectator’s Fraser Nelson, illustrates the problem.
(@FraserNelson)
Sajid Javid tells R4 that during the lockdowns some seven million “didn’t get seen”. This, from Spectator Data Hub, shows more: https://t.co/potWZQyIkc pic.twitter.com/7Vx7Kv65uq
Javid claimed that the NHS was getting an extra GBP350m per week after Brexit, as promised by the Vote Leave campaign. In an interview on LBC, Nick Ferrari asked what had happened to that GBP350m, and why the NHS needed extra money if that cash was available. Javid seemed reluctant to discuss the GBP350m per week figure specifically. But he did not contest that it existed and, when Ferrari pressed him on where it went, he replied:
This answer was misleading because the GBP350m was not an accurate figure in the first place. Javid must know this, but Boris Johnson still claims that the figure was justified, and so rather than challenge the figure, Javid found it more expedient to make a general point about the NHS getting extra funding. Kate Nicholson at HuffPost has a full write-up of this exchange.
Javid appeared to concede that the plans announced yesterday would not stop some people having to sell their homes to fund their care. In the Conservatives’ 2019 manifesto (pdf) they said their plan for social care would ensure “nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it”. When it was put to Javid that even under the new, more generous arrangements announced yesterday some people would still need to sell their homes to fund their care, he said deferred payment agreements meant that people needing to raise money for care do not need to sell their homes while they are alive, because they can get a loan that is repaid when their estate is sold after their death. (These DPAs are already available.) Javid also said people in England could now be confident that their total care costs would not exceed GBP86,000. He also stressed that, because the means test was now more generous, people would be able to retain more of their assets before starting to contribute to the costs of their care.
He defended the decision to wait until October 2023 before bringing in the GBP86,000 lifetime cap on the amount any person in England will have to pay for their social care. Asked why this could not come in sooner, he told LBC:
It’s just not possible to have such a huge change to the way we do our social care in this country and implement that … it requires specific legislation to go through parliament.
The history of our government is littered with governments of the past making promises on massive strategic changes in such a short timeframe, that they knew couldn’t possibly be met, and they end up failing.
I’m not in that game, I want to make sure that we deliver on this promise.
He claimed the plan announced yesterday was “a very Conservative thing to do”. He told LBC:
As Conservatives, we believe in the NHS, that it should be the world-class universal health service, free at the point of use, paid out of general taxation for all of us … If we believe in an NHS that’s paid out of general taxation, this is a very Conservative move.
Also as a Conservative, I believe in fiscal responsibility. That means that if we are going to raise taxes you’ve got to be able to absolutely 100% justify that, and I think we’ve done that both with health care and the adult social care package yesterday, but also you should try and keep taxes as low as possible and be as fair as possible.
He said the tax increase proposed was “a very progressive way of raising money” because half the money raised would come from the highest 14% of earners.
4.37am EDT
04:37
Javid claims Tories are still ‘party of low taxation’ after GBP12bn health levy
Good morning. Boris Johnson takes a close interest in how his government is reported by the national newspapers and, having announced a GBP12bn tax rise that clearly breaks a manifesto promise, he might have expected a mauling. Although the coverage is certainly critical, it could have been worse. But Johnson will be paying particular attention to his former employer, the Daily Telegraph, an institution he describes as his “true boss”, and, like other conservative papers, it is particularly interested in the idea that Johnson’s announcement means the Tories have given up on being a low-tax party.
Here is the Telegraph’s front page.
(@Telegraph)
The front page of tomorrow’s Daily Telegraph:
‘Highest taxes since the War’#TomorrowsPapersToday
Sign up for the Front Page newsletterhttps://t.co/x8AV4Oomry pic.twitter.com/yHDse4WrOH
And here is the Times’.
(@AllieHBNews)
Wednesday’s TIMES: “Tax burden will rise to highest in 70 years” #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/IvpaE6aZd7
Both papers are understating the case. The highest tax burden for 70 years means the highest tax burden in history, because before the creation of the postwar welfare state, tax was lower because the state just did a lot less. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says the tax burden is now at its highest-ever sustained level. (That means excluding wars.) The Daily Mail acknowledges this.
(@AllieHBNews)
Wednesday’s Daily MAIL: “Now Make The Care Worth The Cost Boris” #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/Ow3tSHGeCh
My colleague Helen Sullivan has a full report on how the papers are covering the announcement this morning here.
On the Today programme this morning Torsten Bell, a former Labour party policy adviser who now heads the Resolution Foundation thinktank, said yesterday’s announcement meant the Tories were no longer a low-tax party.
We’ve learned that low-tax Conservatism is dead. This is the biggest set of tax rises since the 1970s if you take this together with the tax rises in the March budget.
But Sajid Javid, the health secretary, has denied this. He told the Today programme:
We are the party of low taxation, we will always be a party of low taxation.
When the presenter, Nick Robinson, told him that the tax burden was now at its highest level ever, Javid replied:
Actually, even with this change in the levy, if you take that into account and use the [Office for Budget Responsibility’s] latest numbers, that means the total tax burden as a proportion of our GDP is about 35.5%. That is still lower than France, Italy and Germany. We are still a low-tax country after this change, and we will always remain a low-tax country.
But we are also a responsible, Conservative government that believes passionately in the NHS, and I think this package shows exactly the lengths we would go to to support the NHS.
Here is the agenda for the day.
12pm: Boris Johnson faces Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs.
Around 1pm: MPs start the debate on the GBP12bn tax rise for health and social care announced yesterday. The vote, which the government is expected to win comfortably, will be at 7pm.
After 2pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, gives a statement to the Scottish parliament on Covid.
Today I will mostly be focusing on reaction to yesterday’s health and social care announcement, PMQs and the debate in the Commons. For Covid coverage, do read our global coronavirus live blog.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com
Updated
at 5.22am EDT
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