Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Kelvin Hopkins

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

9. How much was spent on healthcare as a proportion of GDP in (a) 2009-10 and (b) 2014-15; and what estimate he has made of the amount that will be spent on healthcare as a proportion of GDP in 2020-21.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

Because in 2010 the country faced a deficit that constituted 11% of GDP, all major political parties committed to plans that reduced Government spending, including on health, as a proportion of GDP. However, because of this Government’s commitment to the NHS, health spending as a proportion of Government spending will increase from 14.2% to 15.8% over the decade.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Former coalition Minister David Laws has recently written that under the previous Government the NHS chief executive told Ministers that the health service required an additional £30 billion, and that he was forced to cut that figure and squeeze it down to £15 billion, but was allocated only £8 billion by the Treasury. That was a savage cut of £22 billion to what the NHS really needed. Is that not the root cause of all the NHS’s problems, and does it not make utter nonsense of the Government’s claim to be protecting NHS funding?

[Mr Hunt]

What the hon. Gentleman describes as a “savage cut” was a real-terms increase of £10 billion a year, which was £5.5 billion more than his party proposed as part of the platform he stood on at the last election.