Key points
Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn returned to the issue of NHS funding and the Brexit dividend this week, with Corbyn referring to May’s claim that money for the NHS would come from Brexit, economic growth and taxes. As there will be no Brexit dividend for some years, he says, and economic growth is very slow, which taxes are going up?
May says she has set out a long-term plan for the NHS. It will secure the future for the NHS, and as part of the five-year settlement there will be money from the EU. She says various shadow ministers said the Brexit dividend did not exist. But she quotes another frontbencher saying Labour would use money saved from Brexit to invest in public services. That was Corbyn, she says.
Corbyn says he is pleased May is reading his speeches. He said EU money should be ringfenced for certain uses. He goes back to taxes. Last year May says firms could not plan on the basis of unspecified taxes. Which taxes are going up and for whom?
May says Philip Hammond will set that out before the spending review. She says she is glad Labour has confirmed there will be money coming back from the EU.
Corbyn says May spoke about £600m a week extra going to the NHS. That is over £30bn a year – way more than the UK’s contributions to the EU. Her figures are so dodgy they belong on the side of a bus. Why is the PM pushing her own Mickey Mouse figures?
May says Corbyn should listen to what she said. He claimed she promised that money by 2023-24. She said more money would be spent on the NHS as a result of her decision, partly funded by the UK no longer being in the EU. The government will be contributing a bit more. Hammond will bring forward plans before the spending review. If Corbyn is so concerned about tax, why did Labour oppose lifting the personal allowance?
Corbyn says last night May emailed Tory members saying the money from the EU would go to the NHS. But the government’s own watchdog says there will be no extra money until at least 2023. If growth does not meet expectations, will there be extra borrowing, or higher mystery taxes?
May says the balanced approach she has taken to the economy has given her the space to act. The Conservatives believe in keeping taxes low, she says. Let’s look at what Labour offered at the election. It promised 2.2% growth for the NHS, saying that would make it the envy of the world. She chose not to listen. She is putting in 3.4%.
Corbyn says under Labour the NHS increase would be 5% this year. And what is her offer – a promise without saying where any of it would come from, apart from phantom taxes Hammond is presumably dreaming up now. But there is a human element to this. He quotes from a letter from someone saying her daughter needed a wheelchair but could not get one from the NHS. Does May think standing still is good enough for the NHS?
May says she is putting in extra money. She quotes what Simon Stevens, the NHS chief executive, said: the settlement would provide the NHS with the money it needed. For every £1 extra the government spends on the NHS in England, the Welsh Labour government spends just 84p.
Corbyn says May announced nothing for health or social care. It is not what the NHS needs. A&E waits are their worst ever. There are 100,000 staff vacancies, he says. He says the PM is writing IOUs just to stand still. Until this government can be straight with people about where the money is coming from, why should people trust them on the NHS.
May says she can tell him why: for 43 of its 70 years, the NHS has been under the Tories. We will now see a 10-year plan to improve services. Corbyn can talk of Labour’s plans. But Labour’s plans would bankrupt the economy. Their plan does not add up. Labour would lose control of the public finances, she says.
Snap verdict
That was by no means a classic, but it was one of those PMQs that could in retrospect turn out to be more significant than you might have thought while listening to the rather underpowered ding-dong. That’s not because Corbyn won on health, a Labour issue where his emotive complaints about under-funding normally have force. In fact, this wasn’t so much a PMQs about health as about financial credibility – supposedly the Conservative party’s USP for most of its history – and Corbyn clearly had the best of the argument.
His questions weren’t particularly flash, but they were were pertinent and reasonable, and May didn’t even begin to answer them. Where will all the money for the NHS come from? What taxes will go up? Will there be extra borrowing? These are proper questions (not loaded PMQs jibes, which the PM can ignore with some justification) and May’s perfectly articulate flannel could not really hide the fact that Corbyn had a point. He is outscoring May on fiscal prudence. The Tories ought to be worried.
Memorable lines
Jeremy Corbyn on May’s claim the NHS would get £600m extra a week:
Mr Speaker, her figures are so dodgy, they belong on the side of a bus. We expect that from the foreign secretary but why is the prime minister pushing her own Mickey Mouse figures?
Theresa May on Labour’s views on a Brexit dividend:
… the shadow housing secretary called it bogus, the shadow health secretary called it a deceit … but [here’s] what another Labour member said a few weeks ago: ‘We will use the funds returned from Brussels after Brexit to invest in our public services.’ It was him, the right honourable gentleman, the leader of the opposition.