Conservative Reaction: Cameron: NHS failure is 'hole in the heart of Budget'

David Cameron tore into the Budget for "wasting money on an industrial scale" as he mocked the Chancellor as the pilot of a sinking New Labour ship.

The Conservative leader derided Gordon Brown's 10 years at No 11, telling MPs: "His great experiment in tax and spending has failed. He is an out-of-date politician wedded to state control. The question everyone is asking is, 'Where has the money gone?'"

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The Conservative front bench looked on in consternation at the moment that Mr Brown announced his 2p cut in the basic rate of tax.

But Mr Cameron insisted that the Chancellor had admitted that it was possible to increase spending and cut taxes.

He said: "He has finally given us a tax cut. He normally does that before a general election but he is in such a deep hole you have had to do it before the leadership election."

He added: "You can increase spending and you can cut taxes. Yes, you can share the proceeds of growth.

"He spent a whole year attacking our policy, making up ludicrous figures for cuts in public spending but now he is introducing it. This is the great master of strategy. He has spent months planning his Budget, [with] thousands of civil servants in the Treasury who cost twice what they did when he first walked through the door. The best thing he can do is introduce a policy I announced a year ago. What a genius."

Mr Cameron said: "He is the Chancellor who has put the tax burden up. He is the Chancellor who has taken one tax down but put 99 taxes up. The average family is paying £1,300 more because of his Budget decisions."

In a speech that lasted just 13 minutes, Mr Cameron turned his fire on Mr Brown, mocking claims by the former cabinet secretary Lord Turnbull that Mr Brown was a "Stalinist" with contempt for his colleagues.

He went on: "Let me tell you what the Chancellor's real problem is. It is not that he is a Stalinist who holds all his colleagues in contempt - although I have to say that probably doesn't help. It is that he has wasted money on an industrial scale."

"For 10 years he has been telling us that education is his priority but 40 per cent of primary school leavers can't read properly. For 10 years he has been telling us he wants a competitive economy but you have given us the biggest tax burden in our history.

"For 10 years he has been talking about child poverty - he did it again today - but the number of people living in severe poverty is up by 400,000 and Unicef says that Britain is the worst place in the developed world to bring up children." Mr Cameron said the "hole in the heart of the Budget" was its failure to address the problems of the NHS.

Borrowing over the next five years will total £153bn, Mr Cameron said. "He's built up a pile of debt, so once again where's all the money gone?

"We've had a bonanza of spending on the NHS but nurses have been sacked. He brags about people's long-term security but the pension system's shot to pieces."

The Conservative leader said: "For 10 years he has been telling us about the NHS; today barely a mention.

"All he has done is re-announce this year's money which we already knew. He has got the figures for the future - why won't he tell us?"

Mr Cameron attacked Mr Brown over growing public borrowing rates and mocked the Chancellor's recent private dental work. The Conservative leader told MPs: "He listed them through gritted teeth. They might have been whitened, they might have been straightened, they might have been privately polished. He spent all that money on his smile but he won't even give us one. He isn't going to win over Kylie like that."

Mr Cameron ridiculed relations between Mr Brown and Tony Blair with a reference to the Prime Minister's appearance on Comic Relief. He pointed to the two men talking on the front bench, declaring: "They are having their annual conversation."

He added: "I don't know why he bothers talking to the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's not bovvered any more."

He mocked the Labour benches as "monkeys", warning Labour MPs that they were "just realising their next leader has the tendencies of Stalin and the poll ratings of Michael Foot". He said: "The front bench are all standing in the deputy leadership contest, they know from history that's the one way to avoid the Gulag."

Mr Cameron said: "He is not the solution, he is the problem. For years he wanted to be the young pretender and now he's ended up as the old man in the Kremlin."

He added: "The great ship of New Labour is now a listing, leaking, rusting hulk and it's heading for the rocks. He can't jump ship because he has been the pilot for the last 10 years. They're going down and he is going with them.

"Just think what a legacy of 10 years as Chancellor could have produced. We could have had a Budget about a better NHS, a competitive economy, strengthening families. But for a Budget like that we will have to wait not just for a change of chancellor but for a change of government."