Howard pledges to spend more on health than Labour

Spending on health could be higher under a Conservative government than a Labour one by the end of the next parliament.

Spending on health could be higher under a Conservative government than a Labour one by the end of the next parliament.

That became clear after Labour refused to match plans by the Tories to maintain big annual increases in the health budget for the next six years. The Tories' spending plans run to the 2011-12 financial year but Labour has declined to commit itself beyond the 2007-08, the end of the period covered by the Treasury's latest spending review.

In an attempt to win the voters' trust on public services, the Tories have pledged to spend as much as Labour on health by raising spending by 8 per cent in real terms until 2007-08.

They have also promised an extra £34 bn by the following general election, and their plans show the budget rising from £88bn this year to £135bn by 2011-12.

In contrast, ministers have hinted that the hike in NHS spending over the next few years, financed by the rise in national insurance contributions announced in 2002, would not be maintained after 2007-08 if Labour retains power.

Asked if a Tory government would be spending more than Labour envisaged after then, John Reid, the Secretary of State for Health, told The Independent: "The Tories plan to take £1.2bn from the NHS from next year under their patient passport proposals, which use NHS funds to subsidise the rich few to jump the queue.

"Because their sums don't add up, as we have exposed throughout this campaign, all their other spending promises are worthless."

In an interview with the Health Service Journal, published today, Mr Reid refused to guarantee that the spending increases over the next few years would continue and suggested the NHS would not need such big annual rises in future.

He said: "After 2008, while it will still be a challenge to meet the demands of the modern public, who have higher expectations, NHS staff will not have to meet that demand and try to cope with a backlog, a huge waiting list of over a million people built up over 28 years almost exclusively under a Conservative government. That should ease the challenge after 2008."

Although Labour is on course to raise Britain's level of health spending to the European average, health experts and professionals are worried by the hints from ministers. They say Mr Reid's vision of the NHS in 2008 is too optimistic.

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the King's Fund, said that even if considerable progress was made by then, reductions in the current levels of growth would feel like cuts. "All the existing demands will go on," he said. "There will still be pressure in terms of salaries, drugs, growing demands for better and faster services," he said.

Mike Sobanja, chief executive of the NHS Alliance representing primary care trusts, told the Health Service Journal: "It seems a little bit like the belief when the NHS was founded in 1948 that sickness would plateau. That was found to be too optimistic.

"All that has happened is that demand has grown and grown and grown."

David Hunter, chairman of the UK Public Health Association, said: "It's an act of faith for Mr Reid to say that by 2008 we will be well on the road to seeing reduced demand in the NHS. He is being overly optimistic."

A Conservative spokesman said: "Our plans mean continuing significant increases in spending on the National Health Service and other key public services, achieved by controlling the rate of growth of spending in other areas.

"This can be done through unremitting efforts to achieve value for money for taxpayers and the elimination of unnecessary and wasteful bureaucracies."