Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has predicted the Budget 2017 would ‘unravel’ and said the money promised for the NHS was ‘well short’ of what his party would have provided.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has predicted the Budget 2017 would ‘unravel’ and said the money promised for the NHS was ‘well short’ of what his party would have provided.
In a scathing attack on the Budget, he said of the handout from the Chancellor : ‘It is still going to be well short of what is needed. He said in 2015 that the Government would fund another 5,000 GPs, but in the last year we have had 1,200 fewer GPs —and we have lost community nurses and mental health nurses.
‘The Chancellor promised £10bn in 2015 and delivered £4.5bn. So if he does not mind, we will wait for the small print – but even what he said certainly falls well short of the £6bn Labour would have delivered from our June manifesto.’
He claimed that Mr Hammond ‘has not been clear’ about NHS pay.
‘The Health Secretary has said that the pay cap is over, but where is the money to fund the pay rise?’ he told Parliament.
Not receiving required care
He criticised the lack of money in social care and said ‘Over one million of our elderly are not receiving the care they need. Over £6bn will have been cut from social care budgets by next March.’
He said people were forced to stay in hospital awaiting care packages or people to take time off work to care for ‘That is why social care budgets are so important for so many very desperate people in our country.’
He also lambasted the £28m the Chancellor announced for three housing pilots in Manchester, Liverpool and the west Midlands to alleviate homelessness and eliminate rough sleeping by 2027.
Mr Corbyn said: ‘The number of people sleeping rough has doubled since 2010. This year, 120,000 children will spend Christmas in temporary accommodation. Three new pilot schemes to look at rough sleeping across the whole country simply does not cut it.
‘It is a disaster for those people sleeping on our streets and forced to beg for the money for a night shelter.’
For Healthcare Leader's pick of topics the Budget didn't address, click here.
