Karin Smyth MP condemns the Government for neglecting the NHS in this year’s Budget
Karin Smyth, MP for Bristol South, condemns the Government for neglecting the NHS, social care and schools in the Budget announced by the Chancellor on Wednesday. With just one mention of the NHS, and no mention of social care or school funding, Smyth has criticised the Government for having the wrong priorities.
Budget documents revealed that NHS England core resource spending, including Covid spending, will fall from £147.7 million this year down to £139.1 million next, meaning there is no plan to deal with the ongoing cost to the NHS from Covid-19. The Government has also not allocated any additional resources to tackle the crisis now facing cancer care or waiting lists that have built up during the crisis.
The climate emergency and job crisis were also neglected in Wednesday’s budget announcement, with no new investment for green recoveries in key industries including automotive, aerospace and steel, and just £20m announced for floating offshore wind technology.
Karin Smyth, MP for Bristol South, said:
“This Budget was the opportunity to put our country back on the road to recovery and right the wrongs of the last decade by rebuilding our economy, but the Chancellor is simply papering over the cracks and has shown how out of touch he is with what this country needs.
“Today’s speech saw just one mention of the NHS and no mention of the huge challenges facing social care. With no plan for NHS recovery, this Budget is ignoring the enormous backlog of cases that have built up during the crisis and is following through with plans to freeze pay for our key workers in the public sector.
“I am also gravely concerned that in this Budget the Chancellor has turned his back on the green stimulus that the jobs and climate emergency is crying out for. Labour has repeatedly called for a £30bn green economic recovery which would create so many opportunities for youth employment and apprenticeships in clean industries in Bristol.
“The Chancellor should have learned lessons from the pandemic, but instead he is choosing to go back to the same insecure economy and unequal society so cruelly exposed by the virus. He has got his priorities totally wrong.”