Rishi Sunak is preparing to hand the NHS an extra £5billion from public coffers despite signing off a new £36billion health and social care package last month.
NHS England will receive the money to finance a digital transformation in the 1% of trusts that use ‘paper-based systems.
Boris Johnson has promised a series of new hospitals that the cash will be used to partially fund.
However, the additional funding will raise eyebrows, and will be announced by the Chancellor in his three-year spending review on Wednesday.
In September NHS bosses were given a £30billion handout as Boris Johnson clobbered Britons with their highest tax burden since the Second World War.
The Health Service will receive the vast majority of the £36billion raised by a National Insurance hike over the next three years, with social care receiving a £5.3billion slice.
The additional funding, which will be announced Wednesday in the Chancellor’s three-year Spending Review, will raise eyebrows.
NHS England will receive the money to finance a digital transformation in the 1% of trusts that use ‘paper-based systems.
Critics warned that the 1.25 per cent national insurance rise was a ‘jobs tax’ that could hit 130,000 positions in a body blow for millions of firms keen to hire new staff after the pandemic.
The increase will apply both on the contributions that employees make – and those paid by their employers.
Today Mr Sunak faced fury from within Tory ranks over a lack of tax cuts to help ailing businesses and workers in the Budget this week.
A serving minister criticized the Chancellor for his plans to ignore a 2019 pledge to lower business rates when he presented his economic plans on Wednesday.
They accused him being ‘captured’ by the Treasury. He was said to be a tinkerer at the edges of the levie, amid widespread calls for reform following the Covid pandemic.
Former minister David Davis, however, publicly attacked the Chancellor today over taxes, questioning if he was a “Thatcherite”, as he previously claimed.
He wrote Sunday in the Mail that he knew Margaret Thatcher. I will be watching closely to see if he can match the brilliance of Thatcher and her great Chancellor Nigel Lawson.
‘Sadly, every indication so far is that his current course will take us on to the rocks – not away from them.
“I fear Rishi may do so by making a most un-Thatcherite decision to continue with raising taxes as a solution for ballooning Government debt.”
Sunak reacted to his critics this morning. On Sunday, he stated that his ‘instincts” were still for low taxes. However, he added that ‘I wish’ hadn’t had the experience of coronavirus, a once in 300 years economic shock, and all the damage it has caused to the economy, and an NHS backlog that stretches into the millions that we felt it was really important, and rightly, to get some funding.
“But those are the issues I am facing, and I must face them and figure out the best way to solve them. We have made some decisions that, while they are difficult, I believe they are the right decisions and responsible decisions.