UK News 28-11-2001 Brown Promises `World Class` NHS Through Tax Rises who: Gordon Brown what: Announces huge NHS spending campaign where: House of Commons, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "The Chancellor, Gordon Brown, launched a campaign yesterday to forge a national consensus in Britain for a huge increase in spending on the National Health Service financed by a rise in taxes for the middle classes," reports this morning`s Independent. In what the aforementioned newspaper calls "a defining moment for the Blair Government", the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have decided to gamble that they can persuade the middle classes to pay more in tax to ensure Britain gets the better public services they want to see. "After what he called 50 years of underinvestment," says the Guardian`s Larry Elliott, "Mr Brown..challenged the Conservatives to support a national consensus for a modernised, better funded and publicly funded health service." "This means higher taxes. Of course it does," one senior government source said last night. "The reason we have less good health outcomes than other countries is that the NHS has been underfunded. This is as significant for us as independence for the Bank of England." The Times does some figures: "according to projections by PricewaterhouseCoopers, taxes would have to rise by 10 billion - the equivalent of 3p on the basic rate of income tax - if the Chancellor wanted to increase health and education spending by 5.5 per cent per year from 2004-05. Manifesto pledges prevent Mr Brown from raising the main income tax rates or extending the scope of VAT, but he could increase the rate of VAT, national insurance contributions, or choose not to uprate tax allowances in line with inflation." Shadow health secretary Michael Howard was unmoved by the Chancellor`s call for party unity on the NHS issue, saying:"Gordon Brown has asked for a blank cheque for the health service. But it is now clear to everyone except Gordon Brown that, without fundamental reform of health care, more money will not deliver the results which the people of this country are entitled to expect. He set his face against any fundamental reform of the NHS. It is a black day for health care in Britain." [... more]

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