Government ministers claim that the country cannot afford a fair settlement for the NHS, teachers and other essential public sector workers. They would apparently prefer that these services collapse than pay those living in them a fair rate of pay for the work they do.
Earlier this year I noted the suggestion that £30 billion was required to fund appropriate NHS pay deals and wrote a proposal to address the need to finance this, including the possibility that it simply be added to the deficit, which is wholly plausible. As I suggestsed then (summarised in the form used here by Labour Heartlands) this funding could be addressed as follows:
1) £10 billion could come from the additional taxes paid by those lured back to the NHS by better working conditions and higher pay, and by those lured back having given up on work altogether. The impact of the extra NHS spending on growth elsewhere in the economy is also taken into account in this estimate.
2) At least £5 billion might be raised from taxes paid by those able to return to the workforce either because their own conditions will be sufficiently well managed to allow this or because those that they care for will enjoy better health, letting them return to work.
So, at least half of the funding required will be directly generated from the benefits created by that additional spending. Options for the remaining £15 billion include:
3) A government could simply decide to run a bigger deficit to fund the £15 billion requirement. The impact on the national debt is insignificant.
4) The Bank of England currently has a programme of selling the government debt it owns bought under the quantitative easing programmes that paid for the banking crises of 2008/9, the Brexit crisis of 2016 and the Covid crisis of 2020/21. If £15bn of this programme was cancelled each year and bonds to fund the NHS were sold instead the funding to deliver the healthcare we need could be found. In this case, there would be no net impact on the national debt owned by third parties.
5) National Savings and Investments could issue NHS Bonds in ISA accounts to provide the funding. £70 billion is saved in ISAs each year. Properly marketed, it would be easy to find £15 billion a year this way.
6) Halving the tax reliefs on savings available to the wealthiest 10% of people in the UK each year. At present it is likely that this group enjoy at least £30 billion of pension and ISA tax reliefs each year.
7) Since the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons has found that for every £1 spent on tax investigations £18 of additional tax is raised, investing £1 billion in additional funding with HM Revenue & Customs might be enough to recover the funds required for the NHS each year.
8) The rate of capital gains tax in the UK is currently set at half the rate of income tax in most cases. If it was set at the same rate as the income tax rate then the revenue from this tax might double, raising £15 billion a year.
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They, the Tories, have no interest in “saving” the N.H.S. All four of them. Their aim, as it has always has been, is to destroy our free at the point of use Health Service. Nothing less. Nothing more.
@ Richard,
” The NHS can be properly funded. Anyone claiming otherwise is just not telling the truth”
True. The UK is still a relatively wealthy country which means we do have the resources to run a successful NHS. It’s just a matter of, one way or another, using the correct percentage on health care.
However, the following statement assumes that the Government can control its own finances:
“….including the possibility that it (the cost -PM) simply be added to the deficit”
This is where I disagree. It’s the same mistake made by the neoliberals when they fret that the deficit is too high and think they can reduce it by a combination of spending cuts and tax rises.
As Stephanie Kelton often puts it: the Government’s deficit equals everyone else’s surplus (or savings). It follows, therefore, that the Government cannot run a deficit solely on its own terms. It has to rely on the willingness of everyone else to run a surplus. It can, of course, influence what everyone wishes to do by controlling inflation and adjusting the real level of interest rates but, influence isn’t the same as control.
Somewhat ironically, we can say that if the Government wants a higher deficit it should also aim to have higher interest rates to encourage saving which is clearly not a message that the present government wants to hear. Arguably, George Osborne, understood this ten years ago when he was happy to have interest rates at an ultra low level to discourage the savings of everyone else which would also have had the effect of reducing his government’s deficit.
So, the government can’t control its finances
What are you saying then? It cannot create money, when that is all the deficit is?
I really do not follow
@ Richard,
“G-T has no impact on private sector decisions….. In other words, what you are saying is that fiscal policy has no impact on the economy .”
I’m sure you neither think this yourself nor think that anyone in MMT circles is saying it. Government can obviously adjust its level of spending (G) at will. But it cannot control what comes back in taxation (T). If it can’t control T, it can’t control G-T. Any attempt to reduce its deficit by tightening fiscal policy it will be unlikely to work as intended. If government raises taxation levels, the economy will slow meaning that actual taxation revenue will fall. If the economy is looking shaky there may even a tendency for the private sector to save more than previously which will lead to an even slower economy, even lower levels of taxation revenue, and so a higher than previous deficit.
Having said this, if government is draconian enough if could possibly reduce its deficit by making everyone so poor that they can’t afford to save anything! However, surely even those of a right wing disposition wouldn’t consider this to be a success.
Sorry Neil, but now you are talking plain straightforward nonsense.
Of course a government has not got absolute control of tax revenues. Eeventys happens. But to pretend they have no control; is as good as saying fiscal policy cannot work, tax cann0t be used to control inflation and market sentiments must always prevail.
I never knew so many MMT proponents, like yourself, were Austrian economists. They talk drivel and what you are suggesting is nonsense – and basically contradicts everything Stephanie Kelton says.
Maybe it’s time MMT split between the fantasists and the realists. You are most certainly the former. I am most certainly the latter. But the real distinction is that realists will not use arguments that flatly contradict MMT and the insights Keynes provided whereas the fantasists live in the world Say would happily recognise and where Tufton Street plays.
Please explain why I am wrong. So far nothing you have said makes any sense at all.
PS. The government doesn’t have to be either right wing or left wing to impose its legal powers to compel us to pay our taxes. You’ve called for a higher rate of compliance yourself with stronger enforcement laws, and this of course is a perfectly valid POV. It doesn’t mean you are on the libertarian right.
You seem to have set your sights on Warren Mosler and Bill Mitchell. However Prof L Randall Wray also makes essentially the same argument. I’m not sure what Stephanie has said on the matter but I doubt she’s in any disagreement with the others.
If we accept that taxes drive money, then it really doesn’t make any real difference whether we work to get the money which taxes give a value to, or we work to pay the taxes themselves.
https://neweconomicperspectives.org/2011/07/mmp-blog-8-taxes-drive-money.html
A number of things.
Opposing tax haven abuse is inherently about upholding the power of the state. That is not a right-wing view. It is one the right wing have enormous problems with, as do the GOP have such a problem domestically with it in the USA, so let’s not pretend this can be a left or right wing view. It is not. You are, quite straightforwardly, wrong in the real world where I live. Your argument does not stack.
Charging tax is not per see about imposing about the power of the state. It is about recovering money spent by a government that thinks this the right thing to do in accordance with what I hope is a democratic mandate. Like Mosler, Mitchell and Wray you appear horribly confused about this, quite clearly thinking tax comes first, as they all do. It really is very bizarre from people who claim their whole theory says the contrary thing. I will write much more on this soon, as they really are very bad advocates for MMT so bizarre are their ideas.
And no, I do not think tax drives money. Of course it does not. I think that money is driven as a consequence of government spending what it declares to be the sole legal tender of a jurisdiction into use, which in turn drives tax. You really do have the horse and cart in all the wrong order. I wholly agree tax gives money value, but it does not drive money, not least because yet again that requires that tax comes before spend (after all, how else could a government spend without having taxed first in your argument) and that is obviously not true.
I suspect Stephanie Kelton does not agree with me on all these issues. I suspect too that she does not agree with Mosler, Mitchell and Wray either in their entirety. If they could have described MMT adequately she would never have written The Deficit Myth. I sense she is some way from them. I am not claiming she in any way agrees with me.
Let me come back for a second go at this Neil because what you say (and I think you understand MMT) is yet another example of the deeply confused thinking within it.
The claim is that the government cannot run a deficit without third-party permission
And yet MMT says the government can spend without borrowing? So who, precisely, has to consent to a deficit when it is simply the cumulative total of spending not yet taxed?
And please don’t tell me that those unemployed by being taxed have to consent because that assumes tax comes before spend (an issue I will get to this week) and MMT flatly contradicts that.
In effect your claim is that the government can only fund its spending via its central bank with private sector permission to do so and if that is that you’re saying then by doing so you lately contradict MMT.
Do, what are you saying?
@ Richard,
To clarify what I’m saying:
Often when equations such are expressed as (G-T)= (S-I) +(M-X)
(With the usual notations which I don’t need to explain)
are written this way around the implication is that a government deficit is (G>T) is the cause a surplus in the other two sectors. ie S being greater than I or M being greater than X
However we can rearrange the equation to imply any causation we like. All are equally valid. The usual explanation is that this is an ‘identity’ rather than an equation. I’m not sure this is quite right, in a strict mathematical sense, but it gets the point across.
This is not to suggest that there is anything wrong with Govt running a deficit. What is wrong is for Govt to try to force the issue, one way or another, by either over or underspending relative to the level of taxation imposed. Instead it should adjust its fiscal policy to accommodate the saving/spending wishes of the other two sectors.
On the question of the timing of the tax and spending issue which you raise, there is no contradiction in MMT. If we consider the case of the introduction of a new currency from scratch the imposition of a tax has to come before any Government spending is possible. This is not, (as some might think but I’m sure not you!), because the the Government needs the actual revenue to be collected first. In fact it cannot collect any revenue until it starts spending. However, it does need to create a demand for its own currency for it to be worth something and for it to be able to buy something with its spending in the first place.
In other words the government is using its legal powers to create debts in the population which need to be settled. Warren Mosler puts it in his own inimitable style as saying it creates unemployment. It’s really just the same thing as saying, as I think you’ve already done, that we are all legally required to pay our taxes.
I find this quite bizarre, as I am finding a great deal written by those claiming to understand MMT bizarre right now, from Mosler’s absurd claim on the purpose of taxation being to create unemployment onwards.
I also find models that say ‘let’s create a new currency from scratch’ unhelpful most of the time. I prefer to begin in the real world, where the test is ‘let’s assume we have a fiat currency’.
The assumptions implicit in your claims are:
a) G-T has no impact on private sector decisions. It is a residual. In other words, what you are saying is that fiscal policy has no impact on the economy. Thats an interesting pre-Keynesian claim. That will certainly be an eye-opener for most who believe in MMT. It’s also very obviously wrong.
b) That government should be run for the benefit of savers. Again, that will be one that most who follow MMT will find hard to swallow.
c) Your assumption that we have a malign government that enforces its spending onto people. Austrian economists might like that idea. I suspect most who support MMT would not. What you are clearly arguing for is minimal government.
If MMT needs the type of assumption you make it would in fact only suit the far right.
Thankfully it does not require such assumptions. They are wrong.
But then I remember you once saying MMT was wholly indifferent to tax havens. That was also very wrong, but you never acknowledged the mistake.
Do you want to try justifying MMT without such absurd claims, or are you willing to wait for me to do so?
No – the system is “closed” – except for government activity. Money is added by Government spending or bond purchases; drained via taxation or bond sales.
So, if the government spends on (say) the NHS it will end up in someone’s bank account… which means that it is in Commercial Bank Reserve Accounts with the BoE. If, as you fear/suggest, the private sector “doesn’t want to save” then gilt yields will rise… but once they hit a level that exceeds the interest rate paid on reserves the Commercial Banks will buy gilts. So, spending does not depend on the willingness of the Private Sector to save… although the shape of the yield curve will (unless other policy action is taken) will steepen. Now, an unwillingness to save and a steeper yield curve might be signalling all sorts of nasty things about future inflation etc.. – but then policy makers will have to make choices about how/when to drain money from the system. The do not have to stop spending on the NHS.
NeilW,
“It follows, therefore, that the Government cannot run a deficit solely on its own terms. It has to rely on the willingness of everyone else to run a surplus.”
This is rather odd wording. It does not require “everyone” to run a surplus. It merely requires some people to run a bigger surplus than others. Human psychology suggests to me there are always plenty of people willing to run a large surplus; and protect it even if the returns are low: safe asset theory implies most people prefer a significant level of security over high risk returns. What matters is the security of the surplus they hold. Some people may spend instead of save; but if not taxed there are plenty of people willing to acquire the surplus.
@ John,
Yes. When I say everyone I do mean everyone else but government in aggregate. This includes our overseas trading partners who, again on aggregate, prefer to save more than they spend. They are happy to supply us with more goods and services than we give them in return.
It’s slightly different for UK domestic residents. We have, in the main, to keep out of the bankruptcy courts so can’t afford to be too much in the deficit!
NeilW,
Yes, I know how it works; although the trading partner issue doesn’t quite fit; more loosewording. As I said, it does not require everyone to run a surplus. That is it.
It is incredible to think that we have been on this journey of NHS decline and the Tories are still here, in power.
It is obvious that the destruction of the NHS has not been capitalised upon enough to bring the Tories down because the consensus is that the poxy politicians think we cannot afford it or lack the creativity to look at other ways to fund it as you suggest above.
It is so important to remember that choices are being made – and our politicians are manifestly making the wrongs ones.
Indeed, it is incredible.
Particularly when we have seen this before in the 80s and early 90s. Whatever shortcomings Labour had under Blair, they did get more resources in to the NHS (Yes, I know…. PPP etc., but cash up front was delivered) and left it a better place in 2010.
The problem is that Wes Streeting seems to be driving the bus at the moment and is completely lost (or worse).
He doesn’t even know it is a bus
Or that he has to drive it
Wes Streeting does not look old enough to qualify for having a PSV license – let alone being a shadow minister of state for health.
All I see is a mannequin of man (boy?) – waiting to be told what to do by the private health sector.
He disgusts me. I know that sounds a bit strong but I’ve had enough of these vacuous politicians who just seem to have given up on us.
I agree about Wes Streeting
but the Secretary of State for Health and Social care has different responsibilities than when Labour was last in office. The 2012 Act was designed , IMHO, to pave the way for privatisation of the NHS.
The primary duty on the Secretary of State lies in section 1 of the NHS Act which
provides that the Secretary of State has a duty to “continue the promotion of” a
comprehensive health service. Section 1 provides:
“(1) The Secretary of State must continue the promotion in England of a
comprehensive health service designed to secure improvement—
(a) in the physical and mental health of the people of England, and
(b) in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of physical and mental illness.
Previously I believe it was their duty to provide. ‘Promotion’ is not quite the same.
Labour needs to be explicit about how much the private sector will be involved and if they will be involved in strategic planning.
I wholeheartedly agree
Often in medicine prevention is cheaper than the cure. And so it is with public services, letting them collapse is far more expensive than just running them effectively.
Why do Tories want to pick the more expensive option, while pretending we can’t afford the cheaper and better option?
Agreed
I wonder, could it be that part of it is due to the fact that the benefits of the spending do not appear within the same deparment or ministry where the spending takes place? Or is that already accounted for?
To take the above example, Richard says that almost half of the extra spending would come from the extra taxes that those working in the NHS would pay due to the higher pay, and from workers whos health improves enough that they start working and therefore pay taxes again.
Does the £5 million in extra revenue from workers who have used, but are not employed by the NHS, count as a benefit of the health department’s spending in the government accounts? Indeed, does the tax revenue from those working in the NHS get properly accounted as a benefit of that spending in the health department? Or does that extra revenue “magically” appear in the government’s accounts, with no apparent reason as to why that is? Or maybe even appears, but it is recorded as a benefit under a different governemnt department (DWP, perhaps)?
If the deparment that gains from the spending is not the same as the one that makes the spending, then wouldn’t it be reasonable for those in charge of that department, who only see the effects of spending in their department, to think they are spending too much for no (apparent) gain (to them), and therefore see cutting the expense as a cheaper option when we, with a bird’s eye view of the budget spillover effects between each deparment, would see it as the most expensive overall ?
You have highlighted a very relevant issue.
[…] article suggests that £30 billion would be needed to support the kind of pay deals NHS workers need. From […]
The logic of money and taxes.
Assume there is no money. The government can not collect taxes as there is no money.
The government has to print/make money and spend it before it can collect any tax.
Yes
But that is not what the founders of MMT sy, as I will note later this week
@ Ben @ Richard,
Why would Govt be able to spend what it calls money in the first place? If you’re the Government and I’m the private sector why would I give you anything for your computer digits or pieces of paper?
*Unless* you imposed a law that said I had to pay a certain number back to you as tax. I don’t have any authority to create the money you’re asking for. The only way I can get it is to work for you, or sell you something like food to feed your army, or supply a building to house your civil servants or whatever.
I can’t see what is so difficult about the concept or why anyone would even question that this is how a fiat currency works.
We’ve already established that Mosler, Mitchell and Wray are all in basic agreement. I think Kelton is too. The only differences are in styles of argument. I’ll have to look up what she says about it and get back to you. I don’t like to use an argument from authority, especially in economics, but the ‘big 4’ in MMT surely can’t all be dismissed so lightly!
Especially not by someone who claims to be a MMTer. As far as I know, Richard, you’re on your own in questioning it. Is there anyone at all, with any academic standing, who agrees with you?
There are a lot of issues in there. Let me work through them.
Let me preface again by saying that your argument is really very confused, and it really does not help. This is not a personal criticism. It seems widespread in MMT and a major impediment to its progress.
In your first para you assume governments began by spending fiat money. They didn’t. They began using asset backed money. The issues are not the same, at all. MMT argument usually ignores the fact that fiat money is very modern, and that is a mistake. You can argue about introducing asset backed money from scratch. Or you can suggest MMT became relevant when fiat money became the norm, by when of course, tax was totally normal. But you can’t mix and match, not least because MMT says it relates to fiat money. Your argument falls totally flat as a result.
So, why did people accept money? Because it was gold. Or something else valuable. Let’s get that rocket science out of the way.
You also appear to assume people were familiar with money before there was government money, and their problem was only with government money.
First, that’s really rather bizarre. What was this other money? You may have noticed that they are none too successful.
Second, you seem to think that the advance of credit (which is implicit in fiat currency) very odd and that no one would accept credit without the power to tax. Except that every day in the world around you credit is advanced. I used to do it all the time in business. I never had the power to tax. It is also how banking works. But apparently the government is exempt from this. It’s promise to pay is only capable of being enforced by tax when everyone else manages without that. The whole assumption makes no sense at all.
The reality is that fiat currencies are undoubtedly backed by tax, but it is the economic power of tax and not the legal power to impose tax that achieves that goal. Because a few need legal provision to enforce their obligation to tax does not make that legal force the characteristic of a currency. Most people want what government does and want to pay. See a post this morning. It is very odd that MMT assumes otherwise. In fact, I would say it is a serious misunderstanding and politically very harmful.
As for the suggestion that “I don’t like to use an argument from authority, especially in economics, but the ‘big 4’ in MMT surely can’t all be dismissed so lightly!”, my argument is that I am not dismissing anyone lightly. I know how unpopular I will make myself for pointing out what seem to me to be glaringly obvious logical flaws in MMT. MMT really does not like dissent. It is not to its credit that it does not do so. But, just because four people agree at a point in time does not make them right. You obviously think so. I can think of thousands of examples to the contrary.
And anyway, the suppression of dissent, which would appear to be your goal by making an appeal to authority, is deeply unattractive. If MMT cannot withstand scrutiny it’s hardly worthy of study, let alone attention. And I am scrutinising it. As an academic, that is most certainly my right. Please don’t say otherwise.
As is very obvious, there is much I think of merit in MMT. I think most of the justification for it from Mosler, Mitchell and Wray to be nonsense (using the word in its literal sense). You repeat some of that nonsense here and the result is appeal to facts that don’t exist and the dismissal as improbable of behaviour traits that I see every day. Simply, most of the ‘founding’ claims of MMT lack any evidential support.
In fact, they actually harm its case. All that MMT need say is that when fiat currencies became commonplace our understanding of money should have also changed. We simply need to adapt to a new era. Making up mumbo jumbo about introducing new currencies in a deep forgotten past when currencies were not fiat in nature makes no sense at all.
And who agrees with me? Well, the vast majority of economists do not buy MMT. You might have noticed. I very much suspect they reject all the stuff I am addressing.
And if you want a name of a person who might agree with me start with Steve Keen, who like me has a reluctant relationship with MMT fir all the reasons I note. Stephanie Kelton has persuaded him to embrace MMT as she sees it. I don’t think you will find him endorsing Mosler, Mitchell or Wray.
Sorry, but so far you need to up your game. Your answers are not winning here, and because MMT matters this debate does too.
@ Richard,
“I also find models that say ‘let’s create a new currency from scratch’ unhelpful most of the time. I prefer to begin in the real world, where the test is ‘let’s assume we have a fiat currency’.”
Stephanie Kelton doesn’t agree. This is her take on it:
“Why do we have taxes at all? So in the book, I go into a lot of detail on this, if you wanted to start up a currency from scratch then a tax or something like it fees, fines. Also, other obligations governments impose to get a population to put a population of people in a position where they need to earn the state’s currency in order to settle their tax or other obligation to the state. And we could talk a lot about this, but we don’t have time, so I’ll just say that one reason for taxes is that they allow governments to start up a currency from scratch. Once that currency has been started up and now people are accustomed to having this currency around, they begin making their own payments and transacting in that currency”
There’s little or no difference between any of the major MMT proponents in the substance of what they say. It’s only the style that varies.
In the article Stephanie also credits Warren with helping her to change her thinking about economics.
“And it was only later when I encountered the work of Warren Mosler that I began to question my own understanding of how government finance works.”
https://www.macrovoices.com/guest-content/list-guest-transcripts/3912-2020-10-22-transcript-of-the-podcast-interview-between-erik-townsend-and-stephanie-kelton/file
So?
I am saying I disagree on something that actually need never be discussed by MMT
Do you think that wrong?
Are you saying I should shut up?
Is debate not allowed?
Or is it that al, that can be said on MMT has been said?
You really need to explain
@ Richard,
I’m all for rational debate but I must say you annoyed me the other day by accusing me of introducing a racist argument by mentioning a ‘hut tax’ in the context of an explanation, even though such taxes were used by colonial powers to establish their rule. A mention of historical facts, such as colonialism and huts taxes, doesn’t imply approval.
Another below the belt tactic is to accuse us MMTers of being ‘Austrian Economists’ when you know perfectly well there is no similarity between Hayek, Mises etc and the ‘big 4’ of MMT: Mosler, Mitchell, Wray and Kelton.
On the one hand you’ve stated that you consider that I understand MMT (thanks for that!) then later on you’ve used phrases like “you are talking plain straightforward nonsense” then added in the word “drivel” for good measure. It’s not just me that you mean, but your targets include *all* the leading figures in MMT. This is no way to resolve any differences that might exist. You’re effectively saying that they are too great for you to be considered part of the same economic school of thought.
Let’s be clear, you turn up here without saying who you are and demand I show respect.
You make reference to colonial behaviour to justify a current economic idea and see so no problem with that, even when I call it out as the wholly unnecessary trope that it is in MMT.
Then because I suggest that the anti-government arguments of Warren Mosler look decidedly like those advanced by Austrian economists, you get very upset, without in any way saying why I am wrong.
And when I made the point that understanding MMT and claiming tax is solely intended to create unemployment are different things (because they very obviously are, the latter having literally nothing to do with the former), you get upset again without ever, once more engaging with the argument. Instead, you clutch at your pearls and say the debate is beneath me, when I am inviting it.
You choose. I’ll debate. The problem for you is I am setting out the reasoning. You’re just saying I am not allowed to disagree with the ‘big 4’, which really is you playing into other hands of those who call MMT a cult, which I would really rather not do.
I am explaining MMT here, something that I came to by my own reasoning (see the Joy of Tax, where I explain it without referring to the name because the ideas of spend and tax was at the time I thought logical, and one I had reached, but also thought what was called MMT wrong on many things, as I still think it ais as explained by Mosler, Wray and Mitchell).
You decide if you want to debate. I don’t mind. I’m happy with my version and will be until someone persuades me otherwise, which would be good, if they can. That’s how knowledge advances.
Is this kind of quote really the best argument NeilW can make to support his views? First of all, Kelton’s comment is garbled and inaccurate and, secondly, she may have been persuaded to re-think her views on economics by reading Mosler, but that doesn’t mean she agrees with him about everything.
I really enjoyed Kelton’s book but it was only one input along the path to gaining a better understanding of money, taxation and the economy. An earlier – and more enlightening – introduction was actually Richard’s book, “The Joy of Tax”. So I find him to be a superior authority to Kelton, if we want to start arguing from authority.
Richard, your deeply thought-out and clear expositions on the subject add immeasurably to my understanding. The fact that you do this on a daily basis, and fully engage with your audience (without posting your thoughts behind a paywall on Substack, as Kelton does) only enhances your credibility as an authority.
Thanks for persevering with this particular thread. It’s been a blast.
Thanks Bill
The last instalment is tomorrow.
I tackle what is wrong with Warren Mosler’s short explanation of MMT
Spending more money on health and social care is inevitable , desirable and affordable.
The reasons for this are very well laid out in Marc Robinsons book “Bigger Government ” an FT book of the year a couple of years ago.
It is not surprising that the Tories dont accept this as they believe in smaller government and the market to the solution to everything- when it plainly isn’t. What is more surprising is that The Labour Party agree with the Tories.
Alex Beveridge is correct in saying that this Government wants to destroy the NHS as it now exists. But he should have gone onto explain why, which few other than the odd union leader seem keen to do for some reason. The purpose is surely to fully privatise the NHS (it’ll keep the name of course) giving the current £135billion NHS funding directly to the successful corporation(s) for them to decide how much if anything to spend on free healthcare and how much to boost their assets and syphon off on dividends to shareholders and salaries for corporate bosses etc. What seems certain is that to continue to provide free healthcare in the UK at the level currently available under the NHS the UK government would have to give the new NHS owners a great deal more than the £135 billion currently spent.
Or perhaps my understanding is wrong. Perhaps this and the previous government’s priorities have not been to transfer as much relatively unlimited government money as possible to big business.
Ian Stevenson raises the NHS Act 2006. Actually, the duty on the SoS has always been only to “promote” the service – ever since the NHS Act 1946. And this is often regarded as a mere “target” or aspiration unenforceable by patients. But there is a serious question about section 1A at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/41/section/1A.
“ The Secretary of State must exercise [his] functions … with a view to securing continuous improvement in the quality of services provided to individuals for or in connection with— (a) the prevention, diagnosis or treatment of illness, or (b) the protection or improvement of public health.”
This duty to secure “continuous improvement” certainly deserves attention.