‘NHS can’t wait any longer’: Ed Davey tells Labour not to delay investment

Keir Starmer must abandon plans to delay investment in the NHS and instead introduce new taxes on banks and the wealthy to immediately pump almost £5bn a year into the ailing health service, the Lib Dem leader has warned.

In an interview with the Observer As the Lib Dem conference takes place in Brighton, Ed Davey said the upcoming budget must be a “budget for the NHS”. He warned that waiting to start the work needed to repair ageing hospitals and increase the number of GPs was a serious mistake.

“We have crumbling hospitals,” he said. “We don’t have enough GPs and dentists. Social care is in shambles. Carers are not supported. We need that budget for the NHS. Yes, we agree that reform is needed, but you can’t have reform without more investment up front. We’re going to spend a lot of time talking about the NHS. The budget has to be a budget for the NHS first and foremost.”

It comes after Starmer warned last week that the NHS must “reform or die” following the publication of a damning report into the state of health care in England by cancer surgeon and former minister Ara Darzi. The prime minister suggested there would be “no more money without reform”.

He admitted the service was now in a critical state and that he was prepared to face “vociferous opposition” to major reforms. However, Davey said that while he tried to be constructive with the new government, waiting to invest was a big mistake.

“That’s the main point where I think we differ from what the government is saying,” he said. “We’ve been advocating reform, particularly around health. But the government seems to be saying, ‘You reform first and then you invest.’ I just don’t think that’s possible. You’ve got to invest now, otherwise we won’t have an NHS.

“The NHS can’t wait any longer. Take day-to-day spending. That means you need more GPs. You need spending on healthcare, dentists and so on. In terms of capital spending, the backlog of repairs and maintenance in NHS England has almost doubled since 2015. It’s a crisis.”

He claimed that last year 13.5 million people were admitted to NHS hospitals whose buildings were in disrepair or were considered to be at high risk due to maintenance problems.

“Let’s see what they do in the budget. I’m prepared to wait until October 30, but we’re setting a point,” he said. “The budget has to be a budget for the NHS and care.”

The Lib Dems are sticking to a pre-election demand for an extra £3.7bn a year in daily NHS spending by the end of the parliament, as well as an extra £1.1bn a year in hospital capital investment over 10 years. Davey said this would be paid for by adjusting capital gains tax rates, increasing them by £5.2bn a year and restoring the bank surcharge and bank levy revenues to 2016 levels in real terms. This is expected to raise £4.3bn.

He warned that the gloomy tone Starmer has adopted since taking office was unnecessarily negative and said his party would try to inject a more positive vision for the country, adding: “There is a danger that it is all doom and gloom, and that can’t be, and you have to wait, and that is all too difficult. We have to make these cuts.

“Well, I actually think you could be much more optimistic and hopeful about the future. There’s a real return on investing now – an invest-to-save idea where you get people back to work, you stimulate the economy.

“We talked about capital gains tax. We had very detailed reform proposals to raise significant amounts of money from the very wealthy, the billionaires, but also from the banks, the social media giants and some oil and gas companies. So I think it’s fair to say we’ve set out quite a big agenda.”

He said that despite a strong election result in which the Lib Dems regained 72 MPs, many of them in traditionally Tory seats, he wanted to finish the job and win even more Conservative areas next time.

“If we can show that there is hope and optimism about our approach, then that will demonstrate that we are fundamentally a better opposition than the Conservatives,” he said.

“If we do that, not only will we keep the 72 seats we have now, but I think we can get the job done. We’ve knocked down a lot of the blue wall. I want to knock it down completely. I think we can win more Conservative seats at the next election.”