NHS ‘at risk’ in £70bn cuts plan

Ed Balls has said the Tory’s would have to chose between cutting health funding, charging for NHS services or raising VAT as a result of “extreme and risky” spending cuts.

Mr Balls said the “unprecedented” scale of the cuts planned by the Chancellor George Osborne if the Conservatives win the General Election - adding up to £70bn - meant they would be unable to keep their promise to ring-fence the NHS without putting up taxes.

“Our analysis shows clearly - countries which reduce public spending at the pace George Osborne intends have found they have had no alternative but to cut health spending,” he said.

“And those who have reduced public spending to the levels that George Osborne is seeking have health systems where charging for NHS-style services is triple the share here.

“This shouldn’t be a surprise. When George Osborne’s plan means such extreme cuts to day-to-day departmental budgets, it’s common sense that the NHS, which makes up a full third of the £317bn spent in those budgets, ends up footing the bill.”

Mr Balls said the Conservative plans would also lead to the smallest police force since comparable records began, the smallest Army since the time of Oliver Cromwell, and more than a third of older people currently receiving social care losing their entitlement.

“The Tories now have a choice. They can either say that these unprecedented, extreme and close-to-impossible cuts to our police, armed forces and social care are the true consequences of their spending plans,” he said.

“Or they can confess that their plans are in fact impossible to achieve without breaking their promise to protect the NHS.”

Speaking in London, Mr Balls used the event to comment on the continuing speculation that Labour could form a Government propped up by Alex Salmond and the Scottish National Party.

Polls suggest Labour faces an election wipe out north of the border as the SNP looks set to make a Labour majority an impossibility,

Mr Balls has been forced to promise that Coalition with the SNP is “not part of Labour’s plans”.

Asked if he could categorically rule out a deal with the nationalists, Mr Balls said: “The SNP have said they don’t want a coalition. It’s not part of our plans. We don’t want one, we don’t need one, we’re not after one.

“No large party in the last 100 years - Labour or Conservative - has ever fought a general election on the basis they wanted a coalition or deal with a small party.

“It’s the last thing we want. What we want is a majority Labour government.”

Conservative Financial Secretary to the Treasury David Gauke said: “Ed Balls has confirmed Labour’s policy of billions of pounds of tax rises, more borrowing and more debt - which in reality would be even higher with an Ed Miliband government in the pocket of Alex Salmond and the SNP.

“There is a clear choice at this election: sticking with the competence and stability of David Cameron and the Conservatives’ long-term economic plan that’s securing a better future for Britain - the deficit has been halved - or abandoning that plan for the SNP and Labour, with hard-working taxpayers paying the price for the economic chaos that would result.”