Category: Politics

Anita Charlesworth, the Health Foundation’s chief economist, said there needed to be a shift “so we are spending more on prevention and less of failure”. …reports Asian Lite News

Rachel Reeves is being urged to use next week’s budget to ringfence health spending on prevention so it is protected from cuts when money is tight. A letter sent to the chancellor by a leading health charity, thinktanks and the body that represents accountants says carving out a new category of preventive spending would mean a healthier population and save the NHS money.

The letter welcomes Labour’s emphasis on prevention but says there has been a long history of previous administrations making similar pledges only for services that affect health outcomes to become a casualty of pressures on day-to-day budgets and a victim of short-term thinking.

Analysis by the Health Foundation – one of the signatories to the letter – showed that in the five years leading up to the pandemic (2014-19) spending on hospitals rose by 10%. The share of health spending devoted to prevention fell by 10% during that period.

Anita Charlesworth, the Health Foundation’s chief economist, said there needed to be a shift “so we are spending more on prevention and less of failure”. Charlesworth said that a report by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility on the fiscal risks facing the UK had found that extra spending on prevention would lead to increased spending on the state pension but higher tax revenues, lower spending on welfare and less pressure on the NHS budget. “A healthier population would be really beneficial to the public finances,” she said.

The letter, also signed by the thinktank Demos, the Institute for Government and the accountants’ body Cipfa, says public policy “is littered with examples of prevention spending being cut to provide short-term funding to patch up frontline services, and there is too little incentive to invest in services that deliver long-term benefits”.

It cites evidence from the record of the Conservative governments after 2010, which cut spending on youth services and the Sure Start scheme for families with children under five despite evidence that they were having good long-term effects. Research by the IfG found that local authority spending on these services was cut by more than three-quarters between 2009 and 2023, while spending on looked-after children and safeguarding services rose by more than half over the same period.

“Current fiscal frameworks do not distinguish between spending on acute services and prevention, despite the evidence that investment in prevention can deliver a greater long-term return,” the letter says.

“Given the significant pressures on the public finances, the risk is that prevention spending will continue to be squeezed out in favour of meeting short term needs, undermining the government’s commitment to taking a long-term, prevention-led approach to improving public services.”

Reeves has made clear that she intends to change the rules governing the public finances to allow her to borrow more to invest in capital projects, a move designed to deliver stronger growth.

All Whitehall ministries are given departmental expenditure limits by the Treasury, but the letter calls for a new category of spending – preventive departmental expenditure limits – in which prevention would sit alongside day-to-day spending and capital investment, enabling the government to identify and track spending.

“Strengthening the fiscal framework would enable the Treasury to better hold government departments to account for long term investment in prevention, and support mission-driven government by ensuring that this money is used to transform services”, the letter says. “Without this, we fear the government’s good intentions to promote prevention may once again fall by the wayside.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Our 10-year health plan will reform the NHS by shifting its focus from sickness to prevention. We’re introducing measures to ban junk food adverts targeted at children, as well as new NHS health checks to catch health problems earlier and prevent them worsening. Our tobacco and vapes bill will stop future generations from becoming hooked on nicotine and finally make Britain smoke-free.”

The chancellor is expected to stake her reputation on a tax-­raising budget designed as a reset of the public finances. She has already had to deal with cabinet skirmishes over funding unveiled alongside the statement. However, Reeves is understood to believe that the public will accept a multibillion-pound hike in business taxes if it is linked to repairing the health system’s finances.

The Observer has seen new research, commissioned in the run-up to the budget by an influential thinktank with close links to the Treasury and No 10, that suggests overwhelming support for using an increase in national insurance contributions (NICs) for employers to fund extra resources for the NHS.

Seven in 10 voters said they would approve of the move if the money raised was used to increase spending on the health service, according to a poll of more than 6,000 people commissioned by Labour Together.

Only 18% said they would disapprove. The measure was particularly popular with a crucial group who switched from the Conservatives to Labour at the last election. About 82% of the group said they approved of it.

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Campaigners have welcomed the changes, but they want ministers to go further and raise sick pay…reports Asian Lite News

Ministers are under pressure to increase the basic rate of statutory sick pay (SSP) from £3 an hour for a full-time worker, amid concerns that hundreds of thousands of people a year are left without adequate financial support to pay essential bills while off work.

The government will launch a consultation on Monday to coincide with the second reading of its employment rights bill, under which workers will get paid sick leave from day one, with those on earnings below the threshold of £123 a week eligible.

Campaigners have welcomed the changes, but they want ministers to go further and raise sick pay, which is fixed at £116 a week and pegged to the inflation rate. They argue that the low rate pushes vulnerable people into poverty.

In a letter to Keir Starmer, a group of charities including Citizens Advice, Macmillan Cancer Support, Mind and Maggie’s called on the government to amend the bill so ministers can increase sick pay amid the worsening health of working-age people.

“Hundreds of thousands of working people who are each year diagnosed with infectious diseases, cancer, mental health problems or serious injuries will still find themselves without adequate financial support to pay essential bills like food, rent and heating,” they wrote.

“There is a wide-ranging body of evidence, medical, academic and from leading UK thinktanks and charities, that suggests the current SSP system harms workers and is self-defeating for employers and the government alike.

“This situation risks holding back the government’s laudable mission to grow the economy and bolster our NHS.”

The intervention came as a report by WPI Economics, led by the welfare reform expert Matthew Oakley, found that increasing the rate could reduce days off by stemming the flow of unwell workers on to out-of-work benefits and reducing prolonged absence caused by deteriorating health.

Oakley found that the move could result in a net £4.1bn financial benefit to business, the Treasury and the wider economy by increasing productivity and having fewer periods of long absence and better public health outcomes because people would not be spreading illness by coming into work sick.

Amanda Walters from the Centre for Progressive Change, which is leading the campaign, said: “Most of us try to battle on when we’re sick, but sometimes we know that going to work will only make things worse, we’ll end up sicker and less productive.

“It would be a massive missed opportunity not to address the rate of statutory sick pay now. The government should ensure no worker risks their health for want of a decent sick pay system.”

Under current plans a full-time worker on the average UK salary would still lose £419 net in the first week of illness, even with day-one sick pay rights, putting them below the minimum acceptable standard of living, according to University of Loughborough research.

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Starmer has also strengthened the “quad” of his most senior ministers to become a proper steering group for the government’s agenda…reports Asian Lite News

Angela Rayner has been given a permanent seat on the UK government’s national security council as the rebooted Downing Street operation seeks to smooth over reports of tensions between Keir Starmer and his deputy.

Allies of the deputy prime minister had shared concerns she was being sidelined when it emerged two weeks ago that she had been given only a temporary place on the committee that brings together ministers with military and intelligence chiefs.

Starmer has also strengthened the “quad” of his most senior ministers to become a proper steering group for the government’s agenda, insiders said. As well as Rayner, it includes Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, and Pat McFadden, the senior cabinet office minister.

In another move to shore up the deputy prime minister, she will more formally and routinely deputise for Starmer, for example by standing in at prime minister’s questions this week, while he is away in Samoa at a Commonwealth heads of government summit.

Downing Street hopes the changes will reassure the deputy prime minister, and her allies in the Labour party and across the union movement, that she has Starmer’s full support, after reports of continuing tensions between the pair.

A No 10 source said: “Keir respects Angela and wants to make sure that is recognised more widely in government.”

Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner visit the Oval Village project in London. Labour has set a target of building 1.5m new homes over five years.

Others downplayed suggestions that Rayner and other cabinet ministers writing to Starmer to protest at cuts to their departments, set to be unveiled at next week’s budget, was anything other than part of the normal process. A second government source said: “Nobody on either side wants any more drama.”

There has long been speculation among some of those around Starmer over his deputy’s own motives, with suspicions that she could be on manoeuvres to be in prime position to take over from him at some point in the future.

Her allies said the latest changes were led by No 10 itself after the promotion of McSweeney, and should be seen as an attempt to better manage the relationship between Starmer and one of his most powerful ministers.

Officials said that while Sue Gray, McSweeney’s predecessor as chief of staff, had been supportive of Rayner personally and of her role in principle, that did not always transfer into practice, with promises not always being delivered on.

One described it as a “mismatch”, but suggested that it may have been down to broader dysfunction within Downing Street at the time.

Earlier this month, it emerged that seven permanent members had been chosen to attend the NSC meetings, including Starmer, Reeves, McFadden and David Lammy, the foreign secretary. Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, John Healey, the defence secretary, and Richard Hermer, the attorney general, were also named as members.

However, Rayner’s absence from the list fuelled claims that she had been sidelined by No 10 since Labour’s general election victory. Previous deputy prime ministers, most recently Conservative MP Oliver Dowden, have been permanent members of the NSC.

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