British Prime Minister Theresa May announced plans Sunday to increase spending on health care by 20 billion pounds ($26.6 billion) annually by 2023/24, funded by money no longer spent on membership of the European Union and increased taxation.
“By the end of five years, in 2023/24, the NHS (National Health Service) will be getting 20 billion pounds more in real terms that year, than it is today,” May told LBC Radio in an interview, confirming overnight media reports.
“We take the advantage that we’ve got of the money we’re no longer sending to the European Union, but also in putting the amount of money we want to put into the NHS for the future, I think we do have to look at contributing more.”
The announcement, timed to mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS, which delivers care for free to everyone living in Britain, aims to foster unity in the government and the country after two years of bitter divisions over Brexit, the reports said.
An official spokeswoman from May's No. 10 Downing Street said she did not have the details available. She said the reports were the result of unofficial briefings by special advisers.
Downing Street had earlier said May would deliver a speech about the NHS on Monday, giving no further details. Special advisers are known to sometimes brief the content of speeches to newspapers ahead of time for their own purposes.
The NHS budget increase was expected to take place over five years, reaching the full amount in 2023-24, the newspapers said.
Britain's official exit date from the European Union is March 29, 2019.
Pro-Brexit claim
During the 2016 referendum campaign on EU membership, the pro-Brexit camp claimed that Britain was sending 350 million pounds a week to the EU and should spend that money on the NHS instead.
The claim was controversial because the figure of 350 million pounds did not take into account Britain's sizable rebate or the payments that were flowing back from the EU to Britain, so it was widely seen as overstating Britain's
contribution to the bloc.
The newspapers said the 384 million-a-week pledge was politically significant from May — who campaigned against Brexit in 2016 and has been under pressure from hard-line Brexiters ever since to prove her conversion to the cause — because it went above and beyond 350 million.
Jeremy Hunt, the health minister who also campaigned for Britain to remain in the EU, was quoted by the Sunday Telegraph as saying that the new pledge "can now unite us all."
The newspaper said the precise details of how the spending increase would be funded would be disclosed in a future government budget.