Britain has an entitlement problem

An Institute for Fiscal Studies paper, published at the end of last month, makes grim reading. Through the prism of the media reports it generated (‘One in 11 workers in England could be NHS staff by 2036,’ said the Guardian; ‘NHS staff will make up 49 per cent of the public sector workforce in 2036,’ said the Times), the most sensational finding was that our health service will be eating up an ever-increasing share of public spending. But, as so often, this particular cuckoo in the nest of public provision is only the most newsworthy of so many indications of Britain’s long, slow slide into insolvency.

The paper is part of the Institute’s series Green Budget 2023. A week earlier its report ‘Tax and public finances: the fundamentals’ began with a sentence that says it all: ‘The big-picture choices over how much to tax and spend will be difficult in large part because of poor economic growth and growing spending pressures.’ Were we to look at this nation as a bank manager might look at his client, that might be rendered ‘spending beyond his means, with no indication that his means will catch up with his spending’.

And so we descend – or our politics descends – into bickering, special pleading and shroud-waving demands for more. As I write, the newspapers are full of stories about the Treasury’s failure to spend enough, early enough, on dangerous concrete in school buildings, and the story is moving on now to the need for asbestos removal. The NHS has never looked less fit for purpose – and it’s all, they say, about money.

Money, money, money. Ben Wallace, the former defence secretary, vents his dissatisfaction at waste in the Ministry of Defence and repeats demands for a budget that reflects the European war in which we’re half-engaged.