Andy Burnham has just let the cat out of the bag on Channel Four News: Labour would cut by 10 percent too. Our new Health Secretary has just been given a robust interview by Jon Snow and was asked if he would say there would not be cuts elsewhere if health is protected. His reply:
Except the Prime Minister has given no such commitment. But Mr Burnham has. And explicitly. Emphatically. Unmistakably. The stated Labour and Tory position on post-election cuts is now identical. The Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis is clear: Budget 09 proposes 7 percent public service spending cuts from Apr11-Apr14, and if you exclude health from the cuts everything else falls by 10 percent.“This is the big difference, Jon, because Andrew Lansley will not commit to the budget we have set for the NHS in 2010-11. I am committing to you that this budget remains and I am also committing to you, in the way that the Prime Minister has, that we will continue to maintain growth in health spending in the following period.”
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