Health Secretary Wes Streeting found himself on the end of a brutal grilling on GB News as host Tom Harwood took him to task on Labour’s raft of tax-hiking measures.
Tom said Rachel Reeves’s tax raids, which will raise around £25bn, are a “blatant” breach of Labour’s manifesto.
But Streeting sought to defend decisions taken by Labour, saying they were needed to address profound financial issues left over by the previous Tory government.
“At what point did you decide that hospitals and the NHS more broadly needed £25bn?”, Tom asked.
Harwood grilled Streeting on GB News
GB NEWS
“A Budget process forces you to think about your priorities and the choices you face”, Streeting responded
“I think overall, the Chancellor looked at the state of the economy and the state of public finances and made a big judgment call which was to go with investment over decline.
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“Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak got to a transition from the mismanaged decline of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng to managed decline by Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak.
“We’re turning the country around and that is why the Chancellor has made such big calls on investments because that is how you create the conditions for the economy to grow and for our public services to succeed and to make sure people have the jobs they need to lead a good life.”
Tom hit back: “That is not what you were saying in the election campaign. You listed specific promises in the election campaign, I have looked through the costings document that accompanied your manifesto.
“You said £1bn on 40,000 more operations and £250m on CT scanners, the whole package added up to £2bn. Now you’re saying £25bn. Are you really saying you changed your mind after the election or was it what many suspect, this was your plan all along?”
Streeting joined Tom Harwood on GB News
GB NEWS
Streeting said Labour were “constantly challenged” to spend more in its manifesto but did not want to “overpromise”.
“Hang on, isn’t that a misdirection?”, Tom asked.
“You didn’t want to put this in your manifesto because you didn’t want to put the national insurance hike in your manifesto.
“Now you’ve raised national insurance by £25bn and put a lot into the NHS which is a legitimate thing to do. Left-wing governments tend to tax more and spend more.
“My question is, why didn’t you put this in your manifesto? Doesn’t this smack of dishonesty?”
Streeting said putting a “full budget document” into the Labour manifesto would have been an impossible task, a comment once again rallied against by Tom.
“Is it not a realistic expectation for voters to know what they are getting?”, he asked.
“Aren’t you taking people for fools?”
Streeting responded saying he would “accept that challenge if you could find a single manifesto in our modern history where the governing party has spelled out every single detail of every single tax, of every single spending commitment for the parliament.”
“There is a massive difference”, said Tom.
“These are broad brushstrokes, not line by line demands”, he said of Labour’s drastic tax hikes.
