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The budget will deliver billions of pounds of new funding for the NHS to unlock two million extra appointments a year, the government has announced.

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is expected to unveil £1.5bn for new surgical hubs and scanners alongside £70m for radiotherapy machines.

An additional £1.8bn will also be put towards elective appointments since July.

Speaking ahead of the budget on Wednesday, Ms Reeves called the NHS “the lifeblood of Britain” and pledged to put an end to the “neglect and underinvestment” it has witnessed over the past decade.

Politics Live: PM condemns ‘shocking’ footage of Labour MP

However, she warned that her budget – which will contain some tax hikes to fill a mooted £40bn black hole in the public finances – would be unlikely to “undo 14 years of damage”.

Speaking to reporters at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south London, on Monday, Ms Reeves said: “I don’t think in one budget you can undo 14 years of damage.

“But in this budget we’re going to provide the resource necessary to deliver on our manifesto commitment to 40,000 additional appointments every single week, to reduce the huge backlog and as well as the increase in the capital budget to take it to its highest level since 2010 to invest in the new scanners and the radiography equipment.”

On a joint visit with Ms Reeves, Health Secretary Wes Streeting admitted that the extra money might not prevent avoidable deaths and another winter crisis over the coming months.

“I can’t promise that there won’t be people waiting on trolleys and corridors this winter,” he said.

“There are people in that position already today.”

He added: “I can’t pretend that we’re going to be able to wave a Labour magic wand and make all of those problems go away this winter.

“There will still be real problems this winter, but we’re not going to deny the scale of the problems, and we are already supporting system leaders, particularly in places that tend to have the most challenge at winter, to try and minimise the risk this winter.”

The chancellor highlighted the fact staff at the hospital were using equipment purchased under the last Labour government which should have been replaced.

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Can tax rises in future budgets be ruled out?

“It hampers their productivity and efficiency and so as well as the money we need to see reform in the health service, but also modern equipment to get the most out of the qualified staff who are using tools that are not appropriate in 2024,” she said.

Sir Keir Starmer confirmed earlier today that there will be tax rises in the budget to prevent what he called a “devastating return to austerity” and to rebuild public services.

The prime minister did not specify what tax rises would be included, but it is widely expected that employer national insurance will go up, alongside possible increases to capital gains and inheritance tax.

Read more:
Labour MP punching video ‘shocking’, says Starmer
Budget 2024: What’s likely to be in it – and what isn’t?

Ministers have been facing repeated questions about the government’s definition of “working people”, after Labour’s election manifesto pledged not to increase taxes on working people – explicitly ruling out a rise in VAT, national insurance, and income tax.

One of the key announcements that will make it into Wednesday’s event is that the £2 bus fare cap will rise to £3, while £240m will be injected into efforts to get people back into work.

The move has been sharply criticised by opponents, with Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick branding it “clueless”.

Meanwhile, a Conservative Party spokesman said: “We delivered record funding, overhauled productivity and delivered the first NHS Long Term Workforce Plan to support the health service recover from the pandemic and respond to a growing and ageing population.

“If Labour are serious about ensuring the NHS delivers for patients, they must continue this reform instead of holding yet further consultations. The Health Secretary promised no more money without reform – but where is it?”

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Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell tells Nigel Farage ‘kneejerk’ migrant deportation plan won’t solve problem

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Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell tells Nigel Farage 'kneejerk' migrant deportation plan won't solve problem

The Archbishop of York has told Sky News the UK should resist Reform’s “kneejerk” plan for the mass deportation of migrants, telling Nigel Farage he is not offering any “long-term solution”.

Stephen Cottrell said in an interview with Trevor Phillips he has “every sympathy” with people who are concerned about asylum seekers coming to the country illegally.

But he criticised the plan announced by Reform on Tuesday to deport 600,000 people, which would be enabled by striking deals with the Taliban and Iran, saying it will not “solve the problem”.

Mr Cottrell is currently acting head of the Church of England while a new Archbishop of Canterbury is chosen.

Pic: Jacob King/PA Wire
Image:
Pic: Jacob King/PA Wire

The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell in 2020.
File pic: PA
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The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell in 2020.
File pic: PA

Phillips asked him: “What’s your response to the people who are saying the policy should be ‘you land here, unlawfully, you get locked up and you get deported straight away. No ifs, no buts’?”

Mr Cottrell said he would tell them “you haven’t solved the problem”, adding: “You’ve just put it somewhere else and you’ve done nothing to address the issue of what brings people to this country.

More on Migrant Crisis

“And so if you think that’s the answer, you will discover in due course that all you have done is made the problem worse.

“Don’t misunderstand me, I have every sympathy with those who find this difficult, every sympathy – as I do with those living in poverty.

“But… we should actively resist the kind of isolationist, short term kneejerk ‘send them home’.”

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What do public make of Reform’s plans?

Nigel Farage at the launch of Reform UK's plan to deport asylum seekers. Pic: PA
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Nigel Farage at the launch of Reform UK’s plan to deport asylum seekers. Pic: PA

Asked if that was his message to the Reform leader, he said: “Well, it is. I mean, Mr Farage is saying the things he’s saying, but he is not offering any long-term solution to the big issues which are convulsing our world, which lead to this. And, I see no other way.”

You can watch the full interview on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News from 8.30am

Mr Farage, the MP for Clacton, was asked at a news conference this week what he would say if Christian leaders opposed his plan.

“Whoever the Christian leaders are at any given point in time, I think over the last decades, quite a few of them have been rather out of touch, perhaps with their own flock,” he said.

“We believe that what we’re offering is right and proper, and we believe for a political party that was founded around the slogan of family, community, country that we are doing right by all of those things, with these plans we put forward today.”

Sky News has approached Mr Farage for comment.

Farage won’t be greeting this as good news of the gospel – nor will govt ministers

When Tony Blair’s spin doctor Alastair Campbell told journalists that “We don’t do God”, many took it as a statement of ideology.

In fact it was the caution of a canny operator who knows that the most dangerous opponent in politics is a religious leader licensed to challenge your very morality.

Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, currently the effective head of the worldwide Anglican communion, could not have been clearer in his denunciation of what he calls the Reform party’s “isolationist, short term, kneejerk ‘send them home'” approach to asylum and immigration.

I sense that having ruled himself out of the race for next Archbishop of Canterbury, Reverend Cottrell feels free to preach a liberal doctrine.

Unusually, in our interview he pinpoints a political leader as, in effect, failing to demonstrate Christian charity.

Nigel Farage, who describes himself as a practising Christian, won’t be greeting this as the good news of the gospel.

But government ministers will also be feeling nervous.

Battered for allowing record numbers of cross- Channel migrants, and facing legal battles on asylum hotels that may go all the way to the Supreme Court, Labour has tried to head off the Reform challenge with tougher language on border control.

The last thing the prime minister needs right now is to make an enemy of the Almighty – or at least of his representatives on Earth.

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Supreme Court opened crypto wallets to surveillance; privacy must go onchain

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Supreme Court opened crypto wallets to surveillance; privacy must go onchain

Supreme Court opened crypto wallets to surveillance; privacy must go onchain

Crypto transactions are vulnerable to warrant-free surveillance, making privacy-enhancing tools essential for blockchain’s future.

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Indian court sentences 14 to life in Bitcoin extortion case

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Indian court sentences 14 to life in Bitcoin extortion case

Indian court sentences 14 to life in Bitcoin extortion case

A former BJP legislator and 11 police officials have been convicted for the 2018 abduction of a Surat businessman in a plot to seize over 750 Bitcoin.

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