Hospices in England to receive extra £100m – but govt will not say if it covers tax hike

Published

5 months ago

December 19, 2024

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Hospices in England will receive an extra £100m to improve buildings, equipment and accommodation, the government has said.

The government announced the £100m will be given to both adult and child hospices in the new year and will cover until the end of the next financial year in April 2026.

A further £26m will be given to children’s hospices for the 2025/26 year, the government said.

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However, the government refused to say if the funding will cover the extra cost of employers’ national insurance rising from 13.8% to 15%, as announced by the chancellor in October’s budget.

There are about 170 hospices in England that provide end of life care for adults, and about 40 for children and young people, while some hospices provide care to both.

Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations but receive some statutory funding from the government because they provide NHS services.

The government said the money will go towards refurbishing bedrooms and bathrooms, to provide comfortable overnight facilities for families, and improve IT systems to make it easier for GPs and hospitals to share vital data on patients.

It will also be spent on improving garden and outdoor spaces for patients and their families, and to help develop outreach services to support people in their own homes.

Asked multiple times if the funding will cover the national insurance rise, which charities and voluntary groups have said will cost them £1.4bn, health minister Karin Smyth refused to answer in parliament on Thursday.

She said: “This is a welcome announcement that can be used by the sector to manage some of those pressures and deliver the sorts of services they want to do for the future.”

Dr Caroline Johnson, Conservative shadow health secretary, told MPs Labour is “taking millions of pounds off hospices and palliative care charities, and then think they should be grateful when they give them some of it back”.

At Prime Minister’s Questions this week, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said hospices believe the rise will cost them an extra £30m and asked if the government will be funding them to cover the cost.

Sir Keir Starmer said his government had put “a record amount into the NHS in the budget” and said they would set out funding arrangements “in the new year”.

Care minister Stephen Kinnock said: “I am grateful to NHS staff and voluntary organisations, including hospices, for the deeply compassionate care and support they give to end of life patients and their families.

“The £100m capital investment that the government is announcing today will allow hospices to improve their physical and operational environment, enabling them to provide the best possible care to their patients.”

Toby Porter, CEO of Hospice UK, which represents British hospices, said the extra funding will be “hugely welcomed”.

“Hospices not only provide vital care for patients and families, but also relieve pressure on the NHS,” he said.

“This funding will allow hospices to continue to reach hundreds of thousands of people every year with high-quality, compassionate care.

“We look forward to working with the government to make sure everyone approaching the end of life gets the care and support they need, when and where they need it.”

Politics

‘No doubt’ UK will spend 3% of GDP on defence in next parliament, defence secretary says

Published

2 hours ago

May 31, 2025

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'No doubt' UK will spend 3% of GDP on defence in next parliament, defence secretary says

There is “no doubt” the UK “will spend 3% of our GDP on defence” in the next parliament, the defence secretary has said.

John Healey’s comments come ahead of the publication of the government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) on Monday.

This is an assessment of the state of the armed forces, the threats facing the UK, and the military transformation required to meet them.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously set out a “clear ambition” to raise defence spending to 3% in the next parliament “subject to economic and fiscal conditions”.

Mr Healey has now told The Times newspaper there is a “certain decade of rising defence spending” to come, adding that this commitment “allows us to plan for the long term. It allows us to deal with the pressures.”

A government source insisted the defence secretary was “expressing an opinion, which is that he has full confidence that the government will be able to deliver on its ambition”, rather than making a new commitment.

The UK currently spends 2.3% of GDP on defence, with Sir Keir announcing plans to increase that to 2.5% by 2027 in February.

This followed mounting pressure from the White House for European nations to do more to take on responsibility for their own security and the defence of Ukraine.

The 2.3% to 2.5% increase is being paid for by controversial cuts to the international aid budget, but there are big questions over where the funding for a 3% rise would be found, given the tight state of government finances.

While a commitment will help underpin the planning assumptions made in the SDR, there is of course no guarantee a Labour government would still be in power during the next parliament to have to fulfil that pledge.

A statement from the Ministry of Defence makes it clear that the official government position has not changed in line with the defence secretary’s comments.

The statement reads: “This government has announced the largest sustained increase to defence spending since the end of the Cold War – 2.5% by 2027 and 3% in the next parliament when fiscal and economic conditions allow, including an extra £5bn this financial year.

“The SDR will rightly set the vision for how that uplift will be spent, including new capabilities to put us at the leading edge of innovation in NATO, investment in our people and making defence an engine for growth across the UK – making Britain more secure at home and strong abroad.”

Sir Keir commissioned the review shortly after taking office in July 2024. It is being led by Lord Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary and NATO secretary general.

The Ministry of Defence has already trailed a number of announcements as part of the review, including plans for a new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command and a £1bn battlefield system known as the Digital Targeting Web, which we’re told will “better connect armed forces weapons systems and allow battlefield decisions for targeting enemy threats to be made and executed faster”.

On Saturday, the defence secretary announced a £1.5bn investment to tackle damp, mould and make other improvements to poor quality military housing in a bid to improve recruitment and retention.

Mr Healey pledged to “turn round what has been a national scandal for decades”, with 8,000 military family homes currently unfit for habitation.

He said: “The Strategic Defence Review, in the broad, will recognise that the fact that the world is changing, threats are increasing.

“In this new era of threat, we need a new era for defence and so the Strategic Defence Review will be the vision and direction for the way that we’ve got to strengthen our armed forces to make us more secure at home, stronger abroad, but also learn the lessons from Ukraine as well.

“So an armed forces that can be more capable of innovation more quickly, stronger to deter the threats that we face and always with people at the heart of our forces… which is why the housing commitments that we make through this strategic defence review are so important for the future.”