|
 |
| Benedict Brogan, Daily Telegraph, 25 April 2002 |
|
| THE Chancellor denied last night that there was a "black hole" in his spending plans that will force him to put up taxes again by GBP 7 billion, but admitted he had avoided making a commitment on National Insurance rises before the election. |
|
| Gordon Brown spent more than two hours fielding questions from MPs on the all-party Treasury select committee, who pressed him on the long-term implications of his Budget for taxpayers. |
|
| He was accused of failing to provide details of how he would pay for the final year of the five-year spending plan for the NHS that he unveiled last week, which will double spending on health to more than GBP 100 billion annually. In a strained exchange with David Ruffley, the Tory MP for Bury St Edmunds, Mr Brown refused four times to offer a guarantee that taxes would not have to rise again to pay for the NHS. He claimed that no Chancellor made tax announcements between Budgets. |
|
| Mr Ruffley said that there was no indication in the Red Book, the document detailing Budget measures and Treasury plans, of how GBP 7 billion in spending in 2006-7 would be paid for. |
|
|
He cited the conclusions of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which said Mr Brown had made no provision for the spending and would have to raise the money somewhere..
|
|
| Mr Brown insisted the IFS was wrong. "The spending is covered by the forecasts we have produced," he told MPs, but later conceded that the detail of how it will be covered would not be provided until autumn's Pre-Budget Report. |
|
|
|
|
|
