Chancellor Philip Hammond has been castigated for spending more money on Brexit preparations than the crisis-hit National Health Service.
In his Budget, he revealed a staggering £3bn will be pumped into readying the country for Brexit while the struggling NHS has been handed just £2.8bn in extra resource.
Opposition MPs said the choice proved the Vote Leave campaign, which promised voters £350m-a-week extra for the NHS on the side of its battle bus, was undeliverable.
Taxpayers’ cash will instead be “disappearing down a Brexit black hole”, they said, and the Chancellor will be handing cash-strapped health trusts a one-off £350m for the winter.
The Brexit cash will partly prepare for a scenario where the UK would crash out of the bloc without a deal - something Hammond just weeks ago had insisted was not necessary.
The Chancellor told MPs: “We are determined to ensure that the country is prepared for every possible outcome.
“We have already invested almost £700m in Brexit preparations and today I am setting aside over the next two years another £3bn and I stand ready to allocate further sums if and when needed. No one should doubt our resolve.”
But when it came to the NHS, the Chancellor did not lift the 1% public sector pay cap for workers and offered nothing for social care.
Labour MP Chuka Umunna, said: “The British people were promised a Brexit boom but all they’re getting is a downgraded economy with forecasted growth plummeting since the referendum. The worst long-term growth projections for decades show that Brexit will leave working people worse off.
“£3 billion more of taxpayers’ money will be spent preparing to leave, more than the emergency cash being given to our NHS. We were promised £350 million more a week for the National Health Service, but instead public money is being swallowed up by Brexit.
“There was no rabbit in the Chancellor’s hat, just a mounting Brexit squeeze which is leaving people poorer and starving our public services of much-needed funds. As the Brexit bad news mounts up, voters have every right to keep an open mind about whether leaving the EU is the best thing for our country.”
Liberal Democrat Leader Vince Cable added: ”£3 billion of taxpayers’ money is disappearing down a Brexit black hole.
“It tells you everything you need to know about this government’s priorities that more funding has been found for Brexit than for our struggling NHS, schools and police.
“Money that could have been invested hiring thousands of teachers and police officers is instead going to pay for a Tory Hard Brexit.”
Sir Simon Stevens , head of NHS England, is likely to be disappointed by the announcement. He had said that the service needed a £4bn cash injection immediately.
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