A fortnight before Philip Hammond delivered his last Budget, the chief executive of the NHS gave a speech making the case for more funding. Simon Stevens had brought with him picture of a Vote Leave poster, promising £350 million a week for the health service, which he showed to his audience. What a good idea, he said. He wasn’t coming out as a Brexiteer, but he did think the Leavers had a point about giving an extra £350 million a week to the National Health Service. In fact, he went so far as to say that the ‘public want to see’ this promise honoured.
And if politicians don’t cough up? ‘Trust in democratic politics will not be strengthened,’ he said, ‘if anyone now tries to argue, “You voted Brexit, partly for a better funded health service. But precisely because of Brexit, you now can’t have one.”’
The Chancellor and the Treasury were incandescent about Stevens’s intervention.
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