Liberal Democrat leader says voters do not believe health service’s problems can be solved through efficiency savings

People may be ready to pay an extra penny on income tax to fund the NHS and social care, Tim Farron, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, has said.

Farron said voters had reached the stage of not believing the NHS’s problems could be solved through efficiency savings and might be willing to pay more if they were convinced it would go to the health service.

He said he did not want to pre-empt the conclusions of an independent panel formed by the Lib Dems, which will look at possible taxes to help the NHS.

But asked if he believed people would be happy to pay an extra penny on income tax to improve health services, Farron said: “Yes, potentially, if people see this as the way of solving a problem that is increasingly apparent to people.

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“Health and social care personal crises in families are growing by the week. If we can convince people this is the way to meet those needs in a tangible way, then yes, I think so. I think we’ve gone past the time where we can pull the wool over people’s eyes where somehow it can be sorted out by efficiency; it can’t.”

Norman Lamb, the party’s health spokesman, said: “The expert panel I’ve set up is looking at a hypothecated health and care tax and whether we need to increase tax. We’re prepared to do both if it makes sense to do both.



“One option is to base it on national insurance – to reform national insurance to make it more progressive and fair intergenerationally. Another is to base it on income tax and separate out the money you need on income tax.”

The Lib Dems became the first major political party to examine a dedicated new tax to help rescue the NHS from its deep financial problems at their party conference this autumn.



Lamb told delegates the party would examine the wisdom and practicalities of introducing a ringfenced tax that would involve a 1p increase in either income tax or national insurance.

It has recruited a panel of senior doctors and NHS experts to advise it on how a “dedicated NHS and care tax” would help ease the health service’s decade-long financial squeeze. It includes David Nicholson, the former chief executive of NHS England.

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Speaking after a visit to St Helier hospital in Sutton, south London, Farron said it was an example of a hospital that was working effectively with social care providers to reduce elderly and vulnerable people staying too long in medical care.

But he said more money was needed to solve the problems in the NHS throughout the whole country.



“They really are being efficient but there is no way given the crisis in social care that really exists that you can provide the care you would do if it was properly funded,” he said. “We should be proud of the NHS and the staff in it but we don’t have comparable funding now to many other countries we would consider to be on a level or even behind us.”

They also highlighted research by ITV News in October suggesting 70% of people would happily pay an extra 1p in every pound if that money was guaranteed to go to the NHS.

Almost half of those surveyed said that they would pay an extra 2p in the pound to bolster NHS funding, according to a survey of 1,000 people conducted by Survation.