What are we to make of Michael Gove’s commitment? Given recent events we should scrutinise it closely. The £5.2bn a year he’s talking about is a context free number, and it raises some big questions. Does he mean £5.2bn on top of or instead of the £8bn extra by 2020 that the government has already pledged? Because if it’s £5.2bn instead of the £8bn then that obviously leaves us £2.8bn short of the £8bn we are expecting. Is it a real-terms increase or a cash increase?

And does he mean [the money is for] England or the UK? If he means the extra money to go only to England then it would cost a lot more to give the rest of the UK an equivalent increase? And does he mean that the money should go only into the NHS or into the wider health budget, which includes public health, the training of health professionals and other things?