Reid: Spending questions

The health secretary has indicated that Labour is not committed to matching Conservative plans to increase spending on the NHS after 2008.

Speaking to the Health Service Journal, John Reid said there was no guarantee on spending plans for the two years after 2008.

The Conservatives have said they will match Labour funding to 2008 and put in a further £34 billion over the life of the parliament up to 2010.

However, Labour is only committed to the plans set out for three years ahead in chancellor Gordon Brown's spending review.

"I haven't predicted what the financial settlement will be after 2008," Reid told the HSJ.

"We've never said what will come beyond that."

But Reid said that by 2008 the health service would have made major progress in tackling existing backlogs.

"After 2008, while it will still be a challenge to meet the demands of the modern public, who have higher expectations, NHS staff will not have to meet that demand and try to cope with a backlog - a huge waiting list of over a million people built up over 18 years almost exclusively under a Conservative government," he said.

"We will begin to see the benefit of the... public health policy that we're bringing in at present."

Reid also told the HSJ that Conservative plans to fund extra services by cutting waste were based on a "gross deception".