§ I said that this would be a Budget based on prudence for a purpose and that guides us also in our approach to public spending. When we came into government, we said that, while we undertook a strategic review of future spending priorities, we would work within a two-year ceiling on departmental spending.
§ The comprehensive spending review—the results of which we will announce this summer—will shape our public spending priorities into the next millennium, but, as a result of the work of my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and as a result also of departmental willingness to root out waste and, this year, to reallocate resources to our priorities, we have already achieved more than some people expected: £400 million to help pensioners with fuel bills; £1.5 billion already to patient care in the health service; £3 billion to employment opportunity; and more than £2 billion to education.
§ Because of our disciplined approach this year, we are able to carry over extra money from this year to next. I have already said that public transport will receive an 1112 additional £500 million over the next three years. Ours is prudence for a purpose: to meet the people's priorities. We are determined to improve education all round, so I am allocating for the coming year to education an additional £250 million. That makes a total additional commitment to education since we came to power—above what the previous Government proposed—of £2.5 billion. I can also tell the House that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and his colleagues in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will make announcements this week.
§ The extra money that I announced last July for the national health service comes on stream in the health service from next month and I have decided that additional allocation to health of £1.2 billion for the coming year should today be increased by a further 40 per cent.—another £500 million to £1.7 billion. That takes the total additional investment that this Government have provided for the NHS in our first 10 months to £2 billion. The NHS is safe in this Government's hands.
§ Because we will always be prudent, I am allocating £500 million to add to the reserve in 1998–99. It is because of our prudence that we are able to meet our manifesto commitments, to reduce the deficit and to invest more in transport, education and the NHS.
§ The ambitions of the British people are again the ambitions of the British Government, so this is a Budget which, by its measures, advances both enterprise and fairness. We have cut corporation tax, small business corporation tax and national insurance for every employee in the country, and we have raised child benefit for every family. This is a new Labour Budget which has set new ambitions for Britain, so that, for millions, ambitions can become achievements, and I commend it to the House.