§ 32. Mr. McLoughlinTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the spending on the National Health Service in 1979 and in the latest available year, in real terms.
§ Mr. Mellor[holding answer 21 February 1989]: Gross spending on the NHS in England totalled £6.5 billion in 1978–79 and in the current financial year amounts to over £19.4 billion. This represents a real terms increase of some 37 per cent. Additional expenditure planned for next year is expected to bring this increase to over 41 per cent. which includes the additional £163 million announced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 16 February. This is before taking account of the extra cash that will be released in 1989–90 by the reduction in employers' superannuation contributions and from health authorities' cost improvement and income generation schemes. Taken together with the cash increase these will amount to the equivalent of a 5.5 per cent. real terms increase in the resource available to the NHS in 1989–90 alone.