{"id":179810,"date":"2025-09-30T10:43:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T10:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/179810\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T10:43:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T10:43:08","slug":"streeting-rules-out-vat-on-private-healthcare-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/179810\/","title":{"rendered":"Streeting rules out VAT on private healthcare"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an interview ahead of her conference speech, Reeves was asked if VAT could rise and she said: “The manifesto commitments stand.”<\/p>\n

That form of words has been echoed by senior ministers at Labour’s conference, including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.<\/p>\n

But when pressed over whether she would have to put up taxes, Reeves said “the world has changed” in the last year – pointing to wars in Europe and the Middle East, US tariffs and the global cost of borrowing.<\/p>\n

“We’re not immune to any of those things,” she added.<\/p>\n

Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock has called for Reeves to put VAT on private healthcare to raise money for the NHS.<\/p>\n

The Labour peer told the i newspaper, external<\/a> removing the VAT exemption on private healthcare would provide “vital funding” for public services and be “widely supported” by the public.<\/p>\n

The policy is supported by the Good Growth Foundation think tank, which estimates putting VAT on private acute healthcare could raise more than \u00a32bn.<\/p>\n

The high cost of long-term government borrowing and weak economic growth has fuelled speculation the chancellor will need to increase taxes.<\/p>\n

Last month, an independent think tank, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr), estimated that the chancellor would need to plug a \u00a350bn gap in the public finances.<\/p>\n

But the chancellor played down the figure and criticised such forecasters, saying “a lot of them are talking rubbish”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an interview ahead of her conference speech, Reeves was asked if VAT could rise and she said:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-179810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}