Editing Hugh Gaitskell (section)

=== Budget ===
Gaitskell made the controversial decision to introduce charges for prescription glasses and dentures on the [[National Health Service]] in his spring 1951 budget.<ref name="Howse">{{cite news|title=Anniversaries of 2013|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9770133/Anniversaries-of-2013.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121231203151/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9770133/Anniversaries-of-2013.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=31 December 2012|newspaper=Daily Telegraph|date=28 December 2012|location=London|first=Christopher|last=Howse}}</ref> The Cabinet had agreed in principle in February 1951 to charges on teeth and spectacles.<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.288" /> For 1951-2 Bevan was demanding £422m of health spending, whereas Gaitskell was willing to allow £400m.<ref name="Dell 1997, p.147" /> Gaitskell wanted to pass on half the cost of false teeth and spectacles, to bring in £13m in 1951-2 and £23m in a full year. Children, the poor and the sick were to be exempt.<ref>Dell 1997, p.148</ref> On 9 March [[Ernest Bevin]] was moved from the Foreign Office, dying a month later. Bevan, who had hoped to succeed him, was passed over for promotion to a major job for the second time in six months. By this point other ministers felt that Bevan was looking for an issue on which to resign, and that it was pointless making too many concessions as he needed to be made to appear to be in the wrong.<ref>Dell 1997, p.146, 148</ref>

In addition, [[Purchase Tax]] was increased from 33% to 66% on certain luxury items such as cars, television sets and domestic appliances, while entertainment tax was increased on cinema tickets.<ref name="Hugh Gaitskell by Brian Brivati">Hugh Gaitskell by Brian Brivati</ref> At the same time, however, taxation on profits was raised and pensions increased to compensate pensioners for a rise in the cost of living,<ref>Henry Pelling, ''The Labour Governments, 1945–51'' (1984).</ref> while the allowances for dependent children payable to widows, the unemployed and the sick, together with marriage and child allowances, were also increased.<ref>Post-Victorian Britain 1902–1951 by Lewis Charles Bernard Seaman</ref> In addition a number of small items were removed from purchase tax,<ref name="Hugh Gaitskell by Brian Brivati" /> and the amount of earnings allowed without affecting the state pension was increased from 20 shillings (£1) to 40 shillings (£2) a week.<ref>Denis Nowell Pritt, ''The Labour Government 1945–51'' (1963)</ref> Besides taxing the better off and protecting pensions, Gaitskell actually increased NHS spending.<ref>Campbell 2010, p209-10</ref> The budget increased defence spending by £500m to £1.5bn for 1951–2, helped by a surplus inherited from Cripps and optimistic growth forecasts. Plans to introduce capital-gains tax were postponed until 1952.<ref>Dell 1997, p.147, 150</ref>

Prime Minister Attlee's initial reaction to the draft budget was that there were not likely to be many votes in it. Gaitskell replied that he could not expect votes in a rearmament year.<ref name="Matthew 2004, p.288" /> [[Ernest Bevin]] did not like the idea of health charges and tried in vain to negotiate a compromise. Education Minister [[George Tomlinson (British politician)|George Tomlinson]] suggested a repetition of the previous year's formula, a spending ceiling of £400m. Gaitskell was prepared to offer a delay in the introduction of charges but rejected the Tomlinson formula despite Attlee's urgings, since the ceiling could not be achieved without charges. Attlee went into hospital to be treated for a duodenal ulcer on 21 March. From his sickbed he wrote what [[Kenneth O. Morgan]] calls a "remarkably vacuous letter", which "dealt with none of the substantive points at issue".<ref name="Dell 1997, p.148-9">Dell 1997, p.148-9</ref> At a Cabinet meeting on 22 March Gaitskell was dissuaded from his original intention to insist on prescription charges since they might fall heavily on the genuinely sick.<ref name="Campbell 2010, p207-8">Campbell 2010, p207-8</ref>