Morally reprehensible! UKIP deputy leader condems foreign aid spending during NHS crisis

During Question Time Mr Whittle got incredibly fired up about the state of the National Health Service and had one key suggestion about how to deal with it.

“The situation has changed in this country. People live longer so we have got to deal with it," said Mr Whittle, who stood in last year's London mayoral elections.

“We have to adapt the National Health service, we’ve probably got to expand it. We need a properly integrated national health service and social care service.

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Peter Whittle let rip at foreign aid spending in a furious Question Tim rant

The situation has changed in this country. People live longer so we have got to deal with it

Peter Whittle

“It is a matter of priorities and what I find at the moment morally reprehensible, is that we are facing this situation in this wonderful institution of the NHS, at the same time that we are sending abroad twelve to sixteen billion a year in foreign aid."

“I would like that go into the national health service,” he added, to applause from the audience in Torquay.

He went on to say that UKIP would not slash the foreign aid budget completely but reallocate a significant proportion of it into an integrated social care and health service budget.

"We would bring [foreign aid spending] down to about 0.2 per cent, which would mean part of it would go into the National Health Service and part of it into social care. We were the first party to say this – the NHS and social care should be integrated," Mr Whittle said.

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George Osborne and David Cameron frequently praised their funding of foreign aid

Former prime minister David Cameron frequently extolled the virtues of Britain sticking to the United Nations recommendation of foreign aid spending at around 0.7 per cent of GDP, meaning the UK spent roughly £12 billion in overseas development in previous years, second only to the United States.

But there have been increasingly strident calls for this to be revised with a severe crisis in the UK’s NHS affecting ever more British people.

Despite being on the right, Ukip have pledge strong support for the National Health Service for many years.

Ukip's current leader Paul Nuttall had previously suggested he supported the privatisation of the NHS – but has since rowed back saying he has now changed his mind on the issue.

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