General Election 2015: Letters to Thurrock's Parliamentary candidates - NHS

As regular readers will already know, I like sending letters to my MP knowing that I will either get a stock response or none at all; however, this year is particularly important as it is gearing up to be the hardest General Election result to predict in living memory.  That being the case, I have been part of a number of letter writing campaigns that have sent e-mails to all the prospective Parliamentary candidates in my constituency and this is the first of a number of postings that include both the original letter I sent (bearing in mind that I sent the generic letter that the website provided) and the replies I received.

The Letter

Dear Tim Aker, Jamie Barnes, Jackie Doyle-Price, Aba Kristilolu, and Polly Billington,

Last week, the head of the British Medical Association warned that after the election patients could be charged for basic NHS services.

Will you commit to keeping the NHS free at the point of use?

Yours sincerely,

Myles Cook

The Replies

Dear Mr Cook,

I completely oppose charges in the NHS. UKIP have committed to investing a further £3bn per year into the NHS, taken from our EU Contributions. We will also abolish hospital car parking charges.

Best wishes,

Tim Aker

Yes I do commit to keeping the NHS free at the point of use!

With my best regards,

Aba Kristilolu

As regular readers will also know, I never let anyone get away with just a single question when I can add a follow-up so here are my follow-up letters.

The Follow-ups

Dear Mr Aker,

Thank you for your reply.  It is nice that you oppose charges in the NHS, however, (and I have to say now that I am undecided on the UK's membership of the EU) you say that the extra investment will come from our EU contributions which is fine but that is predicated on the UK leaving the EU.  Has UKIP made an investigation into how much our leaving the EU might financially affect us in purely business terms?  Or, to put it another way, how much business may the UK expect to lose if we rescind our EU membership and would that be greater than the amount of money we pay to remain?

Regards,

Myles Cook

Dear Mr Kristilolu,

Thank you for making that commitment but have you given any thought to how the NHS can remain funded at the levels needed for it to function in an age of austerity?  Where would you make savings or changes to keep from robbing one fund to prop up another?

Regards,

Myles Cook

Only one candidate has replied to the follow-up question I posed and here is his response.

The Follow-up Response

Dear Myles Cook,

Austerity is an ideologically driven political decision. It has little to do with sustainable socio-economic governance. If you value the human, you will order the priority to support humanity.

Best wishes,

Aba

Did you really think I’d leave it there?  Here’s my further follow-up:

The Further Follow-up Question

Dear Mr Kristilolu,

While I totally agree with your reply we also have to live in the real world in which government spending outstrips its income from taxation, etc and the current administration has borrowed heavily despite its ideological attacks on the poor and vulnerable so there has to be some kind of balancing act to make sure that everything can be paid for that needs to be paid for without borrowing more so where would you begin to solve this problem?

Regards,

Myles

As usual, I will post all noteworthy responses right here!