Ed Miliband plans mansion and tobacco tax to save the NHS

Labour leader Ed Miliband will today pledge to save the NHS and build a better Britain over the next decade if his party is voted into power next year.

In a speech to the Labour Party Conference in Manchester, Miliband will outline his plans to top up the health budget, which is expected to face a £30bn funding gap by 2020.

Proceeds from a mansion tax on homes worth more than £2m, as well as a new windfall tax on the profits of UK tobacco companies, will be put towards the NHS, reports The Guardian.

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Funds from the mansion tax had initially been earmarked by Labour to fund a 10p starting rate of income tax, but this will now be funded by abolishing the marriage tax rate.

As well as restoring the NHS, the Labour leader has laid out five other big goals to:

• Halve the number of low-paid workers from five million to 2.5 million. This includes anyone who earns two-thirds of median earnings
• "Restore the dream of home ownership" by doubling the number of first-time buyers from the current 200,000 a year to 400,000
• Create one million more hi-tech green jobs
• Ensure as many school-leavers go into an apprenticeship as those who go to university
• Help working families share fairly in the UK's wealth

The Independent says Miliband's final Labour conference speech before next May's election is "designed to answer criticism that Labour has a raft of policies but no overarching vision".

Miliband will announce his plan to "raise people's sights", match the Conservatives' long-term economic plan and improve the prospects of young people.

"Our task is to restore people's faith in the future. But the way to do it is not to break up our country. It is to break with the old way of doing things, break with the past," he is expected to say later today in Manchester.

"I'm not talking about changing a policy, or simply a different programme. But something that is bigger: transforming the idea, the ethic, of how our country is run."