Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of diverting £3 billion of NHS funding a year to appease Donald Trump.
Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said taxpayers’ money was being “rerouted at the request of Donald Trump” from frontline NHS services “into the pockets of big pharmaceutical companies”.
At the beginning of December, the UK agreed to pay 25% more for new medicines by 2035 to stop the US imposing trade tariffs on pharmaceutical products.
The deal involves an increase in the baseline threshold used to assess whether medicines can be offered by the NHS.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) will increase the threshold by 25%: from £20,000-£30,000 to £25,000-£35,000.
The government says this means NICE will be able to approve innovative medicines that deliver significant health improvements but might have previously been declined on cost-effectiveness grounds. It has suggested the deal will cost around £1bn a year by 2029.
Others, including the Lancet medical journal, have said the cost to the NHS will be £3bn. Exact costs will depend on how many medicines are approved under the new system.
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Ms Cooper said it was “outrageous” the agreement was made without any public debate or parliamentary scrutiny – “just a decision by the Labour prime minister, Keir Starmer”.
She called on Sir Keir to “scrap this £3bn Trump tax” and instead invest it in social care.
“There is no doubt at all that this money will not bring lots of new drugs to our NHS,” she said.
“Independent experts suggest it could just be three or four, possibly five at most.
“What this money will do is simply increase the amount of money that we will pay for the existing drugs that we use, and it will be rerouted from frontline services…
“That is why our message is clear: Scrap this £3bn ‘Trump tax’ and fix social care now.”
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When the US-UK drug pricing deal was announced, NHS leaders backed the government’s assessment that it would lead to tens of thousands of patients receiving groundbreaking new drugs.
However, they warned the NHS receives too little funding to absorb the costs and said care, services and treatment budgets must not be raided.
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Whitehall sources claimed the hike in drug prices will not be paid for out of budgets for NHS services but from hundreds of millions of pounds given to the NHS last year to cover the costs of the deal in its early years.
Science Secretary Liz Kendall said the deal would “enable and incentivise life sciences companies to continue to invest and innovate right here in the UK”.
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But Ms Cooper said the government needs to be “standing strong” against Mr Trump as he only understands “the language of strength”.
And she accused the government of being “all spin and no substance” as she said it has held only one meeting on social care after promising to launch cross-party talks to fix social care a year ago.
Sky News has contacted the government for a comment.
