Mark Wooding, Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Central Devon, suggests (November 30) that the record high 7.8 million NHS waiting list has been caused by ‘the last 13 years of Conservative austerity’. 

He neglects to say that during the first five of those 13 years we had the Coalition Conservative-Lib Dem Government. The architects of the tragic austerity policy were Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and second in command, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Liberal Democrat Danny Alexander.

 Average annual financial growth of the NHS since its foundation has been 3.3 per cent. Average growth under the Labour governments between 1997-2010 was 3.6 per cent. Average annual growth under the Coalition Conservative-Lib Dem Government between 2010-2015 was a mere 0.8 per cent. 

The NHS waiting list of 7.8 million is the direct result of that disastrous underfunding. 

Surely no prospective parliamentary candidate should suffer selective amnesia? 

Mike Baldwin

Thorverton, Devon