LABOUR will use a ‘mansion tax’ to help plug a looming funding crisis in the NHS, Ed Miliband is expected to announce today.

The Labour leader will use his party conference speech to pledge a spending boost of at least £2bn a year on the health service, it was reported last night.

And it is expected to be funded from a new tax on homes worth more than £2m – a tax also backed by the Liberal Democrats but opposed by the Conservatives.

Last night, Labour described the report, from the BBC, as “speculation”, pointedly not denying that the announcement was looming.

However, critics are likely to raise doubts about whether the sum will put more than a dent in an NHS funding gap predicted to reach £30bn a year by 2021, by some experts.

Furthermore, Labour has yet to set out how its ‘mansion tax’ – more likely extra council tax bands, rather than a percentage levy on the most costly homes – will work.

One suggestion is the tax could raise around £1.7bn a year for the NHS, a sum which Labour could top-up with another £1bn a year from other tax rises already announced.

The likely announcement was not included a pre-briefing of Mr Miliband’s speech, which promised a return to putting the economy back at the heart of the political fight.

Amid party infighting over constitutional upheaval, the Labour leader will promise a “recovery that works for working people”, with pledges to:

* Ensure as many school-leavers go onto apprenticeships as go to university – with every firm landing major Government contracts required to provide them;

* Double the number of families able to get on the housing ladder – with new powers for local councils to quicken the pace of development;

* Help the growing army of self-employed currently “locked out of pensions and mortgages”;

* Create one million high-tech, high wage ‘green’ jobs – including by insulating five million extra homes.

Mr Miliband is expected to say: “Can anyone build a better future for the working people of Britain – that is the general election question.

“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.”

However, there was further bad news for Mr Miliband in a ComRes poll which highlighted the public’s continuing doubts in his leadership qualities.

It found the Labour leader trailing the Prime Minister over which is viewed as “statesman-like” (nine per cent for Miliband, 37 per cent for David Cameron), “competent” (19 per cent to 31 per cent), “intelligent” (32 per cent to 43 per cent) and “able to get things done” (17 per cent to 31 per cent).