Response to interpellations 2023/24:363 and 367 on the importance of healthcare for civil defense
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns the importance of healthcare for civil defense. KD argues that the regions have their own responsibility as they are self-governed 1, but that the state should support them during severe events 1. KD argues that the government has supported the regions with a sector grant 1, that they are working to increase healthcare capacity 1 and that transitions are not about savings 2. KD believes that healthcare capacity must be increased to handle virus waves and armed attacks 2. S argues that healthcare is in crisis due to lack of resources and savings 3 4. S believes that the state is not taking responsibility for the healthcare crisis 5 6 7. S argues that underfunding hinders the construction of civil defense 4 and that the government has prioritized tax cuts over defense and healthcare 8. S argues that the regions cannot increase capacity without sufficient resources 9.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Statsrådet Acko Ankarberg Johansson (KD)
Madam Speaker! Eva Lindh has asked the Minister for Civil Defence if he considers that the underfunding of healthcare strengthens Sweden's civil defence and, if not, how he will act.
Patrik Björck has asked the Minister for Civil Defence if he considers Sweden to be better prepared for crisis or war when the Swedish healthcare system is laying off staff and is struggling to fulfill its mission and, if not, what measures he intends to take.
The work within the government is distributed such that it is I who shall answer the interpellations.
The Government and I myself are aware of the current economic situation in the municipal sector. In the budget bill for 2024, the government has announced extra supplements to the regions in the coming years to strengthen health and medical care. The appropriations within the health and medical care policy for 2024 amount in total to approximately 67 billion kronor, including the pharmaceutical benefit. Additionally, the regions' share of the general state grant is added.
I have in previous debates noted that it is the healthcare heads, with directly elected politicians at the municipal and regional levels with taxing rights, who are responsible for health and medical care and that the operations are financed largely by taxes.
The state cannot fully compensate for the cost increases that the municipal sector has. Politicians at all levels need to work on prioritizing core activities. On 20 December 2023, I held a press conference together with Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner, where we informed the regions about which supplements they can expect during 2024.
The economic regulatory framework means that municipalities and regions can, if necessary, for example after notification of state subsidies, make new decisions regarding the budget. There may therefore be an opportunity for the regions to reduce the need for savings through those notifications. The Government is following the issue closely and is prepared to take further measures if necessary.
Many regions, according to SKR's economic report for October 2023, are aiming for a reasonable cost level for 2025 and consider it consistent with good financial management not to temporarily reduce activities unnecessarily much. Some regions have therefore made the assessment that this is possible.
We know that there is now a risk that Sweden will also be affected by war in our immediate vicinity or that we ourselves will be attacked. Healthcare alone is a central part of the total defense. Therefore, the healthcare capacity needs to increase, and the government allocates special funds for this.
More employees in healthcare need to work in close proximity to care. The Defense Preparation's (Fö 1992:B) latest report Kraftsamling - The orientation of total defense and the design of civil defense (Ds 2023:34) also states that the regions must be able to double the number of care beds in a war situation.
The Government has assigned a mandate to selected agencies to assess the feasibility of the proposals in the Defense Commission's report. The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency shall, in March 2024, submit a consolidated report based on assessments provided by sector-responsible entities and other agencies. The Government intends to submit a bill to the Riksdag during 2024 regarding the defense policy direction for the upcoming defense period. The starting point for the continued work is the proposals in the Defense Commission's partial report.
In this context, I also want to remind that we had a situation during the autumn of 2021 when the then government's policy was not to increase the number of healthcare beds. Instead, it was we from the opposition who changed the budget bill for 2022 and ensured that funds were allocated to increase the number of healthcare beds. It is positive that we now have a broad consensus on this. It is an important announcement for the entire healthcare system. An increased healthcare capacity in everyday life is a basis for the healthcare system's preparedness in crisis and war.
With this, I would like to thank Eva Lindh and Patrik Björck for the questions and I look forward to the debate.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! I would like to begin by thanking you for the answer.
I also want to say a few words about the background to why I submitted the interpellation. We are facing a rather new situation, and we are in complete agreement that we need to strengthen and upgrade our civil defense. We do this because we have ended up in such a situation, and therefore it also becomes important that we look at the civil defense and the local community's ability to ensure the most important societal functions. That includes healthcare, which is the most important societal function in normal conditions but especially in crisis and war.
The SD-led government has on several occasions said that they are making a historic upgrade of our civil defense, but the reality looks completely different. We have a healthcare crisis in Sweden. Healthcare has not received enough resources to manage the mission right now. Healthcare is therefore threatened in many ways.
Regions are forced into savings that erode quality. We see this in all parts of Sweden, not least in my own county, Östergötland. There, they have not laid off staff yet, but the savings imply a reduction in staff of at least 600 people. This does not strengthen healthcare, it weakens it.
This is a problem in itself, but the reason we are asking the question is also that we are concerned about the construction of our civil defense. If we cannot manage healthcare today, the chance of managing healthcare in crisis and war becomes very much worse. The underfunding of care affects Sweden's population in the form of poorer care right now, but it also jeopardizes our preparedness.
During the pandemic, we learned many things. One of the things we clearly learned was that what works well otherwise, when it is not a crisis, also works quite well when we are in a crisis. We also learned that what does not always work so well otherwise really does not work better during a crisis. Therefore, it is important that we build and strengthen healthcare, for healthcare itself - because we need a strong healthcare system - but also to secure the preparedness and our civil defense.
Many of us are concerned. I have read what, for example, the chairman of Vårdförbundet says, namely that it is not possible to prepare for war when one cuts back in healthcare. I truly share that view.
I also want to bring up something that I think the Minister was touching upon in his answer. Who has the responsibility? Is it the regions, or is it the state? I read an article written by the Christian Democrats' Ebba Busch and the Minister, who was not a minister at the time. It stated that the government must step forward in a crisis situation that covers the entire country and that the state must relieve the healthcare workers as much as possible.
Patrik Björck (S)
Madam Speaker! Who is responsible, the interpellator Eva Lindh asked here regarding the distribution between municipalities, regions, and the state. It clearly appears from the answer that the state definitely takes no responsibility. The Minister of State also answers here, Madam Speaker. I would like to broaden the question of who takes responsibility.
Marcus Wennerström, who has signed up on the speaking list here, submitted an interpellation to Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson on this issue. The interpellation was taken over by Minister Acko Ankarberg Johansson, who responded as follows: "Marcus Wennerström has also asked the Finance Minister how she, within her area of responsibility, assesses that the government's budget will affect Swedish healthcare. The work within the government is so distributed that it is I who shall answer the interpellation." Thus the minister began his answer. This gives rise to a somewhat interesting reflection regarding the responsibility within the government.
It was certainly an important and good interpellation debate, which, from the perspectives of all regions, highlighted the healthcare crisis that exists, but which gave rise to the question: Is it State Secretary Acko Ankarberg Johansson who is responsible for the Ministry of Finance?
The interpellation we are going to discuss today, Healthcare in Crisis or War, I submitted to Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin. I did that because Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has made a big deal out of the government taking civil defense issues so seriously and that a special Minister for Civil Defense has therefore been appointed. But it does not seem as if the Minister for Civil Defense is so interested in discussing civil defense.
Then it is good that Minister Acko Ankarberg Johansson in her answer says that the work within the government is so distributed that it is she who is to answer the interpellation on civil defense. Apparently, it is not only the Ministry of Finance that the Minister is responsible for, but also civil defense. That is, in itself, fantastic with that work capacity. I do not question it. But I wonder a little bit how Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has organized his government.
It was not because Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin did not have the opportunity to be in the chamber this evening that the answer was handed over to Minister Acko Ankarberg Johansson. But now it is such luck that Carl-Oskar Bohlin will soon come here to the chamber, and then we can have a debate on civil defense with the Minister for Civil Defense.
I still think this is somewhat worrying. In the debate on January 23, the healthcare crisis that exists in Sweden and which is a reality was examined very thoroughly. All our 21 regions are experiencing it. One can, of course, have different views on where that debate led depending on which politics one advocates, whether one advocates for large tax cuts for high-income earners or whether one advocates for a policy for a strong healthcare system.
Tonight, I had hoped to have a debate with the Minister for Civil Defence on how the healthcare crisis affects civil defence. And in my interpellation, I asked what measures the government intends to take. We received no answer to that from Minister Acko Ankarberg Johansson. But we will see how it goes when Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin arrives in the chamber eventually.
Marcus Wennerström (S)
Madam Speaker! A couple of weeks ago, as we were just discussing, we stood here and had a debate about the crisis that the Swedish healthcare system faces. The purpose of that debate was quite simple, because healthcare has an intrinsic value. Healthcare shall exist for those who live in Sweden, regardless of the threat situation we now face. But it is also not possible to see healthcare completely separately from the world events that are occurring.
It can be stated that when Jimmie Åkesson, Johan Pehrson, Ebba Busch and Ulf Kristersson take the helm, it becomes a crisis. And the crisis is caused solely by an irresponsible economic policy that prioritizes lower taxes over functioning welfare. The consequence becomes, as we heard then, cuts. It results in poorer accessibility and poorer patient safety. There were many concrete examples in that debate, but I can, for example, point out that the emergency room in Köping appears to need to be closed. It has clear consequences.
This contradicts the investigations that have been produced regarding health and medical care and the needs during high alert. When healthcare staff are laid off in thousands, it has a direct consequence for the care's ability to deliver even during high alert.
When we had the pleasure of debating with just Carl-Oskar Bohlin last week, we agreed that continuity is built on a functioning everyday life, and we agreed that robustness also is built on a functioning everyday life.
The rhetorical question then becomes: Does the healthcare system today, in the care crisis, reflect the functioning everyday life that the government envisions should also function in a crisis?
But the healthcare crisis has additional dimensions when it comes to preparedness. The decisions on the measures to be taken are made, just as the Minister says in his response, regionally. The consequences become national.
Since the defense capability of Sweden is a national and state matter, my concern in this situation is that the government appears to be abdicating the responsibility that the government actually has and instead is shifting defense decisions to regional politicians with taxing rights, to borrow the words of the Council of State.
The Swedish people deserve a government that wants to take the responsibility that lies with it. And my hope, Madam Speaker, is that the Minister can therefore answer the question: Who takes responsibility for ensuring that the cuts currently being implemented do not worsen the country's conditions to defend itself against an armed attack?
Statsrådet Acko Ankarberg Johansson (KD)
Madam Speaker! I begin by stating that Member Patrik Björck has been a member for a very long time. And the formulation that the member repeated several times is something that every government has to handle and which is ultimately determined by staff in the Government Offices, that is to say, where a question ends up. Even if a member has written to a minister, it may be another minister's area of responsibility.
I have myself, as a Member of Parliament, experienced that I thought a certain minister should answer my question. But then another minister came and answered it. It is simply a consequence of how the Government Offices always handle questions, regardless of who sits in a government position.
Madam Speaker! Since Member Patrik Björck does not want to discuss this with me, I will now proceed to address what Member Eva Lindh and Member Marcus Wennerström highlighted, which were very interesting matters.
I will begin with the situation regarding the regions and their responsibilities. I think it is an essential and necessary discussion. It is clear that the regions, which according to law are to be responsible for healthcare, are not any subcontractors to the state. No, they are not, but they have their own responsibility to, according to the laws, make the decisions they find necessary for their inhabitants based on the mandate they receive from the voters and based on the tax they choose to levy. Therefore, it is important, also in the discussion that we now have in the parliamentary committee dealing with the question of responsibility for healthcare, that as long as healthcare is a regional issue, it is the regions that have the responsibility for it.
But this does not remove the government's responsibility to also provide support when it is difficult. Just as Member Eva Lindh points out, it is necessary, Madam Speaker, that the state is there and provides support when special events occur.
In the autumn, it was clear that inflation had consequences for the regions. They had been affected by this in such a way that they themselves had signed the pension agreement. But that inflation increased now was due to a long series of events in the world that affected them over a shorter period. Then they needed special support to manage the situation. And they wrote themselves, as I referred from SKR's economic report, that it is a temporary situation. They assess, therefore, that the government will succeed in bringing down inflation so that we can return to normal conditions, and they believe that in 2025 they are back to a more normal situation. Then it is necessary for the government to step in and support as we did with a special sector grant. It is not good in itself because it is temporary. But it was given so that they could manage the costs due to inflation in 2024, and we want those costs to go down.
What we need to look further into is both the acute situation we have for healthcare today and the situation that is linked to the Defense Preparedness Authority's report. There, we need to increase our capacity significantly.
Madam Speaker! The Government is now looking at both the acute situation, which we are following very closely, and at what the Defense Preparedness Board proposes. The Defense Preparedness Board writes that we should, in practice, double our healthcare capacity in the event of an armed attack or during war. We naturally need to look together at what is meant by these writings and what they mean in practice. But it is about a substantial increase in capacity. Therefore, we are now working with both the acute situation and that which is prompted by the Defense Preparedness Board's report and proposals. The parties also agree that this is the way in which healthcare is viewed.
The government will return to both issues and provide an update, because even though the responsibility lies with the regions, it is necessary for the government to support the very tough situation that currently prevails for all regions in Sweden.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! The debate changes the conditions for this discussion. Therefore, I begin by saying something about circumstances and a temporary slump.
Healthcare is needed all the time. Healthcare requires long-term measures and that it stands strong not just in certain years but in all years. If one suffers from mental ill-health, one needs help now, not in two years. If one gets a disease, one needs help now, not further ahead.
We really hope that there will be better economic times for municipalities and regions, but however it may be, the healthcare crisis is here and now. I want to mark this because it is so incredibly important. It is also about people who will quit and who are not replaced. They are needed, and they may not come back. It can have long-term consequences, in addition to the acute situation right now. The interpellation concerns both healthcare and civil defense, but the decisive factor right now is that healthcare is underfunded. Consequently, a healthcare crisis prevails in Sweden.
In its extension, this leads to the fact that it is not possible to build up and strengthen civil defense in this area. That is why I asked the Minister for Civil Defence if he considered that the underfunding of healthcare strengthens civil defence or not. I am seriously interested in hearing that assessment. Do you think it strengthens civil defence or not? Will the government otherwise take action?
Many of us have visited schools, and we meet people. Just as we visit the schools, one of the two things that everyone brings up is the concern for preparedness, that is, the concern about whether there will be war. It is a general concern. It is not just a few who feel this concern, but many feel this concern strongly. If one then demands that everyone should prepare for war, those who refer to this must also take that responsibility and build up the civil defense that we all are so dependent on.
The question remains, and now I see that the minister to whom I addressed the interpellation is here, so he can also listen. We are seriously concerned. It is not that we submit interpellations because we think it is so much fun, but we want answers. Does the Minister believe that the underfunding strengthens civil defense? What does one believe needs to be done in that case if one agrees with us who have posed the question and are concerned about healthcare here and now? It also concerns the preparedness and strengthening of the civil defense.
Patrik Björck (S)
Madam Speaker! Yes, I can certainly debate even with Minister Acko Ankarberg Johansson. It is no problem.
But I still consider that my question has not been answered by the Minister, neither in the parliamentary answer itself nor from the rostrum, namely whether the government considers that Sweden is better equipped for crisis or war when the Swedish healthcare system is laying off staff. That question was not answered.
If I assume that the government answers no to the question - which is not so incredible - the next question is what measures the Minister intends to take. There are some different things that the Minister took up in her first statement. There she said that healthcare is a central part of the total defense and that healthcare capacity therefore needs to increase. But now we see that healthcare capacity is decreasing. In that case, it is not enough to come with a pious hope. But regardless of which post one holds in a government or which department one represents, one has a responsibility to ensure that the government sees to it that healthcare and healthcare capacity increase. That we agree on. But the reality is precisely the opposite.
Then the Minister continues with that the direction of the total defense and the design of the civil defense also stipulates that the regions shall be able to double the number of healthcare beds in a war situation. It is also a pious hope, if one pursues a policy that involves people being laid off. In 17 of 21 regions, healthcare is being scaled back. It becomes a hollow answer.
Then the Minister stated that the government intends to submit a proposition to the Riksdag during 2024 regarding the defense policy direction for the upcoming defense decision period. That sounds hopeful, namely that in this proposition there will be proposals for measures that ensure that Swedish healthcare is in such a condition that it can fulfill its task in the total defense. That is the picture the Minister paints. But it will entail great expectations for the defense policy direction to be presented to the Riksdag during 2024. In that case, we will have to follow up with interpellations if the Defense Committee does not present proposals on the type of measures that can answer the question of how healthcare fulfills its task in the total defense.
The Minister is making promises that the question shall be solved in the bill. It will be exciting, Madam Speaker! We shall have to see if the Minister manages to deliver. Is it to Pål Jonson, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, Acko Ankarberg Johansson or Elisabeth Svantesson that I should submit the interpellation? I shall have to consider that, but I shall receive an answer from the Minister the government considers has the question within their area of responsibility.
Marcus Wennerström (S)
Madam Speaker! Words are power, it is often said. The choice of words sometimes says more than the word itself.
I tried to listen for the answer from Minister Acko Ankarberg Johansson, but I did not hear much about responsibility. I heard that the state is to support something that is temporary. At the same time, the point in my speech was that the state owns the responsibility for the defense of Sweden.
It is very good to support, but the responsibility lies with the government, that is to say to build a defense that is good enough to be able to defend Sweden. Then the regions have the assignment to implement while the responsibility lies with the government.
I reformulate my question in the hope that the Minister will attempt to answer. Since the Minister chooses to focus on the word support, I choose to ask what support the Minister provides to the regions to ensure that the total defense capability is not impaired now that they are forced to cut back.
Statsrådet Acko Ankarberg Johansson (KD)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, members, for your supplementary remarks! I truly appreciate the discussion.
It is very clear that if we were to turn the regions into subcontractors and tell them how they should manage the healthcare beds, there will be an uprising.
We actually tried in June, when the National Board of Health and Welfare told us that we need to increase by 2,300 care beds to achieve sufficient care capacity. The answer was clear: You are not getting involved in that issue.
Of course there is a conflict between autonomy and the need to secure the entire country's healthcare capacity; there is. We cannot solve that through the ongoing parliamentary inquiry on healthcare responsibility, but it is an issue we must solve here and now.
The government has chosen the method of providing special billions to increase healthcare capacity. When it is linked to the Defense Preparedness Board's report, we will return with a government bill, just as I said. But right now, the situation is that the Defense Preparedness Board's unanimous proposal in these parts has been sent to the agencies, who are to state what they think about it. It will be a preparatory process, and then a final report will follow. Then we will return with a government bill. This is therefore a little bit further ahead.
A very important part of this is our view on healthcare capacity and healthcare beds. We have not had a common view on that.
In the autumn of 2021, the then Social Democratic and Green Party government presented a budget that we had a majority to change, which we did in certain parts. At that time, we wrote into what became the Riksdag's decision that Sweden has too low healthcare capacity and too few healthcare places and that they need to increase, and we included money with it.
I remember very well the meeting in the Committee on Health and Welfare back then, at the turn of the year, when we went through the situation with the responsible minister, the authorities, and Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner. At that time, the perception was that the Riksdag was wrong. We did not need to increase the number of care beds.
But in the spring in the spring budget, the government had changed its mind. I am happy about that, because now we have a consensus that we had too few care beds and have too few care beds and that we need to increase them. And care beds - we are completely in agreement, but I say it anyway - are not the beds, but it is the capacity and the supply of competence around them.
We have thus finally reached a position where we agree that we are to increase the healthcare capacity in Sweden. In that case, there is a need to discuss the Defense Preparedness Authority's report, which says that we should double the capacity. We have today somewhere around 15,300 healthcare beds. Is it more than 30,000 healthcare beds we are talking about, or what kind of healthcare capacity are we talking about? Normally, in the event of an armed attack, it is also a different kind of healthcare that is usually needed. How should we view that?
It was some of the questions that I raised today when I was at the Social Affairs Committee. You had invited me and several others, and we discussed precisely the perspective of preparedness. Now, the member from the Social Affairs Committee is not allowed to come up to the rostrum again, but I believe he could agree that it is quite difficult to assess these things. But we need to find agreement on how much the healthcare capacity should increase and then put money behind it, because the regions cannot increase it for the national goal if they do not receive compensation for it. On that, we are in complete agreement.
But we must manage the acute crisis. It is also the one that the government follows closely and will return to, because one cannot abandon the welfare system. Even though it is the regions that have the primary responsibility, the government must be there and provide support. We do not have the primary responsibility for healthcare, but we have a responsibility to support and back it up.
It is probably those words I must use when we have the distribution of responsibility that we have in Sweden's administrative organization - that it is support and backing that the government provides. We cannot take over the responsibility from the regions.
But the Defense Preparation and what is the main subject of the members' two very fine interpellations are about the fact that we collectively need to find consensus in the government and the Riksdag eventually on how we are to strengthen the total defense. I am pleased with the commitment that both the members here and the committee show.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! Yes, we have a new security policy situation. We need to take greater responsibility for civil defense, and we agree on that. The question is how and whether we really think we are taking that responsibility.
I want to start by saying that I love local and regional self-government. I think it is very good. I do not think there are any major difficulties in determining who has the responsibility. But if one sets high expectations for the regions and demands things from them, one must also provide resources. They are connected. You cannot say that the regions should do one thing and then not give them the conditions to manage this. That is not what is done today.
I also want to say something about this issue with the care beds and that we are not talking about just bed spaces. Just as the minister is touching upon here, it is about capacity. It needs to be strengthened, but that is also not possible when one does not receive sufficient resources.
Again: I am concerned about the healthcare crisis we have. We cannot increase healthcare capacity when the regions are not given the conditions to do so. At least 600 fewer employees in Östergötland will not strengthen healthcare. At least 600 fewer employees in Östergötland will also not strengthen the buildup of the civil defense.
I am worried. I feel that I will continue to be a little worried, but I still thank you for the debate. I think it is important that we talk about both healthcare and civil defense, because it is very important both now and in the future.
Patrik Björck (S)
Madam Speaker! We agree that we need good care, and we agree that we need a strong civil defense and a strong total defense. We also need an armed defense. This is what we agree on in principle. The question is how we handle it when it comes to allocating resources and what we prioritize.
I had a similar debate last week with the Minister for Defence. We were very much in agreement that it is important that the armed defence is strong. The Minister for Defence spoke about brigades and submarines and aircraft and so on, and about the new security policy situation. My question to the Minister for Defence then, Madam Speaker, was this: If we agree on this, can we also agree that we must prioritize the funding of it?
It is there somewhere that we make different assessments, we from the Social Democrats and you from the government. The government has in the end - until now at least; perhaps there is hope for improvement - always prioritized tax cuts, primarily for high-income earners, over both defense and civil defense as well as healthcare or actually any social function whatsoever. We could of course discuss infrastructure, roads and railways, which are also an important part of the total defense.
Right now, the question is this. We have a situation with a healthcare crisis. We also have a situation with a serious security policy situation. We have a situation where civil defense needs to be upgraded. How does that affect civil defense? I haven't quite received an answer to that question here tonight, but we will continue to pursue that question because it is so important for Sweden's security.
Statsrådet Acko Ankarberg Johansson (KD)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, members, for all the good contributions and for the interpellations!
I believe I have said in every post that we need to increase healthcare capacity. I think that is answer enough. We need it so that we can manage a Christmas, New Year's, and Epiphany weekend with three viruses. We cannot manage that today without going into emergency mode. And we must be able to have increased healthcare capacity to manage what could be the case in the event of an armed attack.
It is the situation in Sweden today. But we started at a deficit because over a long series of years we have reduced the number of healthcare beds. We have reduced the number of healthcare beds, and healthcare staff have left the sector. It is also exactly as Member Eva Lindh pointed out: Once they have left the sector, quite a few never come back. There are many nurses who have left the sector and never come back. Vårdförbundet also reports on this. Therefore, it is extremely serious when staff are forced to leave the sector, because then there is a risk that we will not get them back. Then we do not get back well-educated and experienced nurses, nursing assistants, doctors, and others.
It is necessary that we ensure an opportunity for those who are in care today to continue working and doing a good job, because each and every one of them is needed.
Then there are many areas where transition and change are being made. Today, it is the good and close care, where new ways are being worked on. But it is not about savings, but about creating a better care that makes patients feel better in practice. One changes ways of working and so on, but it is far from discussions about savings.
The care capacity therefore needs to increase. The Government is following this in the near perspective and will return regarding the Defense Preparation's report. I have mentioned several times that there has been a broad consensus and that we have almost been in agreement, but I am not entirely sure that member Patrik Björck and the Social Democrats in the Defense Preparation were completely in agreement. But perhaps you are fully; there were, after all, some additions, or points of view.
The ongoing process will well show that we, both the Riksdag and the government, can still reach an agreement on the important perspectives in total defense. It is very good that we finally have a specific minister for this. He is doing an excellent job and will now take over.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.