The prime minister has defended Budget tax rises, expressing confidence he can win the political argument for higher NHS spending.

In an interview with the BBC on Friday, Tony Blair said reforming the NHS and investing extra cash was something Labour had always intended to do in government.

And he denied that the public had been misled during last year's general election into believing Labour had no plans to increase taxes.

Blair told the BBC the party had been "very clear" in the commitments it gave.

"Indeed, rather contrary to some of the things that have been said in the past few days we spent a lot of the election campaign sitting down with people and saying 'I'm sorry, we're not writing the Budget now'."

He said that even after recent tax rises, Britain was still ranked below the European average for the burden of tax.

The prime minister also defended the decision to focus on National Insurance contributions as the main tax raising measure.

He said everyone agreed on the need to spend more on health care. "There is no free way of getting those additional resources."

"The reason we did it in this way is that we thought it was the fairest thing to do," Blair explained.

He said the alternatives to raising taxes were introducing a social insurance model, which would result in employers and employees paying "vastly more" than the one per cent NI increase, or private insurance which would generally not be as comprehensive.

Blair also expressed confidence that risking the government's popularity by hiking taxes to pay for better health care was a decision that would pay off.

"People say to me 'is this not a great risk for the government, for the country?' I am 100 per cent confident that we can win this debate because I'm 100 per cent confident it is the right thing to do."

But he reiterated that the money would have to be accompanied by reform.

"I said right from the very outset we are not going to put money into the national health service unless it is accompanied by reform," he said.

He pledged falling waiting times, booked appointments for all patients, more choice for patients who are waiting too long, and hospitals paid more for delivering better results.

"What we've got to do is take the best practice and make it standard practice," he said.

"I think it is a decisive moment but I also think that its entirely in line with everything we wanted to do since we came into office."

Listing improvements in education, the achievement of economic stability, low inflation and low unemployment, as well as more health spending, Blair added: "Those are exactly the reasons why I came into politics."

"So yes it's a decisive moment, but no, its not a change in what we believe in. We've always believed in rebuilding the national health service, but making sure that along with the money comes the reform."