Alistair Darling declined to endorse the Health Secretary's claim that NHS spending would continue rising after 2011 today as Gordon Brown confirmed that he would keep the spending row running until the next election.

The Chancellor, sounding far more cautious than his spending ministers, said that Britain would have to live within its means and faced a slowdown in public spending growth.

Mr Darling said he "quite deliberately" stated in his Budget he had not yet allocated post-2011 funding.

In Monday's Times, George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, said that all parties should admit that there will be spending cuts.

Speaking on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, the Chancellor said that while it was important to maintain spending during the recession, "in the medium term, we've got, like every other country, to live within our means".

Mr Darling said that after 2011, spending would "grow at a much smaller rate than it has done in the past" and that he hoped to halve the deficit within five years.

Asked about remarks by Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, on Channel 4 News that Labour "will continue to maintain growth in health spending in the following period", Mr Darling said he could not make commitments about departmental funding after 2011. But he said that "no one can be in any doubt" that health had been one of Labour's priorities.

Mr Darling added: "I quite deliberately said at the Budget that I was not going to make allocations between departments after 2011 now because of the uncertainty that we have in the economy.

"What I'm saying to you is that we've had a very substantial period of growth in health and education and other services as well.

"I want to be able to be in a position to continue to improve the health service, to continue to improve education, because that's vital to the county's future."

Mr Darling's comments come after a lengthy row between the two largest parties over spending. Labour accuses the Tories of planning "massive" cuts in after the next election. The Conservatives deny this, claiming that Labour is also planning to cut public spending and has mismanaged the economy.

Writing in The Times, Mr Osborne said it was "ridiculous to pretend there won't be cuts" in the future. He said that the Tories and Labour should have the confidence to tell the public that Britain faces a "debt crisis".

Last week, Andrew Lansley, the Tories' health spokesman appeared to suggest that, to protect spending on the NHS and schools, a future Conservative government would cut expenditure in other areas by a total of 10 per cent between 2011 and 2015.

The Conservatives said he had been working from Labour's own figures from the last Budget but the Prime Minister accused the Tories of planning "savage" public spending cuts.

The argument raged on into Prime Minister's Questions with David Cameron alleging that Mr Brown was not being straight in suggesting that Labour would keep spending rising.

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