Pugh, Hames, Hughes and George quiz Lansley on the NHS Bill

• [Jun 14] John Pugh (Southport, Liberal Democrat): I WELCOME the statement and the change. I have a list here. The Government's response has satisfied 70% of the demands for change on that list, but it is seemingly not enough-nor can it be enough-because ironically, it is the list of amendments tabled by the Labour party in Committee. Why does the Secretary of State think that it is so hard to build consensus? Given that in many cases the amendments are ones that Labour has asked for, why is the Labour party being so pointlessly churlish?

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Andrew Lansley (Secretary of State, Health; South Cambridgeshire, Conservative): I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have to tell him that there are many things that are beyond many of us to understand. One of them is the Labour party and the way it approaches policy. As he and the House will know, the fact is that the Labour party has no policy; it simply had opposition for opposition's sake.

• Duncan Hames (Chippenham, Liberal Democrat): I believe that the very act of listening to patients and the public will have done a lot to improve these proposals-as, I suspect, once the dust has settled, it will have done for the Health Secretary's reputation, too. Given the requirement for greater local accountability in these proposals, will the right hon. Gentleman make the same recommendation to local clinical commissioners in the changes they are yet to make for health services in their areas?

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Andrew Lansley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind remarks, but I have to tell him that I am not looking to achieve anything in terms of reputation; I just want a positive outcome for the NHS. I have said before that this is not about me; it is about achieving for the NHS the opportunity to deliver better services for patients. That is all I am interested in.

The proposals on public and patient involvement illustrate what we needed to do-and will now do in response to the Future Forum-as many people wanted to see set out in detail in the legislation how patient and public involvement would work in the respective NHS bodies. The legislation had set out the fact that these bodies existed, but the detail was not prescribed. There is always a balance to be struck in legislation between the degree of prescription and the degree of freedom. Clearly, through engagement with the NHS, we have approval for putting much more of the detail into the Bill, now that it is clear that it will engage patients and the public.

• Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark, Liberal Democrat): Today's proposals are clearly winning the support of the health professionals and of political colleagues, but to win the support of the public and the patients I hope the Secretary of State will be able to give one further assurance that these plans will give greater local democratic accountability for the NHS than ever before and will therefore mean no enforced local privatisation of services, which happened under the previous Labour Government.

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Andrew Lansley: Yes, I can give my right hon. Friend that assurance. He will know that in our response to the Future Forum we will strengthen the role of health and wellbeing boards, deliver more integrated care and ensure that the local health and wellbeing strategy is a central document in determining the shape of commissioning in the NHS, social care and public health. The powers, including those for service reconfiguration in an area, will be maintained so that they must continue to meet the four tests I set out last year. The public voice will therefore be at the forefront of the response to any changes in the local service.

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• Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat): I am very sorry to say that the Secretary of State demonstrated a creative interpretation of the coalition agreement when he launched his policy last July. What can he say to the House to reassure us that he will not make the same creative interpretation of the Future Forum's recommendations, particularly in relation to the risk of the marketisation of health services?

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Andrew Lansley: The hon. Gentleman will know that when I came forward with the White Paper last year, or the Command Paper in December, or the Bill, we did so collectively as a Government, and I can assure him and all my colleagues that we will continue collectively to agree on the basis on which we take all these issues forward.

• Full Debate in Parliament