Labour to force vote on NHS privatisation – as Cameron warned NHS could collapse

Later this week, Labour will back a Clive Efford MP’s Private Member’s Bill, which attempts to repeal the Tory competition rules now at work in the health service by rewriting the rules that force “market tendering” of services. The bill will be debated in the Commons in November and Labour plans to use the next few months to set up a dividing line between Labour and the government parties by challenging them to back the change.

Launching Labour’s push back on NHS privatisation, Andy Burnham said:

“David Cameron’s biggest mistake by far is his decision to break the Coalition Agreement promise of ‘no top-down re-organisation of the NHS’. He is the Prime Minister who put the NHS up for sale without first seeking the permission of the British public.

“Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs will now need to decide whether they are prepared to go into an Election defending that policy or whether they will do the decent thing and admit they got it wrong.

“David Cameron’s re-organisation has left the NHS, in the words of its former Chief Executive, ‘bogged down in a morass of competition law’. If we leave things as they are, the NHS as we have known it for 66 years will not survive. This Bill will free the NHS from that morass and restore the right values to its heart: collaboration over competition; people before profits.”

Meanwhile, the Observer reported this morning that a former health minister fears the NHS could “collapse” in the next five years. Paul Burstow – a Lib Dem – is reported saying that the NHS needs an extra £15 billion over the next five years “if you don’t want the system to collapse during the course of the next parliament”. Two senior Tories – former Health Select Committee Char Stephen Dorrell and new Chair Dr Sarah Wollaston – have echoed his concerns, with Wollaston saying:

“The NHS budget has been protected in line with background inflation but that does not keep pace with inflation in health costs from rising demand and demographic changes. I don’t want to see any reduction in services; I would like to see further improvements and that will require an increase in funding.”

Vote Tory for a cut in NHS spending? It’s not a great campaign slogan…