MPs will debate the NHS reforms in the Commons this afternoon – it’s an opposition day debate put forward by Labour, so will likely feature a lot of impassioned speeches about how the important the NHS is as both sides seek to reinforce points they’ve already made.
As the parties reacted to the election results over the weekend, the NHS reforms emerged as a major battleground, with Nick Clegg promising to veto the bill unless “substantial, significant changes to the legislation” are made.
Clegg is obviously seeking to reassure his party (which voted at its spring conference to seek changes to the bill) that the election results won’t stop him speaking up for the Lib Dem point of view in the coalition. Given that Cameron has already made much of the “listening exercise” on the NHS, Clegg isn’t exactly departing from the coalition line by seeking these changes.
But as the focus moves to Clegg and the Lib Dems, another important player in this drama over the NHS is fading from view.
The Daily Mail quotes a government source today summing up the situation inside government on the health reforms as saying “Nick may be off piste but he is not off message. This is not Nick against David, this is Nick and David and George against Lansley.”
The real conflict is between the coalition’s inner circle and the health secretary. When Ben and I interviewed Lansley for the current issue of Total Politics, it was striking how defiant he was in the face of suggestions that his bill was going to be toned down to mitigate some of the opposition. He told us:
“The coherence and integrity of the bill is not going to be compromised... If we make amendments, we’ll make them for a good reason. Past experience tells me that if you do things that are reasonable, evidence-based and justified, even if they involves an amendment, then people accept it. Will any of them actually be u-turns? No, I don’t think they could be characterised as u-turns because they would quite self-evidently be consistent with the principles of the bill.”
Lansley has come in for quite a bit of criticism over the way his reforms were presented. He might reject absolutely any suggestion that there was a communications failure, but Number 10 doesn’t seem to agree with him –it has been reported that two Downing Street staffers, including Number 10 spad Sean Worth have been sent over to health to help Lansley improve the message on the reforms.
Whether this is an indication of Cameron’s trust in his health secretary, or a last-ditch attempt to rescue the reforms before any Lib Dem MPs start getting rebellious ideas, remains to be seen. What is clear, though, is that despite Lansley’s long experience with the health brief, he no longer has sole control of his health reforms.
UPDATE: Nick Watt at the Guardian reports that Lansley isn't taking these efforts to sideline him lying down - apparently he has been circulating the transcript of Nick Clegg's appearance on the Andrew Marr Show in January where the deputy prime minister spoke passionately about the "hidden virtues" of the reforms and was anxious to emphasise that elements of the reforms had been in the Lib Dem manifesto.
Comments
Jules Vincent / May 11 2011 6:40pm
One of the things that has become apparent during this long running, ill thought out saga, is that our elected representatives, while making major decisions on our behalf, have very little, if any, experience in the areas that that they are making these decisions about.
When virtually every major Royal College, as well as the BMA, and several other professional membership organisations come out against many of these proposals, something must be wrong. And yet still Westminster continue to defend the indefensible.