Coalition 'rushing' NHS reforms past MPs
Wednesday, 22 June 2011 9:20 AM
By Alex Stevenson Follow @alex__stevenson
The coalition is refusing to allow full scrutiny of its watered-down NHS reforms, prompting Labour to condemn the process as "rushed and reckless".
Around 160 amendments are to be tabled to the health and social care bill, which had been the subject of a lengthy listening pause before a series of U-turns were announced last week.
Opponents to the coalition's bid to introduce more competition into the NHS had won a sweeping victory, but Labour's fight against the reforms appears to be far from over.
"After last week's political fix on the bill, we now have a procedural fix," shadow health secretary John Healey said following yesterday's debate on how much time should be given to parliament to scrutinise the reworked legislation.
"NHS patients and staff have seen a wasted year of chaos, confusion and incompetence. It's clear today this will continue, with the NHS set to be deeply mired in more centralisation, more complex bureaucracy and more wasted cost in the years to come.
"The way David Cameron's government is dealing with the NHS and parliament is a disgrace."
Labour had wanted the entire bill to be reconsidered by a committee of MPs, but health minister Simon Burns announced yesterday that only parts of the bill would be examined again.
"No fair-minded person can claim that we are not subjecting the Bill to the closest possible scrutiny," he told MPs.
"We do not believe that it is necessary for the entire bill to be recommitted in order for proper scrutiny to take place. Indeed, we feel very strongly that that would unnecessarily delay the progress of the Bill to the ultimate detriment of patients."
That position was defended by Mr Cameron in his press conference in Downing Street yesterday. In one of his more animated responses, he insisted: "When we were in opposition we used to dream of getting ten days to debate a bill!"
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