Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Health – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 21 February 2012.
What a pleasure it is to see the Secretary of State here today; he managed to make his way in.
I am afraid I have to describe the Minister of State’s answer as codswallop. Let me give him an example of one risk to the NHS that we already know about. The number of NHS nurses has fallen by 3,500 since the general election, and that figure could be at least 6,000 by the end of this Parliament. The Bill is damaging front-line services in the NHS right now. Why does the Minister not put patients before his, the Secretary of State’s and the Prime Minister’s pride, drop this unwanted Bill, and use some of the money it would save to protect those 6,000 nursing posts?