Clause 6 - Authorisation of NHS foundation trusts
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill
7:15 pm
Mr Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
I am grateful for the Minister's encouraging response—[Laughter.] We have indeed learned lessons from the internal market. The principal lesson was that an internal market that is conducted by bureaucrats is not an internal market at all. An internal market that rests upon patient choice is a real method for allocating resources in response to patients' needs—the equivalent to consumers' needs in general economic activity—and leads to the proper allocation of resources and incentives to reduce cost. That is what we have learned. We have not reached that stage yet, and might not do until we are in a position to design a proper mechanism to give effective realisation to patient choice. We would not be recreating the internal market of the early 1990s.
That is my view, and my hon. Friends will have an opportunity to set out their policies in due course; they do not have to do so during debates on my amendments. I am allowed to say what I like, and they are allowed to say what they like. That is not remotely inconsistent. I am telling the Minister nothing that he would not have known had he read my speech of 7 January on foundation hospital trusts. I have not been inconsistent about the idea of an NHS that is free of charge and available to all regardless of their personal resources. This is about how NHS resources buy high standards of care on an equitable
basis. The amendment does not undermine the values and principles of the NHS one jot.
I shall not pursue my argument any further because I do not discern that there is the time to do so, or the inclination on the part of Committee members.